Australia Admission Tests

Information on Special Tertiary Admissions Test

2008-11-19T03:59:52Z

Prospective students who are 21 years old or older before January 1st of the year that will be applying for admission may be eligible to apply for the STAT. The STAT stands for Special Tertiary Admissions Test. If you pass the STAT you will gain special entrance admission into the prospective University. You cannot apply if you have earned or completed an AQF diploma or another higher level award from any Tertiary Institution, TAFE, or University. Also if you were enrolled and studied in a schooling program that leads to a higher education diploma, certificate, or award within the last three years you will disqualify for the STAT if you finished more then one full-time year of study. The STAT (Special Tertiary Admissions Test) is a two hour long testing period. Some Universities or programs that accept the STAT for admission entrance might also consider students past employment experience. Their has also been stories of students gaining admission through their written personal competency statement. All entrance forms and options are listed in the SATAC Guide located at http://www.satac.edu.au STAT Testing: The STAT test are held every year in different centers in Southern Australia, Adelaide, and the Northern Territory of Australia. Applying for Universities and taking the STAT should be done either midyear or at the end of the year. The STAT test has 70 multiple choice questions that will test student’s critical thinking skills and how well they can make sense of different types of material presented to them in various types of questions. Along with the multiple choice there is also a one hour written English test. The STAT is administrated in the tertiary centers in each State. For more information, details, forms, or to contact the STAT please visit them at: http://www.satac.edu.au

Get familiar with the TOEFL

2008-10-15T05:34:04Z

What does TOEFL stand for?

The Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL, is a test used for the purpose of finding out the English language skill level of a nonnative English speaker. Admissions into many North American colleges and universities, and additionally other institutions, agencies, and programs, depend on the TOEFL scores of an applicant. Each university or institution has its own criteria for acceptable scores on the TOEFL for admissions. Check with your university adviser or target university/institution for their requirements.

What is the purpose of TOEFL?
Universities and institutions require the TOEFL in order to get a good understanding about how successful you will be in completing your Education in English.

The test is a computer-adaptive test, meaning that it adapts to your level of knowledge and skill in English.

For example, rather than having a set number of questions that range from easy to medium to difficult, depending on how well you are doing, the computer will pick questions for you and adjust to your skill level. So the first question will be a medium in difficulty and depending on if you get it right or wrong, the computer will pick out more questions.

If you get the question right, it will select a question from you that is a little harder. If you get it wrong then the next question will be a little easier. This format results allows the computer to precisely determine your skill level.

There are two key facts to keep in mind:

1. The Reading Comprehension section is not computer adaptive.

2. You get more credit for harder questions than easier ones.

TOEFL Reading Section Tips

2008-10-15T05:03:17Z

TOEFL Reading Section Guide:

Paraphrasing is important

The reading section of the TOEFL section will test your skills in recognizing a correct paraphrase. Paraphrasing includes reading a sentence or two and then putting what you read into your own words, keeping the overall meaning the same. It is important that you spend a lot of time practicing paraphrasing because it will also be useful for the writing and speaking section of the TOEFL test.

Picking up on pronouns

Know what pronouns are. Words such as him, her, they, them, he, she are all examples of pronouns. A main use of a pronoun is when it is used as a substitution for a name. For example, my sister or your parents. Picking up on pronouns can be done by reading and identifying them in English publications or online content.

Expanding your Vocabulary

If you are reading an English publication and come across a word that you do not know the meaning of, it is a good idea to first guess what the mean is from the way it is used in the overall sentence. Second, you should look up the word in the dictionary to find its meaning and try to use it in another sentence to further increase your understanding. Another great idea is to write down every new word that you learn or are having trouble with and make flash cards to study each word and their related meaning.

Reading Comprehension

Improving your comprehension skills can be done by reading an article or paragraph in a method called skimming. Skim reading is where you quickly read over the paragraph not, reading it word-for-word, but picking out the main points and realizing the main idea behind the paragraph of article. This is important to know how to do when you are running out of time on a test or just want to save time by skim reading a test question or article.