What Is In The NBTs?
The NBTs focus on academic readiness for university study. Each test requires you to apply prior learning – what you know and are able to do – to materials that reflect expectations for first year students in university programmes. A brief summary of the skills assessed in each test follows:
| ACADEMIC LITERACY |
|---|
| Make meaning from academic text |
| Understand vocabulary related to academic study |
| Evaluate evidence used to support claims made by writers |
| Extrapolate and draw inferences and conclusions from text |
| Differentiate main idea from supporting ideas in the overall and specific organisation of a passage |
| Identify text differences as related to the writers’ purposes, audiences, and forms of communication |
| Understand how syntax and punctuation are used to express meaning |
| Understand basic numerical concepts used in text |
| QUANTITATIVE LITERACY |
|---|
| Apply quantitative procedures and reasoning in symbolic and non-symbolic situations |
| Apply information from a variety of tables, graphs, charts and text |
| Integrate information obtained from multiple sources |
| Perform multiple-step calculations using information presented with text, symbols, and graphs |
| Identify trends and patterns in various situations |
| Apply properties of simple geometric shapes to determine measurements |
| Interpret quantitative information presented verbally, symbolically, and graphically |
| MATHEMATICS |
|---|
| Understand and apply properties of the real number system, including surds and exponents |
| Recognise and use patterns, including sequences and series |
| Apply relationships such as ratios and percentages in a variety of contexts |
| Apply the results of algebraic manipulations with equations and inequalities |
| Understand the function concept and identify properties of functions |
| Interpret transformations of functions represented algebraically or graphically |
| Identify relationships between graphs and their equations, or inequalities and the regions they describe |
| Apply trigonometric identities and concepts in solving problems |
| Understand properties and interpret representations of two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes |
| Apply principles of analytic geometry |
| Interpret various representations and measures of data |
| Use logical skills in making deductions and determining the validity of given assertions |
