PATs Test Progressive Achievement Tests

PATs were designed by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) more than 30 years ago. The Progressive Achievement Tests (PATs) have been designed and formulated to assess your kids learning and comprehension abilities. Although they appear to be daunting at first, you can prepare your kids to deal with these tests if given proper guidance. PATs assess Mathematics, Learning Comprehension, Punctuation and Grammar, Reading Comprehension, and Reading Vocabulary of students specifically for use in New Zealand schools. These types of tests are widely used by New Zealand teachers to examine the standard of education and comprehend the level of understanding as perceived by their students. Teachers use a variety of tests to assess what level their students are at, what level of progress they are making, and where, if the need arises, they may need extra help. These tests are one of the most basic and widely used tests that New Zealand schools use.

PATs are objective-type tests that are designed to assist educators so that they are able to determine and evaluate the performance of their students in an organized and numerical manner. This test also helps the teachers in deciding as to what types of teaching materials are required and which methodology they have to employ for those students who need special care and attention. After going into details regarding PATs, one thing that is sure is, PATs are indispensable and they are necessary in determining the progress made by students as well as teachers. The teachers also get an idea as to whether their teaching methodology and techniques worked on their students or not. PATs are conducted in various ways; they can be conducted through both offline and online mode. There are different types of PATs based on the subject the student needs to be evaluated on, they are discussed below:-

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1. PAT- Reading Comprehension:- Conducted for Year 4 to 10 students. Evaluates how well the students can understand the words they read.
2. PAT- Reading Vocabulary:- Conducted for Year 4 to 10 students. This test asks the students to choose a synonym that represents the word meaning from a list of five alternative words.
3. PAT-Learning Comprehension:- Conducted for Year 3 to 10 students. It assesses the students’ ability to understand spoken material. They listen to a passage and answer questions about it after they are done listening.
4. PAT-Mathematics:- Conducted for Year 4 to 10 students. It assesses the students’ numerical abilities, algebra, geometry, and statistics. Some schools also conduct this test for their students in Year 3.

Now, after your children give the tests, the question arises, how are they marked? What is the score scale? These questions are answered briefly below:-

1. Scales:- When students achieve a raw test score (e.g. 44 out 50), this score is converted into a scale. There are four separate PAT scales: Mathematics scale, Reading Comprehension scale, Reading Vocabulary scale and Listening Comprehension Scale.
2. Measurement Error:- The scale scores are reported within a range. This range indicates the expected score your child will be expected to score if they took the test again.
3. Score Comparison:- After converting the raw score into a scale score, the performance of our child will be compared with the achievement of nationally represented groups of students at different year levels.
4. Stanines:- Comparison can also be done by using this mechanism. They are used to compare an individual student’s achievement with the results obtained by a national reference sample representing a certain year level. For example, if your child scores a Stanine Five, this means he had an above average performance.

Upon a detailed look at PATs, we can already see that these tests can be intense, analytical and require your child to study and prepare for it. Hence, you need experts that can provide guidance to your children for its preparation. These tests are designed in such a way to assess your children’s performance that can make or break your child’s confidence. So, it is your duty as parents to ensure that your child has a positive experience while takes his/her PATs.  We at Vnaya provide expert tutors that are especially skilled at giving tutoring for PATs. Contact Vnaya for a Free Demo Class Today!