The Australian Computerised Selective Trial, or ACST, is Test Academy's full length mock of the NSW Selective High School Placement Test. Your child sits four papers on a computer under supervision, either at our Parramatta centre or online, and afterwards gets a results page and a PDF report that place them against real entry outcomes.
Who it is for
- Year 5 and Year 6 students preparing for the Selective test. The year level on the student profile must be Year 5, Year 6, OC or Selective to book.
- Families who want a full timed run of the real thing before the day itself.
What a sitting covers
Four papers, with supervised breaks, in one sitting of about three and a half hours:
- Reading
- Mathematical Reasoning
- Thinking Skills
- Writing, which is typed and marked
It is sat on a computer, on the same platform your child practises on, with passages read on screen and the timers running section by section.
Two ways to sit
- Parramatta: we provide the computer and a supervisor runs the room.
- Online: the whole sitting runs on one Google Meet with a supervisor, and your child sits the papers on Test Academy in another tab. The access code is read out on the call, the same way it is given in the room.
Why families sit it twice
The first sitting is diagnosis: it shows which of the four papers deserve the hours before the real test. A second sitting closer to the test is the measurement to use when you choose school preferences. Sittings are grouped into events, and a student takes one sitting per event, because every date in an event uses the same papers.
What the report shows
- A mark, a percentile and a band for each paper, against the students who sat the same papers
- A combined result using the NSW Department of Education weighting, where Reading, Mathematical Reasoning, Thinking Skills and Writing count equally
- Every selective school placed in a tier, from Offer very likely down to Building toward, built from verified entry outcomes rather than a guess. These are estimates, not offers.
- The section costing the most marks, named, with the paper review next to it
- A full review of every question in each paper
Results open for everyone in an event at the same time, usually within a week of the last sitting, and the PDF report follows by email.
Reading a sample first
The ACST public page carries a real sample report, one student's actual result rather than a mockup, so you can see exactly what a report looks like before booking. The same page also compares the ACST with the Pre-Uni ASAT, the best known alternative trial: the main difference is the cohort. The ASAT ranks a child mostly against one college's own enrolled students, who sit that college's papers every week, while the ACST draws from many colleges and from none, and prints the size of the cohort on every report.
How to book
Sittings are chosen and paid for on the ACST page of your dashboard. Booking an ACST sitting walks through booking, paying, moving a sitting and the day itself.