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OSSLT – Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test

                                               

APRIL 8, 2010 - (2.5 hours in length)

 

What Will be Expected

  •  Writing Tasks
  •  Open Responses
  •  Multiple Choice

  

Types of Writing Tasks

  • News Report (one page)
  • Series of Paragraphs expressing an opinion (2 pages)
  • Short Writing Tasks require a response in six lines (need your own prior knowledge and personal experiences; not connected to the readings)
  • Summary Writing is connected to the reading

 

 What Else You Need to Know

  •  Literacy Test is completed in one day
  • Two booklets must be completed
  • You will be given 2 test booklets and 1 students answer sheet

  

What You Will Need

  • Pen (blue or black ink)
  • Pencil
  • Highlighter

 

 

 

YOUR SKILLS WILL BE TESTED IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS:

(see below for links to practice exercises in READING and WRITING)

 

 READING       

 

You need to be comfortable reading:

 

¨     Informational texts (200-220 words)

§        Paragraph

§        News report

 

 

¨     Narrative texts

§        Dialogue (225 words)

§        Real-life narrative (600 words)

 

 

¨     Graphic texts

§        (100-150 words)

 

 

 

  

Types of questions you can expect will include:

¨     Multiple choice

¨     Open-response (6 lines each)

 

 

 

So focus on…

  1. understanding directly stated ideas and information (explicit)
  2. understanding indirectly stated ideas and information (implicit)
  3. making connections between information and ideas in a reading selection and personal knowledge and experience

      WRITING

 

 

Writing tasks you can expect to do:

 

¨     News report

§     1 page in length

§     Focus on the W5H, quotes, paragraph length etc.

 

¨     Short writing tasks

§     Six lines each

§     Support your personal opinion on a topic

 

¨     Series of paragraphs expressing an opinion

§      2 pages

§      Organization

 

¨     Summary with the reading

§      Six lines

 

For the writing, you will be evaluated on…

1.      Organization of ideas

2.      Sentence and paragraph structure

3.      Language conventions: use of capitalization and punctuation

 

So focus on…

1.     developing a main idea with sufficient supporting details

2.     organizing information and ideas in a coherent/logical manner

  1. using spelling, grammar and punctuation conventions in a manner that does not distract from clear communication

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PRACTICE EXERCISES IN READING AND WRITING

 

Click on the links below for OSSLT style practice exercises in reading and writing:-

 

Sample test - 2009 OSSLT

 

Sample test - 2008 OSSLT

 

Interactive Reading Exercises