GAT stands for General Achievement Test, the General Achievement Test is a “compulsory” examination administered by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA). The “compulsory” nature of it depends on if you actually decide to actually do the assessment yourself, it doesn’t quite contribute (more on that later) to anything than some really????GAT memes in r/vce.
The GAT is typically held in mid-June each year for all VCE students in Victoria undertaking units 3 and 4. In quick summary: It is designed to assess students’ general knowledge, skills, and abilities across a range of academic areas, including written communication, mathematics, science, technology, humanities, and social sciences (basically a really condensed version of all VCE subjects in the form general knowledge).
Unlike subject-specific exams, the GAT does not focus on content from specific subjects. Instead, it tests students’ critical thinking ability to analyze information, think critically, and express themselves effectively.
The core components of the test consist of multiple choices and short essays (no short answers, so that’s ????????). But there are quite a few components, some serious head-turners, some that straight up don’t make sense, and all that within a pretty strict time limit too!
Section A is a literacy and numeracy assessment comprised of a total of 2 hours of writing time and 15 minutes of reading time
● A 2-part writing task – 30 minutes (recommend 15 minutes each)
○ A visual/text is provided and the student is asked to 2 prompts.
○ Assesses your ability to write to an audience, the intended purpose, portrayed ideas, structure, and cohesion in comprehension. Of course, basic grammatical skills determine one’s writing capabilities.
● 50 numeracy multiple-choice questions – 45 minutes
● 50 reading multiple-choice questions – 45 minutes
○ It’s Maths and English reading skills basically!
Section B is a General knowledge and skills test of a total of 2 hours of writing time and 15 minutes of reading time, it contains…
● An extended writing task – 30 minutes
○ A point-of-view essay in response to different prompts. Asker students draw on their own ideas to communicate unique and clear ideas to the reader.
● 25 mathematics, science, and technology multiple-choice questions – 30 minutes
● 25 arts and humanities multiple-choice questions – 30 minutes
○ The general knowledge test – contains mathematics, science, technology, humanities, the arts, and social sciences. It’s a hit-or-miss kind of question, some requiring interesting perspectives, and some are straight-up weird.
Believe it or not, the GAT actually serves a purpose, besides providing a basis for statistical moderation of school-based assessments and helping to ensure the comparability of results across schools. The GAT standalone intends to provide VCE students with a quote-on-quote insurance policy, in case you do miss an exam on the day or something unavoidable happens. The GAT acts as a referencing point alongside your class results to help determine your study scores as if you took the exam to live on the day, although biased to some degree. It’s good to know at least VCAA has measures in place to ensure you’re not completely “screwed”.
Although no studying is required (as the past study of subjects like English, Mathematics, Science, and History prepares students for the GAT by building their general knowledge and skills in writing, numeracy, and reasoning.), it is good to know that VCAA does release previous GAT tests online for testing.
Look at this link if you’re interested:
● Pages – Past GATs
Some general tips:
● Use your reading time to do multiple choice questions – more time spent answering = more time to spend pondering.
● Always answer all the questions – there’s a good chance that at least one of the questions has one of the randomly selected answers, your odds are simply greater than not answering it at all
● Process of elimination – if something is completely off, remove it. If they are all off except for the one, then that’s probably the one.
● Don’t overthink – impossible to determine, but your initial intuition is most likely right and most afterthoughts are shrouds of doubt that includes extra additional info that may not always procure happy endings.
● Checkout r/VCE – There’s always… always a tradition to share some memes regarding the “interesting” nature of some questions. At least these ones are as painful as the memes you’ll receive during the end-of-year Exams.
If you’re still curious and want to know more, take a look at the VCAA GAT website: Pages – GAT Overview
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