Introducing Litzi NAPLAN-Style Practice Tests for Years 3, 5, 7 and 9

Every NAPLAN season, the same thing happens in classrooms and at kitchen tables across Australia. A practice booklet comes out, a child works through it, and a fortnight later they sit the same paper again and score better. Everybody feels reassured. But the second score measured memory, not reading — and nobody has learnt anything they didn't already know.

That is the problem Litzi's NAPLAN-style practice tests were built to solve. Today we're introducing them properly, for Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

In short

• What they are: original, full-length practice papers written in the style of NAPLAN, covering reading, writing, conventions of language and numeracy.
• Who they're for: Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 — the four year levels NAPLAN assesses — plus teachers, tutors and parents supporting them.
• What's different: every paper is assembled from a large question bank at the moment a student sits down, so a second attempt is a genuinely new test.
• Price: AUD $29 per year for a family of up to four children; AUD $249 per year for a whole school.
• Where they run: students sit papers at naplan.litzi.io. There is a free sample paper you can try before deciding anything.

A new paper every time

Litzi assembles every paper at the moment a student sits down, drawing from a bank of thousands of questions against a blueprint that mirrors the structure of the real papers. Questions a student met in recent sittings are held back for that student specifically.

Two consequences follow, and both matter more than they first appear.

The first is that practice becomes repeatable. A student can sit a paper in October and another in February, and both results mean something, because the second paper is not the first one again. Progress between the two is progress, not recall.

The second is that a paper cannot circulate. There is no answer key to find, because there is no fixed paper to have a key for. For a teacher running practice across several classes, or across a whole cohort, that removes a problem that printed booklets have never solved.

It also changes what a class sitting looks like. Thirty students sitting "the same" practice test are sitting thirty different papers.

What the four papers cover

The papers mirror the four domains NAPLAN assesses.

Reading. Original passages — imaginative, informative and persuasive — with questions that work at three levels: locating what the text states, inferring what it implies, and evaluating why the writer made a particular choice. Passages are written to the year level and set in places an Australian child recognises, and every question is answerable from the text in front of them. A student is never disadvantaged by not having met the topic at home.

Writing. One task, forty minutes, from either a narrative or a persuasive prompt. A planning scaffold sits above the writing space and a live word count runs beside it. It is then marked against the ten assessment criteria, with a comment on each rather than a single number.

Conventions of language. Spelling, grammar and punctuation in short questions that come quickly — homophones, plurals and apostrophes early on, then clause structure, modality and the punctuation of complex sentences later. Australian spelling throughout.

Numeracy. Number and algebra, measurement and geometry, statistics and probability, set in situations rather than left bare — a shopping total, a bus timetable, a netball court. From Year 7, numeracy becomes two separate papers, one sat without a calculator and one with.

Worked solutions, not just ticks

The mark arrives the moment a student hands in. More usefully, so does the reason for it. Every question comes with a worked solution written to the student, and an explanation of why the tempting wrong answer was tempting — which is frequently the more instructive half.

Results then break down by sub-skill and sort weakest first. "18 out of 30" becomes "fractions and time need work, comprehension is solid". For a teacher, the same view aggregates across a class, so a sub-skill that half the room is struggling with becomes visible without marking thirty papers by hand.

Straight talk about scores

There is something we deliberately do not do, and it is worth being direct about it.

Litzi does not predict a student's NAPLAN band. Nobody can do that honestly from practice data alone, and a number that looks official but isn't helps no one — least of all a parent making decisions about tutoring, or a teacher deciding where to spend a term's intervention time.

What we report is what the data actually supports: a raw score, a breakdown by sub-skill, and worked solutions for everything a student got wrong. That is genuinely useful, and it is honest.

Sitting the paper

Students sit in a clean, distraction-free screen — one question at a time, with a question navigator so they can skip and come back exactly as they would in the real thing.

The clock is run by our servers rather than the browser, so it can't be paused or fiddled with. If the connection drops mid-test the clock pauses automatically and waits, rather than quietly eating a student's time. Everything typed is saved as they go: a closed laptop is an inconvenience, not a lost afternoon.

Any paper can also be sat untimed. A parent or teacher can grant extra time, or set a student to untimed permanently, alongside text-to-speech, larger text and high-contrast display. These are set once and then simply apply.

Questions teachers and parents ask

Are these real NAPLAN tests?

No. They are original practice tests written in the style of NAPLAN. No NAPLAN material is reproduced, and Litzi has no connection to ACARA.

Can a student sit the same test twice?

Each paper is assembled when they start, and questions from their recent sittings are held back — so a second attempt is a new paper, not a repeat.

What if a student needs extra time?

Every paper can be sat untimed. A parent or teacher can also grant extra time, or set a student to untimed permanently.

Do I need a Litzi reading subscription as well?

No. NAPLAN-style practice stands on its own. The family plan also includes access to our levelled reading library at no extra cost.

When is NAPLAN sat?

NAPLAN is sat in March each year, so the months between now and then are the ones that count.

Try it before you decide

There is a free sample paper at naplan.litzi.io/sample. It is a real paper drawn the same way every other paper is drawn, so it is a fair look at what a student actually sits.

NAPLAN is a registered trademark of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). Litzi is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to ACARA, and does not reproduce any real NAPLAN question, passage or specification. Litzi provides original practice tests written in the style of NAPLAN.