Structure of the Multiple Choice English National Curriculum Progress Assessments

The assessments contain questions on levels 1 to 8 of the national curriculum.  There is also a Goal level W which is working towards national curriculum level 1.

In general there will be 10 questions at each of three consecutive national curriculum levels.  For example there are assessments covering levels 123, levels 234, through to levels 678. The levels WW1 will show as 111 on the teacher’s page.

Each level will have 10 questions, one on each of the topics below on the right. These are referred to as Goal strands.  The strands are grouped in the appropriate attainment targets or curriculum areas. 

Curriculum Area Strand
Words and Sentences

1. The use of words and short phrases and vocabulary

2. The use of sentences
Understanding Texts

3. Understanding language in short texts

4. The use of voice

5. Different types of text and the intention of the writer
Words and sentences

6. Use of the appropriate word

7.Grammatical choices to build or link sentences

Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling

8. Grammar

9. Punctuation

10. Spelling

In any assessment there will be three questions on each Goal strand. Pupils are presented with the 10 questions from the lowest level first.  These will be presented in a random order so that no two pupils taking an assessment at the same level will receive the questions in the same order. The middle level questions are presented next and finally the questions from the highest level. Teachers can select one of four versions of the assessment.

Questions from the four versions or banks are clones of each other, assessing the same thing in the same way at the same level of difficulty.  The four versions are thus equivalent in difficulty. This is different from the multiple choice assessments where each question is selected from one of four banks.

The advantages of having four versions are:

 

  • When the teacher selects a different version, the questions will all be different.
  • Two pupils who take, for example a level 234 and a level 345 assessment, will receive the same questions in the levels that are common to the two assessments, in this case levels 3 and 4.

Level W

 

Strand Statement
1

spell a cvc word correctly
2

match a picture to a sentence
3

use the correct ‘position’ word
4

choose the correct possessive adjective
5

find a word that rhymes with another
6

choose the correct word from a picture
7

choose the correct word to complete a sentence
8

choose the correct spelling of a word
9

punctuate a sentence with a capital letter and a full stop
10

spell a cvc word correctly

Level 1

 

Strand Statement
1

spell a cvc word correctly
2

match a picture to a sentence
3

use the correct ‘position’ word
4

choose the correct possessive adjective
5

find a word that rhymes with another
6

choose the correct word from a picture
7

choose the correct word to complete a sentence
8

choose the correct spelling of a word
9

punctuate a sentence with a capital letter and a full stop
10

spell a cvc word correctly

Level 2

Strand Statement
1

match a word to a picture
2

match a sentence to a picture
3

answer a question on a piece of text
4

choose the correct missing word in a sentence
5

find a word that rhymes with another

6

choose the missing word to complete a sentence
7

use the correct word to join two parts of a sentence
8

use the past tense
9

punctuate using a capital letter at the start of a sentence and a full stop at the end
10

spell level 2 words correctly

Level 3

Strand Statement
1

identify different types of word collections
2

infer meaning from a context
3

identify a character’s behaviour (puzzled, angry, etc) from text
4

identify different types of sentences such as opinion, command etc
5

identify texts suitable for different purposes
6

complete a simile
7

identify a sentence
8

identify the past tense
9

punctuate direct speech in a simple sentence
10

spell level 3 words correctly

Level 4

Strand Statement
1

identify shades of meaning
2

understand noun/verb agreement
3

say what an idiom means
4

understand different types of text
5

identify the different purposes of pieces of text
6

use prefixes correctly
7

use a connective to link phrases
8

use prepositions correctly
9

punctuate direct speech
10

use plural spelling rules

Level 5

Strand Statement
1

know the meaning of words ending in ‘ate’
2

distinguish between fact and opinion
3

identify the main idea of a piece of text
4

recognise opinion and bias in text
5

recognise textual characteristics
6

use a prefix to reverse the meaning of a word
7

use subordinating conjunctions
8

identify abstract nouns
9

punctuate direct speech in two parts of a sentence
10

spell level 5 words correctly

Level 6

Strand Statement
1

understand the meaning of literary terms
2

interpret similes
3

understand sentence linking mechanisms
4

recognise Voice in a piece of text
5

recognise different types of narrative fiction
6

give the antonym of a word
7

identify a subordinate phrase
8

convert direct speech to indirect speech
9

use the apostrophe
10

spell level 6 words correctly

Level 7

Strand Statement
1

match literary terms to their dictionary definitions
2

interpret metaphors
3

use a range of sentence linking mechanisms
4

recognise and evaluate Voice
5

recognise textual features of different types of text
6

match words to their dictionary meaning
7

use adverbs as sentence connectors
8

use appropriate prepositions
9

use colons and semi-colons
10

spell level 7 words correctly

 

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