What is the GATE exam (Gifted and Talented Secondary Selective Entry Program) for Perth Modern and other selective schools in WA?

The Academic Selective Entrance Test (ASET) is an extremely competitive and hard exam where only 14% of the 1548 students that sit the exam gain admission to Perth Modern School – the only fully selective academic school in Western Australia. The same test is used for students to attend the GATE (Gifted and Talented Secondary Selective Entry Program) in 18 select public schools in WA.

Every year, the test gets harder and more competitive. The combined cut-off for selection has gotten harder (increases by 10.33 points in 2019) and The West Australian reports that the ‘Education Department figures show the overall number of students applying for places in gifted programs has soared 30 per cent in just four years, from 3631 to 4756’.

This means in that your child needs to prepare for the test.

Your child will sit the exam when they're in Grade 6 for Year 7 entry. Students usually sit the exam in early March and the results for the test are usually released in late May to early June.

On the date of the exam, your child should be above average in maths and English as a base to feel confident for their exam. They need exam technique such as how to answer questions quickly and having a structure they can use when it comes to writing. With the very strict time limits, students who are naturally gifted have sometimes missed out to children who weren’t so intelligent, but were prepared.

The Gifted and Talented Secondary Selective Entrance Programs are offered in 18 public secondary schools in WA that provides an enriched curriculum. Of these schools, the most highly coveted is Perth Modern High School. Other prominent schools in the GATE test are:

• Shenton College
• Melville Senior High School
• Willetton Senior High School
• Duncraig Senior High School

If you wish for your child to attend any of the following schools listed above through the GATE program, your child needs to sit the competitive Academic Selective Entrance Test (ASET) which has 4 parts to it:

• Reading comprehension
• Communicating ideas in writing
• Quantitative reasoning
• Abstract reasoning

More details about the test format can be found here.

It would be unfair to put your child into the ASET exam without preparation. It is a time-driven exam and totally different from what they get at school. Other children commonly put in 168+ hours of preparation 6 months ahead of test date.

If you don’t prepare, your child will go into the test at a disadvantage. Get them help so they go into the test knowing what to do and how to do their best.

What’s in the GATE exam – the ASET (test format, number of questions and time limit)?

The GATE test, also known as the Academic Selection Entrance Test has 4 parts. The multiple choice parts are heavily based around critical thinking, problem-solving and mathematical application and therefore, rote learning such as memorizing multiplication tables or formulas, isn’t going to give your child the edge they need.

What they need are strategies in order to problem-solve quickly and correctly when faced with an exam question.

Applications for the test are open in October and close the following year in February. Students usually sit the test in March (the month following close of applications).

The 4 parts along with their description (including time limits and number of questions per test *) are shown below:

﹡ The number of questions and time limit have been taken from the Candidate Information Bulletin (provided by a parent). Please note that the authoritative body can change the number of questions and time limits from year to year so please refer to their websites for the most up to date information. Time per question is calculated by taking the time limit divided by number of questions.

As you'll see, the time limit provided to students is very limited – students need to answer each multiple choice questions in 51 seconds or less! For written expression, writing a whole piece in 25 minutes is a real challenge.

Your child needs support and expert programs designed around beating the clock. Programs that teach strategic time management and how to answer the question correctly & quickly.

How hard is it to get into Perth Modern School (GATE) & How Do You Prepare Your Kid?

It's a very hard test. At most, you have 51 seconds to go through multiple choice questions and for abstract reasoning, to get through the test, you need to answer each question in 34 seconds or less! The time limit itself is challenging.

To make it harder, the questions are rarely straightforward. They require problem solving - something that is rarely taught in schools.

So how can your child prepare?

The first step is to do sample test questions.

The Department of Education (WA) have released sample test papers that are available freely for download. You can download sample test papers here.

Exam Success also has a teaching test bank where you child can do practice questions, but more importantly, learn how to answer the question. They'll be able to learn how to approach questions quickly in the time limit.

When I do private tuition, the process I use to help students gain a GATE selective school spot in Perth Modern or the other schools involves just 5 steps!

For reading, quantitative reasoning and abstract reasoning:

1. Do a practice test disregarding the time limit. Focus on getting the question right and find out what your score is in the end.
2. For any question you didn’t get correct, figure out what should be the correct answer (and check it with your answer key).
3. For those same questions, come up with strategies so that when you’re faced with a similar question next time, you’ll be able to answer it. Hone your strategy over time so that you reduce the number of steps it takes to get to the answer (and so that you can answer the question more quickly).
4. Repeat steps 1 – 3 until you get a score of 95-100%. Each time you repeat it, if done properly, your child should be seeing a higher score in their practice test.
5. Then do practice tests within the time limit. What you’ll find is that working in a time limit is easier, once you have a process to answering various questions correctly.

While they look like 5 easy steps, going through each step does time a long time if done properly.

Written Expression is a bit trickier as there are so many ways where your writing can lose marks (we’ve identified 52!).

Based on our experience helping students get into selective schools, we’ve found that students improve dramatically through targeted feedback. Writing improves quickly when you have experts providing feedback. Your child shouldn’t have to sit in class and learn grammar rules, but rather, they should:

1. Write their essay
2. Get customized feedback.
3. Repeat steps 1-2 again. Using the feedback, overtime, students see an improvement in their essays. They stop making the same mistakes and their writing is better.

Perth Modern School is the highest performing school in Western Australia (WA) in terms of ATAR with a median score of 95.5 (ABC, 2018). To gain access to the best school in WA, you need the best test preparation available.

Here's test preparation designed for your child's success