Examples of National Benchmark Test NBTs in South Africa

ACADEMIC LITERACY

QUANTITATIVE LITERACY

• Make meaning from academic text;
• Understand vocabulary related to academic study;
• Evaluate evidence used to support claims made by writers;
• Extrapolate and draw inferences and conclusions from text;
• Differentiate main idea from supporting ideas in the overall and specific organisation of a passage;
• Identify text differences as related to the writers’ purposes, audiences, and forms of communication;
• Understand how syntax and punctuation are used to express meaning; and
• Understand basic numerical concepts used in text.

•  Apply quantitative procedures and reasoning in symbolic and non-symbolic situations;
• Apply information from a variety of tables, graphs, charts and text;
• Integrate information obtained from multiple sources;
• Perform multiple-step calculations using information presented with text, symbols, and graphs;
• Identify trends and patterns in various situations;
• Apply properties of simple geometric shapes to determine measurements; and
• Interpret quantitative information presented verbally, symbolically, and graphically.

MATHEMATICS

• Understand and apply properties of the real number system, including surds and exponents;
• Recognise and use patterns, including sequences and series;
• Apply relationships such as ratios and percentages in a variety of contexts;
• Apply the results of algebraic manipulations with equations and inequalities;
• Understand the function concept and identify properties of functions
• Interpret transformations of functions represented algebraically or graphically;
• Identify relationships between graphs and their equations, or inequalities and the regions they describe;
• Apply trigonometric identities and concepts in solving problems;
• Understand properties and interpret representations of two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes;
• Apply principles of analytic geometry;
• Interpret various representations and measures of data; and
• Use logical skills in making deductions and determining the validity of given assertions.