Hello everybody. My name is Mahad Ali. I have been at Pre-Uni since I was in year 3. Today, as some of you may know, I will be talking with you about my experience in the IGNITE and ACER test which you guys will be giving later this year, in about a month.
First, before I begin my speech, I will be introducing what I will be talking about. In my speech I will talk about all the subjects in the ACER and IGNITE test, I will also be including Abstract Reasoning for IGNITE. For each topic, I will tell you some questions that came in our test, timings, my general outline, and some tips I have for you.
First, I will be talking about the writing in the ACER and IGNITE test. The two topics in the 2023 ACER test were a story starter which said, ‘If I could be anything I could be…’ and the second topic was a picture of a sad athlete on a running/athletics track. Another writing that a friend of mine did in the 2021 ACER test was of a flock of birds flying in the sky. In the IGNITE test, the writing topics are a bit more complex. For example, another one of my friends got a picture of a bucket of paint, or in my case, I got a picture of an object like a chess ‘pawn’ piece, and one piece was standing up, and the rest was leaning over on the one that was standing up, like they were being supported by him. When you get the topic, you will have no planning time, only 25 minutes to write for IGNITE and 20 minutes for ACER. So, you must be asking how do I tackle writing? I suggest that you immediately write down whatever is coming to your mind. Think of things that you have read previously in a newspaper or book. Then, pick the topic that is the most creative, has a good idea and you feel comfortable writing about. When writing, try to make your writing coherent, and use feedback that you have gotten from Pre-Uni. Another tip is to leave around 2-5 minutes at the end of the test to edit your writing and substitute words to make your writing better. Also, make sure to read a wide variety of texts like newspapers, classicals and novels. Finally, remember to be relaxed when writing because when you are relaxed, you do your best.
Now, I will talk about the reading comprehension perspective. In the IGNITE reading comprehension, there are 50 minutes for reading comprehension and 40 questions. This may not seem difficult, however a big tip that I will give is that time really catches up to you. I thought that I had plenty of time to do reading comprehension, but I just ended up finishing the test. This is also because 10 of the 40 questions are open ended questions. This means that you must write your own answer. Some of these questions include the meaning of words, inferring what the author is saying and some of the questions ask what you think will happen next. In some of the open-ended questions, you will also need to provide evidence from the text. I would recommend that you practice these sorts of questions. There are also many different texts in reading comprehension such as narratives, some texts about how things work, and some texts about describing an object or place. These are both in IGNITE and ACER. In the ACER test, all 25 questions are all multiple choice, and you have 30 minutes. Some tips I would give is read the questions carefully and multiple times, make subheadings for what each paragraph discusses, and practice questions before the test.
Now comes Maths. IGNITE and ACER math are quite different. Let’s start with ACER math. ACER math has 20 minutes and has a 30-minute time limit. The ACER math is quite simpler, and has questions on things like fractions, measurement, and some logical thinking. ACER itself says that they are looking for children who can “Apply mathematical skills and knowledge to answer problems, including short calculations using addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.” Even though I can’t remember any ACER math questions, I do know that it was easy. IGNITE math on the other hand was a bit more difficult. IGNITE math had 30 questions in 40 minutes. Like reading comprehension, there are 5 or so questions that are open ended. You will have to write your own answers in the form of digits. Some of the IGNITE questions are simple math questions, so a tip I would give is to be sharp with mental math. Some other questions require you to think logically. For example, one question where a home phones, which I have here is used to make words. If you see the number 1, you see the letters A B and C. If you see the number 2, you see the letters D E and F. And, if you press 1 once, you get the letter A, if you press it twice, you get B and so on. I can’t quite remember the question I was given; however, it was something like how to make a complex word such as succumb. There was another open-ended question that was about butterflies, and which path they took. It said that butterflies were 50% more likely to turn left if last time they turned right or something like that. With that information, we were given an image with a butterfly and a maze, and we had to see how many turns it would take for the butterfly to get out of the maze.
Lastly, I will talk about abstract reasoning. Abstract reasoning in IGNITE has 30 questions in 30 minutes. In abstract reasoning, in the year I took it, the test was filled with questions about shapes. Some of the questions, you had to guess which shape comes next, in some other questions, you had to guess which pattern landed on which faces on cubes, which face of a cube would land down when folded, and which direction an object would point when rotated the same number of degrees. Personally, I would say that this is the hardest subject of all, as it requires looking closely at the objects and seeing which answer is correct. I personally recommend a lot of practice for this. There are various YouTube videos online about ‘spatial awareness’ and Abstract reasoning’ questions which you must do.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you gained something out of this. I also hope that you guys do well in the upcoming IGNITE and or ACER test and get into the school you want. Even if you don’t, it doesn’t mean you will be successful, it’s a very small part of your life. One setback doesn’t define your abilities.