Exam board guide
The Edutest Scholarship Test — a parent's complete guide
Edutest splits its test into five separately timed sections, with a heavily weighted reasoning core. Those reasoning sections are rarely taught at school — which is exactly why they offer the biggest, fastest gains from preparation.
What is the Edutest scholarship test?
Edutest is one of Australia's three major external test providers — with ACER and AAS — for independent-school academic scholarships and selective/entrance selection. Schools contract Edutest to design, administer and mark the test; Edutest returns scored data and the school decides who receives offers. The same five-component instrument feeds both scholarship ranking and general entrance selection.
Edutest is especially common across Victorian independent schools, and is used nationally for scholarships and entrance. Entry years are mainly Year 7, with some Year 5, 9, 10 and 11. (Note: NSW government selective schools use their own centralised test, not Edutest.)
Test structure
The official Edutest structure is five separately-timed components, grouped into "Ability" and "Achievement":
| # | Section | Time | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Verbal Reasoning | 30 min | Ability |
| 2 | Numerical Reasoning | 30 min | Ability |
| 3 | Reading Comprehension | 30 min | Achievement |
| 4 | Mathematics | 30 min | Achievement |
| 5 | Written Expression | 15 min — no planning/reading time | Achievement |
Core testing is about 2 hours 15 minutes, or roughly 2.5–3 hours on the day with breaks. Verbal + Numerical Reasoning form the "Ability" / General-Ability core; Reading, Maths and Writing are "Achievement". Question counts are not fixed and vary by year level (real sections commonly run 40–60 questions). The test is predominantly sat on paper at school venues, with growing computer-based and remote options. No calculator. Confirm the format with your target school.
What each section tests
Verbal Reasoning (Ability)
Reasoning with words: synonyms and antonyms, analogies and word relationships, classification and odd-one-out, logical deduction from statements, and letter/word codes.
Numerical Reasoning (Ability)
Reasoning with numbers: number series and sequences, matrices (completing a numeric grid), and arithmetic reasoning and worded logic (rates, ages, proportion) under time.
Verbal + Numerical Reasoning are the General-Ability core — heavily weighted, rarely taught at school, and therefore both high-leverage and highly coachable.
Reading Comprehension (Achievement)
Literal meaning, inference, tone and vocabulary-in-context across text types, plus a sentence-skills strand (correcting, completing and punctuating sentences).
Mathematics (Achievement)
Year-level curriculum — number, measurement, algebra, space and data — with applied word problems, and no calculator, so mental and written speed matter.
Written Expression (Achievement)
A single 15-minute timed write with no planning time, on one prompt (narrative or persuasive). It tests idea development, structure, language and conventions under acute time pressure.
Scoring & results
- Raw scores are converted to a standardised score per section; the five sections combine (often with equal weight) into an overall, and schools may re-weight.
- The headline metric reported is usually a percentile (sometimes with stanines or bands).
- Edutest does not send results to parents — only to the client schools. Whether you receive a report is the school's decision.
- There is no fixed pass mark; it moves with the applicant pool. As an indication only, full/major scholarships often sit around the 95th percentile and above, with partial and merit awards lower and school-dependent.
Registration, fees & dates
You register through the school, not Edutest directly: the school's link takes you to a parent account on the Edutest portal, where you register your child. Each school is a separate payment; the fee is school-set, with private sitting fees commonly in the A$100–A$200+ range.
Edutest runs one session per testing period, and a student must sit the earliest date; results can transfer to multiple schools sharing a date, but there are no re-sits in the same year. Registration typically opens from mid-January into early February, with the main scholarship sitting often in late February for the following year's entry; results reach schools roughly four to six weeks later.
Dates and fees change every year and by school — treat any specific figure as indicative and confirm with your target school.
How to prepare (and what wins)
The Edutest is deliberately set so that most students finish only about half of each section — so time management beats trying to answer everything. Optimise accuracy and pace, not completion. Marks are won through pacing and triage, familiarity with the reasoning archetypes, and a rehearsed writing structure; they are lost to running out of time, calculator-free slips, freezing on unfamiliar formats and rambling writing. In order of coaching return:
- Verbal & Numerical Reasoning — drill by archetype (series, matrices, analogies, odd-one-out, conditional logic) until recognition is instant; untimed first, then timed. This is the biggest, fastest gain.
- Written Expression (15 min, no planning) — the highest-leverage achievement section. Plan anyway: a roughly 2-minute outline, a quick hook, the body, then resolve and proofread. Structure beats topic. One timed 15-minute write a week, marked to a rubric, is the best single habit.
- Pacing & stamina — build through full timed mocks that simulate no-calculator, no-notes conditions.
- Reading & Maths — year-level coverage, the sentence-correction strand, and calculator-free speed.
Scholarship preparation — free assessment
Find out where your child stands before the Edutest exam
Book an exam-style assessment. Your child sits a scholarship-format task, we mark it against the real criteria, and you get detailed feedback and a level — so you know their strengths and weak spots before the real test.
Sources
This guide is original explanatory content summarised in our own words from public information; no copyrighted exam questions are reproduced. Primary source: Edutest — official site edutest.com.au (test structure and practice information) and the parent portal aus.edutest.com.au. (Note: unrelated sites such as edu-test.in and edutest.ai are different organisations.) Section counts, timings and fees vary by year level, school and year, and were last reviewed in June 2026. Ace Achievers is an independent tutoring provider and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Edutest. Always confirm the exact format, dates and fees with your target school or with Edutest directly before relying on any detail here.