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GAT Practice Test and Worked Answers

Use this short, original set to practise writing, numeracy and reasoning. Choose one writing prompt and attempt all four shorter exercises before opening the worked answers. Use VCAA’s official past papers for a full session.

Writing practice

  • Persuasive response. Imagine a short opinion piece arguing that public libraries should be funded to stay open 24 hours. Write a response that takes a clear position and supports it with at least three distinct reasons, anticipating one objection and answering it.
  • Issue analysis. Picture a set of two short letters that disagree about whether mobile phones should be banned in all public secondary schools. Write a response that explains the strongest point on each side and then states, with reasons, where you land.
  • Idea development. Take the single line "the most useful inventions are the ones we stop noticing". Write an extended response that develops this idea using examples from everyday life, building from a clear opening claim to a considered conclusion.

Check that your response addresses the task, gives a clear position and supports it with relevant evidence. Read it once for structure and once for expression.

Numeracy and reasoning practice

  • Data interpretation. Imagine a bar chart showing a cafe's weekly sales of four drinks, where coffee is 240, tea is 90, juice is 60 and hot chocolate is 30. Work out what fraction of total sales is coffee, then express it as a percentage, then decide which single drink you would drop and justify it in one sentence.
  • Rates and proportion. A train covers 180 kilometres in 2 hours and 15 minutes. Estimate its average speed in kilometres per hour, then judge whether it could complete a 300-kilometre route in under four hours at the same pace, showing your reasoning.
  • Logical reasoning. Picture a short paragraph claiming that because ice-cream sales and sunburn cases both rise in summer, eating ice-cream causes sunburn. Identify the flaw in that reasoning and write one sentence explaining what the real common cause is likely to be.
  • Pattern and estimation. A sequence begins 3, 6, 12, 24. State the rule, give the next two terms, and estimate roughly how large the tenth term would be without writing out every step.
Show the worked answers
  1. The total is 420 drinks. Coffee makes up 240 ÷ 420, or 4/7, approximately 57.1%. Hot chocolate has the lowest sales. A decision to drop it would also depend on its cost and margin.
  2. 2 hours 15 minutes is 2.25 hours. 180 ÷ 2.25 gives 80 km/h. At that rate, 300 ÷ 80 gives 3.75 hours, or 3 hours 45 minutes.
  3. The two trends alone cannot establish cause. Hotter, sunnier weather can increase ice-cream purchases while increasing exposure to sunlight.
  4. Each term doubles. The next two terms are 48 and 96. The tenth term is 3 × 2⁹, or 1,536.