By J. Liu

The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test took place on Tuesday November 26, 2024. It is a high school graduation requirement for Ontario students. The test measures whether students are meeting the minimum standard for literacy across all subjects up to the end of Grade 9. It sounds pretty easy for local students. However, what if you are an international student? How can you start to prepare for it outside of class? 

First, you can complete the practice exam on the official website of EQAO. There, you can find detailed information about OSSLT and also a practice test. Answers are also provided after you finish the test. During the practice test, you can familiarize yourself with the question types and the overall difficulty, and calculate the approximate time used. 

It sounds pretty easy for local students. However, what if you are an international student? How can you start to prepare for it outside of class?

Among the 8 modules in the test, there are a total of 5 reading comprehension articles. One of the reading comprehension articles will require you to write an answer of about 100 words. This answer is very simple, as you are usually asked to find evidence from the text to answer. Next, there are 2 modules that examine writing knowledge. Finally, the last module requires you to write a short opinion paragraph of 500 words. The topics are very close to the daily life of Canadian high school students, such as homework problems, over-reliance on technology, etc. The more specific the article is, the higher the score is. However, the examiners also considered that we are not allowed to look up data to support our opinions during the exam, so everyone can make up data in this module. For example, if we want to prove that homework contributes to academic achievement, then we can say in the exam, “Professor Green, a professor of education at the University of Toronto, found in his 2018 study “The Impact of Homework on Students’ Brains” that 78.67% of Canadian high school students solidified what they learned while doing their homework. ” 

Besides doing practice tests, we should also reflect on what we have learned. We should review the questions we did wrong before and analyze our weaknesses. We should figure out what kind of questions are prone to errors for ourselves and think about how we can deal with them. 

Last but not least, if you have any further questions, do not hesitate to ask your teachers! They will support you in pursuing good grades! Good luck to all who are taking the OSSLT test!