Year 5 NAPLAN Language

Year 5 NAPLAN — Language Conventions Practice

Practise spelling, grammar and punctuation skills tested in the Year 5 NAPLAN Language Conventions assessment.

Exam Tips for Year 5 Language Conventions

1. Read the whole sentence before choosing — the answer often depends on context around the gap.

2. Check for agreement — make sure the verb matches its subject (singular or plural).

3. Watch tense consistency — if the sentence starts in past tense, it should stay in past tense.

4. Apostrophe check — decide whether the apostrophe shows ownership (dog's bone) or a contraction (it's = it is).

The Language Conventions test has about 50 questions in 45 minutes. It tests three main areas:

Commonly misspelled words, homophones, tricky word endings like -tion, -sion, -ible, -able.

Subject-verb agreement, tense consistency, pronoun reference, complex sentences.

Apostrophes for possession and contraction, commas in lists and complex sentences, quotation marks.

⚠ its / it's — its = belonging to it (no apostrophe!), it's = it is or it has

⚠ affect / effect — affect is usually a verb, effect is usually a noun

⚠ Apostrophe placement — the dog's toy (one dog) vs the dogs' toy (more than one dog)

⚠ Tense shifts — don't switch between past and present tense in the same sentence

●Homophones: affect/effect, its/it's, their/there/they're — learn the difference!
●Subject-verb agreement: Find the true subject — ignore prepositional phrases like "of students."
●Tense consistency: If a sentence starts in past tense, keep all verbs in past tense.
●Pronoun reference: Remove the other person to check — "told me" not "told I."
●Apostrophes: Possession (the dog's bone) vs contraction (it's = it is). "Its" for possession has NO apostrophe.
●Commas: After introductory clauses, between items in a list, and around extra information.