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Parent guide · Scholarship & selective testing

AAS vs ACER: which test does your school actually use?

The single most common preparation mistake is assuming every entrance exam looks the same. In Australia, three providers dominate school assessment — AAS, ACER and Edutest — and they differ in how reasoning is structured, how the writing task runs, and how heavily figural questions feature. Practising the wrong format builds the wrong habits.

It's also worth separating two things people often conflate: independent-school scholarship testing (run by all three providers, format and dates set by each school) and the Victorian Selective Entry High School (SEHS) exam (a single government process, run only by ACER, for Year 9 entry to Melbourne High, Mac.Robertson Girls', Nossal and Suzanne Cory). They share a provider in ACER's case, but they are different exams with different structures.

The short version

 AAS (Scholarship)ACER (Scholarship)ACER (Selective Entry)Edutest (Scholarship)
ReasoningOne integrated section (verbal, mathematical, figural, spatial)Verbal, numerical and abstract reasoningCombined sittings: Maths & Quantitative Reasoning; Reading & Verbal ReasoningSeparate Verbal Reasoning and Numerical Reasoning papers
Writing1 stimulus task, 25–30 min2 tasks (persuasive + creative), timing not published by ACER2 tasks, 40 min total1 task, 15 min
Total time≈ 40–50 min per component≈ 2.5–3 hours (third-party estimate; ACER doesn't publish official durations)2h35m of exam tasks; ≈ 4 hours at the venue including breaks and registration≈ 2.5–3 hours
Mainly used forIndependent school scholarshipsIndependent school scholarships (national)Government selective entry (Victoria only)Independent school scholarships

AAS — Academic Assessment Services

Operating since 1974 and now part of Janison, AAS works directly with individual independent schools rather than running a central public exam. Schools can tailor the paper, so the exact format varies slightly from school to school — which makes generic preparation harder and figural reasoning practice especially important.

Typical format

  • Reasoning & Problem Solving — around 60 questions, 40–45 minutes (verbal, figural and numerical combined in one section)
  • Reading Comprehension — 40–50 minutes, fiction and non-fiction passages
  • Mathematics — 40–50 minutes, number, measurement, geometry, data and applied reasoning
  • Written Expression — 25–30 minutes, one stimulus-based task

AAS's own published comparison confirms the written expression time (25–30 minutes) and describes the overall exam as delivered in blocks of roughly 40–50 minutes each, with a short break between sections.

What catches students off-guard

  • Reasoning is integrated, not split — students who only drilled separate verbal and numerical papers find the switching hard.
  • Figural and spatial reasoning (matrices, pattern sequences) features far more heavily than in ACER scholarship papers or Edutest.
  • Registration usually happens on the school's own scholarship page, not a central portal, so deadlines are easy to miss.

Schools commonly using AAS for scholarships

Melbourne Girls Grammar (Merton Hall), Camberwell Grammar School, Firbank Grammar School, Genazzano FCJ College, Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar School, Korowa Anglican Girls' School, Lauriston Girls' School, Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School, Mentone Girls' Grammar School, Ruyton Girls' School, St Michael's Grammar School, Trinity Grammar School*, Ave Maria College, Leibler Yavneh College, Luther College*, Braemar College, St Patrick's College (Ballarat), Ballarat Clarendon College.

*Trinity Grammar School and Luther College use both AAS and Edutest — confirm which applies to your child's specific scholarship type or year level.

ACER — Australian Council for Educational Research

ACER is a not-for-profit research organisation and Australia's most established assessment body. It plays two quite different roles that are worth keeping separate.

ACER Selective Entry (Victorian government schools, Year 9 entry)

This is the exam administered on behalf of the Victorian Department of Education for entry to the state's four selective high schools. Unlike scholarship testing, this format is centrally standardised and ACER publishes it directly.

Official current format (confirmed on ACER's own Selective Entry site):

  • Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning — 60 minutes (combined sitting)
  • Break — 20 minutes
  • Reading and Verbal Reasoning — 55 minutes (combined sitting)
  • Short break — 5 minutes
  • Writing — 40 minutes, consisting of two tasks

Exam tasks take 2 hours 35 minutes to complete. Including registration and breaks, the full process takes approximately 4 hours at the venue. The content does not exceed the Year 8 curriculum, but the exam is deliberately designed so that most candidates will not finish every question — this is normal, not a sign of poor preparation.

Schools using ACER Selective Entry: Melbourne High School, Mac.Robertson Girls' High School, Nossal High School, Suzanne Cory High School (Year 9 entry only — several of these schools use Edutest for Year 10/11 entry instead).

ACER Scholarship Test (independent schools)

A separate product, used by roughly 250 independent schools nationally for Year 7–12 scholarship entry. Important caveat: ACER does not publicly publish official durations or question counts for its scholarship tests — the figures below are estimates drawn from test-prep providers and past candidates' experience, not from ACER directly, so treat them as indicative rather than exact.

Typical format (indicative only)

  • Written Expression — two tasks (persuasive + creative)
  • Humanities — reading comprehension, interpretation of visual information, and reasoning across text types (ACER is the only one of the three providers to test this as a standalone domain)
  • Mathematics and Science

What catches students off-guard

  • Papers are deliberately built so most students will not finish every section — leaving blanks is normal.
  • The two-task writing section catches out students who only practised one genre.
  • Scholarship results from one school generally cannot be transferred to another.

Schools commonly using ACER for scholarships

Xavier College, Presbyterian Ladies' College (PLC), Peninsula Grammar, Penleigh and Essendon Grammar, Ivanhoe Grammar School, Huntingtower, Bialik College, Cornish College, Overnewton Anglican Community College, Saint Ignatius College (Geelong), Oakleigh Grammar, Melbourne Grammar School.

A note on Melbourne Grammar School specifically

MGS runs two separate processes. General Year 7 admission is via the school's own Academic Entrance Test (format set by the school, not centrally published). Academic, Music, General Excellence and Access Scholarships are awarded via a separate Annual Scholarship Exam, administered by ACER, held early in a student's Year 6 for Year 7 entry (or the equivalent year prior for Year 9 entry). These are not the same exam, and preparation should be matched accordingly.

Edutest

Edutest is the third major provider, strong across Victorian private-school scholarships and specialist entry. It splits "ability" (reasoning) from "achievement" (curriculum) testing and runs distinctly timed sections that reward speed.

Typical format

  • Verbal Reasoning — 40–60 questions, 30 minutes
  • Numerical Reasoning — 30–40 questions, 30 minutes
  • Reading Comprehension — 25–35 questions, 30 minutes
  • Mathematics — 25–35 questions, 30–45 minutes
  • Written Expression — 15 minutes, one task

What catches students off-guard

  • The writing task is genuinely short at 15 minutes — tight next to AAS's 25–30 minutes or ACER's writing allowance.
  • Around 50% is considered a normal score; Edutest designs its papers with that in mind.
  • One sitting can sometimes be shared across several schools, but only within the same testing cycle and only among schools that accept shared results.

Schools commonly using Edutest for scholarships

Wesley College, Methodist Ladies' College (MLC), Carey Baptist Grammar School, Caulfield Grammar School, Brighton Grammar School, Trinity Grammar School*, Geelong Grammar School, Camberwell Girls Grammar School, St Catherine's School, The Knox School, Fintona Girls' School, Kilvington Grammar, Alphington Grammar School, Bacchus Marsh Grammar, Beaconhills College, Loreto Mandeville Hall, Loreto College Ballarat, Siena College, Westbourne Grammar School, Southern Cross Grammar, The King David School, Goulburn Valley Grammar School, Luther College*.

Also used for specialist/selective entry: John Monash Science School, Elizabeth Blackburn School of Sciences, and Year 10/11 entry at Melbourne High, Mac.Robertson Girls', Nossal and Suzanne Cory (which use ACER at Year 9 but switch providers for later intakes).

*Trinity Grammar School and Luther College use both Edutest and AAS.

Other testing services in Australia

  • HAST (Higher Ability Selection Test) — run by ACER for gifted, accelerated and extension program entry; distinct from both selective entry and scholarship testing, with three- or four-component packages chosen by the school.
  • NSW Selective High School Placement Test — administered for the NSW Department of Education, covering reading, mathematical reasoning, thinking skills and writing.
  • Queensland and WA academic programs — many state academies and independent schools run their own in-house entrance papers alongside AAS or Edutest sittings.
  • NAPLAN and school reports — not entrance exams, but frequently weighed alongside test results in scholarship decisions.

How to prepare for the right paper

Confirm the provider on the school's own admissions or scholarship page first — providers can and do change year to year, and the same school can use different providers at different year levels (Trinity Grammar and Luther College currently use two providers simultaneously for different scholarship types). If your child is applying to several schools, expect to meet more than one format in a single season.

Then practise the specific shape of that paper: integrated reasoning with figural questions for AAS, two-genre writing and a distinct Humanities component for ACER scholarships, the combined Maths/QR and Reading/VR sittings for ACER Selective Entry, and raw speed under a 15-minute writing limit for Edutest.

Our mock papers come in two shapes to match. The AAS-format papers run three timed sections (70 reasoning, 60 reading, 50 maths) over a shared question pool. The ACER-format paper adds a Written Expression section with both a creative and a persuasive task, alongside the reasoning, reading and maths sections.

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References

Note on currency: provider information changes year to year and school-to-provider mappings are self-reported by third-party test-prep sources except where an official school or provider page is cited directly. School lists and format details should be reconfirmed against each school's own admissions page before relying on them, and periodically thereafter.