• Used to assess your reading and writing skills
• Established in 2001 & run by the Education Quality & Accountability Office (EQAO)
• Must be successfully completed to obtain an Ontario Secondary School Diploma

This year, there are two tests:

• Thursday, October 20th, 2016 is the OSSLT online trial. The online trial is meant to modernize the assessment by producing faster results, increasing security, improving consistency and allowing for appropriate assistive technologies. If you are successful writing this test, you DO NOT need to take the test in March as this attempt will count towards your OSSLT diploma requirement. If you are not successful/technical issues arise, you may take the test in March with no penalty
• Thursday, March 30th, 2016 is the regularly scheduled OSSLT

• Online Session 1 - 75 minutes
• Break - 15 minutes
• Online Session 2 - 75 minutes
• Questionnaire - 10 minutes

Reading

Reading selections include:

• Information Paragraph - presents ideas and information on a topic
• News Report - presents information in the form of a news story
• Dialogue - presents a conversation between two, or more, people
• Real-Life Narrative - presents an account of a significant time in an individual’s life
• Graphic Text - presents ideas and information with the help of graphic features, such as diagrams, photographs, drawings, sketches, patterns, timetables, maps, charts or tables

Each selection is followed by multiple choice and open response questions (6 lines per open response)

Writing

Types of writing questions and tasks include:

• Long Writing: News Report (one page) and a series of paragraphs expressing an opinion (two pages)
• Two Short Writing Tasks (six lines each)
• Multiple Choice Questions: Developing a main idea with supporting details, Organization of ideas, Language Conventions

You will find the EQAO application on a school computer's desktop after you log on using your student number and password

You will receive a ticket with a unique username and password from your supervising teacher to begin the OSSLT. Once you log in, your computer will enter 'kiosk' mode. This means you will not have access to anything else on your computer for the allotted time

If you'd like to see what the test looks like, click the link below

If you are an IBT student and will be using your own device, you should download the EQAO online module below

You have an opportunity to practice for the OSSLT on:

• October 12th - Period Three
• October 14th - Period Four

Lunch time prep sessions will be held in the library on:

• October 11th
• October 12th

The schedule of the practice test day and actual test day, including the room numbers you will be writing in, will be posted in the Commons closer to the test date

Check out @northparkssca and #npssonlineosslt for announcements