Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test
The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) measures whether or not students are meeting the minimum standard for literacy across all subjects up to the end of Grade 9. Successful completion of the literacy test is one of the requirements to earn an Ontario Secondary School Diploma. All students across the province write this test on the same date, usually in late March each year.
Organizing Your Time
Duration 2.5 hours of testing time in total Results an Individual Student Report indicating whether the student was successful or unsuccessful
Reading Writing Reading selections:
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• information paragraph (225 to 250 words)
• news report (225 to 250 words)
• dialogue (225 to 250 words)
• real-life narrative (550 to 600 words)
• graphic text (fewer than 150 words)
Types of writing tasks and questions:
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• two long-writing tasks – news report (one page) – 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