Passing the Literacy Skills Test (Achieving QTS Series)

I have been accepted on a PGCE course and have to pass the dreaded skills tests. Looking for material on the internet, I soon realised it was not enough to get me through, there are a few helpful videos on youtube, but if like me - have completely forgot all gcse literacy, and don;t have much of clue about grammar, this book is priceless. After studying this book, taking on board the information, getting an insight into the tips and things they look out for - I passed my skills test 1st time. Fully recommend it.

Compared to any online revision, this book is an excellent resource. I failed the first time at the exam without any revision and after using this book alongside the online practice exams I passed with ease. An excellent structure to the book with the individual chapters and also there are helpful tips along the way as to how to increase your chances of passing. 5/5

Great book! Lots of helpful tips and questions, this combined with the online practise tests from gov.uk helped me to pass first time!!! A great purchase for anyone looking to compleate their professional skills test in literacy!! The practice spelling were very helpful, and there was a wide range of reactive questions.

This was really helpful during my revision for the Literacy Skills Test. I have only given it 4 stars however, because of the spellings that I had in my test were not featured in the book. It has lots of possible spellings, to which I revised and in the end I needn't have had. However, I did think that the other content was very useful and helpful to keep going over, such as the punctuation and grammar sections. As I have marked work before, I didn't find this particularly tricky but if you were taking the test and had never marked work, those areas of the book would be most helpful for you! It is a useful and helpful revision aid that could make the difference of a couple of marks which mean you would pass rather than fail the Literacy QTS Test.

Passed my literacy skills test first time with this. Although I used the practice papers on th DFE website also, this book was a tremendous help. (FYI, I'm going to train to be an English teacher so as you can imagine, it wasn't too difficult. My grammar and punctuation needed a bit of help as I got very comfortable 'text typing'). I would recommed buying.

This book helped me pass my literacy skills test. The structure of this book is easy to understand and also has all the sections which are in the exam. It literally lives up to the name, if your looking to buy a book I would highly recommend this one.

The book is broken down into chapters on: 1. Spelling 2. Punctuation 3. Comprehension 4. Grammar Each chapter has a test section. The chapter on spelling only has 7 pages + 6 pages of test spellings. I was very interested in how they dealt with spelling and was a bit disappointed. They have some good lists of words, and touch on a few basic strategies, but very basic. They say they cover "the main spelling rules and include words used by people involved in teaching." But the rules are one sentence long! For example: "To add -ed or -ing to a verb that ends in -e, drop the e." But in the QTS test they like to test you on -able words and whether you drop the 'e' or keep the 'e' with certain words (achievable but manageable). The book briefly mentions the doubling up rule: "To add -ed or -ing to a verb with a short vowel sound, double the final consonant: rap rapped." And that's it! In the test they like to test you on the doubling up rule with longer words when the stress is on the second syllable: omitted, beginner, preferred, referring. One rule they mention is the 'y' to 'ies' rule, and say, "To form the plural of a word that ends in y, drop the y and add ies." They should add that the word needs to end in a consonant + y to change it to -ies. They give a list of words with some tricky double consonants, such as, accommodate, committee, disappoint and say that: "Unfortunately, there is no easy way to remember them." Nonsense. There are great strategies to remember spellings, whether it's using memory tricks, sayings, syllable break down or seeing a word within a word - all good spellers use spelling strategies to help them with spelling and a fantastic book to help is the QTS Spelling Strategies to Help You Pass the Literacy Skills Spelling Test by Joanne Rudling. QTS Spelling Strategies to Help You Pass the Literacy Skills Spelling Test Also try her Spelling Rules Workbook. Spelling Rules Workbook The punctuation section has some key information to help with the test. But sometimes a bit "woolly" too. They have the weirdest explanation for the apostrophe for possession. From my experience, if you do the punctuation practice tests you can see a pattern to them. The punctuation they're testing can't be ambiguous so there are always capitals, commas or semicolons in lists, or commas for bracketing, ending sentences with a full stop or question mark, and a colon to start a list. The other sections on grammar and comprehension are detailed. There are 30 pages dedicated to grammar with pronouns, relative pronouns and subordinate clauses; and comparatives and superlatives. They mention the problems with should have /of, throughout the book. On the whole a good section. There's also a good Glossary at the back which is extremely useful. This book is a good basic overview of the literacy skills test, so use it to help you figure out what you need to study in more detail.

I read this in 2 days and did all the practice tests and the 4 online. My actual test was more difficult than any I'd tried but I still passed 1st attempt. Also it was very easy to sell on after my test (found a buyer online in 1 day)