ICAS - Skills-based Assessment Program

About the Assessment

The ICAS assessment is created by UNSW Global, a world leader in the provision of education, assessment, and expertise services and wholly owned by UNSW Australia (The University of New South Wales) The University is ranked among the top 50 universities worldwide.

ICAS stands for building problem solving and high order thinking skills in students. It does not focus on rote learning of concepts but builds the essential 21st century skills required by students. This makes it the most comprehensive assessment available at the school level. It assesses students’ success on the following parameters:

• English
• Mathematics
• Science
• Digital Technologies

The ICAS assessments are developed by a panel of subject-matter experts and highly experienced assessment developers. The idea is to base the assessment on an in-depth understanding on the way students grasp and absorb what is taught to them. The assessments are then reviewed by teachers who have hands-on experience to authenticate the content and pedagogy behind the assessment and also to ensure that it tests the right skills in an age-appropriate and relevant manner.

Why choose ICAS?

Schools and educators across the world are using ICAS to not only track the individual strengths and weaknesses of their students but also to track their progress on a global scale. They can use this information to motivate their cohort and transmute their weaknesses into strengths. They can also benefit from external validation of their student’s capabilities and reflect on the personal growth for each student. The assessment is also valid, reliable, fair and credible and provides accurate results. It is designed in a manner that engages students and is visually appealing to them.

Certification

On successful completion of the assessment, each student gets a student report. Below is the same report.

Features of the report:

Year of the assessment
Subject
Award
Student’s details.

In addition to the Student report, each participant receives a certificate which is allotted on the following basis:

AWARD	IN EACH CLASS
High Distinction	The top 1% of participants
Distinction	The next 10% of participants
Credit	The next 25% of participants
Merit	The next 10% of participants
Participation	For all remaining participants
Principal's Award	Principals may wish to award this certificate to students who have made progress that may not have been recognised otherwise. The awarding of these Certificates is entirely at the discretion of schools. There are also Subject-wise certificates for School and Subject Coordinators. The percentages allocated to awards are approximate and vary according to the number of students taking each test and the distribution of their scores.

Assessment format

Here is some basic information on the structure and format of the assessment:

• The Assessments consist of a range of questions such as: multiple-choice and free-response questions.
• For the multiple-choice questions, students are required to choose the correct answer from the four possible options.
• For the free response questions, students are needed to write the answers in the boxes provided.
• Each question is for one mark.
• The total score is equal to the total number of correct answers.
• There is no negative marking which means that no marks are deducted for Incorrect answers.
• Questions and the structure of the papers are ordered from the easiest items to the most difficult items.
• The questions in the beginning can be answered by all students while those towards the end of the paper are designed to provide an opportunity for the most able students to demonstrate their skills.
• All the questions are carefully graded to incorporate a wide range of student abilities in contexts that stimulate students' interest.

Assessment components

Now let’s understand a bit more about the kind of skills tested within each subject.

1. English

In the English assessment, students are required to comprehend a variety of texts, infer information from them, interpret their meaning and locate details within them. The types of texts could be novels, picture novels, play scripts, transcripts of interviews, letters, diary entries, advertisements, poems, excerpts from web pages, feature articles, opinion pieces and comic books. These texts are usually designed to include a range of topics within each assessment and may also include tables, diagrams, maps and other visual information for students to interpret.

Also, it is essential to know that the texts increase in complexity in each level. They range from simple texts on familiar topics and go on to complex texts on abstract topics to provide a holistic evaluation of the student’s abilities. The specific areas of assessment include:

• Reading for meaning in factual texts
• Reading for meaning in literary texts
• Syntax
• Textual devices
• Vocabulary

Here is a glimpse of the assessment structure:

CLASS	QUESTION BREAKDOWN	DURATION
2	30 MCQs	40 minutes
3-4	35 MCQs	45 minutes
5-6	40 MCQs	50 minutes
7-8	45 MCQs	55 minutes
9-12	50 MCQs	60 minutes

2. Mathematics

The Mathematics part of the assessment tests the ability of students to solve a variety of problems and to apply mathematical concepts in everyday situations. The type of questions differ according to the level of the students and is listed below:

Papers Introductory, A, B, C, D and E:

• It is not allowed to use calculators in this paper.
• Formal algebra is not tested. There is emphasis on pattern, structure and puzzles instead.
• Formal geometry is not tested (except for a few items in Paper E). This paper focusses on spatial skills.

Papers F, G, H, I and J:

• Calculators are required to crack this paper.
• Formal algebra and formal geometry are tested.

The specific skills tested are:

• Algebra and patterns: This includes patterns of numbers, relationships between numbers and the use of symbols to stand for unknown or variable numbers
• Chance and data: This involves the mathematical treatment of data and statistics
• Measures and units: This is about the properties of the physical world that can be measured, the units used to measure them and the process of measurement
• Number and arithmetic: This is based on the types of numbers, their properties and number operations.
• Space and geometry: The properties of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects in space.

Here is a glimpse of the assessment structure:

CLASS	QUESTION BREAKDOWN	DURATION
2	30 MCQs	35 minutes
3-5	35 MCQs	45 minutes
6-12	35 MCQs	60 minutes

3. Science

ICAS Science does not particularly test the subject knowledge of Science per se, instead it tests your ability to think and apply scientific concepts in real-life scenarios. It may also require you to be familiar with certain basic and age-appropriate subject related information. All such information is usually provided in the instruction to the question.

The common topics to be tested in this paper are: Earth and Beyond (incorporating the Earth Sciences and Astronomy); Energy and Change (incorporating Physics); Life and Living (incorporating Biology and Ecology); Natural and Processed Materials (incorporating Chemistry).

The specific skills tested are:

• Observing and measuring skills: Noting and measuring features of items and phenomena
• Skills of Interpreting data: Interpreting diagrams, tables and graphs
• Skills of Applying the interpreted data: Including inferring, predicting and concluding
• Investigation skills: Experimental design, use of controls, and the notion of ‘fair test’
• Higher-order thinking skills: Including both reasoning and problem-solving abilities

Here is a glimpse of the assessment structure:

CLASS	QUESTION BREAKDOWN	DURATION
2-4	30 MCQs	45 minutes
5-6	35 MCQs	55 minutes
7-12	40 MCQs	60 minutes

4. Digital Technologies

This part of the paper basically tests the technical skills required to succeed in the 21st century. The uniquely designed paper covers content on the following areas: Digital systems comprising hardware and software, operating systems, cloud computing, and data representation; Basic and advanced operations and formatting in word processing, the use of tables, style sheets, animations and different forms of referencing; Making Presentations, making use of integrated multimedia and data visualisation; The use of search engines, emails, web design, social media, online collaborative projects and the application of social and ethical protocols to use a variety of digital technologies; The use of operations to sustain and manage data and databases; Programming principles and concepts which include block-based coding, flowcharts, sequence, loops, pseudocode, algorithms, and desk checking.

The specific skills tested are:

• Databases
• Graphics and multimedia
• Internet use and email programs
• Networks and other communications systems
• Operating systems and computer hardware
• Programming
• Spreadsheets
• Word processing

Here is a glimpse of the assessment structure:

CLASS	QUESTION BREAKDOWN	DURATION
3-4	30 MCQs	30 minutes
5-6	30 MCQs	35 minutes
7-8	35 MCQs	40 minutes
9-10	40 MCQs	45 minutes