: Introduction

The assessments included six tasks which asked the students to identify or generate appropriate questions that should help to obtain required information. Four of the tasks required generation of questions, while the other two involved selection of questions from several provided. Generation or selection of appropriate questions is a vital information skill.

Five tasks were identical for both year 4 and year 8, and one task was attempted only by year 8 students. Two of the tasks which were given to both year 4 and year 8 students have been selected as link tasks (to be used again in the year 2001) and therefore are not described in detail here. The other tasks are released tasks for which full details are given.

The tasks are presented in the following order:

Year 8 students enjoyed substantially more success than year 4 students. Indeed, on most of the tasks about half of the year 4 students achieved little of merit. Year 8 students struggled with Fire Fighters Project, which asked them to take a different perspective than they would have taken in most of their encounters with fire safety issues. Furthermore, on Link Task 1 only about 20 percent of year 8 students generated questions that were judged likely to produce a substantial amount of really useful information. Clearly there is substantial scope for improvement in the skill of asking appropriate questions.