AABL Test (Admissions Assessment for Beginning Learners) Online Preparation & Tips – 2025

Gifted and Taletned Tests Question Practice

What Is the AABL Test?

The AABL test (Admissions Assessment for Beginner Learners) is a gifted and talented screening test administered to children ages 4-6 via an iPad and usually takes around 30-50 minutes to complete, including a short break halfway through. The AABL is a fun, interactive test that assesses a child’s verbal and numerical reasoning, primary literacy, and mathematic skills and is either given 1:1 or in small groups by an administrator.

 

The AABL Assessment

The AABL test uses playful, vibrant graphics to assess a child’s verbal and numerical reasoning, primary literacy, and mathematics skills. Their score is then compared to other children at the same level throughout the country. The AABL test is considered incredibly important as it allows primary caregivers and teachers the chance to understand what makes each child unique and how to best address their learning. As with a variety of assessments, a child’s AABL score is only one part of an overall admissions process onto a gifted and talented program.

The AABL test assesses a child’s numerical reasoning and mathematic skills including:

  • Computational skills (addition, subtraction, counting)
  • Mathematical rational (sequencing, ordering, comparing)
  • Mathematical reasoning (solving problems, understanding time and measurement)

It also assesses a child’s verbal reasoning skills, which is a child’s capability to understand questions and give answers appropriately using dialect they hear or images they see. As students’ progress throughout the system, they use their rational thinking skills to reply to questions and give solutions to problems related to what they have read (comprehension).

 

The AABL also measures a child’s early literacy skills, covering a variety of abilities including:

  • Extensive vocabulary
  • Capability to recognize and understand letters, numbers, and shapes
  • Familiarity of phonetics
  • Can recognize pattern and rhyming
  • Understands how to read books and the structure that makes them
  • Can use their imagination to create stories

 

The age of your child determines how they will most often sit the AABL test:

  • Pre-K applicants will sit the test with a practitioner only
  • Kindergarten applicants will sit the test in a room with five other children and a practitioner
  • First grade applicants will sit the test in a room with six other children and a practitioner

 

The AABL test is governed by the ERB (Education Records Bureau) so will often be done away from your child’s school unless their school is a test site. Each child gets to practice a few sample questions before sitting the test, however it is always recommended that your child should have knowledge using an iPad prior to the test if they can as the test can only be sat once within a six-month timeframe.

 

Test Sections on the AABL

The AABL is classed as a kindergarten preparedness test covering the four key subject areas. If you want your child to take the AABL you must first be sure that they are competent in the following abilities.

 

Verbal Reasoning

This section of the test evaluates a student’s capability to answer and understand problems that are offered through images. Your child should be showing that they can confidently:

  • Understand and identify the relationship between two contrasting ideas offered in images by recognizing their communal characteristics
  • Confidently be able to make evaluations and group certain objects together based on their similarities
  • Unearth information to understand complex situations
  • Use deductive reasoning

 

Quantitative Reasoning

This section of the test assesses a student’s ability to confidently use figures and interpret numerical data to crack problems. Your child should be showing that they can confidently:

  • Understand and be able to count, subtract, and other numerical concepts
  • Liken and distinct between two quantities
  • Identify shapes and patterns
  • Infer or deduce solutions to novel problems

 

Early Literacy

This section of the test assesses a child’s ability to understand words and be able to confidently answer questions about a piece of text. Your child should be showing that they can confidently:

  • Rhyme and understand letter knowledge
  • Understand phonics and how words should sound
  • Confidently be able to solve anagrams and word puzzles
  • Read sentences and words with ease

 

Mathematics

This section of the test assesses a child’s mathematic skills and their ability to confidently recognize numbers and solve equations. Your child should be showing that they can confidently:

  • Count up and down with ease
  • Identify patterns in numbers e.g. 2, 4, 6, 8 etc.
  • Simple equations (addition, subtraction etc.)
  • Identify basic forms and structures

 

AABL Scoring

A child’s AABL scores are not based on their individual performances, but on how other children of a similar age perform on the test. The score report includes the following information for each test section; an age-based scaled score, a confidence interval, a percentile rank, a stanine score, and an overall-based scaled score. We have defined these below:

 

Age-Based Scaled Score

Age-Based scaled scores are the result of the raw score (the number of questions the child answered correctly) and compare a child’s score to that of their peers, regardless of test version.

The age-based score shows where a child sits in relation to their age band. Age bands are defined by six-month intervals from the age of four right up to age six years and 11 months. For each age band, the scores range from 40-160, with the average being 100.

 

Confidence Interval

As with everything in life, there is always a degree of variability. This means that if a child were to repeat the test again tomorrow, their score would vary slightly. The confidence interval score aims to explain this level of variance based on a child’s confidence in answering the questions.

 

Percentile rank

Percentile ranks show a child’s performance comparative to all the children in the same age band that took the test. Scores range from 1 to 99. A percentile rank of 80 means the child scored as well, or higher than 80% of all children in their group.

 

Stanine

A stanine result is like the percentile. It only has nine values and is often used by schools’ admission officers when grouping children together by ability level or assessment results.

 

Overall-Based Scaled Score

This score considers all the scores of children that have taken the AABL test in the reference group. The score is comparable for all school applicants and uses the average performance of the overall sample as a guide of how each child has performed. The overall scores range from 380-620, with 500 being considered average.

 

AABL Tips

Tips to make preparing for the AABL test fun:

  • Play games with your child, including brain training games on the iPad – brain training games are great for the AABL test as they teach your child a variety of important things they will need on the test.
  • Listen to audio books in the car – vocabulary and language skills are two important skills that your child will need throughout their life and on the AABL test. Listening to fun stories is a great way to expand your little one’s mind and creativity. It is also a good way to get their comprehension skills up too as you can ask them about the book.

 

How to Prepare for the AABL Test?

The AABL test is administered using an iPad, and while focusing on the types of questions they will likely encounter in the test is the most important thing they can do to prepare, gaining an understanding of how an iPad works won’t do them any harm.

The best way to prepare your child for the AABL test is to do practice tests with them online and on the iPad. This will not only ensure your child is familiar with the layout of the test, but it will also give you both a key insight to the types of questions that may come up on the test.  We always recommend making a study plan around 6 months before your child is due to take their test. This study plan should include plenty of time for practice tests and study games. Practice tests allow children to see the types of questions that are often found on the actual AABL test. Additionally, practice tests come with explanations. Explanations help to show your child why each answer was answered the way it was so that your child can learn from this and understand next time something similar comes.

The content found on the AABL test is unlike traditional testing material, meaning the test format may be unfamiliar for some children. By preparing with online tests, your child will not feel so overwhelmed when it comes to sitting the real deal.