Show your child how to take a poem stanza by stanza, then step back for the poet's feeling.
Practice test 1 is free. No card needed.
Poetry questions ask what a poem's images show and how the poet feels, so your child reads closely, stanza by stanza. Children in Year 5 now sit the ASET, which can include a poem, on 6 March 2027.
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The handbook says Reading Comprehension texts may be fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama, with diagrams, tables, charts or maps. A poem packs a lot into a few lines, so its questions reward slow reading.
These three are ours, on one short poem about an old farm windmill. They move from one stanza (a group of lines) to the poet's feeling across the whole poem.
Each shows the answer and the working. As you read them together, ask your child to read aloud the stanza each question names. Then ask which words made the picture, and check those against the right option.
On the rise behind the shearing shed the windmill stands, all bones and blades, its tail fin swinging north, then west, to find whatever breeze has strayed.
Through drought it turned, through dust and frost, it creaked its single rusty note, and drew up water, cold and deep, for every thirsty calf and goat.
Now pipes run from the town supply; the trough is filled at the turn of a tap. Yet still, each windy afternoon, the blades spin round with a clack and a snap,
as if it's waiting, patient, sure, for dry years it has known before.
According to the second stanza, what job did the windmill do?
Answer: D
Answer: D
A stanza is a group of lines in a poem. The second one says the windmill 'drew up water, cold and deep, / for every thirsty calf and goat'. Option A may come from the 'rusty note' it creaked, but that is the sound it made, not its job.
The windmill is described as 'all bones and blades'. This suggests that it
Answer: B
Answer: B
Poets often describe one thing as if it were another. 'Bones' makes the windmill's frame sound like a skeleton: thin and bare, with nothing covering it. Option A reads the word literally. D clashes with the rest of the poem, which gives the windmill a 'rusty' note and calls it old in the title.
Which best describes the poet's attitude to the windmill across the whole poem?
Answer: C
Answer: C
Gather evidence from every stanza. It worked 'through drought' and 'through dust and frost', and at the end it waits 'patient, sure', which are words of respect. D picks up stanza three, but 'Yet still' turns the poem back to the windmill. Nothing suggests taking it down (A), and the poet never complains about its sounds (B).
Take the poem slowly, then go to the lines each question names. Our poetry questions ask what the words show, not only what they say.
The ASET is on paper, in pencil, so your child can number the stanzas in the margin before reading the questions. A question about the third stanza then takes no time to find.
First for the picture or story, then slowly for the words.
When a question names a stanza, find that group of lines and answer from it.
When a poet describes one thing as another, ask what the two share. 'Bones' makes the windmill sound thin and bare.
For the poet's attitude, collect a word or two from each stanza, and watch for turning words like 'Yet still'.
These traps come from the worked questions on the poem. Read them once you have gone through the questions together, and ask which line each answer comes from.
Reading an image literally: 'all bones and blades' doesn't mean the windmill is made of bones. It means a bare frame, like a skeleton.
Sound for job: the 'rusty note' is the noise the windmill makes, not the work it did. Its job was drawing up water for the animals.
Stopping halfway: the third stanza says the town supply has replaced the windmill, but 'Yet still' turns the poem back to it, with respect.
A short poem a week, read aloud, is plenty. Poems are short, so there's time to talk about a single line and what it makes you see.
Three worked explanations show the method. A full Reading Comprehension test, 35 questions in 35 minutes, shows how your child handles a poem among stories and information texts.
Practice test 1 is free; its results by skill show whether poetry costs marks. For more, see our ASET reading sample questions and the guide to ASET Reading.
Not necessarily. The handbook lists poetry among the kinds of text the test can use, so it's worth practising, but it doesn't promise a poem in every test.
Year 6 children in Perth metro, Bunbury and Albany sit it on 6 March 2027. Regional WA and interstate dates are on the ASET dates page.
Practice test 1 marks every answer and shows results by skill: what your child already does well and the three skills to work on next.
Practise for the real test
Practice test 1 is free. Then packs from A$109 for 12 months, or A$9 a week, per exam.