GATE / ASET · WESTERN AUSTRALIA
ON THIS PAGE
What the GATE exam is and who sits it
GATE or ASET: why the test has two names
How the GATE test is put together
Abstract reasoning
Quantitative reasoning
Reading comprehension
Written expression
How competitive the GATE exam is
Where the GATE programs are offered
GATE exam dates: the application timeline
What happens after the test
How families prepare, and when to start
Common mistakes to avoid
Start with the free sample paper
The test is sat in March each year, for Year 7 entry the following year. Every applicant for a Gifted and Talented program sits it, including those applying for the arts and languages programs.
What a parent needs to know first.
The test is run by the WA Department of Education for its Gifted and Talented Secondary Selective Entrance programs. The Gifted and Talented Selection Unit coordinates the process. The paper is built and marked by ACER.
Students sit it in Year 6, for a place in Year 7 the following year. Applications start while they are in Year 5.
Applications open in October and close in February of the student’s Year 6 year.
A late application is only considered in exceptional and extenuating circumstances, and only before testing starts.
One test covers every program. A student sits once and lists up to three program preferences on the application.
The test is not curriculum-based. It looks at how a child reasons under time pressure, not what they have memorised in class.
GATE stands for Gifted and Talented Education, the everyday name for the programs and the test. The Department calls the programs Gifted and Talented Secondary Selective Entrance programs, and it calls the test the Academic Selective Entrance Test, or ASET.
So the two terms sit side by side.
GATE is the umbrella. It covers the selective programs themselves, which run as academic, arts and languages streams at 24 select public secondary schools.
ASET is the exam. Every applicant sits it, and the academic programs rank their offers on it.
Schools, tutors and parents still say GATE exam, GATE test and GATE tutoring out of habit.
Official letters, the application portal and test-day paperwork say ASET.
Neither name has anything to do with the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering run in India. If a search result talks about engineering degrees, it is the wrong GATE.
Both names point to the same test. Our short post on the difference between GATE and ASET has the history.
The ASET has four sub-tests of equal value: abstract reasoning, quantitative reasoning, reading comprehension and written expression, which the Department calls Communicating Ideas in Writing.
Three sections are multiple choice with four options, A to D. Each has its own question booklet, and all answers go into one shared answer booklet, in pencil, because it is read by a scanner. Communicating Ideas in Writing is the only section where the child produces their own work, and it is one hand-written task.
The sections are sat in a fixed order, each on its own clock: reading comprehension 35 minutes for 35 questions, Communicating Ideas in Writing 25 minutes for one task, a 10 minute break, quantitative reasoning 35 minutes for 35 questions, then abstract reasoning 20 minutes for 35 questions. The whole sitting runs about 2 hours 50 minutes including instructions and rest breaks. These figures are set per intake, so check the current Applicant Guidelines.
Our blog post on what is in the ASET lists the most recently published section order, timings and question counts.
Two things about the shape of the test matter more than any timing. It is a ranking, not a pass or fail exam. The four sub-tests are of equal value and are combined into one Total Standard Score, so your child is compared with every other applicant. Each multiple choice question is worth one mark, and nothing is deducted for a wrong answer, which means a blank is never better than a guess. And it is built to reward reasoning under time pressure, not memorised content.
The next four sections cover each part of the paper: what it asks, what it really measures, where children lose marks, and one thing you can do at home. For worked examples, see GATE practice questions.
What it asks. Questions made of shapes, not words or numbers. A grid with one cell missing. A sequence where the child picks what comes next. A group where one shape does not belong.
What it is really testing. Whether a child can find a rule in unfamiliar material and apply it quickly. There is no content to revise. The rule might be count, rotation, shading, size or position, and often two at once.
What trips children up.
Never having seen the question type. In our experience abstract reasoning is rarely taught in primary school, so many children meet it for the first time in the test.
Spotting one rule and stopping. Many questions have two rules working together.
Getting stuck. Minutes spent on one hard question cost several easier marks.
One thing a parent can do. Sit your child with the abstract reasoning pages of the free sample paper and watch without helping. If they can say the rule out loud before choosing, they have the skill and need speed. If they cannot say why, they are guessing, and a method will lift them fast.
What it asks. Number problems in words, tables and simple charts. Number patterns. Sharing, ratio and rate questions. No calculator. Calculators, rulers and protractors are all on the Department’s list of items that are not allowed in the test room.
What it is really testing. Reasoning with quantities, not remembered procedures. The arithmetic is within reach of an upper primary student. The difficulty is reading exactly what is asked, choosing a route, and finishing without slips.
What trips children up.
Answering the wrong question. The problem asks how many are left, and the child gives how many were used. That wrong option is always offered.
Doing the long calculation when an estimate would do. Options are often far enough apart that rounding finds the answer.
Unit and place value slips under time pressure. Minutes and hours, cents and dollars, a lost zero.
One thing a parent can do. Before your child works any word problem, have them say in one sentence what is being asked, then estimate the answer before calculating. Five minutes of this a few evenings a week does more than an hour of sums.
What it asks. Passages followed by questions. The passages range across fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama, and can include diagrams, tables, charts and maps, so a child moves between very different kinds of text inside one section. Some questions ask for a fact stated in the text. Harder ones ask what a character felt, why the writer chose a word, or what the passage implies but never says.
What it is really testing. Careful reading and the confidence to reject an answer that sounds right. Wrong options are written to be plausible. They often reuse words from the passage, or state something true that the passage does not say.
What trips children up.
Answering from their own knowledge instead of the text. The question is about what the passage says, not what is true.
Picking the option with the most words from the passage. Test writers build that trap deliberately.
Running out of time on the last passage, because they read the first one twice.
One thing a parent can do. When you read together, ask “how do you know” and have your child put a finger on the line that proves it, even when they answer correctly. If they cannot point to the evidence, the right answer was luck.
What it asks. One timed piece of writing, hand-written in the answer booklet, in response to a prompt the child does not see until the test starts. The prompt can be an image, written text, or both, and it stays face-down until the clock starts. No text type is announced in advance.
What it is really testing. Ideas, structure and control of language, under a clock. At least two independent markers score each response. The Department says handwriting, spelling and punctuation have little impact provided the work is readable. Markers want a clear opening, a middle that develops one or two ideas properly, and an ending that was planned rather than hit by the bell.
What trips children up.
No plan. The first page is strong and the piece collapses in the last third.
Forcing a prepared story onto a prompt it does not suit. Markers can tell.
Handwriting that speeds up and breaks down. A marker who cannot read a sentence cannot credit it.
One thing a parent can do. Once a week, set a prompt and a timer. Have your child write a three or four line plan first, then read the finished piece aloud to you. Children hear their own missing words and weak endings far better than they see them.
The Department says selection is highly competitive. Every academic program has a set number of Year 7 places each year, and the most sought-after programs fill from the top of the ranking.
Every applicant sits the same test in the same short window, so the field is state-wide, not school-wide.
The top of a local primary class is competing with the top of every other class in WA.
Perth Modern School is the only school in WA where all students are selected through the ASET, so demand for its up to 225 Year 7 places is the highest. The other programs are spread across Perth and regional WA, as the next section explains.
Preferences matter. An applicant may list up to three programs, and receives an offer for the highest preference they qualify for.
One honest note. Natural ability plays a real part. Preparation does not turn an average reader into a top one in a term. It removes the disadvantage of never having seen the question types, and it gives a method for each section so test day is about thinking, not decoding the format.
The GATE exam is one test, but it feeds a spread of programs across the state.
The Gifted and Talented programs run as academic, arts and languages streams at 24 select public secondary schools in WA.
Perth Modern School is the only school in WA where all students are selected through the ASET. It offers up to 225 Year 7 places each year.
The other schools run their academic programs inside schools that also take a local intake. A child offered a place can enrol full-time at that school even if the family lives outside its local catchment area.
There is an online academic program for regional students.
Regional students do not travel to Perth to sit the test. Venues are arranged in the child’s own education region.
Each program has a set number of Year 7 places. The Department lists the participating schools and their vacancies in the Applicant Guidelines for each intake, and the list changes each cycle, so check the current guidelines before you set your three preferences.
The GATE exam runs on the same rhythm every year. The month matters more than the exact date, because the exact dates are set fresh for each intake.
October, child in Year 5. Applications open.
February, child in Year 6. Applications close. After this, a late application is considered only in exceptional and extenuating circumstances, and only before testing starts.
March, child in Year 6. Testing. It happens in a short window rather than on one day, and regional students sit in their own region.
End of May or early June. The Department emails each family an ASET performance report with the four sub-test scores and a Total Standard Score.
After the reports. Academic offers are ranked on the Total Standard Score and made in two rounds, then from the reserve list.
For the most recent published cycle, the 2027 Year 7 intake, metro, Albany and Bunbury students sat on Saturday 7 March 2026, regional centres sat on 9 or 10 March 2026, and adjusted-conditions testing ran from 17 to 27 March 2026 at Tuart College. That sitting has passed. The Department has not yet published the key dates for the next intake. We will update this section when it does.
The papers are marked by ACER, the Australian Council for Educational Research. Every score is standardised by comparing the child’s raw score with the whole cohort. The scores are not percentages or percentile ranks.
The outcome is an offer, a reserve list place, or an unsuccessful notification.
An offer can be accepted, declined, held or withdrawn. A place that is not taken up passes to the next ranked applicant, and later to the reserve list.
A child cannot sit the testing for the same intake more than once, in any year. One application window, one sitting, one outcome.
There is no syllabus to learn for the GATE exam. There are question types to become fluent in, and a method to build for each section.
Most families who prepare well do some version of this.
Start in Year 4 or 5, not the term before. Reasoning skills build over months, and a rushed run-up mostly adds stress.
See the real question types early. Abstract reasoning in particular is a shock the first time. Our free sample ASET questions show what the paper looks like.
Practise to a clock. Every section is timed. A child who can answer everything slowly still loses marks on the day.
Sit a full mock exam under test conditions. A quiet room, a clock, no help. We run free GATE mock exams in Perth at Curtin University during school holidays, and the October 2026 mock exam is open now.
Write, and get the writing marked. Written expression is the section parents find hardest to help with at home. Feedback on ideas and structure matters more than feedback on spelling.
Some families do this at home. Others join a class so the method is taught and the homework is marked. Our Year 4 and 5 GATE and ASET small group classes run weekly at Perth Modern School and Leeming Senior High School, led personally by Sagar Badve, a former Head Boy of Perth Modern School who has taught this exam for ten years. Weekly homework, a full practice exam and the personalised learning platform are included. Details are on our GATE tutoring Perth page. If you are still weighing up options, we compare group and private tutoring and set out how to choose a GATE tutor.
The same few mistakes show up every cycle.
Missing the application deadline. The test cannot be sat without an application, and a late one is only considered in exceptional and extenuating circumstances.
Treating it as a harder version of school maths and English. It is a reasoning test. Drilling times tables will not help with abstract reasoning.
Leaving writing to the end. Written expression is often the section with the widest gap between untrained and trained students.
Skipping a full-length mock. Stamina and pacing across the whole paper cannot be practised in twenty minute bursts.
Comparing a child’s raw score on a practice paper with a cut-off score. The Department does publish each program’s minimum entrance score for 2019 to 2025 and a general minimum Total Standard Score of 210, but those are standardised scores, not raw marks, and the Department warns they are a poor predictor of the next year’s cut-off.
If your child is in Year 4 or 5 and you would like structured weekly preparation, Term 4 classes start in October at Perth Modern School and Leeming Senior High School. Details and enrolment are on our group class page.
ELG Tutoring, formerly ASET Expert. Helping students prepare for the ASET, GATE and NAPLAN exams with proven strategies and expert mentorship.
Guides
The Platform
Adaptive practice, instant feedback, and clear progress tracking, anytime.
© 2026 ELG Tutoring. All rights reserved. NAPLAN is a registered trademark of ACARA. Not affiliated with or endorsed by ACARA.