Our methodology
Most practice apps count marks. We built AdaptAce to answer a harder question: when a child gets something wrong, what exactly went wrong, and what should they do next?
Practice that mirrors the real test
Our authored practice papers use test blueprints to organise domains, timing and question counts. They are preparation material, not official exam papers or a guarantee of what will appear. Exam formats can change. Here is the Year 5 NAPLAN blueprint used in the app; check current official guidance for your child's actual test.
| Domain | Time | Questions | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading | 50 min | ~39 questions | Comprehension of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts. |
| Writing | 42 min | one prompt | Narrative or persuasive; the genre is not announced in advance, so prepare both. |
| Conventions of Language | 45 min | ~40 questions | Spelling, then grammar and punctuation. |
| Numeracy | 50 min · no calculator | ~42 questions | Number and algebra, measurement and geometry, statistics and probability. |
A living question bank. Educators can author and revise questions, worked solutions and diagnostic tags. Content coverage varies by year and program; practice results are evidence about the questions attempted, not proof of full curriculum coverage.
Pre-defined sets, custom sessions, and full tests
Children do not all need the same thing on the same day, so AdaptAce offers three ways to work, each with its own job.
Pre-defined practice sets
Curated collections our team has authored and sequenced: vocabulary, synonyms, antonyms, words and idioms, with more subjects arriving by year level. Fixed questions in a deliberate order, from warm-up to challenge, with hints and worked solutions throughout. Best scores are tracked per set so revisiting is worth it.
Custom sets and drills
Build a session to order: choose the skills, question formats and length, in practice or exam mode, and the adaptive engine fills it at the right difficulty. Parents and teachers can assign custom work with a due date, and every focus area on the dashboard becomes a one-click drill gathered from the whole question bank.
Tests and exams
Full timed papers that mirror the official structure, sat under real conditions: no hints, flag-for-review, and results only after submission. Alongside the authored papers, a custom mock exam can be generated any time a shorter timed rehearsal is needed.
Wrong answers are data, not failures
In a well-written multiple-choice question, each wrong option is wrong for a specific, predictable reason. We author our distractors that way on purpose, and we tag every one of them with the misconception it detects. When a child picks “hopping” as the correct spelling of “hoping”, we do not record “wrong”. We record double-consonant overgeneralisation, because that is the habit that needs fixing.
Our reading papers alone carry a 25-code diagnostic taxonomy across seven families of reading behaviour. Patterns across sessions surface in the family dashboard as focus areas, each one a single click away from a targeted drill.
Retrieval
Did they find the right detail, or a nearby one? Did they miss a NOT in the question?
Interpretation
Sequence confusion, reversed cause and effect, attaching a quote to the wrong character.
Inference
Staying too literal, or inventing a reason the text never gives.
Vocabulary
Everyday meaning where context demands another; near synonyms of the wrong strength.
Text features & purpose
Spotting a device but missing why the writer used it; mistaking a detail for the purpose.
Visual texts
Reading the wrong row of a table; missing the footnote that changes the answer.
Adaptive where it helps, faithful where it matters
In open practice, AdaptAce tracks your child's ability in each skill separately and selects questions near the edge of what they can do: hard enough to stretch, never so hard that practice becomes discouraging. Recently seen questions are avoided, and answer options are shuffled on every attempt so sets stay fresh.
Exam papers are the deliberate exception: they run in their authored order, exactly as the official tests do, because sections and grouped questions are part of what a student must learn to navigate. Adaptivity trains the skills; fidelity trains the sitting.
Hints that teach, exams that test
Practice mode
- Progressive hints: a nudge first, more help only if asked
- Instant feedback with a worked solution for every question
- Free navigation: skip, return, answer in any order
- Hint use is recorded, so mastery reflects independence
Exam mode
- Server-timed, with auto-submit when time expires
- No hints, and answers never leave the server before submission
- Question palette with flagging for review, like the real test
- Submission asks for confirmation and shows unanswered counts
From results to next steps
After every session, students can review everything or filter to mistakes only, each with its worked solution. Parents see a family dashboard with topic-level strengths and focus areas, ordered by recent scores, with 30-day comparisons only when both periods contain scored work. Practice and assignment links help families choose a targeted next session.
The dashboard calls this Practice performance, not exam readiness. It shows sample size, dates and skills practised. No scored work means “Not assessed yet”, not zero. Group comparisons require the same current practice level and program, at least 10 other children, and at least 3 scored sessions per child in the same period. Each child counts equally. Different questions, difficulty and practice/exam choices still limit comparability.
Writing is reviewed using four practice-rubric areas: ideas, structure, language and conventions. An educator may request an AI draft assessment when that service is configured, or mark manually. The educator finalises the result; pending writing sessions are excluded from scored dashboard summaries. This is not an official exam marking service.
Start with a free 14-day trial
Every child profile begins with two weeks of practice sets, timed papers and progress tracking. No card needed to start.