If your child is sitting the GATE test in Western Australia, you’ve probably discovered how little clear information there is about what preparation actually involves. This post walks through exactly how our GATE Reading & Writing Prep course is structured — all 20 lessons — so you can see what your child would be doing week by week.
- 20lessons per course
- 1 hrper lesson
- 3–8students per class
- 10 + 10reading + writing
First, What the GATE Test Actually Asks For
Western Australia’s academic GATE placement uses the Academic Selective Entrance Test (ASET), which has four parts: reading comprehension, writing, quantitative reasoning and abstract reasoning.
This course covers the reading and writing sections.
The critical thing for parents to understand is that ASET is not a test of school curriculum. It doesn’t reward memorisation. It measures whether a child can process unfamiliar material quickly and hold a structure together under time pressure — most notably in the writing task, which gives students roughly 25 minutes to plan, write and finish a complete piece.
That’s why general English tutoring often doesn’t transfer to GATE results. A child can write beautifully with an hour and no pressure, and still fall apart at 25 minutes with an unseen prompt. The skill being tested is different, so the preparation has to be different.
How the 20 Lessons Are Structured
The course runs in four phases of five lessons, alternating between reading and writing so neither skill goes cold. Difficulty and time pressure increase deliberately across the phases — students are not thrown into exam conditions in week one.
Phase 1 — Foundations
Establish the core techniques with no time pressure. Students learn the methods properly before speed is added.
| Lesson | Focus | What happens in the hour |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reading | How ASET reading questions are built — and why the answer is always in the text. Close-reading method introduced. |
| 2 | Writing | Planning a piece in under three minutes. The structure students will reuse all course. |
| 3 | Reading | Literal vs. inferential questions — recognising which kind you’re being asked, because they need different approaches. |
| 4 | Writing | Co-construction: teacher and students build one piece together, sentence by sentence, thinking aloud. |
| 5 | Reading | Vocabulary in context — working out unfamiliar words from surrounding text rather than guessing. |
Phase 2 — Building Technique
Harder texts, more sophisticated writing. Students start producing independently, with feedback after every piece.
| Lesson | Focus | What happens in the hour |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Writing | Openings that work under pressure — how to start without wasting four minutes deciding. |
| 7 | Reading | Author’s purpose, tone and viewpoint — the question types students most often lose marks on. |
| 8 | Writing | Developing a middle section with real substance instead of repeating the opening idea. |
| 9 | Reading | Non-fiction and information texts — a common weak spot for strong story readers. |
| 10 | Writing | Sentence variety and precise word choice — what lifts a piece from correct to impressive. |
Phase 3 — Adding the Clock
This is where preparation becomes exam-specific. Every task from here is timed, and students learn to work to the clock.
| Lesson | Focus | What happens in the hour |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | Writing | First full 25-minute timed piece, then unpacked together as a class. |
| 12 | Reading | Timed comprehension — pacing across a passage without running out of time on the last questions. |
| 13 | Writing | Responding to an unseen prompt: how to find an angle fast when you don’t like the topic. |
| 14 | Reading | Elimination strategy — narrowing options when two answers both look right. |
| 15 | Writing | Editing in the final two minutes — the highest-value habit most students never practise. |
Phase 4 — Full Exam Conditions
Complete practice papers under real conditions, with individual feedback on each student’s specific pattern of errors.
| Lesson | Focus | What happens in the hour |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | Reading | Full timed reading section under exam conditions. |
| 17 | Writing | Full timed writing task, marked against the criteria assessors actually use. |
| 18 | Reading | Second full reading section — measuring improvement against Lesson 16. |
| 19 | Writing | Second full writing task, with individual feedback on each student’s recurring weak point. |
| 20 | Reading Writing | Consolidation and exam-day strategy — timing plan, nerves, and what to do if a question stumps you. |
Why Classes Are Capped at 8 Students
Writing can’t be taught to a large group. Every timed piece a student produces needs to be read and responded to individually — and with 3 to 8 students in a class, that’s realistic rather than aspirational.
It also means your child gets asked questions. In a class of 25, a quiet child can go a full term without being pushed to explain their thinking. In a class of six, they can’t.
The Method: Co-Construction
Most writing instruction shows children a finished example and asks them to produce something similar. The problem is that they’ve seen the destination but not the route.
Co-construction means the teacher and students build a piece together, in real time — deciding on the angle, choosing each sentence, changing what isn’t working, and talking through why. Students see the thinking, not just the outcome.
Then they do it themselves. That transfer, from watching to doing, is the entire point — because in the exam there’s no example to copy.
Practical Details
- Length: 20 lessons, one hour each.
- Class size: 3–8 students.
- Format: live online via Google Classroom — join from home, anywhere in Australia.
- Teacher: Reinette, a qualified teacher with a degree in English Literature and Primary Education.
- Suits: students preparing for the GATE / ASET reading and writing sections.
Mica Academy teaches this course live online, so your child can work with a qualified English tutor whether you’re in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or anywhere else in Australia.
Not sure whether your child is ready for this course? Book a free assessment and we’ll tell you exactly where they stand.