How to Prepare for ICAS English

ICAS English tests two things, and it helps to prepare for them separately: how well a student reads and understands texts, and how well they handle the conventions of written English. It's multiple choice, online, and pitched a little above grade level.

Part 1: Reading

Students read short texts across different genres — narrative, persuasive, informative, poetry and everyday texts — and answer questions that go beyond just finding a fact:

• Literal comprehension — locating information stated in the text.
• Inference — working out what the writer implies but doesn't say directly.
• Main idea — telling the overall point apart from a supporting detail.
• Vocabulary in context — using surrounding words to pin down a word's meaning.
• Author's purpose & text type — recognising why a text was written and what kind it is.

Part 2: Language Conventions

This is the mechanics of English:

• Grammar — subject–verb agreement, tenses, pronouns, sentence structure.
• Punctuation — apostrophes, commas, capital letters, quotation marks.
• Spelling — including the tricky high-frequency words.
• Vocabulary — word meanings, synonyms and shades of meaning.

A simple practice plan

1. Read widely, then talk about it. Ask “what's the main idea?” and “how do you know how the character feels?” — that's inference and main-idea practice in disguise. Our free lessons on reading for inference and finding the main idea are a good start.
2. Cover the genres. Make sure your child meets narrative, persuasive, informative and poetry texts — ICAS draws from all of them.
3. Drill the conventions little and often. A few grammar, punctuation and spelling questions a day builds the mechanics faster than one long session.
4. Do timed, mixed practice. Combining reading and conventions under gentle time pressure builds the real skill: switching quickly between careful reading and precise mechanics.
5. Always review the working. The learning is in why — read the worked explanation for every question, especially lucky guesses.

Where to practise

PrepPath offers ICAS-style English practice for Years 3, 5 and 7 (Year 9 coming soon) — a timed paper combining Reading and Language Conventions, with a full worked explanation for every question and an estimated award level. Warm up first with our ICAS English sample questions.

A note on “past papers”

Official ICAS English past papers are not distributed free — the only genuine source is ICAS Assessments (icasassessments.com), who sell official practice papers. PrepPath's questions are original, ICAS-style practice — not real ICAS papers, and not affiliated with ICAS Assessments — built to match the format and skills.