Preparation and Planning

We recommend that you:

  • Ensure that your administrator has completed an SMS Upload into our Assist site to create assessments, classes, tokens and data entry templates.
  • Before administering a test, you will need to become familiar with the online procedure. LOGIN to your site, Click on the subject you are testing, and activate the Demo button to familiarise yourself  with the test procedure.
  • Find out how long each test is sas you must adhere to the correct timings if you want to use the national norms/scoring. The following timings are the for the test only - remember that you will need approximately 10 minutes of administration (paper or online) in addition to these test times.
    • Mathematics/Adaptive Mathematics - 45 minutes
    • Listening - 40 minutes (students will need their own set of headphones)
    • Reading Comprehension - 45minutes
    • Reading Vocabulary - 25 minutes
    • Punctuation and Grammar - 30 minutes
    • Science, Thinking with Evidence - 45 minutes
    • STAR - timings are different for Years 3-6 and Years 7-9 and for the different sub-tests, please check your manual for these
  • Printing Student Tokens before you set up testing.
  • For listening comprehension, each student will need their own set of earphones.


Administering Online Testing

As students are very familiar with using devices and moving quickly through logins and websites, it is recommended  that classes follow a step-by-step process to ensure that everyone understands the online procedure.


  1. Give students the URL: www.nzceronline.org.nz  and ensure everyone has been able to locate the site.
  2.  Distribute the Student Tokens  face down. When you are ready, invite the students to log in and wait for your instructions.
  3. Work through the Example Questions, one by one, allowing for comments and questions from students. Ensure students do not begin the test.  This will take approx 10mins.

NB: Teachers must control the timing of the test.


 Online Screen Options: allow students to control their Dashboard before the test begins. Changing Options during the test will distract students' thinking and energy.

  1.  Students can choose Online Options  on the examples page. From here, they can choose options for:
    • Font – including dyslexic font
    • Text size
    • Background
  2. Question Preview: At any time, students can see all of the questions at a glance and monitor their progress.
  3. Yellow Progress Slide Bar:  Once the student has begun the test, they can monitor their progress by following the Yellow Slide Bar at the top of the screen.
  4. Timing:  There is an Online Timer  to support students, however it will not stop the test  at the Time Allowance.
  5.  Following the Time Allowance for each test is crucial for the reliability of the scoring.  Teachers must monitor and control the timing, including each Subtest for STAR.
  6. Finishing: Students must click the Finish button at the end of the test to  ensure the data is saved to the online analysis reports. It is important to collect the Student Tokens and dispose of them to protect the data.


What will happen if a student isn't able to complete their online session in one session?

The student's token will remain active until the 'Finish' button is clicked. This means that students can log in again with their token and they will be able to continue their test where they left off.  NB: To use the scoring the test must be completed in the ascribed time.