If you feel that your high school results or Australian Tertiary Admission Rank will not be high enough to get you into university, or into the course of your choice, you may wish to sit uniTEST. However, you should first check that the university you wish to apply to will accept uniTEST scores.

Sitting uniTEST provides another piece of information about you to the universities. The universities will then consider your high school results or ATAR and uniTEST score, if you perform well on uniTEST. In Australia, if you don't perform well you will not be disadvantaged as the universities will then only consider your ATAR.

Sitting uniTEST can only be advantageous to you and your admission to university as it gives you an alternative pathway to enter university.

uniTEST assesses a student's capacity to reason in a range of familiar and less familiar contexts which do not require subject specific knowledge. It is expected that the wider the range of contexts that a student is able to reason in, the more successful they are likely to be in applying these skills in new contexts and future study.

Reasoning in the domains of mathematics and science is described as quantitative and formal reasoning and includes the application of generally accessible quantitative, scientific and technological information - including numbers, tables, graphs, text and diagrams.

The kinds of reasoning typically elicited in the domains of arts, humanities and the social sciences are described here as verbal and plausible reasoning. This encompasses verbal and visual comprehension, plausible reasoning, holistic judgments about meaning, and socio-cultural understandings (e.g. the interpretation of subjective human constructs).

Critical reasoning addresses general reasoning elicited in both the broad domains and is relevant to a range of courses including scientific, technical, business humanities and social sciences.

This reasoning is assessed by means of a 95 item multiple choice test taken over 150 minutes.

uniTEST is developed to rigorous professional and technical standards. Test questions are designed and developed by teams of test writers expert in their fields. All test questions must pass detailed panelling, trial testing, analysis and final review. The content, style and duration of the test are determined to ensure the testing program is relevant, fair, valid and reliable.

uniTEST test data are subjected to statistical analysis to check that each test question has performed as required. Test questions in development are carefully scrutinised in an ongoing attempt to minimise gender, ethnic or religious bias, and to ensure the test is culturally fair.

The test may contain a small number of trial questions which will not contribute to candidate scores.

ACER will not disclose personal information collected for the purposes of uniTEST to any third party other than the participating universities.

uniTEST candidates sign a statement acknowledging that their test results may be used by relevant authorities for research into the uniTEST program. Candidates are assured that any use of their registration and test records will be treated with the utmost confidentiality. Candidate names will be separated from data in any research undertaken.  You may wish to refer to ACER’s policy on the collection, access to and use of personal information. 

The uniTEST Office protects candidate privacy through its policy of only discussing registration, results and other test related issues with candidates themselves and not with third parties unless specifically authorised by a candidate.