There is an articulation gap for many students between the literacy practices developed at\udschool and those demanded by higher education. While the school sector is often well attuned\udto the school-leaving assessments, it may not be as aware of the implicit quantitative literacy\ud(QL) demands placed on students in higher education. The National Benchmark Test (NBT) in\udQL provides diagnostic information to inform teaching and learning. The performance of a\udlarge sample of school-leavers who wrote the NBT QL test was investigated (1) to demonstrate\udhow school-leavers performed on this QL test, (2) to explore the relationship between\udperformance on this test and on cognate school-leaving subjects and (3) to provide school\udteachers and curriculum advisors with a sense of the QL demands made on their students.\udDescriptive statistics were used to describe performance and linear regression to explore the\udrelationships between performance in the NBT QL test and on the school subjects Mathematics\udand Mathematical Literacy. Only 13% of the NBT QL scores in the sample were classified as\udproficient and the majority of school-leavers would need support to cope with the QL demands\udof higher education. The results in neither Mathematics nor Mathematical Literacy were good\udpredictors of performance on the NBT QL test. Examination of performance on selected\udindividual items revealed that many students have difficulty with quantitative language and\udwith interpreting data in tables. Given that QL is bound to context, it is important that teachers\uddevelop QL practices within their disciplinary contexts.
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