Measurements of the excitation and ionization of helium, neon, and argon by positrons of energies between threshold and 50 eV, utilising time-of-flight energy loss spectrometry, are reported. Scattering into forward angles up to 60° is observed and the measurements suggest that sharp forward lobes exist in the angular distributions of positrons scattered following atomic excitation. Multiple scattering corrections to the measurements are described. Comparison is made with the inelastic scattering of electrons by the same atoms, and connections drawn between the present results and those of the recent complementary studies of Griffith et al. and Charlton et al.