Free · Timed · 25 minutes · Years 6–8

Free Scholarship Practice Test — 30 Questions, 25 Minutes, Instant Results

A free, timed sample in the style of the ACER and Edutest scholarship papers: 30 multiple-choice questions across mathematics and reading and language, drawn from our Year 6, 7 and 8 banks at the stretch and challenge tiers, 25 minutes on the clock, marked instantly with a section breakdown. Part of RHZ Tutoring's 3,261 free practice questions. No sign-up.

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⏱ 25-minute countdown, auto-marked📊 Section breakdown: maths reasoning · reading & language📚 3,261 free practice questions

Free practice quizzes › Scholarship practice test · Selective Entry practice test

The practice test: 30 questions in 25 minutes

Two sections. Press Start the timer, answer every question you can, and press Mark my test before the clock runs out, or it will be marked automatically. Set 10234 · New set of questions →

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Section 1: Maths reasoning (15 questions)

Question 1
Maths reasoning · Integers & operations

A submarine is at a depth of −240 m. It rises at 15 m per minute. Which expression gives the depth after t minutes, and how many whole minutes does it take to reach a depth of −30 m?

Question 2
Maths reasoning · Algebra & linear equations

Two friends save money each week. Aisha starts with $80 and saves $15 per week. Ben starts with $20 and saves $25 per week. After how many weeks will Ben have MORE money than Aisha for the FIRST time?

Question 3
Maths reasoning · Indices

Which value of n makes this equation true? 4^n × 2^(n+1) = 2^13

Question 4
Maths reasoning · Algebra & linear equations

A rectangle has a perimeter of 58 cm. Its length is 5 cm more than twice its width. What is the area of the rectangle in cm²?

Question 5
Maths reasoning · Statistics & probability

A data set of 6 values has a mean of 12. When one value is removed, the mean of the remaining 5 values becomes 11. What was the value that was removed? (Ignore this — see next question.) A spinner has 8 equal sections numbered 1 to 8. Zara spins it twice. What is the probability that BOTH spins land on an even number?

Question 6
Maths reasoning · Integers

On a number line, point A is at −8 and point B is at 3. Point C is exactly halfway between A and B. What is the value of point C?

Question 7
Maths reasoning · Statistics & probability

A data set has five whole numbers listed in order: 3, 6, k, 14, 19. The mean of all five values is 11 and the median is k. A student says: 'There is exactly one whole number value of k that satisfies both conditions.' Is the student correct, and why?

Question 8
Maths reasoning · Integers & operations

A lift starts at floor −2 (two floors below ground). It goes up 5 floors, then down 8 floors, then up 3 floors. A student claims the lift is now 2 floors below where it started. Is the student correct, and what floor is the lift on?

Question 9
Maths reasoning · Percentages & rates

At the start of 2023, Mia's investment was worth $P. By mid-year, its value had fallen by 20%. By the end of 2023, the mid-year value had risen by 35%. At the start of 2024, that end-of-year value then fell by 10%. Which expression correctly gives the investment's value at the start of 2024, and is the overall change a gain or a loss?

Question 10
Maths reasoning · Fraction & decimal operations

Which fraction is exactly halfway between 1/3 and 5/6 on a number line?

Question 11
Maths reasoning · Pythagoras

A right-angled triangle has legs of length 3 cm and 4 cm. A student draws a new right-angled triangle by adding 2 cm to each leg, giving legs of 5 cm and 6 cm. The student claims: 'Because I added the same amount to each leg, the hypotenuse also increased by exactly 2 cm.' Which statement is correct?

Question 12
Maths reasoning · Algebraic thinking

A shop sells pens for $3 each and notebooks for $5 each. Maya spends exactly $29 buying at least one of each item. How many pens does Maya buy?

Question 13
Maths reasoning · Algebraic thinking

Jake says: 'If I double my number and add 6, I get the same answer as multiplying my number by 3 and subtracting 4.' Write and solve an equation to find Jake's number.

Question 14
Maths reasoning · Equations

Marcus and Priya each think of a number. Marcus's number is three times Priya's number. If you subtract 8 from Marcus's number, you get twice Priya's number. What is Priya's number?

Question 15
Maths reasoning · Integers

The temperature in a city changes by the same amount each hour. At 6 am the temperature is −10°C. At 10 am it is 6°C. What is the temperature at noon?

Section 2: Reading & language (15 questions)

Question 16
Reading & language · Persuasive & creative writing

A student wants to persuade readers that school uniforms should be abolished. She writes: 'Uniforms crush creativity and make students miserable.' Which revision would make this argument MOST persuasive, and why?

Question 17
Reading & language · Comprehension

Read this passage. "The journalist's article opened: 'A brave group of protesters stood their ground outside parliament.' A second journalist covering the same event wrote: 'A group of demonstrators gathered outside parliament.'" Which technique most clearly reveals bias in the first journalist's report, and how does it shape the reader's interpretation?

Question 18
Reading & language · Persuasive & creative writing

A student is writing a short story. She wants the reader to feel the main character's grief without ever using the word 'sad.' She writes: 'He made two cups of tea. He stood at the bench for a long time before he remembered.' Which explanation most precisely identifies how this technique creates emotional effect?

Question 19
Reading & language · Comprehension

Read this passage, then answer the question. "Two articles reported on the same school's decision to ban mobile phones. The first read: 'Westfield Secondary has taken a bold step to improve student focus, joining a growing number of schools committed to distraction-free learning.' The second read: 'Westfield Secondary this week banned students from carrying mobile phones during school hours, a policy that has divided opinion among parents and staff.'" Which statement best explains how the two articles construct different impressions of the same event?

Question 20
Reading & language · Text response & analysis

Two newspaper articles report the same house fire. Article 1 headline: 'Family loses everything in tragic blaze'. Article 2 headline: 'Negligent homeowners cause street evacuation'. Which technique most clearly reveals Article 2 writer's bias, and why?

Question 21
Reading & language · Persuasive & creative writing

A student writes this opening paragraph for a persuasive essay arguing that homework should be abolished: 'Students are drowning in homework. Every night, millions of young Australians sit alone at kitchen tables, exhausted, while their families watch TV without them.' Her teacher says the paragraph is 'vivid but one-sided'. Which revision would make the argument STRONGER without removing the emotional appeal?

Question 22
Reading & language · Phonics & spelling

A student claims: 'When a word ends in a consonant + y, you always change the y to i before adding any suffix.' Which example BEST shows that this rule is incomplete?

Question 23
Reading & language · Persuasive & creative writing

A persuasive essay on reducing screen time for teenagers includes this paragraph: 'Of course, technology has brought enormous benefits to education. Interactive apps, online research, and video tutorials have transformed how students learn. Yet when the same screens that educate by day keep teenagers awake until midnight, the cost becomes too high to ignore.' What does the phrase 'Of course' at the start of this paragraph signal to the reader?

Question 24
Reading & language · Vocabulary & grammar

Read this sentence: 'The boy who always sat at the back of the class, who rarely spoke, who seemed invisible to everyone, raised his hand.' What is the most likely reason the writer uses three relative clauses before the main verb rather than a single description?

Question 25
Reading & language · Comprehension

Read this passage, then answer the question. "Nadia had not spoken to her best friend in three weeks. She told herself it did not matter. She rearranged her bookshelf twice that afternoon, reorganised her pencil case, and made a list of things she needed to do — none of which were urgent." What do Nadia's actions in the second and third sentences most strongly suggest?

Question 26
Reading & language · Phonics & spelling

Look at the four words below: • 'referred' • 'offered' • 'preferred' • 'suffered' A student claims: 'When you add "-ed" to a verb ending in "-fer", you always double the final r.' Which word is the BEST evidence that this claim is WRONG, and what rule does it actually follow?

Question 27
Reading & language · Speaking & listening

During a class fishbowl discussion, four students sit in the inner circle and debate, while the rest observe. After ten minutes, the teacher asks the observers: 'What did you notice about how the inner group managed disagreement?' One observer says, 'They kept talking over each other when they disagreed.' Another says, 'They only built on ideas they already agreed with.' A third says, 'They never summarised what had been decided before moving to a new point.' Which observation identifies the most significant barrier to productive group discussion?

Question 28
Reading & language · Reading & comprehension

A story narrator says: 'I told Jess it was a great idea.' Later the narrator thinks: 'I had said what she needed to hear.' What does the second sentence reveal about the narrator that the first sentence hides?

Question 29
Reading & language · Reading & comprehension

A novel uses third-person narration throughout. In the final chapter, for one paragraph only, the narration switches to first person: 'I had known all along it would end this way. I just hadn't let myself say it.' Then it switches back to third person. What is the most likely effect of this sudden shift?

Question 30
Reading & language · Persuasive & creative writing

A student is writing a persuasive essay arguing that teenagers should be allowed to vote at 16. She writes this body paragraph: 'Sixteen-year-olds can drive, pay taxes, and leave school — yet they cannot vote on the laws that govern all these choices. This is not a privilege we are asking for. It is a right that logic demands.' She then begins her next paragraph with a new argument. What is the most significant structural weakness in this paragraph?

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What this scholarship practice test contains

Thirty multiple-choice questions in two timed sections. Section 1, Maths reasoning, has fifteen questions drawn from our Year 6, Year 7 and Year 8 maths banks: number and algebra, ratio and rates, measurement, geometry, statistics and probability, with the stretch and challenge tiers preferred so most items sit above the year level a Year 6 student is used to. Section 2, Reading & language, has fifteen questions from the same three years of our English banks: comprehension of short literary and informative passages, inference, vocabulary in context, spelling, grammar and punctuation. Every set is seeded, so the link you are on shows the same questions each time and a new seed gives a fresh set. The clock is 25 minutes for the lot, which is deliberately tight: roughly fifty seconds a question, which is close to the pace of the real scholarship papers.

The answer key is not in the page. When you press Mark my test, or when the timer reaches zero, the browser asks our server for the key for this exact set, marks every question, shows the correct answer and an explanation with the year level of each item, and breaks the score down by section and by topic. Unanswered questions count as wrong, as they do in the real exam, so it is worth answering everything before the time runs out.

About the Victorian Selective Entry exam

Victoria has four selective-entry high schools: Melbourne High School (boys), Mac.Robertson Girls' High School (girls), Nossal High School in Berwick (co-educational) and Suzanne Cory High School in Werribee (co-educational). Entry is by a single competitive examination sat in Year 8 for Year 9 entry, usually in June, with a smaller number of places sometimes offered for later year levels. Students nominate their preferred schools on one application, and places are offered on the basis of exam results, with a proportion of places set aside under equity provisions. Suzanne Cory, in Werribee, draws heavily from Melbourne's west and is the school most families we work with are aiming for.

For students in Year 8 in 2027, school communications give the exam date as 20 June 2027, with applications typically opening early in the year and closing well before the exam. Dates, fees, eligibility rules and the exact test format are set by the Department of Education and can change from year to year, so confirm every detail on the VSEHS website before you plan around it. What has been consistent is the shape of the test: reading comprehension, mathematics, verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning and two short writing tasks (one creative, one persuasive or analytical), all under strict time limits and pitched above the Year 8 curriculum. The reasoning sections are the ones school programs rarely teach, and the writing tasks are marked for ideas, structure and control of language in a very short time, which is why students who are strong in class can still struggle on the day.

The multiple-choice sections of the real exam reward three things: secure knowledge a year or so ahead of the classroom, the habit of reading a question exactly, and pace. This practice test checks the first and the third. It does not check writing, and it does not include the pattern-based verbal and numerical reasoning puzzles, both of which need their own practice.

ACER and Edutest scholarship tests

Independent and Catholic schools in Melbourne offer academic scholarships through external testing agencies rather than their own papers. The two you will meet most often are ACER and Edutest, and they feel quite different. ACER's Cooperative Scholarship Testing Program (CSTP) is run at set levels: Level 1 for Year 7 entry (sat in Year 6), Level 2 for Year 9 entry and Level 3 for Year 11 entry. The papers are long and demanding: two written expression tasks, a humanities paper of reading comprehension and interpretation that includes poems, cartoons, tables and extracts, and a mathematics paper that leans on reasoning rather than recall. ACER tests are usually held on a single day in February or March, and one sitting can be used for several participating schools.

Edutest papers are shorter and broken into five sections, typically of about thirty minutes each: verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, reading comprehension, mathematics and written expression. Most sections are multiple choice and the pace is brisk. Schools using Edutest often run the test on their own campus at their own date, so a family may sit two or three across a season. Because the sections are short, a student who loses a minute panicking on a hard question pays for it immediately, which is why timed practice matters so much for Edutest in particular.

This practice test is closer to the multiple-choice mathematics and reading sections of both formats than to the reasoning puzzles or the writing. If your child is preparing for a Year 7 scholarship, treat the Year 7 and Year 8 items here as the stretch they are; a Year 6 student who handles them comfortably is well placed.

A preparation timeline

  1. Twelve to nine months out (for Selective Entry 2027: Term 3 and 4 of Year 7). Diagnose first. Sit this test and the free Skills Check, and find out whether the gaps are knowledge (Year 8 maths not yet met), technique (never seen a reasoning question) or speed. Close the maths gaps with the Year 7 and Year 8 topic quizzes and start reading widely: non-fiction, opinion pieces and short fiction, not just novels.
  2. Nine to six months out (Term 1 of Year 8). Learn the question types. Work through each section of the exam separately with short timed sets, and begin a weekly timed writing task with feedback. Confirm the application window on the VSEHS website and lodge the application early.
  3. Six to three months out (Term 1 to 2). Full-length practice papers under exam conditions every fortnight, marked and reviewed by section. The review is where the marks come from: every error goes into a list and gets re-attempted a week later.
  4. The last eight weeks. Taper. One full paper a week, timed sets on the weakest section between them, and writing practice to a fixed plan. In the final week, sleep, a light set each day and nothing new.

For a Year 6 scholarship, compress the same sequence into the second half of Year 5 and the first term of Year 6, because ACER and most Edutest sittings fall between February and May of Year 6.

How to read your result

We do not report percentiles, because a thirty-question free sample cannot be normed against the real candidate pool and any percentile we invented would mislead you. What we can say is this. Selective-entry and scholarship tests are competitive, and the students who win places are typically answering above-level questions quickly and accurately. A score of 80% or more here, inside the time limit, suggests your child is ready for full-length timed practice papers and should move to those. A score between 50% and 80% usually means the content is mostly there and the work is in the hardest third of the questions and the clock; look at which section is weaker and drill it with timed sets. A score of 50% or less means the Year 6 and Year 7 foundations need attention before exam-style practice will pay off, which is common and fixable: start with the Year 6 and Year 7 topic quizzes, secure the weakest topics and come back to this test in a term.

Watch the time as well as the score. A high score with the clock expired is a pace problem; a low score with minutes to spare is a content problem. They need different fixes, and the results panel shows both.

What to do next

1. Free Skills Check

Fifteen minutes, every Year 7 topic at every tier including stretch and challenge, with a same-day topic-by-topic report and a tutor call to walk through it. It is the diagnostic we use to start every selective and scholarship program.

Start the free Skills Check →

2. Selective Entry 2027 program

Two sessions a week, maths and English with reasoning drills, a full timed practice test every fortnight, at our Truganina centre or online. First session free.

Selective Entry 2027 → Selective entry and scholarship tutoring →

3. Printable practice packs

Full-length selective and scholarship practice papers with worked answers, so a student can practise on paper under the clock the way the real test is sat.

Browse selective and scholarship packs →

Questions? Call 03 9509 3293 or book a free consultation. RHZ Tutoring, 17/47 Apex Drive, Truganina VIC 3029.

Frequently asked questions

When is the 2027 Victorian Selective Entry exam?

School communications give the date as 20 June 2027 for Year 8 students seeking Year 9 entry in 2028. Dates and application windows can move, so confirm on the Victorian Selective Entry High Schools (VSEHS) website before planning around it.

Which schools does the Selective Entry exam cover?

Melbourne High School (boys, South Yarra), Mac.Robertson Girls' High School (girls, Melbourne), Nossal High School (co-educational, Berwick) and Suzanne Cory High School (co-educational, Werribee). Students sit one exam and list the schools in order of preference.

Is this practice test the same as the real exam?

No. It is a 30-question, 25-minute multiple-choice sample drawn from our Year 6, 7 and 8 maths and English banks at the stretch and challenge tiers. The real ACER and Edutest scholarship tests include writing tasks and, for Edutest, separate verbal and numerical reasoning sections. Use this page to check readiness and pace, not to predict a result.

What score should my child be getting?

There is no official pass mark and we do not publish percentiles for a free sample. As a rule of thumb, 80% or more here suggests a student is ready for full-length timed practice; 50% or less suggests starting with the Year 6 and Year 7 topic quizzes to secure the foundations first.

Does the timer matter?

Yes. Both selective-entry and scholarship tests are speed tests as much as knowledge tests, and most students lose more marks to the clock than to the content. If the score is good but the time ran out, practise timed sets; if there was time to spare but the score was low, work on the content.

What is the difference between ACER and Edutest scholarship tests?

Both are used by independent schools for Year 7 entry (sat in Year 6) and some for Year 9 or Year 11 entry. ACER's Cooperative Scholarship Testing Program has longer papers in written expression, humanities (reading and interpretation) and mathematics. Edutest papers are shorter and include five sections: verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, reading comprehension, mathematics and written expression. Check which test each school uses.

Is this free, and is anything collected?

It is free and there is no sign-up. Marking happens on our server and only an anonymous score event is recorded. The free Skills Check, which produces a full report, asks for a parent email so we can send it.

Build the foundations first

If the result points to a content gap, these free topic quizzes cover the ground the test draws on:

All 3,261 free practice questions, Prep to Year 12 →