Free · Timed · 25 minutes · Years 6–8

Free Selective Entry Practice Test — 30 Questions, 25 Minutes, Instant Results

A free, timed sample of the kind of multiple-choice questions the Victorian Selective Entry exam asks: 30 questions across maths reasoning 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

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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 83905 · New set of questions →

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Section 1: Maths reasoning (15 questions)

Question 1
Maths reasoning · Equations

Aisha and Ben each have a collection of cards. Aisha has 3 times as many cards as Ben. If Aisha gives Ben 20 cards, they will have exactly the same number. Which equation correctly represents this situation, and how many cards does Ben start with?

Question 2
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 3
Maths reasoning · Pythagoras

A right-angled triangle has legs of length a cm and b cm and hypotenuse c cm. A student doubles all three sides to get a new triangle with legs 2a and 2b and hypotenuse 2c. The student claims: 'The new triangle is still right-angled, and its area is exactly double the original area.' Which statement is correct?

Question 4
Maths reasoning · Integers

Jake says: 'If I add two negative integers, the answer is always less than if I multiply the same two integers.' Is Jake correct, and why?

Question 5
Maths reasoning · Algebraic thinking

A number machine uses two steps in order: STEP 1 — subtract 3, STEP 2 — multiply by 4. The output is 28. What was the input?

Question 6
Maths reasoning · Fractions, decimals & percentages

A tank is 3/8 full and holds 240 litres when full. Water is added until the tank is 5/6 full. How many litres of water are added?

Question 7
Maths reasoning · Pythagoras

A right-angled triangle has a hypotenuse of 17 cm and one leg of 8 cm. A student says the other leg is √(17² + 8²) = √353 ≈ 18.8 cm. What mistake did the student make, and what is the correct length of the missing leg?

Question 8
Maths reasoning · Fractions, decimals & percentages

After a 25% increase, a pair of shoes costs $90. What was the original price?

Question 9
Maths reasoning · Indices

Which of the following statements about negative indices is correct?

Question 10
Maths reasoning · Probability

A spinner is spun twice. The probability of landing on yellow on any single spin is 0.4. After spinning twice, a student records the result. Which of the following is the correct probability of landing on yellow at least once in the two spins?

Question 11
Maths reasoning · Area, volume & angles

A composite solid is made by placing a cube of side 4 cm on top of a rectangular prism that is 8 cm long, 6 cm wide, and 3 cm tall. What is the total volume of the solid?

Question 12
Maths reasoning · Fraction & decimal operations

A plank of wood is 5.4 metres long. Marcus cuts off 2/3 of the plank to use for shelving. He then cuts the remaining piece into 4 equal lengths. How long is each of the 4 pieces, in metres?

Question 13
Maths reasoning · Area, volume & angles

Three angles at a point are 150°, 120° and x. Find x.

Question 14
Maths reasoning · Fractions, decimals & percentages

Mia says: 'If I add the same positive number to both the numerator and denominator of the fraction 3/7, the resulting fraction will always be greater than 3/7.' Is Mia correct? Which of the following best justifies the answer?

Question 15
Maths reasoning · Percentages & rates

A shopkeeper increases an item's price by 20%, then decreases the new price by 10%, then increases that price by 15%. What is the overall percentage change from the original price? Round to the nearest whole percent.

Section 2: Reading & language (15 questions)

Question 16
Reading & language · Text response & analysis

A student is writing a text response about the novel 'The One and Only Ivan'. She writes this conclusion: "In conclusion, this essay has discussed Ivan's loneliness, his friendship with Ruby, and the theme of freedom. These are all important parts of the book." What is the main weakness of this conclusion?

Question 17
Reading & language · Persuasive & creative writing

A student's short story includes this paragraph: 'The waiting room smelled of old magazines and disinfectant. A child across from Marcus kept kicking the chair leg — thump, thump, thump. The clock above the door had stopped at 3:47.' The teacher says this paragraph 'tells us everything about how Marcus feels without using a single emotion word'. Which explanation BEST accounts for how this effect is achieved?

Question 18
Reading & language · Text response & analysis

Read this passage: 'The trophy sat on the shelf for twenty years, gathering dust. Marcus never spoke about the race. Visitors sometimes pointed to it and he would change the subject, offer tea, move to another room.' A student interprets this passage as follows: 'The author uses repetition of Marcus's avoidance to suggest the trophy represents guilt rather than pride.' Another student says: 'This interpretation is wrong because the text never uses the word guilt, so you cannot say that.' Which response best evaluates whether the first student's interpretation is valid?

Question 19
Reading & language · Text response & analysis

A student writes: "The old lighthouse stood alone on the cliff, its light long dead, its windows like hollow eyes watching the empty sea." Which two techniques are working together in this sentence, and what combined effect do they create?

Question 20
Reading & language · Comprehension

Read this passage, then answer the question. "Declan had told everyone he did not care whether he got the lead role in the play. When the cast list went up, he arrived at the noticeboard last, walking slowly, looking at his phone. He glanced at the list once, nodded, and walked away. At lunch he sat alone and ate nothing." The passage does not directly state how Declan feels about the cast list result. What does the sequence of his actions most strongly imply?

Question 21
Reading & language · Phonics & spelling

A student is learning about words derived from the Latin root 'scrib'/'script' (meaning 'to write'). She writes these four sentences and underlines a word in each: 1. The doctor gave her a 'prescription' for the medicine. 2. The journalist wrote a 'manuscript' by hand. 3. The teacher asked them to 'transcribe' the passage. 4. The ancient carvings were an 'inscription' on the stone. She claims: 'Because the root means to write, the silent letters in these words all come from the same Latin root and must always be spelled -scr-.' A classmate challenges her, saying that 'manuscript' is different because its meaning comes from TWO Latin roots, and so the spelling rule she stated does not fully apply. Which option CORRECTLY evaluates both claims?

Question 22
Reading & language · Writing & grammar

A writer uses the following two sentences near the end of a suspenseful story: 'She stepped forward. The floor groaned.' Which statement BEST explains why the writer chose two short sentences here instead of one longer sentence?

Question 23
Reading & language · Persuasive & creative writing

Two students write conclusions for the same persuasive essay arguing that public libraries should receive more government funding. Student A: 'In conclusion, libraries are important places and the government should give them more money so they can keep helping people.' Student B: 'A nation that defunds its libraries does not merely cut a budget line — it erases the only space where a child with nothing can walk in and own everything.' Which analysis best explains why Student B's conclusion is more persuasive at a structural and rhetorical level?

Question 24
Reading & language · Vocabulary & grammar

Which sentence uses the word 'disinterested' correctly according to its precise meaning?

Question 25
Reading & language · Speaking & listening

A student is preparing a speech to persuade her class that the school canteen should sell healthier food. She decides to open with a short story about a student who felt sick after eating a greasy meal, then follow with two statistics about student concentration. Which statement best explains why this structure is effective?

Question 26
Reading & language · Vocabulary & grammar

Which sentence is grammatically correct?

Question 27
Reading & language · Comprehension

Read this passage. "Every morning, Lena walked past the empty block on Marsh Street. The council sign said 'Future Community Garden.' Weeds pressed through the chain-link fence. By June, the sign had faded. By August, someone had spray-painted 'STILL WAITING' across it. Lena took a photo and posted it without a caption." What does Lena's decision to post the photo without a caption most likely suggest?

Question 28
Reading & language · Reading & comprehension

Read these two moments from the same short story. Moment 1 (start of story): 'Priya ran her finger along the shelf of trophies in the hallway — each one she had won herself.' Moment 2 (end of story): 'Priya walked past the shelf without looking up.' What does the change in Priya's behaviour between these two moments most likely signal to the reader?

Question 29
Reading & language · Writing & grammar

A student writes this paragraph in a persuasive essay: 'Many scientists agree that reducing plastic use is important. However, plastic is cheap and easy to produce. Therefore, we should all use less plastic.' A teacher says the paragraph has a structural logic problem. Which statement BEST identifies the flaw?

Question 30
Reading & language · Persuasive & creative writing

Read this extract from a student's persuasive speech: 'Every scientist on earth agrees that we must act on climate change now. If you are not doing your part, you are personally responsible for every flood, every wildfire, every species lost.' A classmate says this passage is 'actually really persuasive.' Which response best explains why the passage is logically flawed despite feeling convincing?

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What this Selective Entry 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 7 or 8 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 Selective Entry 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 Selective Entry exam runs for several hours with reasoning sections and two writing tasks. 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 →