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 84574 · New set of questions →

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Section 1: Maths reasoning (15 questions)

Question 1
Maths reasoning · Probability

A class has 25 students. Each student studies either French or Japanese or both. 14 students study French and 16 students study Japanese. A student is chosen at random. What is the probability that the student studies BOTH French and Japanese?

Question 2
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 3
Maths reasoning · Percentages

A recipe needs 30% of a bag of flour. Tom uses 270 g of flour and this is exactly 30% of the bag. Later, he needs 45% of the same size bag for a different recipe. How many grams does he need?

Question 4
Maths reasoning · Geometry

A triangle has angles in the ratio 2 : 3 : 7. A student claims the triangle is obtuse. Another student claims the largest angle is more than three times the smallest angle. Which of the following is correct?

Question 5
Maths reasoning · Probability

A bag contains only red, blue, and green marbles. The probability of drawing a red marble is 1/3 and the probability of drawing a blue marble is 1/4. A marble is drawn at random. What is the probability it is NOT green?

Question 6
Maths reasoning · Algebraic thinking

The expression 4n + 2 gives the total number of tiles in a shape pattern, where n is the pattern number. Which pattern number first gives a total greater than 50 tiles?

Question 7
Maths reasoning · Area & volume

Four identical small cubes, each with side length 3 cm, are stacked in a single column to form one tall rectangular prism. The surface area of the tall prism is how much LESS than the total surface area of all four cubes separately?

Question 8
Maths reasoning · Fraction & decimal operations

Mia has completed 5/8 of a 4.8 km bush walk. How many kilometres does she still have left to walk?

Question 9
Maths reasoning · Area & volume

A farmer has exactly 40 metres of fencing to enclose a rectangular paddock. Which dimensions give the GREATEST possible area?

Question 10
Maths reasoning · Pythagoras

A triangle has sides of 7 cm, 24 cm, and 25 cm. A second triangle has sides of 8 cm, 15 cm, and 17 cm. A student claims both are right-angled triangles and that together they prove Pythagoras works for any triangle. Which response is most mathematically accurate?

Question 11
Maths reasoning · Algebraic thinking

Two students describe the same pattern differently. Mia says: 'Multiply the position number by 5, then add 1.' Tom says: 'Add 1 to the position number, then multiply by 5.' Which statement is true?

Question 12
Maths reasoning · Geometry

A composite shape is made of a rectangle 12 cm long and 5 cm wide, with a right-angled triangle removed from one corner. The triangle has legs of 3 cm (along the width) and 4 cm (along the length). What is the area of the remaining shape?

Question 13
Maths reasoning · Fractions, decimals & percentages

Which of these fractions is closest in value to 0.62?

Question 14
Maths reasoning · Statistics & probability

A data set has five values: 2, 5, 8, 11, and an unknown value k. The mean of all five values is 8 and the median is 8. A student claims: 'There is only one possible value of k that satisfies both conditions at the same time.' Is the student correct?

Question 15
Maths reasoning · Geometry

A parallelogram has vertices at coordinates A(0, 0), B(6, 0), C(8, 4), and D(2, 4). A student calculates its area by multiplying the base (AB = 6 cm) by the vertical height (4 cm), getting 24 cm². A second student multiplies the side lengths AB × AD, where AD = √(4 + 16) = √20 cm, and gets a different answer. Which statement is correct?

Section 2: Reading & language (15 questions)

Question 16
Reading & language · Writing & grammar

Which is correct?

Question 17
Reading & language · Text response & analysis

Read these two openings from different texts about the same bushfire event. Text 1: 'The bushfire destroyed 1 200 hectares of forest and 34 homes before it was contained on Thursday.' Text 2: 'Families watched in horror as walls of flame swallowed everything they had built over a lifetime.' Which statement best explains how the two texts position the reader differently?

Question 18
Reading & language · Speaking & listening

A student listens to two speakers give opposing arguments on whether homework should be abolished. Speaker A uses emotional stories. Speaker B uses research statistics. Afterwards, the student says, 'Both speakers made me think differently about the issue.' Which listening behaviour best explains this response?

Question 19
Reading & language · Vocabulary & grammar

Which sentence is grammatically correct?

Question 20
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?

Question 21
Reading & language · Reading & comprehension

Read these two sentences from a short story: 'The hospital corridor smelled of disinfectant and cold meals. Somewhere behind a curtain, a television murmured about cricket.' What is the most likely purpose of these two sentences?

Question 22
Reading & language · Phonics & spelling

Four students each add the suffix '-ance' or '-ence' to a base word. Which student has made an error that changes the word to a non-standard spelling? Sam: 'persevere' → 'perseverance' Ava: 'exist' → 'existance' Leo: 'obey' → 'obeyance' Mia: 'correspond' → 'correspondence'

Question 23
Reading & language · Phonics & spelling

A student knows that 'magic' becomes 'magician' and 'music' becomes 'musician'. She applies the same pattern to write 'electrician' for someone who works with electricity. Her friend says the base word for 'electrician' is NOT 'electric' — it is 'electricity', with the '-ity' removed before adding '-an'. Which statement correctly evaluates BOTH claims?

Question 24
Reading & language · Vocabulary & grammar

Which sentence uses an apostrophe correctly?

Question 25
Reading & language · Text response & analysis

Read this student essay extract: 'Shakespeare makes Romeo seem impulsive through his actions. For example, Romeo quickly falls in love with Juliet even though he was in love with Rosaline only the day before. This shows he is impulsive.' Which is the MOST accurate analysis of why this response is weak?

Question 26
Reading & language · Vocabulary & grammar

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

Question 27
Reading & language · Text response & analysis

Read: "Jess always sat at the back of the bus. Today she chose the front seat. She looked out the window the whole way and did not put her headphones in." The author does not directly state how Jess is feeling. What technique is being used, and what can you infer from it?

Question 28
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 29
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 30
Reading & language · Persuasive & creative writing

A student writes this body paragraph for a persuasive essay: 'Teenagers need more sleep. Research shows most get less than eight hours. This is a problem.' Her teacher says the paragraph 'makes a claim and offers evidence but is still not persuasive'. What is MISSING that would make the paragraph persuasive?

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Reading & language0 / 15
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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 →