Thinking Skills practice questions for the 2027 Selective and OC tests
The Selective Thinking Skills section is 40 multiple-choice questions in 40 minutes. The Selective questions for this page are being checked before they go up. Until then, the full papers are free: sit a whole Thinking Skills paper, marked on the same test screen.
Questions being prepared
We publish a question here only after a person has checked it, its answer and its explanation. The Selective set is not ready yet.
Free Selective papers: the Department's sample tests and our free online sets.
Thinking Skills question types
- Strengthen and weaken an argument
- Assumption and conclusion questions
- Finding the flaw in reasoning
- Deduction and "must be true" questions
- True, false or cannot tell
- Ordering, position and seating puzzles
- Spatial reasoning: rotation, nets, folding and cubes
- Shape and number pattern questions
- Numerical problem solving in Thinking Skills (time, money, calendars)
- Codes, ciphers and rule-finding questions
- Thinking Skills timing: 40 questions in 40 minutes
Sit the full paper free
A whole Selective Thinking Skills paper under the real time limit, then every question explained.
Questions families ask
What is in the Thinking Skills test?
Two kinds of question. Critical thinking questions give a short argument and ask what strengthens or weakens it, what it assumes, where its reasoning goes wrong or what must follow from it. Problem-solving questions are puzzles: ordering and seating, spatial reasoning, patterns, codes and number problems about time and money. Every question is multiple choice.
How long is the Thinking Skills test?
In the Selective test it is 40 questions in 40 minutes. In the OC test it is 30 questions in 30 minutes. Either way that is about a minute a question, so learning to spot the question type quickly matters as much as solving it.
Can Thinking Skills be practised?
The Department says: "It is important to know that coaching or tutoring for the placement test is not necessary. The test will not need your child to know any new or special knowledge. So, extra paid coaching outside of school will not give your child an advantage." We disagree. The questions test skills and exam technique, such as finding the assumption in an argument or setting out a seating puzzle, that even very able children rarely meet at school before the test. Children who have seen each question type and been shown a reliable method make fewer avoidable mistakes under the clock. That is not an unfair head start: how much reasoning practice a child gets at school varies widely, and preparation evens that out.
How should my child use these questions?
Answer each one without help first. Then check it and read the worked explanation step by step, even when the answer was right, because the explanation shows the quickest method. A wrong answer is most useful when your child can say which step went wrong.
What changes between OC and Selective Thinking Skills?
The question types overlap. The OC paper is pitched at Year 4 and is shorter (30 questions), while the Selective paper is pitched at Year 6, with 40 questions and longer chains of reasoning. Use the tabs above to switch.
Where can my child sit a full Thinking Skills paper?
The free papers page has the Department's sample tests and our free online sets, which are marked for you on the same test screen as these questions.