This publication assists applicants for Year 7 entry to selective high schools to become more

familiar with the Selective High School Placement Test. Some of the items have not been included
for copyright reasons. In the actual Selective High School Placement Test there are 45 questions
in reading, 40 in mathematics and 60 in general ability.

The Selective High School Placement Test measures ability and is set to discriminate at a very
high level. Students who are accustomed to answering most questions in tests correctly should not
be discouraged if they get a number of questions wrong. It is very rare for even the highest scoring
candidates to score full marks on all components of the Selective High School Placement Test.

Selective high school entry does not depend entirely on a student's performance in the Selective
High School Placement Test as school assessment scores in English and mathematics are
provided by the primary schools.

It is important to note that selection committees and appeals panels will not accept students'
performance in this past paper as evidence of academic merit for the purposes of entry into a
selective high school in any future year.
 SELECTIVE HIGH SCHOOL PLACEMENT TEST
SAMPLE

TEST 2

MATHEMATICS

DO NOT OPEN THIS SECTION UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD

INSTRUCTIONS
1 You have 40 minutes to complete the Mathematics test. It contains 40 questions.
2 Mark your answer to each question by colouring A, B, C or D in pen in the
Mathematics section of your answer booklet.
3 If you decide to change your answer, cross it out with X and mark your new answer
clearly.
4 If you want to work anything out, you may write in this question booklet, but remember
to show your answer in the answer booklet NOT in this question booklet.
5 In the tests you will find Answer Check boxes like this:

ANSWER CHECK (Mathematics No. 1)

Look at your answer booklet — was the last bubble you filled in for Question 15?
If it was, keep going. If it wasn’t, put your hand up now for help.

This is to ensure you are answering the question in the right answer bubble.
6 Wait for instructions to begin the Mathematics test.

Published by the Australian Council for Educational Research

Prospect Hill Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124.
Copyright © 2014 NSW Department of Education and Communities.
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M1
1 This container holds 1 litre of liquid.

10 cm

10 cm
10 cm

How much liquid does this container hold?

5 cm

10 cm
10 cm

A 50 millilitres
B 125 millilitres
C 250 millilitres
D 500 millilitres

2 Hazel buys petrol at 89.5¢ per litre. She fills her car with 50.7 litres.

The best estimate of how much she pays is

A $40
B $45
C $50
D $90

3 In the number sentence 12 – (7 – 1) + (8 ? 2) = 10 the ? must be

A +
B –
C ×
D ÷

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M2

4 This picture shows four interlocking
rings that are used for a magic trick. The W V
rings are made to break apart into four
separate rings.

The secret is that one of the rings has a

hidden catch that can be opened so the
other three fall off.

Which ring must have the hidden catch?

A Ring U
X U
B Ring V
C Ring W
D Ring X

5 Sarah writes the letter V on a square piece of paper. Sarah flips the paper over its right
hand edge so that the blank side faces her. Then she flips the paper over its bottom edge
so that the side with the V faces her again.

?
Which of the following does Sarah now see?

A B C D

GO STRAIGHT ON o

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M3

Questions 6–7 refer to the following information

Fiona cycled at a steady rate to school and walked home at a different steady rate. Her total
travel time was 25 minutes. If Fiona walked both ways, her total travel time would be
40 minutes.

6 If Fiona cycled both ways, her total travel time would be

A 5 minutes
B 10 minutes
C 15 minutes
D 20 minutes

7 How much faster can Fiona cycle than walk?

A 2 times
B 3 times
C 4 times
D 5 times

8 Here are the first three diagrams in a pattern formed with matchsticks.

How many matchsticks are needed to make the tenth diagram?

A 40
B 42
C 46
D 50

9 A cyclist travels 2 kilometres every 5 minutes.

Which of the following calculations gives the time in minutes for the cyclist to travel
12 kilometres?

A 12 ÷ 10
B 12 × 0.4
C 12 ÷ 2.5
D 12 × 2.5

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M4

Questions 10–12 refer to the following graph

The graph shows how the children in Year 6 travel to school.

Number
of children
10
boys
girls
8

0
bicycle bus car train walk

10 The number of children in Year 6 is

A 23
B 26
C 49
D 50

11 How many more Year 6 boys than Year 6 girls travel to school either by bus or by car or
by train?

A one
B three
C five
D four

12 Which one of these statements is correct?

A More Year 6 boys than Year 6 girls travel to school either by bus or by train.
B More Year 6 boys than Year 6 girls cycle or walk to school.
C The number of Year 6 students who travel to school by car is less than the number
of Year 6 students who travel to school by bus.
D The number of Year 6 students who travel to school by bus is less than the number
of Year 6 students who walk to school.

ANSWER CHECK (Mathematics No. 1)

Look on your Answer Sheet – the last
question you answered should have been
Question 12.
If it was, keep going.
If it wasn’t, put your hand up for help.

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M5

13 Bill takes a strip of thin wire 48 cm long and bends it to form a rectangle. The two ends
of the wire neatly join.

If Bill’s rectangle is 8 cm wide, its length is

A 6 cm
B 16 cm
C 32 cm
D 42 cm

14 Marie buys a tin of chocolates that weighs 440 grams. She eats half the chocolates.
The half-full tin weighs 300 grams. Marie then eats the rest of the chocolates.

What does the empty tin weigh?

A 140 grams
B 150 grams
C 160 grams
D 280 grams

15 A millimetre is one thousandth of a metre. So a ‘milliyear’ would be one thousandth

of a year.

The length of a ‘milliyear’ would be closest to

A 10 hours
B 10 days
C 1 hour
D 1 day

Questions 16–18 refer to the following information

Lisa is stacking cubic blocks to make stairs. The blocks have edges 5 cm long.

She calls these 1-2 stairs because the pattern for making them is “go up one block then along
two blocks”.

These stairs are 8 blocks long and 4 blocks high.

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M6

16 Starting with the stairs shown above, how many extra blocks would Lisa need to make
1-2 stairs 30 centimetres high?

A 10
B 22
C 30
D 36

17 Here are two blocks on a table. If you walk around the table there are a total of eight
faces that can be seen.

How many faces could you see on these stairs?

A 12
B 18
C 20
D 36

18 Lisa makes some new stairs. She calls them 2-1 stairs because the pattern she uses to
make them is “go up two blocks then along one block”.

Her new stairs are 50 centimetres high. How long are they?

A 20 centimetres
B 25 centimetres
C 40 centimetres
D 100 centimetres

19 A prepacked 2 kg bag of potatoes costs $3.90. When you buy loose potatoes, they cost
$1.75 per kilogram.

If you buy four 2 kg bags of potatoes, how much more expensive is it than if you bought
8 kg of loose potatoes?

A $0.40
B $1.60
C $2.15
D $3.60

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M7

20 Amy has three squares and three equilateral
triangles only.

All the edges of the squares and triangles are the

same length.

Amy is joining some of these six shapes together at

their edges to make 3-dimensional figures.

Which one of the following figures can she make?

A A prism with a triangular base

B A prism with a square base
C A pyramid with a square base
D A pyramid with a triangular base

21 Jay’s videotape machine can rewind a videotape 20 times as fast as it takes to play the
tape.

How long will it take Jay to completely rewind a videotape that takes 4 hours to play?

A 5 minutes
B 12 minutes
C 20 minutes
D 80 minutes

22 Eva wanted to use her calculator to find 0.6 × 18.4, but the decimal point button was
broken. So she found instead that 6 × 184 = 1104.

The correct answer to 0.6 × 18.4 is

A 0.1104
B 1.104
C 11.04
D 110.4

23 The time in New York is 15 hours behind Australian Eastern Standard time. A sporting
event begins in Sydney at 2 pm on a Friday.

If it is broadcast live to New York, the starting time in New York will be

A 5 am Saturday
B 3 am Friday
C 5 pm Thursday
D 11 pm Thursday

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M8

24 In the arrowhead shown the size of the marked
angle is
A between a half turn and a three quarter turn
B between a quarter turn and a half turn
C less than a quarter turn
D more than a three quarter turn

25 This square target has nine sections.

Quoc tries to work out how many ways he can throw three darts
at the target so that they all land in a straight line. Two of the
ways are shown. Note that the centre square has been hit twice.
The order in which the darts hit does not matter.

In total, how many different ways can three darts land on this
target in a straight line? Key:
First three throws
A five Second three throws
B eight
C nine
D more than nine

Questions 26–27 refer to the following information down

Each of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 is placed in this cross

so that the sum of the three numbers “across” is equal to the
sum of the three numbers “down”.
across #

26 Which one of the following numbers cannot be placed in the # position?

A 1
B 2
C 3
D 5

27 How many different possible values are there for the sum of the three numbers “across”?
A one
B three
C five
D seven
ANSWER CHECK (Mathematics No. 2)
Look on your Answer Sheet – the last
question you answered should have been
Question 27.
If it was, keep going.
If it wasn’t, put your hand up for help.

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M9

28 How many of the following nets can be folded to make an open box?

A one
B two
C three
D four

29 Sixteen sheets of A4 paper cover one square metre. One square metre of the paper
weighs 80 grams.

What is the weight of one sheet of A4 paper?

A 0.2 grams
B 2 grams
C 5 grams
D 20 grams

Questions 30–32 refer to the following information

A rural school has 200 students, three fifths of whom are boys. All of the students live either
on a farm or in town. Of the students that live on a farm, one third are girls. Three quarters of
all the girls at the school live in the town.

30 How many girls live on a farm?

A 20
B 30
C 40
D 50

31 How many boys live in town?

A 120
B 100
C 80
D 60

32 What fraction of all the students live in town?

A four tenths
B three fifths
C two thirds
D seven tenths

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M10
33 Eva wants to pave this path
0.6 metres
3.0 metres

using this pattern of paving stones. The white

squares have each side 10 centimetres long. Two
white squares exactly cover one grey rectangle.

How many grey rectangles does Eva need to pave

the path?

A 20
B 40
C 60
D 80

34 Nadia wanted to add 70, but subtracted 70 by mistake. Her answer was 140.

What should her answer have been?

A 0
B 70
C 210
D 280

35 Chantelle cuts a square cake in half and joins the two

pieces together to make a rectangular cake. The 30 cm
diagram shows the top view of the original cake and
the new cake.
30 cm
What is the difference in perimeter between the
original cake and the new cake?
Original
A 0 cm square cake
B 30 cm New
C 40 cm rectangular
D 60 cm cake

36 A book has 500 pages. These 500 pages are 3 centimetres thick altogether.

If all the pages have the same thickness, the thickness of a single page is

A 0.0006 millimetres.
B 0.006 millimetres.
C 0.06 millimetres.
D 0.6 millimetres.

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M11
37 Martine has a tablecloth that fits on this tabletop. The cloth
covers the table completely with 10 centimetres of material 1m
hanging down over each long edge, but no material hanging
down over the short edges. Martine wants to put a lace border 1.5 m
right around the edge of the tablecloth.

What is the length of the lace she needs?

A 290 centimetres
B 520 centimetres
C 540 centimetres
D 580 centimetres

38 Centicubes are cubes with edge length 1 cm that can be joined together.

Jody uses some centicubes to make a solid cube of edge length 6 cm. She then removes
enough centicubes to make square holes, 4 cm long on each side, through her cube in
each direction.

4 cm
6 cm

4 cm
6 cm

6 cm 4 cm

The number of centicubes left in the second figure is

A 56
B 64
C 104
D 152

39 Ben has some jelly beans. He can share them equally with his brother, or equally with
his brother and sister, or equally with his brother, sister and mother, or equally with his
brother, sister, mother and father. Whichever way of sharing he chooses, there will be no
jelly beans left over.

The smallest number of jelly beans Ben could have is

A 14
B 24
C 30
D 60

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M12
40 This square has an area of 400 square centimetres.
A new smaller square is made: all the sides are
decreased to one quarter of their original length.

The area of the smaller square is

A 25 square centimetres
B 50 square centimetres
C 80 square centimetres
D 100 square centimetres

ANSWER CHECK (Mathematics No. 3)

Look on your Answer Sheet – the last
question you answered should have been
Question 40.
If it wasn’t, put your hand up for help.

END OF TEST

LOOK BACK OVER YOUR WORK

IF YOU HAVE TIME.

This test contains security features to protect against illegal use M13
 MATHS
No. KEY
1 D
2 B
3 D
4 C
5 A
6 B
7 C
8 B
9 D
10 C
11 D
12 A
13 B
14 C
15 A
16 B
17 C
18 B
19 B
20 A
21 B
22 C
23 D
24 A
25 B
26 B
27 B
28 C
29 C
30 A
31 C
32 D
33 B
34 D
35 B
36 C
37 C
38 A
39 D
40 A