What Is on the OC Test? Reading, Mathematical Reasoning and Thinking Skills

Three sections, all multiple choice, all on a computer, all on one day. Reading has 14 questions in 40 minutes, three of them with several parts, for 33 responses. Mathematical Reasoning has 35 questions in 40 minutes. Thinking Skills has 30 questions in 30 minutes. Each section is a third of the placement score, there is no writing task, and the testing adds up to about 110 minutes. Those are the department's published figures, and the rest of this page is what they mean for a Year 4 child sitting the Opportunity Class Placement Test.

The three sections

Section	Questions	Responses	Time	Share of score
Reading	14, three with several parts	33, one mark each	40 minutes	One third
Mathematical Reasoning	35	35, one mark each	40 minutes	One third
Thinking Skills	30	30, one mark each	30 minutes	One third

The sections run one after another with breaks in between, and the day at the test centre comes to about 2 hours 5 minutes.

Reading

The Reading test is about understanding what is on the page, not knowing anything about the topic. The department names fiction, non-fiction, poetry, magazine articles and reports among the kinds of text a child will meet, and the range is the whole point. A child who reads a lot of one kind of book can be caught by a poem that says something sideways, or by a report where the meaning sits in a heading or in the order of the paragraphs.

Three of the 14 questions have several parts, which is how 14 questions produce 33 responses, and each response is worth a mark. So a multi-part question is worth several marks, and the child who rushes it in the last minute of the section loses more than one. The instructions catch children too. One who ticks a single answer where the question asked for several has left marks behind without noticing, which is why we teach reading the question stem before the passage. The OC Reading test guide walks through the question formats with free examples.

Mathematical Reasoning

Thirty-five questions in 40 minutes is about 68 seconds each. The questions are mostly problems that take more than one step: read it, work out what it is actually asking, then get there. Routine computation is not the point, although a child who is slow at it runs out of time. There is no calculator. Mental arithmetic and times tables have to be automatic, and the working goes on the paper provided while the answer goes on the screen. The OC Mathematical Reasoning test guide shows the question styles.

Thinking Skills

Thinking Skills is reasoning, not curriculum. Following an argument, spotting what it assumes and what it concludes, solving structured problems and patterns. Thirty questions in 30 minutes is a minute each, so pace is part of the test, and in practice tests it is nearly always the longer items, the ones with a paragraph of setup, that swallow the time. The OC Thinking Skills test guide has free examples with explanations.

What is not on it

There is no writing task. Every question is multiple choice and answered on the screen. Writing turns up two years later in the Year 6 selective test, which is a separate pathway with its own application.

There are no calculators, rulers or dictionaries. Paper is provided for working out.

There is no subject knowledge to revise. Thinking Skills rewards reasoning over recall, and Reading rewards understanding the text in front of the child rather than knowing about its subject.

And there is no paper version. The test is on a computer, so nothing can be underlined or crossed out the way it can on a printed page. That is the single biggest reason to practise on a screen before the day.

The day itself

The test is sat on one allocated day, Tuesday 11 or Wednesday 12 May in 2027, at a department test centre that is usually a public school near the child's own. Children sit at computers the department provides, and the three sections run with breaks between them. Working goes on the paper handed out at the desk and answers go on the screen, and that back and forth is the part of the day a child can rehearse at home weeks in advance. The dashboard issues a printed Test Admission Ticket beforehand with the centre and the day on it. The full list of what to bring and what to leave at home is in OC Test 2027: dates, applications and eligibility.

How this compares with the Year 6 test

The same three sections reappear in the Selective High School Placement Test two years later, with more questions, longer timings and a fourth section, a 30-minute Writing task, that the OC test does not have. The skills are the same ones: reading accurately across kinds of text, solving problems in several steps without a calculator, reasoning under time. A child who prepares properly for the OC test is building the base for the Year 6 test whether or not an opportunity class place comes. We have set the two side by side in OC test vs selective test.

How the three sections become a score

Each is weighted equally at a third. Raw scores are scaled and combined into a single placement result, and the outcome report in September shows a result for each section as well, so a family can see where the strengths were. Opportunity classes are competitive and the competition varies by school and by year, so a score only means something against the particular schools a family applied for. The NSW OC Test guide has the dates, the application steps and the scoring in one place.

Where to begin

The free OC Test vocabulary list covers the words the Reading test leans on. The three section guides linked above each have free practice examples with explanations, and our free sample lessons can be tried without an account. When it is time for full papers, the OC preparation books have complete exam-style sets with worked solutions, and once your child has sat one the free OC Test Calculator will show which opportunity class schools the marks put within reach.