We’re often asked by parents who are thinking about having their child sit the eleven plus, what could come up in the maths paper?

The answer to such a question is rather an ‘it depends’ one, because the level of maths questions your child may be expected to answer can vary, depending upon which school(s) you’re targeting.

So, for some areas where there are quite a few grammar schools, or some of the smaller independent schools, the standard your child will need to reach might be close to that of a good student at the start of .year 6.

For other schools, however, your child’s going to need to be conversant with the maths they would study up until the end of year 6 (even though they’re taking their tests before those areas have been covered in their feeder school).

And for the ultra-competitive top, most sought-after grammars and independents, they may require an understanding of topics not normally covered until after year 6.

Those additional subjects may only be included a few of the questions, but for those top schools EVERY mark counts, so it’s important your child can apply existing knowledge and be able to map that out onto new and as yet uncovered questions as and when required.

The eleven plus is, after all, supposedly a test for the best, so it’s reasonable to expect the best to handle a few challenges of unknown problems without reverting to the oft used phrase, “But Sir, we’ve not covered that in class yet.”

With practice, it’s possible for your child to develop a Sherlock Holmes style skill to deduct and deduce what’s required in any question, and so in order to help with their preparation I’ve included a few example questions below.

1. Turbo the tortoise

Usain runs twice as fast as his mum. His mum runs five times as fast as his pet tortoise, Turbo. They all set off together for a run down the same straight path.

When Usain has run 100 metres, how far apart are his mum and Turbo the tortoise?

2. Pings and pongs

Five pings and five pongs are worth the same as two pongs and eleven pings.

How many pings is a pong worth?

3. Making axes

In the addition sum shown, each letter represents a different non-zero digit.

SEE + SEE = AXES

What digit does each letter represent?

4 A list of primes

Alice writes down a list of prime numbers less than 100, using each of the digits 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 only once and using no other digits.

Which prime number must be in her list?

How did they do?

Let me know how you or your child gets on with the questions (or you can drop me an email if you get stuck on any of them).