Updated:
Reading time: 4 to 5 minutes
Timed OC practice tests your child can sit on screen today, with every answer explained. Plus where to find the official past papers and how to use them well.
The real OC test is sat on a computer, under time pressure, across three sections. A practice test is only useful if it feels the same. Sharp Minds Club practice tests are:
Sit a practice test free: 7-day trial
If your child has not sat any practice test yet, do one of the free official papers below first so you have a baseline to compare against.
One from each section, taken from our practice tests. Have your child attempt each one before opening the answer. The real test allows roughly a minute a question.
Mathematical Reasoning
A baker baked 130 loaves of bread in 4 hours. Each hour he baked 5 fewer loaves than in the previous hour. How many loaves did he bake in the first hour?
C, 40 loaves. Call the first hour H. The four hours are H, H − 5, H − 10 and H − 15, which must add to 130. That gives 4H − 30 = 130, so 4H = 160 and H = 40. Check: 40 + 35 + 30 + 25 = 130.
Reading
Read the poem, then answer the question. (Lewis Carroll, 1871.)
A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July,Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear,Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:Ever drifting down the stream,
Lingering in the golden dream,
Life, what is it but a dream?
How does the poet create a sense of time passing throughout the poem?
D. The poem moves from the sunny July evening to "Autumn frosts have slain July", setting past warmth against present cold. The rhyme scheme stays the same throughout, the boat never speeds up, and the children are not described growing older.
Thinking Skills
All insects have exactly six legs. Insect bodies have three parts. Insects have one pair of antennae.
Mark: "Spiders have eight legs, so spiders are not insects."
Nathan: "If an animal has one pair of antennae, it must be an insect."
If the information above is true, whose reasoning is correct?
A, Mark only. Every insect has exactly six legs, so anything with eight legs cannot be an insect: Mark's reasoning holds. Nathan has reversed the rule. "All insects have one pair of antennae" does not mean "everything with one pair of antennae is an insect"; other animals can have antennae too.
Want the full timed version, with a breakdown of which skills your child needs next? Start the free 7-day trial.
The NSW Department of Education publishes official practice tests, free to everyone. These are papers from past years, currently 2021, 2022 and 2023, which makes them the most reliable picture of what the real test looks like.
NSW Department of Education: Opportunity class practice tests
Sit one under realistic conditions before you do anything else. Quiet room, no help, and timed. A first attempt done properly tells you far more than several done casually. There are only a few, so use them deliberately: one early for a baseline, one held back for closer to the test.
They are good at one thing: showing your child what the test looks like. The phrasing, the pacing, the way questions are framed. That familiarity is worth having, and it removes a surprise on the day.
There are two things they cannot do.
They run out. There is a fixed number of official questions. Once your child has worked through them, sitting the same paper again measures memory rather than skill. The score goes up and tells you nothing.
They give a result, not a diagnosis. A mark out of a section tells you how it went. It does not tell you whether the problem was the concept, the reading of the question, or simply running out of time. Those need different responses, and the paper cannot distinguish between them.
The test has three components, each weighted equally, so a weakness in one carries the same cost as a weakness in another.
If you want the question styles broken down in detail, the OC question types guide walks through each one.
More practice tests is not the same as better preparation. Sitting test after test shows you the same weaknesses repeatedly without fixing any of them.
What changes a score is the loop after the test: work out which specific skill caused each mistake, learn that skill, drill it until it is automatic, then re-test to check it held. A wrong answer is only useful if it leads somewhere.
Two practical habits matter more than volume. Review every mistake properly, reading why the right answer is right rather than just noting the correct letter. And spread practice out rather than cramming it, because spacing is what moves a skill into long-term memory.
For how much to do and when, see the OC study plans and the weekly practice rhythm.
This is where most families get stuck. The official tests are done, the child has seen every question, and there is no obvious way to tell what to work on next.
That is the gap Sharp Minds Club is built for. Thousands of questions with an explanation for every one, timed tests that mirror the real format, and a weekly plan that names the few things worth working on this week based on what your child actually got wrong.
Your child's personal trainer for the NSW OC and Selective tests — a weekly plan that knows what to work on, and the proof that it worked. Built by a NSW parent, tested with NSW kids.
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Sharp Minds Club is not affiliated with or sponsored by the NSW Department of Education, NESA, or Janison.