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OC Mathematical Reasoning: 35 questions, 40 minutes
Mathematical Reasoning gives 35 questions in 40 minutes, which is a little over a minute each. It is one of the three sections of the Opportunity Class Test, and it is the section parents most often misread.
The name suggests a maths test. It is closer to a reading test with numbers in it.
The arithmetic is not the difficulty
For a capable Year 4 student, the calculations here are nearly always within reach. Very little of the section asks for a harder operation than the classroom has already covered.
What it asks instead is whether a child can take a described situation, work out what is actually being asked, decide which operation answers it, and carry that out under time. Those are four separate skills and only the last one is arithmetic.
This is why speed drills disappoint families. Times tables practice makes the fourth step faster when the first three were the constraint. A child who can multiply instantly and still cannot see that the question wants the remaining time rather than the total has not been helped.
What the questions look like
Expect worded situations built on number, measurement, space and simple data. Diagrams appear often, and a diagram in this section is usually not decoration: it carries information the words do not, and the question cannot be answered without reading it accurately.
The following is an original example written for this page, not an extract from any real paper.
A rectangular garden bed is 3 metres long and 180 centimetres wide.
Priya wants to put a low border right around the outside edge. The border comes in straight pieces one metre long, and pieces cannot be cut.
How many pieces does she need?
A. 9 B. 10 C. 12 D. 48 E. 54
The answer is C.
The work is short once the question is understood. The perimeter is 3 + 1.8 + 3 + 1.8, which is 9.6 metres, so ten one-metre pieces would fall short and she needs more than ten. Because pieces cannot be cut, each side must be covered by whole pieces: 3, 2, 3 and 2 pieces respectively, which is 12.
Now look at what the wrong options are for.
A, 9, is the perimeter rounded down, from a student who found 9.6 and stopped thinking about pieces.
B, 10, is the perimeter rounded up, which is the answer to a question about a border that can be cut. This is the most attractive wrong option in the set and it is not a maths error at all. It is a reading error.
D, 48, mixes units: treating 180 centimetres as 180 while treating 3 metres as 3.
E, 54, is the area in some form, from a student who saw "garden bed" and reached for length times width.
Four of the five options are reachable by a child who can do all the arithmetic perfectly. That is the design of the section, and it is why marking matters more than practising.
The three errors that recur
Answering a slightly different question. Total instead of remaining, the cost of one instead of all, how many were taken instead of how many are left. This is the largest single category of lost marks in the section and it is a technique problem, not a knowledge one.
Units changing mid-problem. Metres and centimetres, minutes and hours, grams and kilograms. The question does the conversion deliberately, and the wrong options are built to catch anyone who does not notice.
Not reading the diagram. A scale, a label or a mark on a figure that the words never repeat. If the figure states a length or a scale, that information is load-bearing.
Pacing
At just over a minute a question, a student who spends four minutes on one hard item has spent three other questions to buy it. The habit worth building is not speed but abandonment: recognising within about a minute that a question is not moving, marking it, and going on.
Most children find this genuinely uncomfortable, which is why it needs practising rather than explaining. It is also, on most papers, worth more marks than any content work.
A useful check at home
After a practice section, take the questions your child got wrong and ask them to tell you, in one sentence, what the question was asking for. Do not ask them to solve it again.
You will usually find that on half of them they can now state the question correctly and could have answered it. Those were never maths errors. Separating those from the genuine gaps is the whole value of marking, and it is the difference between a useful month of preparation and a wasted one.
How to practise it
Sit the full section under the real time limit, on a computer, since that is how the test runs. Mark every lost mark into one of three piles: did not know it, knew it but misread it, or ran out of time.
If the misread pile is biggest, the work is reading the question twice and underlining what is actually wanted. If the time pile is biggest, the work is pacing. Only the first pile calls for teaching more maths, and it is very often the smallest of the three.
The other sections
Reading · Thinking Skills · The whole test explained · Compared with selective entry
Independent practice material. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the NSW Department of Education. All examples are original material written by Better Tuition Academy.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
- Is this a harder version of school maths?
- Not really. The arithmetic is usually within Year 4 reach. The difficulty is turning a worded situation into something calculable under time pressure.
- Will times tables practice help?
- Only at the margins. It speeds up the step that was rarely the constraint. Reading the question accurately is worth far more.
- Why does my child get the calculation right and the answer wrong?
- Almost always because they answered a slightly different question, or because units changed partway through. Both are technique problems and both improve quickly.
- How many questions should they be finishing?
- All of them, with rushed answers rather than blanks at the end. Practising the decision to leave a question is usually worth more than any content revision.
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