Free OC Test Practice Questions | 15 Problems to Test Your Child

Test your child’s knowledge! Can you solve these 15 Opportunity Class (OC) Test practice questions?

15 free OC Test practice questions to help your child prepare

These 15 OC Test practice questions are assessable in the NSW OC Placement Test. You can find key dates for the OC Test here. If you want to learn more about the OC Test and how to prepare for it, read our article here.

Purpose of OC Test practice questions

These practice questions are designed to give parents a sense of where their child’s strengths, weaknesses and abilities lie. Additionally, it is an opportunity for children to gain experience with the types of questions that they’ll encounter in the Opportunity Class test and, later, the Selective School test.

What are the benefits of having your child complete practice questions?

Having your child sit this test, now, will give you a sense of where their abilities are at. This means you have plenty of time to work with them to shore up their weaknesses and capitalise on their strengths.

Practising questions like this will also give your child confidence in exams.

Who are these OC Test practice questions for?

We’ve designed this for all Year 3 and 4 students who would be interested in sitting the OC test.

How should your child attempt these OC Test practice questions?

Give your child 25 minutes in a quiet room to complete these practice questions, before checking their answers together. If your child has never completed OC Test practice questions before, go through each question together and see how much your child can understand on their own.

What are the 3 OC Test sections covered by these practice questions?

The Verbal Reasoning questions

In this section, students will be presented with a passage. Passages can be informative, imaginative or persuasive in nature.

The student will then be presented with a series of questions that will test their comprehension, vocabulary and knowledge of the meaning of words, and critical thinking skills.

The Mathematical Reasoning questions

In this section, students will encounter a series of questions that test their Maths ability.
These questions will involve word problems, images and diagrams. These will challenge the student to apply their Maths skills outside of what they may encounter in a classroom.

The Thinking Skills questions

Some of these questions challenge students to think critically about shapes and objects. Students may be asked to think about patterns and the appearance of 3D objects or 2D objects. Other questions include logic puzzles and logical arguments.

These are challenging questions that students may not have encountered before.

Assess your child’s OC exam readiness

5 Verbal Reasoning practice questions

Passage: Monarch Butterflies

Monarch butterflies are a unique species of butterfly. They are easy to spot for their large size and distinctive orange and black markings. The monarch is widely known for its long migration and hibernation, they fly 1000s of kilometres from North America to Mexico. It is the only species of butterfly that has such a migration.

Monarch butterflies are born on milkweed leaves: a type of perennial flowering plant. Milkweeds are found throughout North and South America and are also grown domestically. After the Monarch egg has grown enough, it becomes larvae known as a caterpillar. Milkweed contains acrid milky juices, and these are central to the Monarch and other butterfly species’ diet as larvae. The milkweed juices likely make the larvae bitter and unappetising to predators like birds and other insects.

Once the monarch butterfly has passed through the larvae stage, it cocoons itself and transforms from a pupa into a magnificent colourful butterfly. It’s remarkable that the transformation from a little egg on a green leaf to a large orange and black butterfly only takes around 1 month. Human babies take months before they are able to crawl, let alone fly, but the monarch butterfly usually takes its first flight within a couple of hours of hatching.

The remarkable thing about the monarch isn’t its transformation into a butterfly from a tiny egg, it is actually its desire to travel. Monarchs don’t pack their bags and jump on a plane, though. Instead, they fly from one side of the American continent to the other. These are trips from as far as New York State and Canada to the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico, and back.

Scientists don’t know how monarchs navigate and make the same migration year after year to hibernate. They migrate as clusters to stay warm. Sometimes, they get blown off course by strong winds and end up far away like in the United Kingdom. What’s even more remarkable is that the migration takes several generations to make a round trip. What scientists do know is that many monarchs even stop and rest in the same tree that their grandparents did! Amazing!

Unfortunately, another thing that scientists know is that climate change and deforestation are affecting monarch migration. According to scientists and the World Wildlife Fund, colder wetter winters are lethal to monarchs and other butterfly species and, additionally, hotter summers are moving suitable wintering spots further and further away. This is why monarch numbers have decreased and the large beautiful butterfly is classified as endangered. One day, unless humanity changes, nobody will be able to witness the sight of thousands of giant butterflies swarming across the sky in great clouds to settle like a giant colourful canvas on Mexican oyamel fir trees.

Q1. Which of the following words is most similar to ‘acrid’ as it is used in the passage?

1. Sweet
2. Bitter
3. Appetising
4. Milky

Q2. What is the first stage of the life of the monarch butterfly?

1. Larvae
2. Pupa
3. Caterpillar
4. Egg

Q3. Which of the following is not a reason that has contributed to the decline of monarch butterflies?

1. Wetter winters making it harder to survive
2. Loss of habitat caused by deforestation
3. Loss of wintering spots caused by hotter summers
4. Monarch butterflies getting lost during migration

Q4. Which of the following behaviours help the monarch butterfly survive?

1. Migrating in clusters
2. Being born on milkweed leaves
3. Hibernation
4. All of the above

Q5. What does the word ‘monarch’ refer to in the first paragraph?

1. The ability to fly long distances
2. A person of high authority
3. A type of butterfly
4. The act of migrating

5 Mathematical Reasoning practice questions

Q1. To feed 6 sharks, an aquarium needs a total of 36 kg of fish per week. To feed 8 dolphins, the aquarium needs a total of 32 kg of fish per week.

How much fish would the aquarium need to feed 4 sharks and 12 dolphins for one week?

1. 24kg
2. 48kg
3. 68kg
4. 70kg
5. 72kg

Q2. 12th December 2002 was a Thursday. Which day of the week was 1st January 2003?

1. Monday
2. Tuesday
3. Wednesday
4. Thursday
5. Friday

Q3. In a sequence, each number is 2 less than double the previous number. Jacqueline finds the number directly before 42 in the sequence. Her answer has two digits. She adds these two digits to get a new number. What is the new number?

1. 2
2. 4
3. 6
4. 8
5. 10

Q4. The shape below is made up of 8 small squares, all the same size.

How many more small squares need to be shaded so that 75% of the shape is shaded?

1. 2
2. 3
3. 4
4. 5
5. 6

Q5. In this diagram, 4 + 6 = 10.

Here is a new diagram that works the same way:

What is the value of X + Y + Z?

1. 100
2. 102
3. 104
4. 110
5. 111

5 Thinking Skills practice questions

Q1. Which of the following is not a possible view of the figure below from any side?

Q2. On a normal dice the numbers on each pair of opposite sides add up to 7. Which one of the following can represent a normal dice?

Q3. Which square can be inserted into the figure to complete the pattern?

Q4. Which of the following is the same figure but rotated?

Q5. Eva is going to shade more squares in the diagram below.

She wants the dashed line to be a line of symmetry. When she has finished shading, the patterns of squares on the left and right will be reflections of each other.

What is the minimum number of squares Eva needs to shade so that the patterns of squares on the left and right will be reflections of each other?

1. 4
2. 5
3. 6
4. 7

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