Thinking skills practice for Years 3 to 6
Thinking skills is a section of both the OC test in Year 4 and the selective test in Year 6. It asks a child to reason through a problem rather than recall a fact. Learnest has thinking skills questions for Years 3 to 6, pitched at your child's own level.
A$10 a month for one child, A$5 for each extra child.
Ten questions, marked as soon as you finish. No sign-up.
Parent guides: the OC test and the selective test.
Free practice papers, timed like the real section: OC-style thinking skills (30 questions in 30 minutes) and selective-style thinking skills (40 questions in 40 minutes).
What the section tests
The NSW Department of Education says the thinking skills section tests a child's general critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, and that no previous knowledge is required.
- In the OC test
- 30 multiple-choice questions in 30 minutes, a third of the result. Children sit it in Year 4.
- In the selective test
- 40 multiple-choice questions in 40 minutes. Children sit it in Year 6.
Sources: Opportunity class practice tests and Selective high school practice tests on education.nsw.gov.au, checked 3 October 2026.
Two kinds of question
- Critical thinking
- Read a short argument and judge it: what follows from the facts, what makes a claim stronger or weaker, and where the reasoning goes wrong.
- Problem solving
- Work through logic and patterns: ordering and matching clues, codes, truth puzzles, number series, and calendar and cube puzzles.
How Learnest helps
- Years 3 and 4: word analogies, letter codes, odd one out, number series, pattern rules, ordering and matching puzzles, who is right, if-then chains, spatial reasoning and reading a figure.
- Years 5 and 6: drawing a valid conclusion, spotting the flaw, strengthening or weakening an argument, judging whose reasoning is correct, truth and lies, number and letter series, and calendar, clock and spatial puzzles.
- Pitched at your child's level: the app keeps a separate level for thinking skills, so a thinking question is pitched by how your child reasons, not by their number skills.
- A stretch question on maths days: thinking skills on some days and problem solving on the rest. In Settings you can make it thinking skills every day.
- Timed papers: an OC-style thinking skills paper for Years 3 and 4 (20 questions in 30 minutes) and a selective-style paper for Years 5 and 6 (40 questions in 40 minutes), set from your parent page.
- Reasons, not only marks: a wrong answer in daily work shows the reason and a worked example, like the answers below.
What Learnest does not do: its thinking skills questions for Years 5 and 6 are all in words, with no picture puzzles.
Each year has a page with what your child works on and sample questions: Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6.
Sample questions
These come from Learnest's own question bank. Try each one, then open the worked answer.
Pick an answer to check it. Try a wrong one too: you see the mistake that usually leads to it.
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Years 3 and 4: word analogies
Omar matches baker to oven, so barber matches which of these?
- Option A: comb
- Option B: hair
- Option C: spade
- Option D: oven
See the worked answer
Answer: A, comb
baker is to oven because the worker uses that tool. Using the same link, barber goes with comb.
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Years 3 and 4: letter codes
Noah has a code. Every letter jumps forward two places. Give the code for FROG.
- Option A: htqi
- Option B: gsph
- Option C: iurj
- Option D: dpme
See the worked answer
Answer: A, htqi
Move each letter forward by 2, so frog becomes htqi.
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Years 5 and 6: draw a valid conclusion
Each child who is in Year 6 goes on the Myall Lakes camp. Anika is not in Year 6. What follows from these facts?
- Option A: Anika does not go on the Myall Lakes camp.
- Option B: Anika has a pet dog.
- Option C: We cannot be sure whether Anika goes on the Myall Lakes camp.
- Option D: No child at the school is in Year 6.
See the worked answer
Answer: C, We cannot be sure whether Anika goes on the Myall Lakes camp.
No fact or rule settles whether Anika goes on the Myall Lakes camp, so we cannot be sure. 'Anika does not go on the Myall Lakes camp.' does not follow: the rule says nothing about a child who is not in Year 6.
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Years 5 and 6: whose reasoning is correct
No child who trains at dawn sleeps in. Ada trains at dawn, and Ravi sleeps in. Jonah concludes Ada does not sleep in. Zara concludes Ravi does not train at dawn. Who is right?
- Option A: Both Jonah and Zara
- Option B: Only Zara
- Option C: Neither Jonah nor Zara
- Option D: Only Jonah
See the worked answer
Answer: A, Both Jonah and Zara
Jonah is right: since Ada trains at dawn and no child who trains at dawn sleeps in, Ada does not sleep in. Zara is right: since Ravi sleeps in and no child who trains at dawn sleeps in, Ravi does not train at dawn.
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Years 5 and 6: number series
A lift rises and falls between floors in a pattern, stopping at 10, 17, 15, 22, 20, 27. At which floor does it stop next?
Your child types the answer.
See the worked answer
Answer: 25
The moves take turns: up 7, down 2. The last move was up 7, so next is down 2: 27 - 2 = 25.
Questions parents ask
What is a thinking skills test?
A multiple-choice section of the NSW OC and selective placement tests. The NSW Department of Education says it tests general critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, and that no previous knowledge is required.
How long is the thinking skills section?
In the OC test it has 30 questions in 30 minutes. In the selective test it has 40 questions in 40 minutes.
Which years are Learnest's thinking skills questions for?
Years 3 to 6. Years 3 and 4 work toward the OC test, and Years 5 and 6 toward the selective test. Each child's questions are pitched at their own thinking skills level.
Is Learnest connected to the NSW Department of Education?
No. Learnest is not affiliated with the NSW Department of Education. Its thinking skills questions follow the published style of the tests. Every question is Learnest's own.
Fifteen to twenty minutes a day, planned for your child.
Learnest finds the level, teaches the gap and tells you that night which skill is slipping. The test-style practice adds to that daily work.
Learnest is not affiliated with ACARA, NESA, the NSW Department of Education or the Australian Maths Trust. Every question on this page is Learnest's own, written for practice. None comes from a past paper.