Thinking Skills in the NSW Selective Test: Question Types and Timing

What it tests

Reasoning with the information in each question. No school content is needed: everything your child needs is on the screen. Critical thinking and problem solving, with four answer options. The time per question is the tightest in the test.

Question types you’ll practise

Arguments

Which statement strengthens or weakens a claim.

Deduction

What must be true, given a set of facts.

Number puzzles

Working out arrangements, orders and totals.

Spatial

Picturing shapes, folds, views and patterns.

A sample question

Thinking Skills · sampleFree mock, question 9

A fitness tracker company surveyed its users and found that those who wore their trackers to bed reported better sleep quality than those who did not.

The company concluded that wearing a fitness tracker during sleep improves sleep quality.

Which one of the following sentences shows the mistake the company has made?

A It could be that people who are already concerned about their sleep are more likely to wear a fitness tracker at night.
B It could be that some fitness trackers have more accurate sensors for detecting sleep phases.
C It could be that users who don’t wear their trackers to bed often forget to charge them before night.
D It could be that some users set stricter sleep goals in the tracker’s app than others.

Worked solution

Answer: A. The company has assumed a causal relationship based solely on a correlation. It ignored the possibility that users who care more about sleep quality may choose to wear their tracker at night, meaning their concern drives both tracker use and reported sleep quality rather than the tracker improving sleep.

Pacing

With about a minute per question, a question that takes three minutes costs two others. A full timed mock shows where your child’s time goes.

Thinking Skills in the NSW Selective test