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Year 3 is the first time most children sit a national test on a screen. The content is rarely the problem — the format is. These papers are built to the Year 3 specification so that nothing on the day is a surprise.
Last updated: 5 October 2026
Try any of them free, no account needed:
More on each paper: Numeracy · Reading · Conventions of Language
Number work carries the paper — roughly a third to a half of it: place value to the thousands, addition and subtraction with regrouping, early multiplication and division, simple fractions of a shape or a group. Then measurement (length, mass, time on analogue and digital clocks, calendars), space (2D shapes, symmetry, position and direction), a little statistics (picture graphs and column graphs), and a small amount of pattern work.
Where Year 3 children most often lose marks: reading a scale where not every mark is labelled, questions that need two steps instead of one, and time questions that cross the hour.
Short texts — a story, a factual piece, sometimes a poem or a persuasive piece — each followed by a set of questions. Most ask the child to find something stated directly; the harder ones ask what a word means in that sentence, why a character did something, or what the writer was trying to do.
Marking is instant, and every question comes with a worked solution — which matters most at this age, because the useful conversation is "let's see why" rather than "you got 24". With a subscription, you'll also see the topics they're weakest on, so the next twenty minutes can go somewhere specific.
At Year 3 the fix is almost always narrower than it looks. If the marks went on reading a scale, spend a week reading real ones — kitchen scales, a ruler, the speedo in the car. If they went on two-step problems, do fewer questions and have your child say the two steps out loud before writing anything. Volume isn't the lever at this age; naming the step is.
In NSW, Year 4 is also the year of the Opportunity Class placement test — what the OC test involves.
Try each one first, then open the answer and worked solution under it.
NAPLAN Year 3 Numeracy
1. A bag holds 8 yellow counters, 3 purple counters and 1 white counter. Kai takes one without looking. Tick how likely each event is.
| impossible | unlikely | likely | certain | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| picking a yellow counter | ||||
| picking a white counter | ||||
| picking a black counter | ||||
| picking a counter that is not black | ||||
| picking a purple counter |
Correct answer:
There are 8 + 3 + 1 = 12 counters. Yellow is 8 of the 12 — more than half — so yellow is likely.
Purple is 3 of the 12 and white is 1 of the 12 — both less than half — so each is unlikely.
There are no black counters, so black cannot come out; each counter in the bag is yellow, purple or white, so picking one that is not black is sure to happen.
Yellow: likely. White: unlikely. Black: impossible. Not black: certain. Purple: unlikely.
NAPLAN Year 3 Conventions of Language
2. Which word is spelt correctly?
Correct answer: D
'Can't' is short for 'cannot'.
The apostrophe stands where the missing letters were — the 'no' of cannot: can + ' + t.
So the apostrophe sits between the n and the t: can't.
can't is the correct spelling.
NAPLAN Year 3 Numeracy
3. 42 × 3 =
Correct answer: 126
Split 42 into 40 and 2.
Multiply each part: 40 × 3 = 120 and 2 × 3 = 6.
Add the parts: 120 + 6 = 126.
42 × 3 = 126.
Practise free, no account needed. Every paper is marked the moment your child finishes, with a worked solution on every question.
Free practice draws from a limited set of questions, so some will repeat. Subscribers get the full question bank and fewer repeats.
NAPLAN runs over two weeks in March each year.