1. Which TWO of these numbers are factors of 36?
Free Year 5 NAPLAN Numeracy practice
Forty-two questions in 50 minutes, with no calculator. That is six more questions than Year 3, and a considerably bigger jump in what they ask.
Last updated: 5 October 2026
What changes from Year 3
This is where the numbers stop being friendly.
Fractions stop being pictures and become numbers you operate on: equivalence, comparison, and addition with related denominators. Decimals arrive, and with them place value past the point. Multiplication and division move to larger numbers and to problems where the child has to decide which operation to use. Measurement moves from reading a scale to converting between units and working with area and perimeter. Probability appears for the first time.
Where Year 5 students lose marks
- Multi-step problems where step one is right and step two is rushed. The arithmetic is rarely the failure. The sequencing is.
- Unit conversion, which is fine in isolation and goes wrong inside a longer question
- Timetable questions. Reading across a row and down a column while holding a duration in your head is genuinely hard at eleven.
- Fraction and decimal comparison, where the intuition built in Years 3 and 4 actively misleads
Why Year 5 is the one worth acting on
Year 5 is the last NAPLAN of primary school, and in NSW the last before the selective test in Year 6. It is the clearest read you get while there is still time to do something about it. That makes what you do with the result more important than the result.
Sample questions
Try each one first, then open the answer and worked solution under it.
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: A, B
A factor of 36 divides 36 with nothing left over.
36 = 4 × 9 and 36 = 3 × 12, so 9 and 12 are factors.
36 ÷ 14 and 36 ÷ 16 leave remainders, and 72 is bigger than 36, so it cannot divide it.
9 and 12 are factors of 36.
2. A rectangle has an area of 36 cm². Its length is 9 cm. How wide is it?
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: A
Area = length × width, so 9 × width = 36.
Work backwards: 36 ÷ 9 = 4 (check: 9 × 4 = 36 ✓).
The rectangle is 4 cm wide.
3. Kai's spinner is split into 8 equal parts coloured 3 red, 2 blue, 2 green and 1 yellow. For each result, tick its chance as a fraction.
| 1 over 8 | 1 over 4 | 3 over 8 | 1 over 2 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| red | ||||
| blue | ||||
| yellow | ||||
| blue or green | ||||
| green |
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer:
- red → 3 over 8
- blue → 1 over 4
- yellow → 1 over 8
- blue or green → 1 over 2
- green → 1 over 4
Red is 3 of the 8 sections, so 3 over 8. Yellow is 1 of the 8, so 1 over 8.
Blue is 2 of the 8, which is 2 over 8 = 1 over 4, and green is the same.
Blue or green is 4 of the 8, which is 4 over 8 = 1 over 2.
red 3 over 8 · blue 1 over 4 · yellow 1 over 8 · blue or green 1 over 2 · green 1 over 4
How our practice differs from the real test
The real test branches between testlets depending on how a student is going. Our papers cover the same content and difficulty spread in a single pass.
Our Year 5 papers have an on-screen ruler throughout. Some questions ask your child to type a number, choose more than one answer or tick boxes in a table, not only to pick one option.
How much practice is enough
Two or three full papers in the month before, plus targeted work on whatever the results expose. More papers past that point produce diminishing returns and a child who resents the whole thing.
Common questions
How long is the Year 5 NAPLAN Numeracy test?
Forty-two questions in 50 minutes, with no calculator.
What changes from Year 3?
Six more questions and five more minutes, still with no calculator. The bigger change is the content: fractions you operate on, decimals, unit conversion and probability.
Year 5 also sits: Reading · Conventions of Language
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.
Meritly is an independent Australian service and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the organisations that write or run the tests we cover.