This site uses cookies. How we use cookies

Meritly
How it worksPricingNAPLANICASAMCOC & SelectiveFAQ
Student sign inParent sign in
Start free
  • How it works
  • Pricing
  • NAPLAN
  • ICAS
  • AMC
  • OC & Selective
  • FAQ
  • Student sign in
  • Parent sign in
  1. Home
  2. ›
  3. NAPLAN
  4. ›
  5. Year 7
  6. ›
  7. Numeracy

Free Year 7 NAPLAN Numeracy practice

Forty-eight questions in 65 minutes. It is the first NAPLAN after the move to high school, and the first with a calculator, but not for the whole paper.

Start free practice

Last updated: 5 October 2026

The calculator trap

The real test opens with a non-calculator section, and the rest allows one. Students who practise entirely with a calculator to hand get caught by that first stretch, where mental and written arithmetic have to carry them.

This is the single most avoidable loss on the paper, and it costs nothing to fix: practise the opening section the way it will be sat.

What high school adds

Algebra becomes real. Pronumerals stop being boxes to fill in. They get substituted into and manipulated. Simple equations appear, and patterns get expressed as rules rather than drawn.

Integers go negative in all four operations. Ratio, proportion and percentage arrive together. Geometry shifts from naming shapes to reasoning about them: angles on parallel lines, angle sums, properties rather than labels. Statistics adds mean, median and range, and starts asking which one a situation calls for.

Where Year 7 students lose marks

  • Percentage increase and decrease, especially working backwards to the original amount
  • Negative number arithmetic under time pressure. Subtracting a negative is the classic.
  • Angle problems that want a reason, not a measurement. Knowing the answer is 110° is not the same as knowing which rule produced it.
  • The non-calculator opening, as above

Sample questions

Try each one first, then open the answer and worked solution under it.

1. The graph shows a straight line. For which value of x does the line reach y = 12?

xy123451234567891011121314150
Question 1 — choose one answer
Answer and worked solution

Correct answer: B

This reads the graph backwards: start on the y-axis instead of the x-axis.

Find 12 on the up-and-down axis, slide across to the line, then drop down to the across-axis.

The line reaches y = 12 above x = 4. Check with the rule: the line climbs 3 for every 1 across, and 3 × 4 = 12.

The line reaches y = 12 when x = 4.

2. A closed wooden storage box measures 3 m long, 2 m wide and 0.5 m high. All six of its faces are to be painted. One tin of paint covers 5 m². How many tins are needed?

tins
Answer and worked solution

Correct answer: 4

The box has three pairs of matching faces: 3 × 2 = 6 m², 3 × 0.5 = 1.5 m² and 2 × 0.5 = 1 m².

One of each comes to 8.5 m², and doubling for the matching pairs gives a total surface area of 17 m².

At 5 m² per tin, 17 ÷ 5 = 3.4 tins, and paint is only sold in whole tins, so 4 are needed.

Four tins of paint are needed.

3. When a = 3 and b = −2, match each expression to its value. Some values are not used.

Question 3 — match each one to its pair

Answer and worked solution

Correct answer:

  • 2a + b → 4
  • a − b → 5
  • ab → −6
  • a + b → 1

Replace each letter with its value and keep the sign of b.

2a + b is 6 + (−2), which is 4; a − b is 3 − (−2), which is 5.

ab is 3 × (−2), which is −6; a + b is 3 + (−2), which is 1.

2a + b → 4 · a − b → 5 · ab → −6 · a + b → 1

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.

In our papers, questions 1 to 8 are sat without a calculator. The on-screen calculator opens from question 9, and after that the first eight can't be changed. There's an on-screen ruler and protractor throughout.

How much practice is enough

Two or three full 65-minute papers, with the opening section done properly without a calculator each time. Beyond that, the useful work is diagnostic: whatever the results expose, work on that rather than doing another paper.

Common questions

How long is the Year 7 NAPLAN Numeracy test?
Forty-eight questions in 65 minutes, with a non-calculator opening section.

Can my child go back to the first questions after using the calculator?
Not in our papers. Once your child moves past question 8 and the calculator opens, the first eight can't be changed. So it's worth checking them before moving on.

Year 7 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.

Start a free Numeracy paperAll Year 7 papers

Meritly is an independent Australian service and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the organisations that write or run the tests we cover.

Meritly

Some test names on this site are trade marks of their respective owners.

Get started

How it worksPricingFAQ

Exams

NAPLANICASAMCOC & Selective

Company

AboutUpdatesContact

Legal

TermsPrivacyRefundsImage credits