1. Water pours into an empty 540 L tank at 8 L per minute, while the tank drains at 3.5 L per minute. How long until the tank is full?
Free Year 9 NAPLAN practice tests
Year 9 is the last NAPLAN. It's also the year where the gap between "can do it slowly" and "can do it in 65 minutes" shows up most clearly.
Last updated: 5 October 2026
The Year 9 papers
- Numeracy — 48 questions, 65 minutes; questions 1 to 8 without a calculator, then the on-screen calculator from question 9, after which the first eight can't be changed; an on-screen ruler and protractor throughout
- Reading — 48 questions, 65 minutes, across around nine text sets
- Conventions of Language — 52 questions, 45 minutes: 25 spelling, 27 grammar and punctuation
Try any of them free, no account needed:
More on each paper: Numeracy · Reading · Conventions of Language
What changes from Year 7
Algebra carries more of the paper: expanding and factorising, linear relationships and their graphs, and simultaneous thinking about a rule and its picture. Indices and scientific notation appear. Pythagoras arrives, and with it the first questions that need a diagram to be interpreted before it can be used. Measurement moves to surface area, volume and rates. Statistics moves to comparing distributions and to spotting a misleading graph.
Where Year 9 students most often lose marks: questions that require setting up an equation rather than solving one, index laws applied to negative or fractional powers, and running out of time in the last third.
What Year 9 Reading asks
Denser texts and questions that turn on a single word or a shift in tone. Comparison across paired texts, evaluation of an argument, and identifying what a writer has left out.
After the paper
Marked instantly, with a worked solution on every question and the time your child took. With a subscription, every paper is kept to read back. Year 9 results are worth reading with your child rather than to them.
What to do with a weak result
Two patterns dominate at Year 9, and they need opposite fixes. Running out of time in the last third is a pacing problem: practise with the clock, not without it. Losing marks on questions that need an equation set up rather than solved is a translation problem — read the question aloud and name the unknown before touching any algebra.
Why Year 9 is different from the others
It is the last one, which means it is the final standardised read on where a student sits before the senior years start setting the pace.
The paper reflects that. The gap between Year 7 and Year 9 content is the widest in the series: algebra stops being substitution and starts being manipulation, Pythagoras and indices arrive, and several questions can only be answered by setting something up rather than recognising a pattern.
What this means practically: a Year 9 student who is fine in class but scores poorly under time is not usually short on content. They are short on the ability to decide fast which method a question wants — and that only comes from sitting full papers against the clock, not from more worked examples.
Beyond NAPLAN
Year 9 is also the natural entry point to the Australian Mathematics Competition at Intermediate level, which sits alongside this work well: the NAPLAN paper checks whether the year's content is secure, the AMC paper checks whether your child can attack an unfamiliar problem.
Sample questions
Try each one first, then open the answer and worked solution under it.
NAPLAN Year 9 Numeracy
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: C
The two flows fight: the tank actually gains 8 − 3.5 = 4.5 L each minute.
540 ÷ 4.5 = 120 minutes.
The tank fills in 120 minutes.
NAPLAN Year 9 Conventions of Language
2.
Captaining the side is a blank, not a right.
Press play and listen for the missing word.
The recording plays when your child practises.
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: privilege
The word is 'privilege'.
'Privilege' is priv-i-lege — i in the middle, e at the end.
The full sentence: "Captaining the side is a privilege, not a right."
'privilege' is the correct spelling.
NAPLAN Year 9 Numeracy
3. Match each graph's equation to the places where the graph crosses the x-axis. Three answers are left over.
Question 3 — match each one to its pair
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer:
- y = x2 − 36 → x = −6 and x = 6
- y = (x + 1)2 → x = −1 only
- y = (x − 2)(x + 3) → x = −3 and x = 2
The graph crosses the x-axis where y = 0.
x2 − 36 = 0 when x2 is 36, so x is 6 or −6. (x + 1)2 = 0 only when x + 1 = 0, so x is −1.
(x − 2)(x + 3) = 0 when x − 2 = 0 or x + 3 = 0, so x = 2 or x = −3.
y = x2 − 36 → x = −6 and x = 6 · y = (x + 1)2 → x = −1 only · y = (x − 2)(x + 3) → x = −3 and x = 2
Practise free, no account needed. Every paper is marked the moment your child finishes, with a worked solution on every question.
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NAPLAN runs over two weeks in March each year.