1. In the square below every row and every column adds up to the same total. What number belongs in the empty cell?
Free Year 9 NAPLAN Numeracy practice
Forty-eight questions in 65 minutes, with a non-calculator opening section. That is exactly the same shape as the Year 7 paper. What has changed in two years is entirely the content.
Last updated: 5 October 2026
The last NAPLAN
Year 9 is the last NAPLAN, and the final standardised read on where a student sits before the senior years start setting the pace.
What changed since Year 7
The widest content jump in the series.
Algebra carries much more of the paper: expanding and factorising, linear relationships and their graphs, and questions that require thinking about a rule and its picture at the same time. Indices and scientific notation arrive. Pythagoras arrives, and with it the first questions where a diagram has 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 graph that misleads.
Where marks go
- Questions that need an equation set up rather than solved. That is a translation problem, not an algebra problem.
- Index laws applied to negative or fractional powers
- Diagrams that have to be read before they can be used. Which lengths matter is not marked on the figure.
- Running out of time in the last third. That is a pacing problem, and it responds to practice with the clock rather than to more content.
Sample questions
Try each one first, then open the answer and worked solution under it.
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: 5
Find the shared total from a row that is already complete: the top row is 2 + 9 + 4 = 15, so every row and column must add to 15.
The empty cell is in the middle row, which already shows 7 and 3: 7 + 3 = 10, so the missing number is 15 - 10 = 5.
Check with its column: 9 + 5 + 1 = 15 as well. ✓
The empty cell must hold 5.
2. A council surveys people about building more dog parks — but only surveys visitors INSIDE an existing dog park. Why is this sample biased?
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: D
People inside a dog park are mostly dog-park USERS — the group most likely to want more of them.
Residents who avoid dog parks (and might oppose more) had no chance of being surveyed.
That selection tilt is convenience-sample bias: the result reflects who was reachable, not the whole community.
The sampling location pre-selects supporters.
3. Two fair coins are tossed together. Which TWO statements are true?
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: A, D
List the equally likely results: HH, HT, TH, TT — four of them.
Two heads is 1 of the 4, a chance of 1 over 4.
At least one tail is HT, TH or TT — 3 of the 4, a chance of 3 over 4.
Two heads has a chance of 1 over 4, and at least one tail has a chance of 3 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.
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 papers under time. At this level the constraint that actually bites is not knowledge but deciding fast which method a question wants. That only comes from sitting whole papers against the clock, not from more worked examples.
Common questions
How long is the Year 9 NAPLAN Numeracy test?
Forty-eight questions in 65 minutes, with a non-calculator opening section.
Is the Year 9 paper the same as Year 7?
The same length, the same time and the same non-calculator opening. The content is two years further on, with more algebra, indices and Pythagoras.
Year 9 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.
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