Free OC and Selective Reading practice
Reading is one of three sections in the NSW Opportunity Class test, sat in Year 4, and one of four in the selective high school test, sat in Year 6. In the Department's practice tests it runs 40 minutes at OC level and 45 at selective level.
Last updated: 5 October 2026
Five tasks, always in this order
Instead of one long passage, the section is five different tasks:
- A prose extract with multiple-choice questions. At selective level it is sometimes a pair of extracts to compare.
- A cloze passage with eight words removed, each chosen from four options.
- A poem with multiple-choice questions.
- A passage with six sentences taken out, to put back from a list of seven. One sentence doesn't belong anywhere.
- Four short texts on the same theme, with statements to match to the text they describe.
In one of the Department's selective practice tests, task 4 is six paragraphs to match with the best summary instead.
Where marks go
- The spare sentence in task 4. With seven sentences for six gaps, the last gap is not a gift. Checking each sentence against the lines before and after it is what catches the spare.
- Task 5's repeats. Four texts and eight to ten statements means some texts are the answer more than once. A child who expects each text to be used the same number of times will start forcing answers.
- The poem. Its questions ask about meaning and effect rather than plot, which is a different kind of reading from a story.
- Pace. Five kinds of task in 40 or 45 minutes means changing gear four times.
How our practice works
Our Reading papers use the same five task blocks. They are 33 questions in 40 minutes at OC level and 38 in 45 minutes at selective level. A new paper is put together each time your child starts one.
The selective test also has a typed writing task. We don't offer it, because it's marked by a human against a criteria rubric, and we won't pretend to do that automatically.
Common questions
How many questions are in the Reading section?
The Department's practice tests count 14 at OC level and 17 at selective level, three of them with several parts. Counting each part, that is 33 and 38 answers.
Is the writing task part of the Reading section?
No. Writing is a separate section of the selective test, with its own time. The OC test has no writing section.
Also in the test: Mathematical Reasoning · Thinking Skills
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.
Question counts, timings and test dates can change from year to year. The NSW Department of Education publishes the current year's details.
Meritly is an independent Australian service and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the organisations that write or run the tests we cover.