11 plus Maths practice

What the 11 plus tests in maths

The 11 plus tests maths from the Key Stage 2 curriculum, not a syllabus of its own. Most of the content is Year 5 work, with a little early Year 6, because many children sit the eleven plus in the first term of Year 6, before that year’s teaching has caught up. Confirm the exact timing with your child’s school or admissions authority, since it varies by area.

What makes the paper feel unfamiliar is the style, not the maths. Questions are worded as short problems rather than plain sums, several need two or three steps in one go, and the whole paper is timed. In the multiple-choice format most papers use, the wrong options catch a specific slip, so a child who drops a step lands on one of the five choices rather than an obviously wrong answer.

Put simply, 11 plus maths is broadly the maths already being taught at school, sat under time pressure and asked in a harder, multi-step style. For most children the gap is speed and question style, not unseen content.

The maths topics, grouped

11+ Daily organises Maths into 33 skill projects. Grouped into six areas, they cover:

Number

• Place Value & Ordering: reading, comparing and ordering numbers, and rounding
• Four Operations & BODMAS: adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, and the order to do them in
• Number Properties: factors, multiples, primes, squares and cubes
• Negative Numbers: counting through zero and finding a difference
• Roman Numerals: reading and writing them, including years
• Estimation & Approximation: rounding to check an answer is sensible

Fractions, decimals, percentages and ratio

• Fractions: Basics & Equivalents: equivalent fractions, simplifying and comparing
• Fractions of Amounts: finding a fraction of a quantity
• Fractions of Shapes: reading a fraction shaded on a diagram
• Decimals: place value after the point, ordering, adding and subtracting
• Percentages: finding a percentage of an amount
• FDP Conversions: moving between fractions, decimals and percentages
• Ratio & Scaling: sharing an amount in a ratio, scaling a recipe or a map

A worked example: finding three-fifths of 40. Divide by 5 to find one fifth (8), then multiply by 3 to find three-fifths (24). Doing the steps in the wrong order, or stopping after the first, is the most common slip in this topic.

Algebra and sequences

• Sequences & Patterns: finding the rule and the next term
• Function Machines & Inverse: following a rule forwards, then undoing it
• Equations & Missing Numbers: finding the missing value in a calculation
• Inverse / Think of a Number: working backwards from an answer to the start

Measures, money and time

• Units & Conversion: metric units and moving between them
• Money: totals, change and value for money
• Time & Timetables: reading clocks, working out a duration, reading a timetable

Shape and space

• Perimeter, Area & Volume: rectangles, compound shapes and cuboids
• 2D Shapes & Properties: naming shapes, sides, symmetry and the angles inside
• 3D Shapes & Nets: faces, edges, corners, and which net folds up
• Angles: estimating, measuring, and angles on a line or in a triangle
• Coordinates & Position: plotting and reading points on a grid
• Transformations: reflection, rotation and translation

Data, charts and logic

• Bar Charts & Pictograms: reading values, including a key worth more than one
• Line Graphs & Pie Charts: reading between plotted points, and fractions of a whole
• Tables & Two-Way Tables: reading and completing a table with two headings
• Venn Diagrams: sorting numbers or shapes by two rules at once
• Mean, Median, Mode & Range: the average, the middle value, the most common, and the gap between the highest and lowest
• Classification & Logic: sorting by rules and reasoning about what must be true
• Multi-Step Word Problems: several of the topics above, combined in one question

A sensible order to work through 11 plus maths

For a Year 4 or Year 5 child, the order above works well as a learning order too, because each group leans on the one before it.

Start with number: a child shaky on times tables or place value looks weak at fractions and word problems later, when the real gap sits further back. Fractions, decimals, percentages and ratio come next, since ratio is fractions in a different form and percentages share the same idea of parts of a whole.

Algebra can follow once number is secure. At 11 plus level it is gentle: spotting a pattern, following a rule, or working backwards from an answer, so it leans on confidence with the four operations rather than any new idea. Measures, money and time can be practised alongside it, since both are largely number and fractions applied to a real-world context.

Shape and space does not depend heavily on the groups above, so it is the one a child can start earlier or dip into out of order; much of it is vocabulary and careful looking rather than calculation, and knowing what “parallel” and “vertex” mean answers most of these questions quickly.

Leave data, charts and logic until last, particularly Multi-Step Word Problems, which draw on several earlier topics at once, a timetable question that also involves a ratio, say. How much 11 plus practice a child needs each day covers a realistic weekly routine for working through all six groups.

How to use this order at home

• Start with number, even when the weak point looks like something else. Most trouble with fractions, money or word problems traces back to tables and place value.
• One topic at a time, in short sessions. Ten minutes on a single skill beats forty on a mixed page.
• Ask for the method, not the answer. “What did you do first?” tells you more than a tick or a cross.
• Use plain words at home. Say “the most common” rather than “the mode” and “the middle value” rather than “the median”, because that is how the questions are phrased.
• Add a clock late. Speed follows accuracy. The other way round trains guessing.

Common mistakes

• Fractions of amounts, wrong order or half-finished. Three-fifths of 40 is two steps; a child who divides and stops has found one-fifth, not three-fifths.
• Ratio without counting the total parts first. 2:3 is two parts out of five, not two-thirds, and skipping that count gets every sharing question wrong the same way.
• BODMAS applied left to right, not in order. Multiplication and division come before addition and subtraction regardless of where they sit in the sum.
• Time treated as base 100, not base 60. 2:45 to 3:20 is 35 minutes, not 75, and timetables add the 24-hour clock on top.
• Stopping after the first step of a word problem. The halfway number often looks like a plausible answer, and on a multiple-choice paper it is usually sitting among the options.
• Misreading a pictogram or bar chart key. A key where one symbol stands for two, five or ten changes every value read from the chart.

Where 11+ Daily fits

The six groups above are the 33 Maths skill projects in 11+ Daily. The Today screen picks one specific skill for each session, Fractions of Amounts rather than “some maths”, and a wrong answer comes back in a later session until it is right. Charts, shapes, grids and nets are drawn as live diagrams on laptop, tablet or phone rather than fixed images, so they always render cleanly whatever the question needs them to show.

See how the Today screen decides what to practise next, and the pricing page has the full detail on the 14-day free trial. Questions about exam boards, devices or how sessions work are in the 11+ Daily FAQ.

Questions parents ask