If you are reading this with five weeks to go and a sinking feeling that you should have started months ago — stop. Take a breath. You have not ruined your child's chances.

The guilt is normal. Every parent Facebook group is full of families who started in Year 3, hired tutors in Year 4, and have been drilling papers every weekend for a year. It is easy to look at that and feel like you have already lost. You have not.

Here is what actually matters: the NSW Department of Education has repeatedly stated that the Selective Test is designed to assess ability, not coaching. You cannot cram for aptitude — but you absolutely can improve your child's score by making sure they understand the format, manage their time, and walk in feeling confident rather than blindsided.

Thirty-five days is enough for that. If you want the full picture of what the test covers, our complete guide to the 2026 Selective Test breaks down every section.

Why Short, Focused Prep Actually Works

Research on test preparation consistently shows that targeted practice with feedback outperforms high-volume drilling. A child who does 30 focused minutes a day for five weeks will almost certainly improve more than one who does three scattered hours every Saturday.

There are three reasons for this:

• Spaced repetition beats cramming. Short daily sessions let the brain consolidate learning overnight. Weekend-only marathons do not.
• Fatigue kills accuracy. A tired child makes careless errors and starts to associate the test with misery. Neither helps on exam day.
• Format familiarity is fast to build. The Selective Test uses specific question types. Once your child recognises the patterns — inference questions in Reading, spatial reasoning in Thinking Skills — they stop losing marks to confusion and start losing them only to genuine difficulty.

Thirty minutes a day. Five days a week. That is your commitment — roughly 25 sessions between now and test day.

Your Week-by-Week Plan

Week 1 — Find Out Where You Stand (Days 1–7)

Do not start with a workbook. Start with a diagnostic.

Have your child sit one practice set across all four sections — Reading, Mathematical Reasoning, Thinking Skills, and Writing. It does not need to happen in one sitting. Spread it over two or three days. Do not help. Do not hover.

When the results come in, you are looking for one thing: which sections need the most work? That is where you spend your time. If your child scores well in Maths but struggles with Writing, the answer is not more Maths.

Parent job: Record the results and resist the urge to panic. The diagnostic is a map, not a verdict.

Week 2 — Build Accuracy in Weak Spots (Days 8–14)

Focus entirely on your child's one or two weakest sections. Work slowly. No timer yet. The goal is understanding, not speed.

• Reading: Practise inference and vocabulary-in-context questions. Teach your child to go back to the passage for evidence rather than guessing from memory.
• Thinking Skills: Work through pattern recognition and logical reasoning at a comfortable pace. Discuss the "why" behind each answer.
• Writing: Complete one full piece to a prompt in a relaxed setting. Focus on structure — clear introduction, developed body, conclusion.
• Maths: Target the specific question types that caused errors in the diagnostic.

Parent job: Review mistakes together. Ask "what tripped you up?" rather than "how many did you get right?"

Week 3 — Add the Clock (Days 15–21)

Now introduce time pressure — gently. Do half-sections with a timer. The skill your child needs is not just knowing the answer, but knowing when to move on from a question that is eating too much time.

Practise the decision to skip and come back. On the real test, this single habit is worth more than knowing any particular maths formula.

Week 4 — Simulate Real Conditions (Days 22–28)

Run one or two full mock sessions on a computer with strict timing and no interruptions. The test is entirely digital, so practising on paper is now a disadvantage.

After the mock, review together. Identify what improved since Week 1 — and celebrate that progress. Then note the two or three question types that still cause trouble and target those in your remaining sessions.

Week 5 — Taper and Protect Confidence (Days 29–35)

This is not the week for new material. Shorter sessions. Familiar question types. Light revision of weak spots, but nothing intense.

Prioritise sleep, normal routines, and calm. A rested child sitting the test at 80% preparation will outperform a stressed child at 100%.

The last two days: No study. Pack the bag. Plan the route. Keep conversation light.

What to Focus On — and What to Skip

With limited time, not everything deserves equal attention. Here is where late starters get the biggest return:

Spend your time here:

• Writing — it is 25% of the total score, it improves quickly with practice, and most families under-prepare for it
• Thinking Skills — the patterns are learnable, and this section rewards familiarity with question types
• Reviewing mistakes — every error your child understands and corrects is worth more than ten new questions done on autopilot

Spend less time here:

• Topics your child already knows well — do not polish strengths at the expense of weak spots
• Obscure or extremely difficult questions — the test rewards consistency across all questions, not perfection on the hardest ones
• New workbooks, courses, or tutoring programs — five weeks out, adding new resources creates noise, not clarity

Your Next Step

The single most valuable thing you can do today is find out where your child actually stands. Twenty minutes with a practice test will tell you more than a week of guessing.

SelectiveReady offers free practice across all four sections with instant feedback — so you can build your 35-day plan around real data, not assumptions.