Before reading the results, ask your child what was changed on purpose and what was measured.
Practice test 1 is free. No card needed.
An experiment question is solved by naming what was changed and what was measured, then checking every option against the results. Children in Year 5 now meet these in Quantitative Reasoning on 6 March 2027.
Checked by the SelectiveReady team on 12 October 2026 · Updated 27 October 2026 · How we check facts
Independent. Not affiliated with the WA Department of Education.
Each one describes a short investigation, sometimes with a table of results, and asks what it shows or how to make it fair. The handbook says Quantitative Reasoning checks how well a child uses mathematical and scientific reasoning to solve problems. These questions are where the science part shows.
They come in Quantitative Reasoning, which runs third, after Reading Comprehension and the writing. With 35 questions in 35 minutes, a long set-up is worth reading once, slowly, rather than skimmed twice.
These three are our own, in the ASET style: bean plants, an ice-melting race and a swinging weight. Each shows the answer and the working, so you can read them together.
As you read, go back to the question's own rule together and test each option against it in turn. Each wrong option breaks the rule somewhere you can both see.
Tom wants to find out whether the amount of sunlight changes how tall bean plants grow. He sets up four bean plants. To make it a fair test, which one thing should be different for each plant?
Answer: A
Answer: A
In a fair test, you change only the thing you are testing and keep everything else the same. Tom is testing sunlight, so only the sunlight should differ. If he also changed the water, as in B, he could not tell whether sunlight or water made the plants grow differently.
Sana put identical ice cubes on same-sized plates made of different materials, in the same warm room, and timed how long each took to melt. The more easily heat passes through a plate, the faster the ice cube on it melts. She then tested a stone plate, and its ice cube melted in 16 minutes. Which list orders all five materials from the one heat passes through most easily to the one it passes through least easily?
| Plate material | Time for ice cube to melt (minutes) |
|---|---|
| Metal | 12 |
| Glass | 20 |
| Plastic | 27 |
| Wood | 31 |
Answer: D
Answer: D
Use the rule given: the faster the ice melts, the more easily heat passes through. So order the plates from shortest to longest melting time: metal (12), stone (16), glass (20), plastic (27), wood (31). A is tempting, but it lists the materials backwards, from slowest melting to fastest.
Ella hung a weight on a string and let it swing. She counted how many full swings (there and back) it made in one minute, using strings of different lengths. Her results are in the table. If the same pattern continues, about how long would the string need to be for 15 full swings in one minute?
| String length (cm) | Full swings in one minute |
|---|---|
| 25 | 60 |
| 50 | 42 |
| 100 | 30 |
| 200 | 21 |
Answer: C
Answer: C
Compare lengths that are 4 times apart. From 25 cm to 100 cm the swings halve (60 to 30), and from 50 cm to 200 cm they halve again (42 to 21). To halve 30 swings to 15, make the 100 cm string 4 times longer: 400 cm. 300 cm is tempting because it adds 100 cm, as if the pattern went up in equal steps.
Name the change and the measurement before reading the options. It works because once your child knows what was changed and what was counted, the results can only tell one story.
No science facts need learning: the handbook says the content is very different to what is taught in school. These steps are ours, taken from the working above.
Find the one thing the experimenter changes on purpose and the thing they count or time.
In a fair test only the thing being tested changes. Everything else stays the same.
If the question says faster melting means heat passes more easily, use that rule, not what your child already believes.
Look at rows where one amount doubles or is four times bigger, and see what happens to the other.
An option can sound sensible and still not match the results. Check each one before choosing.
The wrong options here reward three habits: changing two things at once, reading results the wrong way round, and expecting even steps. After you read them together, ask which habit might catch your child, and say its check out loud on the next experiment.
Small kitchen experiments build the same habit for almost nothing. The handbook suggests about a minute per question, so the set-up is worth reading carefully before any timing starts.
Three questions show how to read an experiment. Practice test 1 is free and timed like the real one, so you'll see whether your child still reads each set-up carefully among number questions. Its results show which skills cost marks.
More worked questions: ASET quantitative reasoning sample questions.
Practice test 1 marks every answer and shows results by skill: what your child already does well and the three skills to work on next.
Practise for the real test
Practice test 1 is free. Then packs from A$109 for 12 months, or A$9 a week, per exam.