Have your child say the link in “for every” words before any sums, so both amounts grow together.
Practice test 1 is free. No card needed.
A relationships question is solved by saying the link in “for every” words, then growing both amounts by the same number of lots. Your child meets these in Quantitative Reasoning, sat in Year 6 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.
It links two amounts, such as yellow and blue paint, volunteers and hours, or magpies and rosellas, then asks what happens when one changes. The handbook says Quantitative Reasoning asks children to look at information carefully, find patterns and relationships, solve problems, and spot similarities and differences. In these questions the relationship is the whole puzzle.
Quantitative Reasoning is the third of the four tests, after Reading Comprehension and the writing. It has 35 questions in 35 minutes, so a clear first line of working saves time on the rest.
These three are our own, in the ASET style: a paint mix, a planting rate and a chain of bird counts. Each shows the answer and the working, so you can read them together.
As you read, ask your child to say the link out loud before the first step. Then talk through how a link read backwards, or one amount left unchanged, leads to a wrong option.
To make a shade of green, Zoe mixes 2 cups of yellow paint with 3 cups of blue paint. She wants to make more of exactly the same green using 8 cups of yellow paint. How many cups of blue paint does she need?
Answer: C
Answer: C
Keep the mix in the same proportion. 8 cups of yellow is 4 lots of 2 cups, so she needs 4 lots of 3 cups of blue, which is 12. 9 is tempting because it keeps blue "one more" than yellow, but that would change the shade.
At a tree-planting day, 10 volunteers planted 120 seedlings in 3 hours. Every volunteer plants at the same speed. How many seedlings would 5 volunteers plant in 6 hours?
Answer: A
Answer: A
Find what one volunteer plants in one hour: 120 ÷ 10 = 12 seedlings each in 3 hours, so 4 seedlings an hour. 5 volunteers for 6 hours plant 5 × 6 × 4 = 120, because half the people for twice the time gives the same total. 60 is tempting because it halves the volunteers but forgets the extra hours.
On a nature walk, Kiri's class counted birds. For every 4 magpies they saw 3 rosellas, and for every 2 rosellas they saw 5 galahs. They saw 60 galahs. How many magpies did they see?
Answer: B
Answer: B
Work back one link at a time. 60 galahs is 12 lots of 5, so there were 12 lots of 2 rosellas: 24 rosellas. 24 rosellas is 8 lots of 3, so there were 8 lots of 4 magpies: 32 magpies. 18 is tempting, but it uses the magpie-to-rosella link backwards (24 ÷ 4 × 3).
Say the link first, then scale both amounts together. It works because a mix or a rate only stays the same when both sides grow by the same number of lots. No school formula is needed, since the handbook says the content is very different to what is taught in school; these steps are ours, taken from the working above.
For every 2 cups of yellow, 3 cups of blue. Saying it this way keeps the two amounts together.
Work out how many times the known amount fits: 8 cups of yellow is 4 lots of 2. Then take the same number of lots of the other amount.
With people and hours, find what one person does in one hour, then build back up.
Start from the amount you know and move along the links in order, writing each answer down.
Half the people working twice as long gets the same job done. A quick check like this catches an answer that went the wrong way.
These traps come from treating a link as a sum, changing one amount but not the other, or reading a link the wrong way round. After you read the questions together, ask which slip might catch your child, and look for it next time.
Recipes, cordial and shared jobs use the same links, so you can practise while cooking. The handbook suggests about a minute per question, so start slowly and talk each step through.
Three worked questions teach the link. Practice test 1, free and timed like the real one, shows whether your child still finds it among mixed questions, and 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.