11+ maths practice for Year 5

Practice at Year 5 level for children starting the 11+ prep year now, sitting the test in autumn 2027 for September 2028 entry. Every question below is taken from PipPrep's own bank, from the 23,522 verified maths questions tagged for Year 5.

Year 5 maths at a glance

What to focus on in Year 5

Maths is where Year 5 practice pays back fastest, because most of it is curriculum work your child is meeting in class anyway - fractions, ratio, percentages, area and perimeter, number patterns. The 11+ difference is speed and the way questions are dressed up as short word problems rather than bare sums.

In the autumn term of Year 5, prioritise arithmetic fluency over exam technique. A child who still counts on fingers for times tables will lose more marks to time pressure than to any gap in topic knowledge, and that is the cheapest thing to fix at this stage.

How much, how often

Fifteen to twenty minutes on a school day is a realistic target for the autumn term of Year 5, done at a consistent time so it stops being a negotiation. Consistency matters more than volume at this stage - a child who does twenty minutes five days a week covers far more ground over the year than one who does two hours every other Sunday, and hates it.

Keep at least one day a week clear. Reading for pleasure counts for more than another worksheet, especially for the English and verbal reasoning papers, where vocabulary is doing most of the work.

Watch what's actually going wrong rather than the raw score. A child getting 60% because they're rushing needs something different from a child getting 60% because they haven't met the topic. Any decent practice tool should show you which of those it is.

Try real Year 5 maths questions

Pulled straight from PipPrep's own question bank, from the questions tagged for Year 5 - not written for this page.

Question 1
What is the next number in the sequence? 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, ?
Answer: 31. Add 5 each time: 26 + 5 = 31.
Question 2
Divide 16 in the ratio 1:3. What is the larger share?
Answer: 12. 16 ÷ (1+3) = 4 per part. Larger share: 3×4 = 12. Smaller share: 1×4 = 4.
Question 3
Solve: n + 4 = 14
Answer: 10. The correct answer is 10. Use inverse operations to isolate the unknown and check it in the original equation.
Question 4
What is the next number in the sequence? 8, 14, 20, 26, 32, ?
Answer: 38. Add 6 each time: 32 + 6 = 38.
Question 5
A triangle has angles of 75° and 75°. What is the third angle?
Answer: 30°. Angles in a triangle add up to 180°. 75° + 75° + ? = 180° ? = 180° − 75° − 75° = 30°.

Start the prep year properly

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Frequently asked questions

Is this at the right level for a Year 5 child?

Yes. Every question on this page is drawn from the questions tagged for Year 5 in PipPrep's bank, at the lower difficulty bands, so they suit a child at the start of the prep year rather than one sitting the test next month.

How many of these should my child do a day?

Fifteen to twenty minutes on a school day is a sensible target in the autumn term of Year 5. That is usually eight to fifteen questions depending on the subject, and it matters more that it happens most days than that any one session is long.

Do all 11+ areas test this subject?

No. The papers vary by area: Essex CSSE schools test English and maths only, Hertfordshire's consortium schools test maths and verbal reasoning, and most GL Assessment areas test all four. Check what your target schools actually set before building a plan around any one subject.

Are the answers checked?

The questions used here are drawn only from rows marked verified in our own bank, and each carries its own worked explanation. If you ever spot an error, report it in the app and it gets fixed at source.