Year 11 is a pressurised enough year without needing to dedicate additional hours to preparing for our test. We’re designing a paper which tests potential and problem solving rather than one which expects you to have crammed for a lot of information. So our first piece of advice is not to over-prepare. We deliberately tell you little about the content and don’t share past papers to reduce the pressure on you to study for long hours in the lead up to our test.

You probably want to warm up a little, just to put your nerves at rest. We recommend that you have a go at the questions on this page which will give you a taster of what to expect.

More generally, the best way to be prepared is to develop your mathematical thinking and problem solving. You can do this by always seeking to understand how and why mathematics works when you learn it in school. Asking teachers questions and playing around to see how things fit together is always beneficial. Be curious and always asking why? what if? If you have the opportunity to take part in maths challenges and enrichment activities, grasp it with both hands and embrace getting stuck from time to time. There are some lovely websites such as nrich, the UKMT and brilliant which have a wealth of materials for you to play with. You might also like to have a go at our own “snackable maths” problems.

None of the above suggestions are designed for last-minute cramming, just ideas to help foster your joy and ability in mathematics which, over time, will develop the type of thinking and problem solving which are likely to serve you well in our admissions test or any other mathematics you do.