Thinking Skills: what the paper asks, and what we teach for it
The Department publishes this section's counts, its timings, how many options a question carries and the rules a child sits it under. Here is that structure, one real question from the app, and the seven lessons that cover it.
What this section is
Thinking Skills sits inside two placement tests, sat at different ages, and each has its own length:
- Opportunity Class, sat in Year 4: 30 questions in 30 minutes.
- Selective High School, sat in Year 6: 40 questions in 40 minutes.
Both give four options a question, and both work out at a minute a question, which is the tightest pace anywhere in the test. Nothing is deducted for a wrong answer, so a guess is never worse than a blank: the practice papers tell a child so in their own instructions. The test is sat on a computer supplied by the department, and paper is provided for working out. The counts, timings and option counts above are the Department's, published on its practice-test pages for the Opportunity Class and Selective High School tests, where those practice papers are also free to download, and what happens on the day is on its placement test page.
What we teach for it
Seven lessons, each built around one real thing the section asks a child to do.
- The Argument Workshop: what would make a claim harder to argue with, and what would sink it.
- Spot the Mistake: finding exactly where someone's reasoning broke, rather than just knowing it did.
- Numbers That Lie: a figure can be correct while the sentence built on it isn't.
- The Logic Courtroom: if-then rules run one way only, and the converse trap catches almost everyone at first.
- The Puzzle Bureau: cheapest combinations, worst-case guarantees and clue grids, the slowest puzzles in the kit by design.
- The Shape Shifter: turning shapes without turning the page, folding nets in your head, lines of symmetry.
- Odd One Out: analogies, odd-one-out sets and letter codes, a fast warm-up rather than a main course.
A question, quoted whole
One question from Spot the Mistake, exactly as a child sees it in the app, hint and explanation included.
The library rule: "Only members may borrow books."
Tom says: "Ivy is a member, so Ivy can borrow this book."
Which sentence shows the mistake Tom has made?
- ABeing a member might be needed, but it might not be enough on its own
- BThe library has two floors, and the reading room is on the second floor
- CThe library closes early on Fridays
- DIvy does not visit the library on weekdays
Hint: 'Only members may borrow' rules people out. Does it let anyone in?
Why A. The rule bars non-members and promises nothing to members: fines, loan limits or reference-only books could still stop her. The other options are all true, but none of them touches Tom's reasoning: he has treated a requirement as a guarantee.
Every wrong option there is true. B, C and D are all real facts about the library. The trap is sorting them by whether they're true rather than by whether they're relevant, and a child who does that gets stuck picking between three true sentences instead of asking which one is about Tom's actual mistake.
What else is in there
Odd One Out also carries analogies, odd-one-out sets and letter patterns, the kind of verbal-reasoning warm-up that selection tests at other schools use, alongside code and cipher questions, which sit closer to what this section asks. Both are in the app because a growing reasoner benefits from the wider habit of spotting a pattern quickly, not only from the exact formats of any one paper.