England · Quest Assessments 11 plus · Years 4 and 5

Quest 11 plus maths practice

Quest Assessments is a UK test provider, part of the education company Atom Learning, that builds a separate 11 plus for each grammar school area or independent school that hires it. At Modern Age Coders, a live teacher covers that Quest maths with your child over video, either in a class of 15 to 20 or on their own, using our 11 plus maths preparation course. The first job is to read your own area's Quest page, because the maths might be a paper of its own or half of a paper shared with non-verbal reasoning.

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From Quest, council and consortium pages, read 31 October 2026 · Not connected with Quest Assessments or any school

What is the Quest 11 plus?

It is an 11 plus test written by Quest Assessments, a UK provider that is part of Atom Learning, for whichever grammar schools or independent schools commission it. Quest says plainly that "Every school will use different papers and follow different structures for their assessments." Its parents' guide says the test assesses what children have covered "up to the end of Year 5", that most papers use an OMR answer sheet marked with a pencil line, and that some questions ask for more than one answer. Bexley and Wirral set two papers of about 50 minutes; Dorset's consortium sets three 40-minute papers with maths first. Modern Age Coders teaches the Year 5 maths and the answer-sheet habits these tests need, live online, using practice questions we write ourselves.

Choose a starting point

Three courses for a Quest maths paper

Start where your child is weakest, not where the test begins. Tap a card to read what it covers.

11 Plus Maths Prep course thumbnail

QST / 01

11 plus maths preparation

The core course: Year 5 number, fractions, measures and problem solving, taught for questions worded in unfamiliar ways.

Open the syllabus →
Mental Maths for Kids course thumbnail

QST / 02

Mental maths, number sense first

Forty or fifty minutes go quickly when every sum is written out; secure recall gives time back for checking options.

Open the syllabus →
Reasoning and Readiness for Young Thinkers (Ages 6 to 9) course thumbnail

QST / 03

Reasoning and readiness

For younger children, ages 6 to 9, who would gain from pattern and spatial puzzles long before any Quest paper.

Open the syllabus →

Who Quest is

Who are Quest Assessments?

A test company that designs entrance assessments to order for grammar schools and independent schools, and also sells classroom progress tests. It is part of Atom Learning, which runs a home-learning platform.

Quest's parent guidance page describes two sides to its admissions work. "Grammar schools use Quest Admissions assessments to identify pupils who are naturally suited to a grammar school environment", and "Quest Admissions is an exam provider used by UK independent schools." For both, the warning is the same: "Every school will use different papers and follow different structures for their assessments." The admissions page aimed at schools lists what Quest offers its customers, including tests that are "Bespoke and branded to your school", delivered on "Paper and online", for "Main entry and in-year" admissions and "For ages 7+ to 16+". It says Quest is "Trusted by 130+ schools".

How a Quest test is made

Quest publishes its own five steps: it meets the school to discuss entry requirements, designs an assessment suite for the school to review, works with the school on the candidate experience, runs the test and processes results, and returns full reports on each candidate.

So when a family asks "what is on the Quest paper", the honest answer is "whatever your area agreed with Quest". The local page is the only reliable guide.

Who to ask about a Quest test

Not Quest. Bexley Council states that "Quest Assessments cannot provide information directly to parents or respond to individual concerns"; questions go to the council's School Admissions Team.

The same pattern holds elsewhere: the school or consortium runs registration and results, and Quest supplies the papers.

Sources: Quest Assessments, parent guidance and Quest Admissions; London Borough of Bexley, about the test; all read 31 October 2026. Modern Age Coders is not connected with Quest Assessments, Atom Learning or any school.

Area by area

How is the Quest maths paper set out in each area?

Four published Quest designs, four different places for the maths. Read across the table before you buy anything labelled "Quest style".

Maths in Quest-written 11 plus tests, from the pages Quest hosts with each area or school (next published sitting)
Area or schoolPapersWhere the maths sitsNext sitting published
Bexley Selection Test (London Borough of Bexley)Two non-adaptive paper assessments, around 50 minutes eachPaper two, "Numerical Reasoning and Non-verbal Reasoning"Results early October 2027
Wirral ConsortiumTwo papers in one session, about 50 minutes eachPaper two, "Mathematics and Non-verbal reasoning"Results mid-October 2027
Dorset ConsortiumThree papers, 40 minutes eachPaper one, Mathematics, on its ownExam September 2027; registration opens April 2027
One Enfield grammar schoolTwo non-adaptive written assessmentsPaper one, Mathematics, multiple choiceTest September 2027

The Dorset design is the longest. By our own arithmetic its three 40-minute papers add up to 120 minutes of questions in one session, with a short supervised break, and maths comes first, when children are freshest. In Bexley and Wirral the maths shares its paper with non-verbal reasoning, so a child switches from fractions to shape patterns inside one booklet. In the Enfield school's design maths is again a paper of its own, while the second paper holds English and a written task. Bexley names its maths "numerical reasoning" and the council defines it as content "not exceeding what children are expected to learn by the end of Year 5". That ceiling matches Quest's own parents' guide, which says the test covers school work "up to the end of Year 5, so there's no need for them to learn Year 6 topics".

Dates move with contracts

Dorset's consortium page with Quest gives registration from April 2027 and an exam in September 2027. Our Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole page records the provider in use before that.

Results come from the area

Bexley emails results from 4pm on Friday 2 October 2026 for this year's cohort. Wirral's page with Quest gives results in mid-October 2027 for the next one.

Independent schools too

The London 11+ Consortium of independent schools designed its online test with Quest. It is a very different shape: one 100-minute online sitting with adaptive maths, described on the consortium's own site.

Sources: Quest Assessments with the London Borough of Bexley, the Wirral Consortium, the Dorset Consortium and an Enfield grammar school, read 31 October 2026. Local detail: Bexley, Wirral, Enfield, Slough, Plymouth, Kingston.

The answer sheet

How do you fill in a Quest OMR answer sheet?

With one horizontal pencil line through the box beside the chosen answer, nothing else. Quest spells the rules out because a correct answer marked the wrong way may not be read.

Quest's guidance for parents explains that "Most 11+ papers use OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) answer sheets", so a child "won't write out answers" but will "draw a line through a box beside the answer they've chosen". It then lists what not to do: "Do not shade in the whole rectangle", "Do not tick the box" and "Do not put a cross through the box". Mistakes are rubbed out, and "Each question number must match the number on the answer sheet." The maths familiarisation booklet shows rows labelled A to E, the five-option layout children should expect.

OMR habits we practise, from Quest's published rules (rules: Quest; drills: ours)
Quest's ruleThe usual mistakeOur drill
A single horizontal line through the boxShading the box fully, as on some school worksheetsTen rows marked against a timer, checked for line shape, before any maths
Rub out and re-mark if you change your mindTwo lines on one row, so neither countsPractise erasing cleanly with a soft eraser, not crossing out
Question number must match the sheetSkipping a hard question in the booklet but not on the sheetLeave a small dot on the row you skip; check numbers every five questions
Some questions ask for more than one answerMarking the first correct option and moving onRead the stem twice; count how many answers it asks for before marking

"Select more than one" questions

Quest's parents' guide warns that children "might be asked to select more than one answer - remind your child to always double check what the question asks them to do". It is the single biggest difference between a Quest paper and the older one-answer formats.

In Quest's own maths familiarisation booklet, one of the 20 sample questions has four correct options in the answer key. We do not reproduce it; the booklet is free from Quest.

Use the free booklets first

Quest publishes free familiarisation booklets for English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, each with a sample OMR sheet. The maths booklet says of its questions: "These questions will not appear in your real assessment."

Children from families who qualify for the government's extra school funding for disadvantaged pupils can also ask for a free Atom Home account through Quest's parent guidance page, once their primary school confirms eligibility.

Quest or FSCE

Is Quest the same as FSCE?

No. They are two separate providers that both arrived in English grammar school testing in recent years, and families often mix them up. Check which one your area names.

Two newer 11 plus providers, as each describes itself (read 31 October 2026)
Quest AssessmentsFSCE (Future Stories Community Enterprise Ltd)
Who they are"part of the education company Atom Learning"A company whose tests are "written by Grammar Schools, for Grammar Schools"
Who uses themGrammar schools and "UK independent schools"; Bexley, Wirral, Dorset and othersGrammar schools; Gloucestershire's grammar schools for the 2028 intake
Ages"For ages 7+ to 16+"11+ and in-year tests
Stated aimsFair, accessible, bespoke tests following Ofqual guidance"We support tutor-free summers" and new test content every year
Free materialFamiliarisation booklets for four subjects, OMR sheetEach school publishes its own guidance; see our area pages

Gloucestershire County Council says that for the 2028 intake "the test provider they use will be Future Stories Community Enterprise (FSCE)", and that the grammar schools plan the test for Saturday 3 July 2027, so a Gloucestershire family should not prepare in a Quest format. Our pages for Gloucestershire, Reading, Essex and Calderdale cover FSCE areas in detail. The underlying maths, school work to the end of Year 5, is much the same for both providers; the layouts are not.

Sources: FSCE Ltd; Gloucestershire County Council, grammar schools; Quest Assessments parent guidance and admissions pages. All read 31 October 2026.

Worked examples, written by us

How should a child tackle a Quest-style maths question?

Three original Year 5 problems, two of them in a select-every-correct-option style. None comes from a Quest booklet or paper. Watch the checking, not just the answer.

1. Every option, every time

Which of these are multiples of both 3 and 4: 12, 18, 24, 30, 36? A number divisible by both 3 and 4 is divisible by 12, so test each against 12. 12 yes, 18 no, 24 yes, 30 no, 36 yes. Three answers: 12, 24 and 36. A child who marks 12 and moves on loses the question, because the stem never said "which one".

2. Equivalent, or only close?

Which of these equal 0.75: three quarters, six eighths, nine twelfths, seven ninths, 75 hundredths? Simplify each. Six eighths and nine twelfths both reduce to three quarters; 75 hundredths is 0.75 by place value. Seven ninths is 0.777..., close but not equal. Four answers. Simplifying first is quicker than turning every fraction into a decimal.

3. Same units first

A ribbon 3.6 m long is cut into pieces of 45 cm. How many pieces? Convert first: 3.6 m is 360 cm. Then 360 divided by 45: 45 times 8 is 360, so 8 pieces. Dividing 3.6 by 45 gives nonsense, and that wrong number often appears among the options. Units before arithmetic is the rule.

A practice set written by Modern Age Coders, at Year 5 level
Question (ours)AnswerThe reasoning
Which of these are prime: 9, 11, 15, 17, 21, 23?11, 17 and 23Check each for a factor other than 1 and itself: 9 is 3 times 3, 15 is 3 times 5, 21 is 3 times 7. Three primes, so three marks on the sheet.
Write MCMXC as a number.1990M is 1000, CM is 900, XC is 90. Roman numerals to 1000 are on the Year 5 curriculum and easy marks if practised.
Round 46,350 to the nearest thousand.46,000Look only at the hundreds digit, 3, which is under 5, so round down. The tens and ones do not matter.
An L-shape is a 10 cm by 6 cm rectangle with a 4 cm by 3 cm corner removed. What is its area?48 square centimetresWhole rectangle 60, minus the missing 12. Subtracting a missing piece is faster than splitting the L into two rectangles.
Which of these are square numbers: 16, 24, 36, 50, 64?16, 36 and 644 squared, 6 squared and 8 squared. 24 and 50 sit between squares. Another multi-answer row.
A bag of flour holds 1.5 kg. How many 125 g scoops does it hold?121.5 kg is 1500 g, and 125 goes into 1000 eight times and into 500 four times.

Half of this practice set has more than one correct option. That is deliberate: in our experience the costly error on a multi-answer paper is not a wrong sum but a stopped search. Children learn to count how many answers a stem allows, check every option against the condition, and only then draw their lines on the sheet.

What Quest advises

Does Quest say a child needs tutoring?

Quest's own guidance puts school learning first and warns against "excessive tutoring". We agree, and keep our offer to the maths and the format.

In Quest's words

The parents' guide says: "The best preparation is steady, meaningful learning over time" and "not last-minute cramming or excessive tutoring." It suggests practising maths "in fun, everyday ways", such as cooking and shopping, with "small, regular sessions rather than long hours".

Area pages written with Quest repeat the theme: a strong grounding in school learning, wide reading, and the ability to apply knowledge to new contexts.

Where teaching still earns its place

A child who reaches the summer of Year 5 unsure of fractions, measures or multi-step problems is missing things school expects, test or no test. Fixing that is useful for Year 7 as much as for September.

So we teach Year 5 maths properly, add the OMR and multi-answer habits, and stop. We do not claim knowledge of any Quest paper, and we do not sell "Quest papers".

  1. Find your area's or school's Quest page and note the papers, timings and which paper holds the maths.
  2. Download Quest's free maths familiarisation booklet and the OMR sample, and work through them slowly, once.
  3. Secure the Year 5 curriculum: place value to a million, Roman numerals to 1000, fractions and decimals, area and perimeter, unit conversion.
  4. Practise multi-answer questions and line-marking on short sets of ten, not full papers.
  5. Only in the final weeks, sit timed sections in your area's exact layout.

Timeline

From Year 4 to a Quest test

Quest grammar areas in the table register children during Year 5 and test them early in Year 6. Our four stages work back from that; your area supplies the exact dates.

Four stages before a Quest 11 plus (our plan)
WhenStageSecure when
Year 41. Number factsTables, number bonds and place value come back without hesitation
Year 5, autumn to spring2. Year 5 contentFractions, measures and multi-step problems come out right at the first attempt
Year 5, summer3. Quest formatFree booklets done; line-marking and multi-answer rows done without slips
Summer holidays4. Your area's layoutTimed sections in the local paper order finished with time to check

If you are starting late

Stage 2 still comes before stage 4. The format takes days to learn; the maths takes months.

After the first lesson we will tell you honestly which stage your child has reached.

Once the test is over

Year 5 maths done well carries straight into Year 7. Some children go on to maths through coding.

For children who enjoyed the puzzles, our UK competitions calendar has the next challenge.

All related courses

Maths courses around a Quest test

Arranged by when they help most. Open any card for the syllabus.

I

Building up

Years 3 to 5

UK / QAP / 01

11 plus maths preparation

The Year 5 curriculum, taught for entrance-test wording.

Open the syllabus

UK / QAP / 02

Mental maths for kids

Quick recall so minutes are left for checking.

Open the syllabus

UK / QAP / 03

Primary maths, Years 1 to 5

Firm foundations for children who need them first.

Open the syllabus

UK / QAP / 04

Abacus and mental maths

A hands-on route into fast calculation.

Open the syllabus
II

Alongside

Pattern and reasoning

UK / QAP / 05

Vedic maths

Number tricks with reasons behind them, for pattern lovers.

Open the syllabus

UK / QAP / 06

KS2 SATs maths

The Year 6 papers that follow the 11 plus.

Open the syllabus
III

Afterwards

Year 6 onwards

UK / QAP / 07

Lower secondary maths

Key Stage 3 ground, started early.

Open the syllabus

UK / QAP / 08

Maths through coding

Small Python programs that test a maths idea.

Open the syllabus

UK / QAP / 09

Competition maths

Stretch problems for children who finish early.

Open the syllabus

How lessons run

Live lessons in your area's Quest layout

Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays. The teaching team sits in India, where clocks never change, so lessons run four and a half hours behind India time in the British summer and five and a half in winter; we always confirm the slot in UK time.

After school

Most Year 4 and 5 children learn here.

Weekend morning

Space for a full timed section.

School holidays

Short, frequent lessons before September.

Local layout

Maths alone, or paired with non-verbal reasoning, as your area sets it.

Line-marking drills

Clean OMR lines, matched row numbers, safe skips.

Multi-answer care

Every option checked when a stem allows more than one.

Our own questions

Nothing copied from Quest or any school.

Two formats

Join a class of 15 to 20 children working at one level, or book lessons alone with a teacher.

No promises

Places and pass marks belong to schools and councils.

Student work

What our students built afterwards

Projects by our students, most of them well past the 11 plus now. See more on student labs.

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A weather forecasting site with live conditions for any location.

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Fees

Fees for Quest 11 plus maths lessons

A monthly fee in the currency we show families in the UK. Your first lesson is free and there is nothing to pay to join.

Free first class

USD 0

no card required

  • A proper Year 5 maths lesson
  • Our candid view of the gaps
  • Only a phone number needed
Book it

Group batch

USD 100

a month, billed in US dollars

  • A batch of 15 to 20 at one stage
  • One teacher throughout
  • Practice in your area's paper order
  • Lighter weeks when school is busy
Start here

One to one

USD 150

a month, billed in US dollars

  • One teacher, one child
  • Shaped around one Quest design
  • Suits a child with one specific gap
Enquire

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Quest 11 plus questions

What parents ask about the Quest 11 plus

What is the Quest 11 plus exam?

It is an entrance test written by Quest Assessments for a particular grammar school area or independent school. Quest says every school uses different papers and structures, so the Quest test in Bexley is not the same as the one in Dorset.

Who owns Quest Assessments?

Quest says it is part of the education company Atom Learning. It provides entrance tests for grammar and independent schools and separate progress tests for classrooms.

What maths is in a Quest 11 plus?

Quest's parents' guide says the test covers what children have learned in school up to the end of Year 5, with maths that may include problem solving, arithmetic and reasoning. There is no need to learn Year 6 topics.

How long is the Quest maths paper?

It depends on the area. Dorset's consortium sets three 40-minute papers with maths first; Bexley and Wirral set two papers of about 50 minutes, with maths sharing paper two with non-verbal reasoning.

How do you fill in a Quest answer sheet?

Draw one horizontal pencil line through the box beside your answer. Quest says not to shade the whole rectangle, tick it or cross it, and to rub out cleanly if you change your mind.

Can a Quest question have more than one right answer?

Yes. Quest's guidance says children might be asked to select more than one answer, so they should check what each question asks before marking the sheet.

Where can I find Quest practice papers?

Quest publishes free familiarisation booklets for maths, English, verbal and non-verbal reasoning on its parent guidance page, with a sample OMR sheet. It says those questions will not appear in the real test.

Is Quest the same as FSCE?

No. FSCE, Future Stories Community Enterprise, is a separate provider whose tests are written by grammar schools for grammar schools. Gloucestershire's grammar schools will use FSCE for the 2028 intake.

When can my child have lessons?

Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays. Every time is confirmed in UK time.

Do you have real Quest papers?

No, and nobody outside the schools should. We teach Year 5 maths and the Quest answer format using questions we write ourselves, and we never promise a score or a place.

Related pages

Quest areas and other providers

Local pages go deeper into each test.

11 plus maths in Bexley

Numerical reasoning in the Bexley Selection Test.

11 plus maths in Wirral

Maths in paper two with non-verbal reasoning.

11 plus maths in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole

The Dorset consortium and its change of provider.

11 plus maths in Gloucestershire

An FSCE county from the 2028 intake.

11 plus maths tuition

The subject, whoever writes the test.

Coding classes in the UK

All of our UK pages.

Related pages in this guide

Part of the guide: UK selective school maths tests: 7+, 11+, 13+ and 16+

Tests by provider and entry point

11+ by area

Northern Ireland transfer test

More guides: UK maths exam boards and specification codes · UK maths year by year, Reception to Year 11 · UK university admissions: maths tests and computing applications · UK maths enrichment, competitions and able pupils

Start here

Book a free maths lesson

Let us know the year group and the area or school your child is applying to. We teach one real lesson in that Quest layout and then tell you what we found.

Rather read first? See the 11 plus maths preparation course for the topic list, or how we teach for the method behind it.

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