Here is something parents discover, often later than they would like: being good at school maths and being good at 11+ maths are not the same thing.
A child can be top of their class in Year 5, confident with everything the national curriculum throws at them, and still find themselves caught off guard by the maths section of an 11+ paper. Not because the maths itself is dramatically harder — though it is more demanding — but because the style of questioning is different, the time pressure is more intense, and the specific topics tested do not always map neatly onto what has been covered in class.
Understanding exactly where children tend to come unstuck — and practising those areas deliberately, at progressively increasing difficulty — is one of the highest-value things you can do in 11+ maths preparation.
Here are the four areas covered in the 11Plus Tips maths question bank, with an honest look at where the difficulties tend to lie and what to do about them.
1. Arithmetic — The Foundation That Slips Under Pressure
Arithmetic is the core of 11+ maths. Every more complex question type draws on it. And yet it is the area where confident children most commonly make preventable mistakes — not because they do not know how to do the calculations, but because they are doing them too quickly, under time pressure, without the mental arithmetic fluency the exam demands.
The 11+ does not allow calculators. Questions at higher difficulty levels involve multi-step compound calculations — the kind where a mental arithmetic error early in the process compounds into a wrong answer that looks completely different from the correct one. A child who is used to checking their work at school, or reaching for a calculator for any calculation above basic multiplication, will find the pace and format of the arithmetic section demanding.
The specific trap at higher levels is not that the operations are unfamiliar. It is that children attempt to hold too much in working memory at once — tracking the problem, performing the calculation, and monitoring their time — and one of those things gets dropped. The answer is fluency built through consistent practice, so that basic arithmetic becomes genuinely automatic and frees up cognitive capacity for the more complex reasoning the question requires.
The 11Plus Tips arithmetic question bank runs to 748 questions across all five difficulty levels — from two-digit mental arithmetic at level 1 through to multi-step compound calculations at level 5. The platform's adaptive engine ensures your child is always working at the edge of their current ability, not coasting through questions they have already mastered or struggling with questions that are too far ahead.
2. Number Sequences — Finding the Rule Under Time Pressure
Number sequences are one of the most frequently tested skills in the 11+ maths paper, and one of the most commonly underestimated in preparation. Most parents look at a level 1 or 2 sequence question — a simple +3 pattern, or a times table — and assume their child will have no difficulty. At those levels, they are probably right.
The challenge is that sequence questions at levels 4 and 5 are a different proposition entirely. Rules at higher difficulty involve increasing differences (where the gap between terms grows by a fixed amount each step), alternating operations (where the pattern alternates between, say, multiplying and adding), and compound rules where two separate patterns are running simultaneously and have to be identified independently.
Example question at level 2: 1, 5, 10, 16, 23, ___ — what comes next?
This already requires a child to notice that the differences between terms (4, 5, 6, 7) are themselves increasing by 1 each step. A child who has only practised simple arithmetic sequences will not have the pattern-recognition toolkit to spot this reliably under exam conditions.
The research on word problems offers a useful parallel here. Children who struggle with multi-step problems often do so not because the individual operations are beyond them, but because they have difficulty translating the structure of the problem into the correct sequence of operations (Education Week, 2023). Number sequences present the same challenge: the maths itself is accessible, but identifying the rule requires a specific kind of analytical thinking that has to be practised, not assumed.
The 11Plus Tips sequence question bank covers 584 questions across all five difficulty levels, with rules ranging from the straightforward to the genuinely complex. Working through these progressively — starting at your child's current level and advancing as their mastery grows — is far more effective than sporadic exposure to a few examples at mixed difficulties.
3. Fractions — The Area Most Commonly Skipped
Fractions are one of those topics that primary school children encounter repeatedly in class, feel moderately comfortable with in isolation, and then find surprisingly challenging when they appear in a different format or as part of a multi-step problem.
The specific difficulties tend to cluster around three areas. First, finding common denominators when adding or subtracting fractions with different denominators — a skill that requires both procedural fluency and the ability to spot the quickest route to the common denominator rather than defaulting to multiplying both denominators together. Second, simplifying fractions to their lowest terms — recognising the highest common factor and applying it reliably. Third, fractions within word problems — where the fraction is embedded in a real-world scenario and the child must first identify which operation is required before carrying it out.
Example question: Sarah has 24 sweets. She gives ⅓ to Tom and ¼ to Emma. How many sweets does Sarah have left?
This question is not testing whether your child knows what a third or a quarter is. It is testing whether they can identify two separate fraction operations, perform them accurately on the same starting number, add the results, and subtract from the original — all under time pressure, and without making an arithmetic error along the way. That is a meaningfully different skill from answering a straightforward fractions question in isolation.
It is also worth noting that fractions in the 11Plus Tips bank currently sit at difficulty level 3 — the mid-range of the five-level scale. This is not a beginner topic and should not be treated as one in preparation, even for children who consider themselves strong at maths.
4. Word Problems — Where Maths Meets Reading Comprehension
Word problems are where the most capable young mathematicians are most likely to drop unexpected marks — and where the source of difficulty is frequently misidentified.
Parents often assume that a child who struggles with word problems has a maths problem. Very often, they have a reading problem, or more precisely, a problem with translating the language of a word problem into the correct mathematical operation. The two skills are distinct, and a child can be highly fluent in arithmetic while still struggling to identify what a word problem is actually asking them to do.
Research confirms this consistently. Children who get the correct answer when a word problem is read aloud, but not when reading it independently, are demonstrating a reading comprehension challenge rather than a mathematical one (Understood, 2023). Children who attempt to extract keywords and use them as shortcuts — rather than reading for genuine understanding — can be led systematically astray when a question is phrased in an unexpected way.
The format of 11+ word problems intensifies this challenge. Questions at difficulty levels 3 to 5 require children to identify the correct operation before they can calculate anything — and the wording is carefully constructed not to make this obvious. There may be multiple steps. There may be information in the question that is not needed. There may be fractions, percentages of quantities, or time calculations embedded within the real-world scenario.
Example question: Sarah has 24 sweets. She gives ⅓ to Tom and ¼ to Emma. How many sweets does Sarah have left?
The child who reads this question and immediately starts calculating has likely already decided on their approach before they have fully understood the problem. The child who pauses, identifies that two separate fractions of the same quantity need to be found, adds those fractions together, and then subtracts the total from 24 — that child has approached it as the reasoning exercise it actually is.
This is why word problems in the 11Plus Tips bank deliberately span real-world scenarios requiring your child to identify the correct operation before calculating. The goal is not computation practice — it is the specific reasoning skill of mathematical translation, built through repeated exposure to varied question formats at increasing difficulty.
The Common Thread
Across all four of these areas, the pattern is the same. The topic itself is familiar to most Year 5 and 6 children. The difficulty is not the maths in isolation — it is the maths under time pressure, in an unfamiliar format, at a difficulty level that goes beyond what the national curriculum requires.
The solution is also consistent: progressive, adaptive practice that starts at your child's current mastery level and advances as they improve. Not working through past papers at a fixed difficulty. Not spending equal time on areas that are already strong and areas that genuinely need work. Focused, targeted practice on the specific topics and difficulty levels where improvement is actually needed.
That is what the 11Plus Tips maths question bank — 1,397 questions across arithmetic, number sequences, fractions and word problems — is designed to deliver.
Sign up to 11Plus Tips and let the platform identify exactly which maths topics your child needs to work on — then practise them at precisely the right level.
References
Education Week (2023) Why Word Problems Are Such a Struggle for Students — and What Teachers Can Do. Available at: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/why-word-problems-are-such-a-struggle-for-students-and-what-teachers-can-do/2023/05 (Accessed: 22 May 2026).
Understood (2023) Why Some Kids Struggle with Math Word Problems. Available at: https://www.understood.org/en/articles/trouble-with-math-word-problems (Accessed: 22 May 2026).