Junior maths challenge practice papers
Free papers in the junior challenge's shape, with every answer and its working. Print one for a timed hour at the kitchen table, or sit a new one online and see the marks straight away.
Pick a paper
Year 6
A little below the real challenge: a first try at the format for a confident Year 6.
Year 7
The challenge at its own level: the first 15 steady, the last 10 hard.
Year 8
The top year: more number theory and counting in the last ten.
How the challenge works
- Questions
- 25, each with five choices, A to E
- Time
- 60 minutes
- Marks
- 5 each for questions 1 to 15, 6 each for 16 to 25: 135 in all
- Wrong answers
- Nothing is taken off
- Allowed
- Rough paper only: no calculator or measuring instruments
- Who sits it
- Year 8 and below in England and Wales, and the matching years in Scotland and Northern Ireland
Schools enter their pupils, and the challenge is sat in school in the spring. The questions get harder as the paper goes on: the first ones are quick, and the last few stretch the strongest pupils.
Answers and working
Every printed paper above ends with its answers and the working for each one. Online, your first finished paper shows the answers to its first ten questions; full answers for every online paper will come with our UK practice packs.
Questions parents ask
- What is the junior maths challenge?
- A national maths competition for pupils in Year 8 and below, run by the UK Mathematics Trust and sat in school. It rewards clear thinking more than speed with sums, and the top scorers win certificates and a place in the follow-on rounds.
- Are these the real past papers?
- No. Every question here is written by us, in the challenge's published shape. Past papers belong to the UK Mathematics Trust, and we are not connected with it.
- How should my child practise?
- Sit one paper in a quiet hour with no calculator, then go through every wrong answer with the working. The challenge rewards patience: reading each question twice and trying small cases often cracks the harder ones.
- Is it worth guessing?
- Yes. Nothing is taken off for a wrong answer, so a child should answer every question, ruling out the choices that cannot be right first.