Selective entry exam prep
The Victorian selective entry exam: a guide for parents.
Victoria’s four selective entry high schools take students from Year 9, and the entrance exam is sat in Year 8. It covers verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, reading, writing and mathematics. Here’s what each part involves, what tutoring helps with, and where Tuterly, our Years 7 to 10 maths app, fits: the Year 7 and 8 school maths the maths section builds on.
The schools
The four selective entry high schools.
One exam covers all four. Students apply in Year 8, sit the exam mid-year, and start at their new school in Year 9. Check the Department of Education’s selective entry pages for this year’s dates.
Melbourne High School
Boys’ selective entry school, South Yarra. Entry at Year 9.
The Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School
Girls’ selective entry school, Melbourne. Entry at Year 9.
Nossal High School
Co-educational selective entry school, Berwick. Entry at Year 9.
Suzanne Cory High School
Co-educational selective entry school, Werribee. Entry at Year 9.
Also often asked about
John Monash Science School
A specialist science and maths school for Years 10 to 12, at Monash University. It has its own application process, separate from the selective entry exam.
SEAL programs (such as Box Hill High School)
Select Entry Accelerated Learning programs run inside some government schools, usually from Year 7, with the school’s own entry testing.
What the exam covers
The parts of the exam, and who helps with what.
Verbal reasoning and reading
Vocabulary, analogies and reading comprehension under tight time limits. Many students find this needs dedicated practice.
Numerical reasoning
Quick mental arithmetic, problem solving and number patterns. Speed matters as much as accuracy.
Written expression
Short writing tasks, such as a creative or persuasive piece. It’s hard to improve from a textbook: feedback from a teacher or tutor is what helps.
Mathematics
Problem solving built on Year 8 school maths, including geometry, algebra and word problems, with some questions that stretch past the usual Year 8 level.
Reasoning, reading and writing are where a tutor, timed practice papers and feedback on writing help most. Tuterly doesn’t cover those sections, and it isn’t a test-prep course.
Where Tuterly fits
The maths section starts with the maths they’re learning now.
The exam’s maths questions build on Years 7 and 8 school maths. Gaps there, like fractions, negative numbers or rearranging equations, show up in harder problems too. Tuterly works on exactly those gaps, from the questions your child gets wrong in class, homework and school tests.
They snap a question they got wrong and see the full worked solution. Straight away they get a similar question on the same idea, genuinely different rather than just new numbers, and each question moves from To fix to Learning to Mastered. Topic check gives a short test on any topic in their year, and Study notes makes a revision sheet.
Practise it in Tuterly
Check their Year 7 and 8 maths, topic by topic.
- Topic check writes a short test on any Year 7 or 8 maths topic, one question from each part of the topic.
- Got one wrong at school? Snap it, or upload the whole test, for a worked solution and a fresh question to master.
- Designed by Australian educators. Topics follow the Australian Curriculum, including the Victorian Curriculum 2.0.
Coming soon on iPhone. Android soon after.
What it costs
Tutoring by the hour, the app by the week.
A private tutor in Melbourne usually costs $80 to $100 an hour. For the reasoning and writing sections, a tutor’s feedback is hard to replace.
For school maths in Years 7 and 8, between sessions or on its own, Tuterly is $8.99 a week or $29.99 a month at the launch price (from 1 April 2027, $17.99 a week or $59.99 a month), with a 7-day free trial on the monthly plan only. Cancel any time. At $8.99, a whole week costs less than 10 minutes with a private tutor. It’s coming soon to the App Store on iPhone, with Android soon after.
Get their Year 7 and 8 maths solid, one question at a time.
Tuterly turns every missed maths question into practice tailored towards the student, not just a generic worksheet.
Coming soon on iPhone. Android soon after.