Yes, you can get free 11 plus papers with answers here. Ours are two complete papers as a printable PDF, in the format used across the West Midlands, each with an answer sheet and a worked answers booklet. They come by email rather than as an open download, so nothing is published to the open web.
A complete paper shows more than a score. It shows where your child stays accurate, where the clock changes their choices, and which areas deserve attention next. Two papers give you two chances to see the pattern rather than judge one sitting.
The full pack, ready for two honest snapshots
Practice Paper 1 and Practice Paper 2 each come with a separate answer sheet and a worked answers booklet. Use the first to see what happens now, act on what it reveals, then use the second to see what changed.
Want to see a page first?
Here is what the paper looks like before you ask for it. The pages below are from the short sample paper, which is sent with the pack.
Give us an email address and everything below arrives as a link, free, with nothing to pay and no card asked for. Three files make up the short sample and six make up the two complete papers.
- The sample paper, as a PDF. Print it if you can: a long passage reads differently on paper.
- The answer sheet, printed separately. It is a mark grid of A to E ovals, one row per question.
- The answers booklet, which explains the reasoning behind each answer rather than listing a bare key. Keep it out of sight until the paper is finished.
Ask for the pack and all of it comes to your inbox in one email.
This is Pathway Eleven’s own practice material, written for the multiple-choice format used across the West Midlands partnership. A full paper is a cover, an instructions page and then nine named sections, each with its own suggested time printed on it, running from English comprehension through verbal and non-verbal reasoning to mathematics. Children who have only met single-subject workbooks find so many changes of task strange at first.
The sample paper is a short taster rather than a whole paper: the first quarter of each of Practice Paper 1’s nine sections, in the same order, in about twenty minutes. It comes in the same email as the two complete papers.
The separate answer sheet matters more than it looks. It is a grid, one row to a question, so slipping out of step with it turns a run of correct answers into a run of wrong ones. Children rarely spot it happening.
What is in the sample paper, and what is in the full pack?
Our free papers follow the format of the consortium test used in the West Midlands: the same multiple-choice mechanics, the same separate answer sheet, and sections timed one at a time. The papers are our own, written in house, with every question reviewed and approved by a qualified teacher, and they are not GL Assessment papers and not past papers.
Pathway Eleven is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GL Assessment.
Twenty minutes tells you how your child handles a change of task. It does not tell you what happens in the second hour, which is where pace and stamina actually show, and that is what the two complete papers are for.
| Paper | What it is | Sections | Suggested time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sample paper | A short taster, drawn from Practice Paper 1. | The first quarter of each of Paper 1’s nine sections, in the same order. | About twenty minutes. |
| Practice Paper 1 | A complete paper. | English comprehension; spelling, punctuation and grammar; three verbal reasoning sections; two non-verbal reasoning sections; spatial reasoning; mathematics. | About 90 minutes, with a suggested time printed on each section. |
| Practice Paper 2 | A second complete paper. | The same nine sections in the same order, with a different comprehension passage and a longer mathematics section. | About 95 minutes. |
Each paper comes with its own answer sheet and its own answers booklet, and the booklets explain the reasoning rather than listing a key: not only that an answer was wrong, but whether your child misread the question, chose the wrong method or ran out of time.
Would you rather the marking and the next step were handled for you? Start a free week of Pathway Eleven and the daily plan of revision, guided teaching and timed practice is marked and explained as your child works. Full mock rehearsals are part of full membership rather than the trial, and they unlock from Year 4.
How should a child sit a practice paper at home?
A paper sat loosely is worse than no paper, because it produces a number nobody can trust.
- One sitting, no interruptions.Phones away, siblings elsewhere, nothing looked up halfway through.
- Run each section to the time printed on it.Put a timer where your child can see it and stop when it goes, even mid-question. Where they stopped is information.
- Answers on the answer sheet.If the sheet is a nuisance at home, it will be a nuisance on the day.
- Pencil and a rubber, nothing else, and a morning if you can manage it.A tired attempt at six in the evening reads as a weakness when it is really bedtime.
How do you mark it without starting an argument?
Leave a gap. Mark it once your child has gone off to do something else, and come back the next day with two or three specific things rather than a total.
Sort the wrong answers into piles first. Ones where the method was missing need teaching. Ones where the method was there and the execution slipped need slowing down. Ones your child never reached are a pace problem. And ones that were right on the paper and wrong on the sheet are the cheapest marks in the test to win back.
Then choose one thing to work on.
What does a practice paper score really tell you?
Less than parents hope and more than they fear. It is one measurement of one morning, in your house. Treat a single score as weather rather than climate.
Treat a single score as weather rather than climate.
From "What does a practice paper score really tell you?"
What it does show is behaviour under a clock: whether your child reads the question or guesses, whether they leave a hard item and come back or sit on it until the time is gone, whether accuracy falls away at the end.
What it cannot show is a place at a school. Real results are standardised for age and read against how a whole cohort performed that year. If that is new to you, what the 11 plus actually is explains standardised scoring, and online mock tests covers reading a result without panic.
Where do free papers fit in a year of preparation?
Papers measure. They do not teach. A child who sits one a week and does nothing in between gets very good at being measured and no better at anything else.
The work that moves a score is subject by subject: English comprehension technique, the formats in verbal reasoning, the checklist of maths topics that has to be secure, and the shape puzzles in non-verbal reasoning that school does not normally teach. For the whole year, the 11 plus preparation guide sets out the timeline and preparation in Year 5 breaks the decisive year into terms. If you are in the region these papers are written for, the West Midlands entrance test explains how one shared test covers a group of schools.
Pathway Eleven turns that into a daily plan of revision, guided teaching and timed practice, with every question reviewed and approved by a qualified teacher. Full mock rehearsals are part of full membership rather than the trial, and they unlock from Year 4. The first week is free, then it is £49 a month and you can cancel any time; and if it is not for you, these papers are still yours.
Common questions about free 11 plus practice papers
Are these 11 plus practice papers really free?+
Yes. There is nothing to pay, no card is asked for and there is no trial to start. The sample paper, its answer sheet, its answers booklet and both complete practice papers are sent free to the email address you give.
Do I have to give an email address?+
Yes, and that is the only thing asked for. There is no account to create and no password to choose. The papers arrive as a link, we say at the form what else we will send you, and every email carries an unsubscribe link.
What is in the full pack?+
Practice Paper 1 and Practice Paper 2, each a complete paper of nine named sections with its own answer sheet and its own answers booklet. Paper 1 runs to about 90 minutes and Paper 2 to about 95.
How often should we sit a practice paper?+
Rarely enough that there is time to act on the last one, and often enough that the format stops being a surprise.
Are these the same as the real test?+
No, and no practice paper anywhere is. These are our own papers, written for the multiple-choice format used across the West Midlands partnership. They put the shape and pace of a paper in front of a child rather than predict a result.
Where to go next
- 11 plus past papers, what exists for this test, why no past paper is published, and what a good practice paper copies.
- 11 plus mock exams in Birmingham, sitting a paper at a centre against sitting one at home, and what to ask before booking.
- How to prepare for the 11 plus, the full guide.
- Online 11 plus mock tests, and how to read a result.
- 11 plus preparation in Year 5, a term-by-term plan.
- What is the 11 plus?, the test explained from scratch.
- The West Midlands 11 plus entrance test, one test for a group of schools.
- All 11 plus guides, everything we have written for parents.
- What Pathway Eleven costs, one plan, one price.
- Free 11 plus maths papers, worked through in the format the test uses.
- Free 11 plus English papers, a full unseen passage with every question worked through.
- Free 11 plus verbal reasoning papers, each type worked through so the method is visible.
- Free 11 plus non-verbal reasoning papers, the drawn questions worked through family by family.
A Starting Assessment, a daily plan that responds to your child's answers, and progress you can actually read.