About
Who makes these papers, and how.
Selective Papers NSW is a one-person operation: I write the generator, sit every paper it produces, and review it before it goes on sale. There's no editorial team and no test-prep company behind it — just a parent who searched for realistic NSW Selective Test practice and built it after finding none.
Who's behind this
I'm Yaniv, a Sydney parent preparing my own child for the Opportunity Class and Selective tests. Working through the process, I read every publicly available sample paper and every commercial bundle I could find — and kept running into the same two problems: three official sample papers is not enough practice, and most paid alternatives don't match the real test's format or difficulty. You can feel it the moment a child sits one.
So I built a generator calibrated question by question to the real Mathematical Reasoning and Thinking Skills papers, and I've kept building on it since — including an online test mode designed to mirror the on-screen experience of the real test.
How a paper gets made
Every paper goes through the same three steps before it's published. First, the generator produces a full paper against a question-mix and difficulty spec drawn from the Department's own sample papers. Second, I sit it myself, under time, the way a student would. Third, I review every question for correctness, clarity, and difficulty, and fix or discard anything that doesn't hold up — nothing goes live off the first draft.
The online test mode went through an extra step: in July 2026, I checked it element by element against the Department's official Janison practice player — the timer, the flag button, the progress grid, the zoom tool, the side panel for diagrams and passages — so the interface itself feels familiar on test day, not like a different product wearing similar colours.
If a paper does not feel like the real test, the guarantee is simple: reply to your receipt within 30 days and I will refund you.
A note on AI
The guides on this site are drafted with AI assistance, then fact-checked against official sources and reviewed by me before publication. I'd rather say that plainly than have you guess. Every factual claim in a guide — question counts, dates, statistics — is checked against a primary source (usually education.nsw.gov.au or an official government review) and cited inline with the date it was checked.
Independence
Selective Papers NSW is not affiliated with the NSW Department of Education, NESA, or any selective high school. We're an independent practice resource. Facts about the real test — its format, dates, and policies — are cited from official sources throughout this site; the papers themselves are our own work, calibrated to match, not copied from anywhere.
Contact
Questions, feedback, or something that didn't feel right in a paper — email yaniv@selectivepapersnsw.com. I reply within a day, usually faster.