2026 Year 10 Entry for JMSS Tips & Resources

Maths and Science will cover it. The main place where people don't perform well is the Science and writing tests. I think going to tutoring or buying practice exams for these tests could be useful since you wouldn't have done these kinds of tests elsewhere.
Numerical Reasoning and Maths were pretty standard tests, if you did the selective entry exam, they were easier than those (at least in my year, I know the selective test changed this year). The numerical reasoning test is actually very similar to the practice version for select entry on the victorian government website (one of the questions from this year's test was literally on that practice test). I wouldn't stress too much about these, just go through a maths textbook and do some time practice test and you should be good.
Science Reasoning is a mixture of general science knowledge questions and data analysis questions. To practice the data analysis questions, I would suggest the ICAS Science tests as those are as close as you're going to get to the questions on the test. With the general knowledge, like with Maths, knowing your Year 9 content should cover it. I honestly am bad with Science general knowledge since my old school didn't teach it very well but I still ended up with an above average (I think my data analysis carried though).
There are 2 writing components, a science report and a science essay (forgot their actual names). Going to tutoring for these tests would be beneficial although you don't need it. For the science report, we had the information and method for a random experiment and we had to write a hypothesis, discussion and conclusion I think. Really knowing the in depth rules and components of a report is crucial for this. My school covered this heavily earlier this year and I ended up getting a superior for this test. Your discussion should be about 2 paragraphs (include improvements, accuracy, reliability, repeatability, etc.) and is probably the part that most people mess up on. I can go more in depth on this if you would like.
For the Science Essay, you get this page of information on a random topic (I got black soldier flies and its impact on greenhouse emissions, it was an absolutely awful prompt). It's just your regular essay format (2 - 3 body paragraphs), and you basically use the information given and some of your own if you can to take a stance and sort list the effects and such.
As far as tips, bring an analog watch (not digital) since I don't think there were any clocks and they only gave time stamps like once maybe. Set the minute hand to start at the very top so its easier to read since all the test were half an hour. I don't really have any other tips, as long as you study the content

I am about to start my preparation for JMSS doing the exam next year, any recourses would be appreciated

;) anyone got any recourses pls

Hi there! I sat the exam in 2024. One of the biggest tips I could give anyone doing any kind of selective entry test is to not over complicate it, only stick to the curriculum. Nothing extra, nothing less. The Oxward year 9 and a bit of the year 10 textbooks (mainly for advanced algebra) really helped me for math's. As for the science components, make sure you are able to analyze data and interpret it correctly. Also make sure you know how to write a lab report. Try asking Chatgpt for prompts for informative reports and continuously do them. For NR, I mainly recommend doing Henderson's tests. They are not a replica of the actual test, but most aspects were accurate.

Aim for 2 superiors or more (to standout from the crowd) but don't worry if you only got one, because a bunch of people I know got in with one superior.

Lastly, please don't overwork yourself. If you done the sehs test for year 9 entry, The maths and NR tests are quite similar. Maybe just a little more harder. Personally, what I done was alternately study maths or science everyday of the week for a hour and then spend another hour on school homework. This is more than enough.

I hope this helps!!

;) I also took the test this year and made it through to the interview. There isn’t much you need to go through if you want to get into the school and if you think you’re good enough you should be fine. I studied for maybe 4 days before the exam lol. I’m not saying you should approach it like I did, but I think if you approach it more relaxed you’ll end up doing better. Also, focus on the things you’re good at when studying. For me, I was just practicing writing prompts because I knew that was my strength and did a bit on NR. I think it is a waste of time going through math exercises and learning individual concepts of math as majority of the test isnt formula based and moreso your understanding of numeracy. I should also add that if you aren’t truly passionate about the sciences and have bad people skills you should practice for the interview or maybe the school isn’t right for you. I wish you luck and if you have any more questions just ask!

Hello all, FifaSweat , could you elaborate on the types of topic that cam upon the the exam such the structure of them an provide a sample question please. Also, for the mathematics component, you mentioned Oxford math year 9 textbook. Could you please send the eBook or send to textbook to use. Perhaps any other tips even
Thank you,

;) Oh ok, all the best for your success!

Hi StudyKing, I’d make the assumption you know what the test is comprised of already so I don’t think I need to go through that. But, for majority of the test it is just your logical understanding of the question. For instance, the science reasoning test had many questions like this, such as “ which fossil is the oldest” and it would display 4 different fossils all with different stuff inside of them and it was up to you to logically devise an answer. Another example was it showed an animal skull and asked you what time of animal it was based on its teeth and facial formation. Questions like these kept coming up, but of course, there were balancing equations questions and stuff. Now, for the NR test, my only advice would be to take practice tests. Majority of the questions you should be able to get an answer for, but the only hard part was the time pressure. Conditioning yourself to answer questions that would take you 1-2 mins to answer and shortening that time to 30 seconds will see you most definitely secure a superior. It is a waste of time to do anything else apart from prac tests on NR imo. And for math, same thing honestly, but it is up to you if you want to study the text book and stuff, but I didn’t and obviously it ended up working out fine. Honestly, if your knowledge is comprehensive enough as is and you are passionate, you will do fine.

Hi ;) As I stated before, it is moreso the pace of which you answer the questions at. If you were to study a text book, you would understand the material a bit better, but that doesn’t guarantee you on the day of the test to do well because you may not be able to answer questions effectively and efficiently. My advice would be to do prac tests as your knowledge is probably comprehensive enough as is and the more prac tests you do, you will see what I mean. You will start to see an improvement in your results as you begin to condition yourself to the time pressure and are able to complete these questions that would normally take you 1-2 mins in half the time. So, in summary, if you were to study the text book and not do as many prac tests, this would see someone who didn’t do the text book and only prac questions do most likely better as they’re conditioned to the time pressure. I’m speaking from experience, I know kids who did that for one year straight, they were in the same position as you and ended up not getting an interview.

FifaSweat Thank you, appreciate the response. Would there be equations in science such as chemical equations for elements and other compound and chemical formulas?

StudyKing I recently just received an offer from jmss for year 10 entry, and when I did the test this year, there wasn’t much on chemical equations, but it did test you on the broader science topics that you usually learn in year 9, such as fossils, light waves, mass and weight, but the topics vary every year so I would just recommend you to thoroughly read through a year 9 science textbook to prepare for science reasoning, and definitely review the science topics that you’ve learnt since year 7-9, because they might use it for an essay topic to test your prior knowledge. For example I think one year they had an essay topic where students had to explain the difference between respiratory and circulatory system, which would have been a year 8 topic you learnt at school, so just make sure that you have a good idea of all the stuff you’ve learnt till year 9, and you’ll be fine for science reasoning. For the other science essays, it’s worth tuning into science news regularly to build up that knowledge, and it would be very helpful even for the interview. I just used abc science news and occasionally read a few articles, which helped me in the exam. However this test itself is quite easy to pass, and a lot of people who do really well on the test don’t end up getting in because they don’t prepare enough for the interview, so I would strongly advise anyone trying for jmss entry next year to work on building your cv this year, and definitely focus on getting good grades for your report and maximize your participation in any activities at school, so that you would stand out in the interview stage. (Especially like debating or science related activities would be easy to talk about during the interview). But dont stress too much for the exam because the interview is the hardest stage, so it’s definitely worth prioritizing that. Personally I went to tutoring and I found that they helped a lot with numerical reasoning and writing in particular, and they gave a lot of useful advice for the interview preparation.