The Student Room Group

16+ entrance exams

Hi guys,
Next year I'm planning on applying to several competitive independent sixth forms, such as:
St Paul's girls school (spgs)
westminster school
wimbledon high school
godolphin and latymer
does anyone have experience with a what the exam formats are like for 16+ entrance exams? Specifically for english, maths, history and economics.

Also if any of you guys happen to attend or know of anyone who attends these school, what it like and what's the environment like?
Reply 1
Heyyy - I applied for Westminster 16+ 2025 and got offered a boarding place. I took math, fm, Econ, and philosophy, so I’m not sure if I can help with history and English.
For math, the entrance exam was 45 minutes for 25 multiple choice questions (I think you can find sample papers on their website) and they were fairly easy. I’ve seen people say that the multiple choice was similar to UKMT/ IMC difficulty, but personally I think it’s easier. Two things to look out for is that they have an option E ‘none of the above’ and some questions have an option ‘not enough information provided’ which is slightly different from other typical multiple choice papers.
My interview for math and further math was combined into one and was mostly going over questions, but I’m not sure if the interviews for only math is the same. I did about 3 questions in the interview, they were quite straightforward and not necessarily harder than the questions on the math entrance exam.
For Econ, the entrance exam was also 45 min and did not require any Econ specific knowledge and was more on essay writing and critical thinking. They have no sample papers on their website, but for reference for my exam they provided definitions and an extract to base a long answer off of.
For the interviews, I think they mainly look out for critical thinking skills and while you don’t have to be fluent in economics it would be beneficial to be able to identify and explain recent socioeconomic trends. For example I was asked about the assisted dying bill that got passed through parliament the day before the interview. Overall I think it is more useful to keep up with the news than to study subject specific knowledge.
Hope this helps & feel free to ask anything else!
(edited 2 months ago)
Reply 2
Original post by ElysiaPan
Heyyy - I applied for Westminster 16+ 2025 and got offered a boarding place. I took math, fm, Econ, and philosophy, so I’m not sure if I can help with history and English.
For math, the entrance exam was 45 minutes for 25 multiple choice questions (I think you can find sample papers on their website) and they were fairly easy. I’ve seen people say that the multiple choice was similar to UKMT/ IMC difficulty, but personally I think it’s easier. Two things to look out for is that they have an option E ‘none of the above’ and some questions have an option ‘not enough information provided’ which is slightly different from other typical multiple choice papers.
My interview for math and further math was combined into one and was mostly going over questions, but I’m not sure if the interviews for only math is the same. I did about 3 questions in the interview, they were quite straightforward and not necessarily harder than the questions on the math entrance exam.
For Econ, the entrance exam was also 45 min and did not require any Econ specific knowledge and was more on essay writing and critical thinking. They have no sample papers on their website, but for reference for my exam they provided definitions and an extract to base a long answer off of.
For the interviews, I think they mainly look out for critical thinking skills and while you don’t have to be fluent in economics it would be beneficial to be able to identify and explain recent socioeconomic trends. For example I was asked about the assisted dying bill that got passed through parliament the day before the interview. Overall I think it is more useful to keep up with the news than to study subject specific knowledge.
Hope this helps & feel free to ask anything else!

Thank you so much x
I was just wondering how strong are you in maths? Because I’m good I would say, since I’m in set 1 in my year and I typically do well in tests but I feel like the people who chose to do maths for the exam will be geniuses when I’m just averagely good. Do you have any tips on how I could improve to get ready for the exam? I really want to ace it and start preparing a year ahead
Reply 3
Original post by sbeke10
Thank you so much x
I was just wondering how strong are you in maths? Because I’m good I would say, since I’m in set 1 in my year and I typically do well in tests but I feel like the people who chose to do maths for the exam will be geniuses when I’m just averagely good. Do you have any tips on how I could improve to get ready for the exam? I really want to ace it and start preparing a year ahead

For Westminster the questions for maths are only multiple choice, and they're only GCSE level, IMC at most and the questions for the interviews are easier than the test so I don't think you'll need to worry about them at all
The questions for SPGS are much harder, I don't remember exactly but it was something like 9 questions and 45 minutes. Most people there only did about 4 or 5 so you won't really need to worry if you didn't finish all of them. The questions for there interviews were much harder, probably intermediate olympiad level but the teacher will help you through the problem and the knowledge they're testing aren't that advanced

Quick Reply