Division in the 11+ — Questions, Worked Answers and Practice Papers

What examiners actually ask

Division appears in 144 of our 338 ready papers (306 tagged questions). It averages 2.1 questions a paper worth about 1.51 marks each. The typical question allows around 40 sec. It appears in 3 CSSE papers we hold.

Division questions test method and interpretation: is the answer a whole number of groups, a remainder, or a decimal? Papers ask for short and long division, sharing word problems, and “how many … leftover” stems. Children who always give a remainder when the question wants a rounded-up number of packs (or the reverse) drop marks after correct arithmetic. Practise reading the last sentence twice before boxing an answer. Link division tightly to multiplication so checks are automatic. Under timed conditions, neat layout matters as much as facts — a misaligned digit in long division cascades into a wrong final line. Independent papers often wrap division inside money or measurement stories, so practise converting units before dividing when the wording demands it.

Common mistakes

• Giving a remainder when the context needs rounding up (or the reverse).
• Misplacing digits in long division so the quotient is off by a place.
• Dividing the wrong way round in a word problem (“shared between” vs “how many groups”).
• Forgetting units or leftover items when the question asks for both.

Papers with the most Division questions

Ranked from our tagged catalogue — open a paper to practise the questions that actually test this topic.

Related topics

• Multiplication
• Fractions
• Word Problems
• Decimals
• BIDMAS / Order of Operations
• Algebra