October 2025 Contest — Grade 3
The October 2025 North Star contest paper for Grade 3 has 12 questions and a 45-minute limit. Two sample questions with worked solutions are below, and you can take the whole paper online for free — no account, no sign-up.
- Grade
- Grade 3
- Questions
- 12
- Time limit
- 45 minutes
- Contest
- October 2025
- Subject
- Mathematics
- School year
- 2025-26
Before you start
- The timer starts when you press Start and runs for 45 minutes.
- Answer the 12 questions in any order; each is multiple choice.
- Your answers are marked as you go. Nothing is saved to an account, so finish in one sitting.
Sample questions
The first and last questions from this paper, with their worked solutions.
Question 1 — General Math
Jane’s sister is 6 years older than her. If Jane is 7 years old, how old is her sister?
- A.9
- B.10
- C.11
- D.12
- E.13
Show the worked solution
To find out how old Jane's sister is, we need to add the difference in their ages to Jane's current age.
Jane is 7 years old.
Her sister is 6 years older than Jane.
We add these two numbers together:
7 + 6 = 13
So, Jane's sister is 13 years old.
Question 12 — General Math
A machine paints lines in the middle of a road. It starts with painting a line for 2 meters and then leaves 1 meter and paints for another 2 meters and so on. For painting every 2 meters of line it uses 1 L of paint. If the machine has 20 L of paint, how long can the machine travel until it uses the last drop of paint.
- A.60
- B.59
- C.56
- D.57
- E.58
Show the worked solution
Step 1 — Read the image:
The image shows a yellow machine painting a dashed yellow line down the middle of a road.
At the bottom of the image, there is a label "2 m" with arrows showing that each painted line segment is 2 meters long.
Step 2 — Solve:
The machine starts by painting a line that is 2 meters long. This uses 1 liter of paint.
Next, the machine travels 1 meter without painting to leave a gap.
Then, it paints another 2 meters, using another 1 liter of paint.
Since the machine has 20 liters of paint, it will paint exactly 20 of these 2-meter lines.
Between these 20 painted lines, there will be 19 gaps of 1 meter each.
Let's find the total distance traveled by adding the lengths of all the painted lines and all the gaps:
The total length of the 20 painted lines is: 20 times 2 meters = 40 meters.
The total length of the 19 gaps is: 19 times 1 meter = 19 meters.
Adding these together: 40 meters + 19 meters = 59 meters.
Step 3 — Select:
The total distance the machine can travel is 59 meters, which corresponds to option B.
The answer is B
Take the whole paper
All 12 questions, 45 minutes, marked as you go. No account needed.