1st grade math test: a free 10-question quick check
This free math test for 1st graders has ten questions on the year’s main topics. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes. Plan to sit beside your child and read the questions aloud if needed. It is a quick check, not a full assessment.
In this quick check, every child gets the same ten questions, which represent a selection of the most relevant ones for 1st grade. Unlike the full Level Up assessment, this check does not adapt to a child’s answers. The result shows which questions your child missed, but it cannot identify foundational knowledge gaps. For the full picture, the Level Up assessment adapts to each answer and finds the earliest skill that is missing. It is included in the free trial.
10 questions, about 10 to 15 minutes. Skipping is fine. Nothing is saved.
Print it instead
The same ten questions as a PDF, with a separate answer key.
What the questions cover
The ten questions sample 1st grade: counting, tens and ones, adding and subtracting, measuring length, shapes, halves and telling time to the half hour. Every question has answer choices to pick from. Several show a picture, such as a clock or a row of tiles, and four ask your child to decide whether another child’s work is right.
The whole year covers these areas:
Adding and subtracting within 20
The center of 1st grade. Your child adds and subtracts within 20 with strategies such as counting on and making ten, and gets quick with the facts within 10.
Word problems and the equal sign
Stories about adding to, taking away, putting together and comparing, with the missing number in any place. Your child also learns that the equal sign means both sides are the same amount.
Counting to 120 and tens and ones
Counting goes past 100, and two-digit numbers start to make sense as tens and ones. Every later year of work with bigger numbers depends on this idea.
Adding and subtracting with tens
Tens and ones put to work. Your child adds within 100 by adding tens to tens and ones to ones, and finds 10 more or 10 less without counting.
Measuring length
Rulers come in 2nd grade. This year your child measures by laying same-size objects, such as paper clips or cubes, end to end.
Sorting and counting data
Simple charts and tallies with up to three groups, such as the favorite fruits of a class.
Shapes and equal shares
What makes a shape that shape, how shapes fit together to make new ones and how to cut circles and rectangles into halves and fourths.
Telling time
Reading the time to the hour and to the half hour, on a clock with hands and on a digital clock.
Every topic of the year, explained for parents, is on the 1st grade math page.
What you see at the end
The score, then every question with your child’s answer, the correct answer and a worked solution. A short message explains what a similar score usually means for 1st graders on our full assessment. Treat it as an indication: ten fixed questions cannot measure where a child stands.
Common questions
What math should a 1st grader know?
By the end of 1st grade: adding and subtracting within 20, with the facts within 10 quick; word problems; counting to 120; tens and ones; adding within 100; measuring length with same-size units; and telling time to the half hour. The 1st grade math page explains each topic for parents.
Is this 1st grade math test the same for every child?
Yes. Every child gets the same ten questions, and the test does not change as your child answers. That makes it quick, but it can only show which questions were missed, not why.
Can I print the 1st grade math test?
Yes. The same ten questions come as a PDF, with a separate answer key that has the worked solutions.
What if my child gets most of it right?
That is a good sign for this year’s main topics. Ten questions cannot cover the whole year, so a strong score is a reason to check the rest, not to skip it.