What olympiads look like in Class 4
Class 4 is where olympiad papers start to test stamina as well as knowledge. The paper is still multiple choice and still written in school, but questions are longer, there are more of them to get through, and fewer can be answered at a glance. A child who did well in Class 3 by being quick may find that speed alone no longer carries them.
In maths, two- and three-step word problems become the norm: money, measurement, time intervals, simple fractions and the area of shapes drawn on a grid. Science moves from naming things to explaining them, such as why some objects float, how food reaches different parts of a plant, or what keeps us healthy. English passages grow longer, and grammar questions start to ask about tenses, joining words and correct sentence order.
The reasoning section gets more varied. Alongside number and letter series, children meet paper folding, counting hidden figures, simple coding (“if CAT is written as DBU…”) and questions about directions. These reward careful, step-by-step thinking more than cleverness.
Most papers still end with a set of harder questions. At this age it is worth teaching one real exam skill: if a question is taking too long, mark a guess, circle the number and move on. Children who get stuck on question 12 for five minutes often leave the last ten untouched.
How much to prepare
Around two hours a week for eight weeks, split into four sessions of about 30 minutes, suits most Class 4 children. Nine-year-olds can usually manage half an hour of focused work, especially if the session has a clear end.
Use that time for depth rather than volume. Fifteen questions done carefully, with the wrong ones understood, teach more than fifty rushed ones.
A simple plan
- Week 1: one full sample paper from the organiser, timed loosely, so you both see how long the paper really feels.
- Week 2: go through that paper section by section. Sort mistakes into three piles: didn’t know, misread, ran out of time.
- Weeks 3–4: work on the biggest pile. For misreading, underline key words. For gaps in knowledge, revise those chapters from the school textbook.
- Weeks 5–6: reasoning practice, a few puzzles a day, mixing types so your child learns to recognise each kind quickly.
- Week 7: a second full paper, timed properly. Practise the “guess, circle, move on” habit on purpose.
- Week 8: revisit the circled questions from both papers, then rest. No new topics in the final week.
What helps, and what doesn’t
What helps:
- Checking answers with a quick estimate. If 48 × 5 comes out as 2,400, a moment of “about 50 times 5 is 250” catches it.
- Reading longer stories and articles for pleasure. English passages and science questions both reward a child who reads comfortably.
- Letting your child mark their own practice with the answer key, then explain one mistake to you. Owning the review matters more than who holds the pen.
- Knowing the paper’s rules, such as whether wrong answers lose marks, before the day. Rules differ between papers.
What doesn’t:
- Racing through papers to finish more of them. It builds the habit that costs marks on the day.
- Long sessions after a full school day. A tired nine-year-old practises mistakes, not skills.
- Treating the hard section as a failure point. Most children score less there, and that is by design.
- Starting a new olympiad every month. One or two in a year, done properly, are worth more than five done in a hurry.
For the reasoning question types that appear from this age, see the reasoning prep guide. The science prep guide has practice ideas for Classes 2–4 that use things around the house.
Where daily practice fits
Daily practice helps with the one thing weekly sessions can’t: keeping skills warm between them. Ado’s free daily quiz is 8 questions, including a 60-second sprint, across maths, science, English, GK and reasoning, and a Class 4 student is ranked only against students the same age. It takes a few minutes, carries no ads, and supports a routine rather than replacing olympiad practice.