I went for macrob (victorian selective school) a few years ago without any tutoring or anything like that - didn't get in. There were questions on the test that I hadn't even covered in school (trig, circ geometry etc). Had I done better in the mathematics part, I would have gotten in as I was...
What would happen if you had like super sized handwriting ? That would be unfair - you'd have less writing space, or if you had minicule writing and could fit a whole essay on the lines! Silly SC, in VCE we can write as much as we want in extended response they just give us more script booklets.