This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the thinking strategies adopted by students in multiple-choice questions, concerning the large-scale evaluation, attitudes towards mathematics and performance in the exam known as Prova Brasil de Matemática (Brazil Exam of Mathematics). The participants were 87 students from a 5th year of a public elementary school of Campinas-SP. The methodology was developed in four stages. In the first stage the following instruments were applied: an informative questionnaire and the scale of attitudes towards mathematics Aiken (1963), Likert, translated, adapted and validated by Brito (1998). The second stage of the study involved the Reading Comprehension Test Problems in Arithmetic, called (in Portuguese) PCLPA containing 20 multiple-choice questions prepared by Brito (2011), applied in two versions, the first with numerical quantities expressed by numbers and the second expressed by words. In the third stage of the investigation, the proceeded to apply a test similar to Prova Brasil (Brazil Exam), containing 14 multiple-choice questions relating to Theme III Numbers and Operations and, from the content of this instrument structure, a test characterized by open questions. By the score obtained by the participants in the multiple-choice test, it proceeded categorization of student performance as excellent, good, satisfactory and unsatisfactory. In the fourth stage of the study, they were randomly selected 20 individuals to semi-structured interview, four participants from each of the performance categories. Data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, seeking to interpret the factors underlying the arithmetic problem-solving task and, consequently, the cognitive, affective and social variables that affect performance. The results were interpreted using up the theoretical research contribution, based on the theory of meaningful learning