11+ Verbal Reasoning: Every Question Family Explained
11 min read
Verbal reasoning rewards pattern recognition, not vocabulary alone. Every recurring question family, worked examples, and why familiarity beats talent here more than in any other paper.
Verbal reasoning is the paper most children have never met before starting 11+ preparation — nothing in a normal primary school day looks like a letter-code puzzle. That unfamiliarity, not difficulty, is the real obstacle. Here’s what actually makes up the paper.
What verbal reasoning actually is
Verbal reasoning uses words and letters as the raw material for logic puzzles: codes, sequences, analogies, and relationships between words, rather than testing reading comprehension or general knowledge. A GL-style verbal reasoning paper commonly runs to 60–80 questions in 50–60 minutes, drawn from a pool of recurring question formats — always check your target school or local authority’s specific format, since timing and question count vary by area.
The question families
GL Assessment doesn’t publish one official canonical list of question types, and different tutoring resources group and name them slightly differently — but the same recurring families show up across real papers regardless of the exact naming. Grouped by the skill each one tests:
| Family | What it asks | Example skill |
|---|---|---|
| Letter & word codes | Decode a rule that turns letters into other letters or numbers, then apply it | If CAT = 3120, what does DOG = ? |
| Letter & number sequences | Spot the rule governing a sequence and continue it | What comes next: B, D, F, H, ? |
| Word relationships | Synonyms, antonyms and analogies between words | Find the word most opposite in meaning to GENEROUS |
| Hidden & compound words | Find a word concealed inside another, or combine two words correctly | Find the hidden 3-letter word in "CARTON" |
| Logical deduction | Draw a conclusion from statements using always / sometimes / never logic | If all Zibs are Doks, and some Doks are Feps, is it true that some Zibs are Feps? |
| Maths in words | A calculation described in words rather than symbols | What number is 4 more than half of 30? |
| Odd one out / word groups | Find which word doesn't share a property with the others | Which word doesn't belong: apple, carrot, banana, pear? |
4 sample questions
One from four different families — try each before revealing the answer.
Sample question 1
If the code for TAP is UBQ (each letter moved one place forward in the alphabet), what is the code for BIN?
- AAJM
- BCJO
- CCJM
- DCHO
- EBJO
Reveal answer & explanation
Answer: B. The rule is 'move every letter one place forward in the alphabet': T→U, A→B, P→Q. Applying the same rule to BIN: B→C, I→J, N→O, giving CJO. The most common mistake is applying the rule to only some of the letters.
Sample question 2
Find the word most nearly OPPOSITE in meaning to CAUTIOUS.
- ACareful
- BNervous
- CReckless
- DQuiet
- ESlow
Reveal answer & explanation
Answer: C. Cautious means careful and wary of risk. Its opposite is reckless — acting without thinking of danger. 'Careful' is a near-synonym (a common decoy), and 'nervous'/'quiet'/'slow' are unrelated properties, not opposites.
Sample question 3
What number comes next in this sequence? 3, 6, 11, 18, 27, ?
- A32
- B34
- C36
- D38
- E40
Reveal answer & explanation
Answer: D. The gaps between terms are 3, 5, 7, 9 — each gap increases by 2. The next gap is 11, so 27 + 11 = 38. Sequence questions reward writing out the differences between terms, not just staring at the numbers.
Sample question 4
Which three-letter word is hidden inside the word BATHROOM, using letters that are next to each other?
- ABAT
- BHAT
- CROB
- DHAM
- EROT
Reveal answer & explanation
Answer: A. BATHROOM = B-A-T-H-R-O-O-M. Checking every option against the actual letter order: BAT sits at the very start (letters 1–3) and is a genuine word. None of the other options appear as consecutive letters in BATHROOM in that order — they're plausible-looking distractors, not real matches. This type rewards checking each option against the letters in order, not just recognising a real word among the choices.
Why familiarity beats talent
Verbal reasoning rewards preparation more directly than almost any other 11+ paper, for a simple reason: the underlying skill — logical thinking — a child already has. What they usually lack is exposure to the specific puzzle formats. A child who has never seen a letter-code question before will lose time working out what’s even being asked, regardless of how logical they are. A child who has met the same seven or eight families repeatedly recognises the shape of the question in seconds and spends their time on the actual reasoning.
This is why broad, repeated exposure across every family — not deep drilling on just one or two — is the highest-leverage use of practice time for this paper. See our guide on when to start for how to build that exposure gradually rather than cramming it in.
Common questions
Is verbal reasoning the same as vocabulary?
Vocabulary is one part of it, but most verbal reasoning question families test logical pattern-spotting using words and letters as the material — a strong vocabulary alone won't get a child through a letter-code or a sequence question.
How many question types are there?
There's no single published list — GL Assessment doesn't release an official master list, and papers vary by area — but tutors and resources consistently converge on roughly 20 recurring formats, which cluster into the families below.
Does GL always use all of the question types in one paper?
No — a single paper typically draws on a subset. Which types appear isn't announced in advance, which is exactly why broad familiarity across every family matters more than deep drilling on a few.
My child is a strong reader but still struggles with VR — why?
Verbal reasoning tests a different skill from reading comprehension: fast pattern recognition and logical rule-following under time pressure, using words and letters as raw material. A strong reader who hasn't seen the specific puzzle formats before can still be slow or thrown by an unfamiliar type — this is a format-familiarity problem, not a reading-ability one.