11+ Verbal Reasoning: Building and Making Words

This question family rewards children who notice letter patterns quickly; it penalises children who read a word as a single shape rather than as a sequence of letters. Unlike codes and sequences, there is no arithmetic here; the skill is closer to spelling and pattern recognition than maths. Here is what the three main types are testing and how to approach each one.

What this question family covers

• Missing letters/letter strings: a letter or short string is missing from a word (or from both halves of two words at once), and the child must find what completes them
• Compound words: a hidden word links two other words together (one word ends where a linking word begins)
• Hidden words: a smaller word is concealed inside a longer word or across a phrase, and the child must spot it

Worked example 1: the missing three-letter link

Find the three letters that end the first word and begin the second word: CAR(___) and (___)AL

Method: think of words starting CAR-, and words ending -AL, then test candidate strings against both simultaneously.

• CAR + PET = CARPET (valid word)
• PET + AL = PETAL (valid word)

Both check out with the same three letters.

Answer: PET

Worked example 1b: a harder version (longer link, less obvious words)

Find the word that completes the first word and begins the second word: OUT(___) and (___)WALK

Method: same approach, but the link here is a full word rather than a short letter string.

• OUT + SIDE = OUTSIDE (valid word)
• SIDE + WALK = SIDEWALK (valid word)

Answer: SIDE

This variant is harder because the link is a whole word (4+ letters) rather than a short string, so guessing by sound is less reliable; testing systematically against both gaps still works the same way.

Worked example 2: compound words

Which word completes both: NOTE(___) and (___)SHELF

Method: list plausible words after NOTE, then check which also works before SHELF.

• NOTE + BOOK = NOTEBOOK (valid word)
• BOOK + SHELF = BOOKSHELF (valid word)

Answer: BOOK

Compound-word questions in this style use the same method as worked examples 1 and 1b: find a word or string that closes the first pair and opens the second, applied to whole everyday compound words rather than shorter letter strings. Building a mental list of common compounds (bookshelf, notebook, sidewalk, outside) speeds this up considerably.

Worked example 3: hidden words

Find the smaller word hidden across these two words: THE RAINCOAT

Method: read across the join between the two words, ignoring the gap, and scan for a real word hiding in the letter sequence.

• "...E RAIN..." contains "ERA"
• "...RAINC..." contains "RAIN," "AIN," "INC"

RAIN is hidden plainly, but the exam-style version usually hides a less obvious word across the join. "THE RAINCOAT" also contains "HER" if read across the boundary between THE and RAINCOAT: T-HER-AINCOAT.

Answer: HER (hidden across the join: T-HE-R-AINCOAT)

The mistakes we see most often

1. Reading a word as a whole shape rather than a letter sequence, which makes hidden words and missing letters much harder to spot.
2. Stopping at the first word found, when hidden-word questions sometimes contain more than one valid smaller word and the exam wants a specific one.
3. Not testing candidate letters against both gaps in a missing-letter-string question. A string that completes one word but not the other is not the answer, however close it looks.
4. Rushing past the join in hidden-word and compound-word questions. The hidden word or link almost always straddles the boundary between the two given words, not sitting neatly inside just one.
5. Guessing common compound words from memory instead of testing systematically. A child who "knows" compounds like sunflower or rainbow can miss questions built around less familiar combinations.

A practice strategy parents can use at home

Play a "spot the hidden word" game with everyday text: a cereal box, a book title, a shop sign. Read two adjacent words together and challenge your child to find a smaller word hidden across the join. This builds the specific habit of reading across word boundaries rather than treating each word as a sealed unit, which is the core skill this whole topic tests.