Complete 11+ Teacher Study Guide
This teacher guide covers all the revision topic families visible in the uploaded Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning material. It is designed for a teacher to explain the method before the student attempts practice.
Teaching routine for every topic: Explain the question type → demonstrate one example → identify the rule → show the common trap → let the student solve one aloud → ask them to prove the answer.
Topics
1. Making Words Across a Gap
What the teacher should explain: Find a hidden four-letter word spanning the end of one word and the start of the next.
Tips & tricks: Test possible split points systematically. Check spelling. Remember the hidden word may cross the gap 1+3, 2+2 or 3+1.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
2. Making Two New Words
What the teacher should explain: Move one letter from the first word to the second so both resulting words are real words.
Tips & tricks: Start with likely removable letters, especially vowels. After every move, verify BOTH new words.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
3. Analogies with Letter Changes
What the teacher should explain: Identify how one pair of letters changes and apply the same rule to another pair.
Tips & tricks: Write alphabet positions or count forwards/backwards. Check whether the two letters use the same or different movements.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
4. Complete the Third Pair
What the teacher should explain: Discover how the first word changes into the second, then apply that transformation to a new word.
Tips & tricks: Look for reversal, removal, addition or movement of letters. Test the rule on the entire first pair before applying it.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
5. Closest in Meaning
What the teacher should explain: Find the two words, one from each group, with the most similar meanings.
Tips & tricks: Think of a simple synonym for each candidate. Watch for words with more than one meaning.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
6. Most Different in Meaning
What the teacher should explain: Find the strongest opposite pair across two groups.
Tips & tricks: Identify word class first where useful. Do not confuse 'unrelated' with 'opposite'. Look for true antonyms.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
7. Analogies by Word Meaning
What the teacher should explain: Complete a relationship between meanings of words.
Tips & tricks: Turn the first pair into a sentence, such as 'a ruler measures centimetres', then reuse exactly that relationship.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
8. Incomplete Words
What the teacher should explain: Add a three-letter group to an incomplete word so the completed word fits the sentence.
Tips & tricks: Use grammar and sentence meaning to predict whether a noun, verb or adjective is needed. Test the missing letters at the beginning, middle or end.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
9. Odd Ones Out
What the teacher should explain: Find two words that do not belong with the other three.
Tips & tricks: Find a rule that explains three words cleanly. Test alternative categories before committing.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
10. Compound Words
What the teacher should explain: Choose words from two groups that join to make a correctly spelt compound word.
Tips & tricks: Try each first-group word at the beginning of likely second-group words. Check that the result is genuinely a word, not merely a plausible phrase.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
11. Word Pairings
What the teacher should explain: Find one letter that completes the end of one word and the beginning of another in both pairs.
Tips & tricks: The SAME letter must work in both pairs. Test common consonant and vowel patterns methodically.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
12. Double Meanings
What the teacher should explain: Find one word that goes equally well with two pairs of words.
Tips & tricks: Check every candidate against both pairs and consider different meanings of the same word.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
13. Word Creation
What the teacher should explain: Use numbered letter positions to construct a missing word following the pattern shown.
Tips & tricks: Number letters carefully, including repeated letters. Build the code from known examples before solving the missing word.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
14. Letters and Words with Number Codes
What the teacher should explain: Calculate with letter values or infer number codes assigned to words.
Tips & tricks: For arithmetic codes, substitute values before calculating. For word codes, look for repeated letters and repeated digits to expose mappings.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
15. Alphabet Pair Sequences
What the teacher should explain: Find the missing pair in a sequence of letter pairs.
Tips & tricks: Separate the first and second letters into two sequences. One may move forwards while the other moves backwards.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
16. Letter Codes
What the teacher should explain: Infer how each letter in a word is transformed into its coded letter.
Tips & tricks: Compare letter by letter and count alphabet movement. Do not assume one shift until multiple positions confirm it.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
17. Number Sequences
What the teacher should explain: Find the rule governing a number sequence and continue it.
Tips & tricks: Write differences first. Then test alternating rules, multiplication/division, squares, cubes and changing differences.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
18. Number Patterns and Equations
What the teacher should explain: Find relationships between grouped numbers or balance an equation.
Tips & tricks: Work from known examples. Respect operation order. In equations, calculate each side separately and find the value needed to balance them.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
19. Introducing Logic
What the teacher should explain: Organise supplied information to solve constraints and ordering problems.
Tips & tricks: Convert prose into a table, diagram, list or timeline. Cross out impossibilities as soon as they are proved.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
20. True Statement
What the teacher should explain: Determine which option must be true from supplied facts.
Tips & tricks: Use only stated information. 'Could be true' is not enough. Test each option against every fact.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
21. Deduction
What the teacher should explain: Combine several facts to reach a necessary conclusion.
Tips & tricks: Break the passage into individual facts, order events or people, and calculate step by step rather than holding everything mentally.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
22. Letter, Word and Number Facts
What the teacher should explain: Recall alphabet order, vowels/consonants, multiplication facts and common number patterns.
Tips & tricks: Know A-Z forwards/backwards, common letter pairs, tables to 10×10, even/odd, square, cube, triangular and prime numbers.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
23. Question Types and Strategies
What the teacher should explain: Understand non-verbal formats such as most unlike/most like, grids, repeated changes and spatial questions.
Tips & tricks: Read the instruction before studying the pictures. Decide exactly what relationship is being tested.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
24. Making Connections
What the teacher should explain: Identify common connections, odd-one-out relationships, direction, angles, symmetry and similarities/differences.
Tips & tricks: Compare one feature at a time: shape, number, shading, orientation, symmetry and position.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
25. Breaking Codes
What the teacher should explain: Decode image features represented by two- or three-letter codes.
Tips & tricks: Find one shared feature at a time. Compare images sharing a code letter to discover what that letter represents.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
26. Finding Relationships
What the teacher should explain: Apply changes in shape, shading, size, position, reflection or movement.
Tips & tricks: Describe the transformation in words before selecting an answer. Check every feature, not just the most obvious.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
27. Spotting Patterns
What the teacher should explain: Solve 2×2 and 3×3 grids by finding row/column relationships.
Tips & tricks: Work row by row and column by column. Look for addition/removal, rotation, shading, size and position rules.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
28. Completing Sequences
What the teacher should explain: Continue visual sequences involving repeating, alternating or multi-step changes.
Tips & tricks: Track each feature separately. Some features repeat every two or three steps while another changes each step.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
29. Spatial Reasoning
What the teacher should explain: Solve nets/cubes, paper folding, hidden shapes, rotations, plans and elevations.
Tips & tricks: Choose an anchor face or feature and track neighbours. For folds, reverse the folding mentally one step at a time.
Teacher prompt: Ask the student to explain the rule aloud before giving an answer. Then ask, “How can you prove it?”
Universal exam tips
- Read the instruction twice when the question type changes.
- Do not guess from appearance. State the rule.
- Write down alphabet movements, number gaps and logic facts.
- Eliminate answers that break even one part of the rule.
- For two-part questions, verify both parts.
- If stuck, move on and return later rather than spending too long.
- After an error, identify the error type: instruction, rule, calculation, vocabulary, visual tracking or rushing.