11 plus Closest Meaning questions

What a Closest Meaning question looks like

Closest Meaning is one of the word-meaning formats in 11 plus verbal reasoning. Each question gives two groups of words inside brackets, three words in each group, and asks for the one word from the first group and the one word from the second group that are closest in meaning to each other. Exactly one pair works. The other four words are there to pull attention away from it.

The words themselves are usually short and ordinary. What makes the format hard is not the vocabulary but the number of near-misses sitting in front of a child at once. It is a sensible place to begin eleven plus verbal reasoning work, because the method transfers straight to several of the other word-meaning types.

Example one

(begin teach grow) (start mend wash)

Take the first word on the left, begin, and hold its meaning in your head: to set something going. Now look along the second group and ask whether any of those three words means that. Start means to set something going, so that is a match. Before committing, check the other two words on the left. Teach does not match start, mend or wash, and neither does grow.

The answer is begin and start.

The pair that tempts children here is grow and mend. Both are about something getting better, so they feel related, and a child scanning for a feeling rather than testing a meaning will take it. Grow means to get bigger. Mend means to repair something broken. Related is not the same as closest in meaning.

Example two

(gift apple shoe) (orange present hat)

Start with gift. A gift is something you give to someone. Look along the second group: orange, present, hat. A present is something you give to someone, so gift and present go together.

The answer is gift and present.

The trap is that both of the other words on the left have an obvious partner on the right. Apple and orange are both fruit. Shoe and hat are both things you wear. Belonging to the same group is not the same as meaning the same thing: an apple is not an orange, and a shoe is not a hat. Only gift and present could swap places in a sentence and leave it saying the same thing.

Example three

(wrong correct silent) (loud right tired)

Try wrong first. Wrong means not right, so nothing on the other side matches it, even with the word right sitting there. Try correct. Correct means having no mistakes in it. Right can mean the same thing, because a right answer is a correct answer.

The answer is correct and right.

Two pairs tempt here, and both of them are opposites. Wrong and right are said together so often that they look like an answer, and silent and loud do the same. Opposites belong to a different question type. This one also shows why a second meaning matters: right can mean a direction, and it can mean correct, and only the second sense is doing any work here.

How to answer it

1. Read all six words before choosing anything, and say quietly to yourself what each one means. Most lost marks on this format come from picking in the first two seconds.
2. Work through the first group one word at a time. Take word one and test it against all three words in the second group. Then word two. Then word three. Going in order stops you missing a pair.
3. Say both words in the same sentence to check. “I will begin the race” and “I will start the race” mean the same thing, so that is a genuine pair.
4. Check the pairs you have not tested before you commit. Only one pair is correct, so if two seem to work, one of them is an opposite pair or a same-topic pair rather than a matching one.
5. If nothing matches on the first pass, go back and try each word’s second meaning. Cross can mean annoyed. Fix can mean repair. A trip can be a journey.

Common mistakes

• Choosing an opposite pair. Sets often contain one deliberately: wrong and right, silent and loud, dry and damp, rough and smooth. If the words “the opposite of” fit neatly between the two words, it is not the answer to this question.
• Pairing words from the same topic. Apple and orange, shoe and hat, shop and church, road and forest. These share a category, not a meaning, and the difference is the whole question.
• Stopping at the first pair that looks plausible. The first word in the first group is not usually the answer, and the sets are built so that an early near-miss looks inviting.
• Using only a word’s most familiar meaning. Trip, cross, plain, fix and right each carry a second sense, and the answer often depends on it.
• Picking on how a word sounds. Two unusual words are not a pair simply because both are unusual. Feeble and courteous both sound grown-up, and they have nothing to do with each other.

How to practise Closest Meaning for the 11 plus

Wide reading is what sits behind this question type, because every pair turns on a shade of meaning rather than a definition, and shades of meaning are picked up from seeing words used. Beyond that, short and regular beats long and occasional: ten focused minutes on one format is worth more than an hour of mixed questions with no method, which is the pattern we set out in how much 11 plus practice a child needs each day. When your child gets one wrong, ask them to say aloud what the two words in their chosen pair actually mean. Nine times out of ten they hear the mistake themselves, and that is worth more than being told the right answer. 11+ Daily has a Closest Meaning project alongside the other verbal reasoning formats, on laptop, tablet or phone, and the full set is listed on our 11 plus verbal reasoning practice page. Every question is original to 11+ Daily, nothing is a past paper and nothing is licensed from another publisher, and the bank is re-checked in rounds.

Questions parents ask