11 plus Letter Connections questions

What a Letter Connections question looks like

The name is misleading, so it is worth clearing up first. A Letter Connections question in 11 plus verbal reasoning has nothing to do with words, hidden letters or what the letters stand for. It is a letter analogy, laid out like this: DG is to FH as MN is to (?), with five options underneath.

The connection is position in the alphabet. Each letter of the pair moves a set number of places, forward or back, and the two letters do not have to move by the same amount or even in the same direction. Work out both moves from the first pair, apply them to the third pair, and that is the answer. Here are three, worked through in full.

The question. “DG is to FH as MN is to (?)” The options are OO, PO, NO, OP and ON.

The method. Take the two letters separately. D to F: D, E, F, so the first letter moves forward two places. G to H: forward one place. Now do the same to MN. M forward two is N, O, so O. N forward one is O.

The answer. OO.

Why a wrong option tempts. OP. If you decide the whole pair slides forward two, M becomes O and N becomes P, which looks tidy. But each letter carries its own move, and here the second letter goes only one. PO and NO are the same answer with the first letter one place out.

The question. “LO is to HQ as RT is to (?)” The options are OV, NV, MV, NW and NU.

The method. L to H goes backwards: K, J, I, H, so back four. O to Q is forward two. The two letters move in opposite directions, which is common. Apply both to RT. R back four is Q, P, O, N, so N. T forward two is V.

The answer. NV.

Why a wrong option tempts. OV catches a child who counts the letter they start on. Saying “R is one, Q is two, P is three, O is four” lands on O instead of N, one place short, and O is sitting there as an option. NU is the same slip on the second letter: T to V is two steps, and counting only one gives U.

The question. “KP is to OL as DW is to (?)” The options are IR, GT, HS, JQ and FU.

The method. K to O is forward four. P to L is back four. Same size of step, opposite directions. Apply both to DW. D forward four is E, F, G, H, so H. W back four is V, U, T, S, so S.

The answer. HS.

Why a wrong option tempts. GT and IR are each one place out on the first letter, three or five instead of four, and the second letter is dragged the same distance the other way, so the pair still looks balanced. In questions built like this one, the two letters of every pair sit the same distance in from opposite ends of the alphabet: A goes with Z, B with Y, C with X. K and P are such a pair, and so are O and L, D and W, and the answer H and S. The second letter therefore follows automatically once the first is settled, which is where all the care belongs. It also means every option here is a matching pair, so the check confirms the shape of an answer without rescuing a miscount.

How to answer it

1. Have the alphabet in front of you and use it to point with, writing it out if it is not already there. Nearly all of the difficulty here is counting, not reasoning.
2. Look at the first letter only. Count from the first pair to the second pair, and note how many places it moved and which way, forward or back.
3. Do the same for the second letter on its own. Do not assume it matches the first. It often moves a different distance, and it often goes the other way.
4. Apply both moves to the third pair, one letter at a time. If the count runs past Z, carry on at A. If it runs back past A, carry on at Z.
5. Check by counting the shift backwards, from your answer to the third pair. If you do not land exactly where you started, count again before choosing.

Common mistakes

• Assuming both letters move together. In DG to FH the first letter moves two and the second moves one. The easier questions move both letters the same way, and a child who has met a few of those starts applying the first letter’s move to both. Nearly every question here has an option waiting for that.
• Counting the letter you start on. Back four from R is N, not O. This is the single most common slip, and because most wrong options are the correct answer one place out, it lands on one of them almost every time.
• Stopping at the end of the alphabet. Some questions run off the end deliberately: forward four from W is A, and back three from B is Y. A child who treats Z or A as a wall gets stuck or guesses.
• Reading the letters as words. Pairs like ON and NO appear as wrong options and read like real words, which pulls attention towards meaning. Nothing in this type depends on what the letters spell.
• Skipping the backwards check. It takes seconds and catches precisely the one-place errors the wrong options are built from, and it is the step children drop first against a clock.

How to practise 11 plus Letter Connections questions

Of all the eleven plus question types, this is one of the few where the reasoning is simple and the accuracy is everything, so what lifts a score is the counting habit. Knowing the alphabet cold in both directions, and being willing to write it out instead of doing it in your head, is most of the work. 11+ Daily has a Letter Connections project among its verbal reasoning skills, with the alphabet shown on screen next to the question and every explanation spelling out both moves, not just the answer. The questions are original to 11+ Daily, not past papers and not licensed from another publisher, and the bank is re-checked in rounds. The Today screen decides which skills come back on a given day, so this one turns up alongside the rest rather than being drilled on its own, on laptop, tablet or phone. You can see how it sits with the other codes and sequences puzzles on the 11 plus verbal reasoning page, and there is more on session length in our guide to how much 11 plus practice a child needs each day.

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