Verbal Reasoning

11 plus Letter-Transform Pairs questions

Updated 10 September 2026·Skill project: Letter-Transform Pairs

Three pairs of words, two of them already completed. Something has been done to the letters of the first word to make the second, the same thing both times, and your child works out what it was and does it once more.

What a Letter-Transform Pairs question looks like

A Letter-Transform Pairs question in 11 plus verbal reasoning shows three pairs of words in brackets, like this: (plant plan) (heart hear) (stare [?]). The first two pairs are complete. Something has been done to the letters of the first word to make the second, the same something both times, and the third pair is missing its second word.

Nothing here depends on what the words mean. The rule is always about letters and their places: a letter comes off, a run of letters is kept, letters are taken from set positions, or the word runs backwards. Here are three, worked through in full.

The question. “(plant plan) (heart hear) (stare [?])” The options are star, tars, rate, sear and arts.

The method. Write the first pair one word above the other and line them up: plant, plan. Every letter is still in its place and the last one, t, has gone. Check the second pair: heart, hear, and again only the last letter has gone. So the rule is take the last letter off. Do that to stare.

The answer. star.

Why a wrong option tempts. tars. Every option is made from the letters of stare, so a jumble of them looks plausible, and tars uses the same four letters as star. But the rule never moved a letter: plan keeps p, l, a, n in the order plant had them, and star has to keep s, t, a, r in the order stare had them.

The question. “(snap pans) (trap part) (draw [?])” The options are wags, warm, wads, ward and wand.

The method. snap and pans are the same four letters, and reading snap from the end gives p, a, n, s. Test that on the second pair: trap read from the end is p, a, r, t, which is part. So the rule is to write the word backwards, and draw read from the end is w, a, r, d.

The answer. ward.

Why a wrong option tempts. wand. It starts with w and ends with d, exactly as the answer does, so only the middle letter is wrong. One check settles it: the answer can use the letters of draw and no others. wand needs an n, wads an s, wags a g and warm an m, and draw has none of those. Only ward uses d, r, a and w.

The question. “(smart mat) (brand rad) (chart [?])” The options are cat, hat, tar, rub and rat.

The method. Look at smart and mat. No letter has simply come off an end, so number the letters: s is 1, m is 2, a is 3, r is 4, t is 5. mat is the 2nd, 3rd and 5th. Test that on brand: its 2nd, 3rd and 5th letters are r, a and d, which spells rad, so the rule holds. Now number chart: c is 1, h is 2, a is 3, r is 4, t is 5. The 2nd, 3rd and 5th letters are h, a and t.

The answer. hat.

Why a wrong option tempts. cat. It is the 1st, 3rd and 5th letters of chart, and taking every other letter is a rule children meet often here, so it feels familiar. Test it on the first pair, though: the 1st, 3rd and 5th letters of smart are s, a and t, which spells sat, not mat. A rule that fails on either completed pair is the wrong rule.

How to answer it

Write the first pair with one word above the other and line the letters up. Then ask, in this order: has a letter simply gone, are the letters in a new order, or is the word backwards?
Say the rule out loud using positions: “the last letter comes off”, “the letters run backwards”, “the 2nd, 3rd and 5th letters”. A rule you can say in words is one you can apply to a new word.
Test it on the second pair before going anywhere near the third. It has to produce that second word exactly, letter for letter. If it does not, go back to step 1: the rule is wrong and the question has just told you so.
Apply the rule to the first word of the third pair. In a six or seven letter word, write the numbers above the letters rather than counting in your head.
Find the word you built in the options. If it is not there, the rule was wrong rather than the options, so start again at the second pair.

Common mistakes

Deciding the rule from the first pair alone. In (smart mat) (brand rad) (chart [?]) the first pair on its own is happy with “take every other letter”, which gives cat. Only the second pair rules that out, and cat is sitting in the options.
Treating every question as an anagram. Most rules keep the letters in their original order, and only reversing or reordering moves them. The wrong options are often the right letters in the wrong order: tars and arts against star, tar and rat against hat.
Expecting the answer to be a familiar word. In (harvest est) (pretend end) (morning [?]) the rule keeps the last three letters, so the answer is ing, while ant, rim and men are all real words and all wrong. Some rules leave letters that spell nothing, which is why slab becomes sab and drum becomes dum in the examples themselves.
Counting from the wrong end. Keeping the first four letters and keeping the last four look very alike on the page. market gives mark, but pattern gives tern and measure gives sure. Settle which end the rule works from before counting.
Losing count in longer words. In (hammer her) (market met) (garden [?]) the rule takes the 1st, 5th and 6th letters, so the answer is gen. Six and seven letter words are where miscounting by one costs the mark, and numbering the letters prevents it.

How to practise 11 plus Letter-Transform Pairs questions

What makes this type click is meeting enough different rules that a child stops guessing and starts working through them in order. It is one of the more satisfying eleven plus question types once that happens, because the check against the second pair either passes or it does not. 11+ Daily has a Letter-Transform Pairs project among its verbal reasoning skills, and every explanation names the rule in positions, so a child sees why it was that one and not the near miss. The questions are original to 11+ Daily, nothing is a past paper and nothing is licensed, and the bank is re-checked in rounds. The Today screen decides which skills come round on a given day, so this one arrives alongside the rest rather than being drilled on its own, on laptop, tablet or phone. There is more on session length in our guide to how much 11 plus practice a child needs each day, and the 11 plus verbal reasoning page shows the other codes and sequences puzzles it sits among.

Questions parents ask

What is a Letter-Transform Pairs question in the 11 plus?

It shows three pairs of words in brackets, such as (plant plan) (heart hear) (stare [?]). The first two pairs have both been made by the same rule about letters, in this case taking the last letter off. The child works out the rule from those two completed pairs, applies it to the first word of the third pair, and picks the result from five options. Nothing depends on what the words mean.

What kinds of rule come up in these questions?

Five families cover almost all of them. A letter is removed from the start, the end or the middle of the word. The first three or four letters are kept, or the last three or four. The word is written backwards. Letters are taken from set positions, such as the 2nd, 3rd and 5th. Or letters are taken from set positions and put in a new order, so that candle becomes land and jungle becomes lung.

Does the answer always spell a real word?

Usually, but not always, and a child who assumes it must can be caught out. In (harvest est) (pretend end) (morning [?]) the rule is to keep the last three letters, so the answer is 'ing', while three of the wrong options are real words. The example pairs break the pattern more often still: slab becomes sab and drum becomes dum.

How is this different from an anagram question?

In most of these questions the letters stay in the order they started in, and only some of them survive. Rearranging is one rule among several rather than the point of the exercise. The wrong options are usually built from the right letters in the wrong order, so a child who treats every question as an anagram has an option waiting for them each time.

Why does my child keep getting these wrong when they understood the question?

Nearly always because the rule was decided from the first pair alone. Several different rules can explain any one pair, and the second completed pair is there to tell them apart. Testing the rule on the second pair before touching the third is the step that separates a child who gets these right from one who gets them nearly right.

Practise Letter-Transform Pairs in 11+ Daily

Letter-Transform Pairs is one of the 78 skill projects in 11+ Daily. The Today screen brings it round when it is the right thing to revise, and a wrong answer comes back in a later session until it is right. 14-day free trial, no card needed.

Start your free 14-day trial See how daily 11 plus practice works