11 plus Rhyme and Synonym questions

What a Rhyme and Synonym question looks like

Rhyme and Synonym is one of the word puzzles that 11 plus verbal reasoning papers use. Your child is given a short sentence with a gap in it, one word in brackets in front of it, and five options. Only one option fills the gap.

The bracket word is not the answer and it does not mean the same as the answer. It is a stepping stone. It rhymes with a word, and that word means the same as the missing one. So there are two moves to make: find the rhyme, then find the option that means the same as the rhyme you have just found. That second move is what separates this from an ordinary word-meaning question, where the given word and the answer are linked by meaning alone.

Two things hold right across the bank and both save time once a child trusts them. The rhyming word in the middle is never one of the five options, and neither is the bracket word.

Here are three, worked through in full.

The question. The bracket word is saddle, and the sentence is: We began to _______ the canoe across the calm lake. The options are steer, tie, row, launch and drift.

The method. Do not start with the sentence. Start with the word in brackets and say rhymes for it out loud: saddle, paddle, straddle, addle. Paddle is the one that has anything to do with a canoe, so that is the middle word. Now the second step. Which option means the same as paddle? To paddle a canoe is to row it.

The answer. row.

Why a wrong option tempts. Steer, launch and drift all fit the sentence perfectly well. You can steer a canoe, you can launch one, and you can drift across a calm lake. That is deliberate, so choosing whichever word sounds best in the sentence gets a child nowhere. Only row has a partner, paddle, that rhymes with saddle.

The question. The bracket word is flock, and the sentence is: Please _______ the door before you leave. The options are open, paint, push, knock and fasten.

The method. Rhymes for flock: block, clock, lock, rock, sock. Lock is the one that goes with a door, so lock is the middle word. Second step: which option means the same as lock? To lock a door is to fasten it.

The answer. fasten.

Why a wrong option tempts. There are two traps in this one. Lock fits the gap beautifully, so a child who finds it will start hunting for lock in the list, and it is not there. Then knock catches their eye, because knock rhymes with flock all by itself and that feels like a match. But the rhyme belongs to the middle word, never to the answer.

The question. The bracket word is rocky, and the sentence is: The winning team felt rather _______ after the match. The options are shy, proud, bored, cross and weary.

The method. Rhymes for rocky: cocky, hockey, jockey, stocky. Cocky is the only one that describes how a person feels, so cocky is the middle word. Second step: cocky means pleased with yourself, and so does proud.

The answer. proud.

Why a wrong option tempts. Weary is the trap here, and it works because rocky sounds as though it means shaky or unsteady, which is roughly how a team might feel after a hard match. What the bracket word means never matters. Only what it sounds like matters.

How to answer it

1. Cover the sentence and read only the word in brackets. Say four or five rhymes for it under your breath. Change the first sound and keep the rest: flock gives block, clock, lock, rock, sock.
2. Now read the sentence and see which of your rhymes would make sense in the gap. That one is the middle word. It is not the answer, so do not go looking for it in the options.
3. Ask what the middle word means, and say it in your own words. Lock means fasten shut. Paddle means row along.
4. Read the five options and find the one that matches that meaning. Only one will, even though several will fit the sentence.
5. Check both halves before you tick. Does the middle word rhyme with the bracket word, and does your answer mean the same as the middle word? If either half is shaky, go back to step one with different rhymes.

Common mistakes

• Hunting for the rhyme in the options. A child finds lock for flock, cannot see lock in the list, and decides they have gone wrong. They have not. The rhyme is never an option, so it always has to be carried one step further, to a word that means the same.
• Picking the option that rhymes with the bracket word. Knock for flock, fill for frill, label for fable. These feel right because a rhyme has been found and there it is on the page. But the rhyme sits between the bracket word and the answer, so an option that rhymes with the brackets is a decoy every time.
• Reading the bracket word for its meaning. Rocky pulls a child towards weary. Cheery pulls them towards bright or eager, when the rhyme is weary and the answer is tired. The brackets carry a sound and nothing else.
• Choosing whichever option fits the sentence best. In the canoe question, four of the five options make sense in the gap. In a sentence about a chilli the children all loved, spicy and hot leap out, and the answer is mild. The sentence narrows the field, it does not decide.
• Rhyming by spelling instead of by sound. Hammer and glamour rhyme although they end with different letters. Heater and quieter share their last three letters and do not rhyme at all. A rhyme has to match from the vowel to the end of the word, so test it by ear.

How to practise 11 plus Rhyme and Synonym questions

The two habits that carry this type are worth building separately. The first is generating rhymes quickly, which a child gets from any rhyming game away from the desk: give them a word in the car and take turns until one of you runs dry. The second is a broad stock of everyday synonyms, which comes from reading widely and from being asked for another way of saying a word. It is one of the eleven plus types where a careful method beats a fast guess by a wide margin, because several options always fit the sentence and only one of them survives both steps. 11+ Daily has a Rhyme and Synonym project among its verbal reasoning skills, with questions original to 11+ Daily rather than taken from past papers, and the Today screen decides when to bring the skill back so it comes round alongside everything else. You can see where it sits with the other word 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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