11 plus Word Grid questions

What a Word Grid question looks like

Word Grid is a vocabulary format in 11 plus verbal reasoning, and the first thing to say is what it is not. Despite the name, the cells hold whole words rather than letters: six of them, in two rows of three, with one cell replaced by a question mark. Five options are offered underneath and exactly one fits. The word has to belong to its row, a group of words that go together, and fit its column, which joins the word above to the word below in the same way in all three columns. Non-verbal reasoning has a grid of its own, Complete the Grid, where the missing square is a drawn figure. Here every cell is a word and every link one of meaning.

Our own bank comes in two shapes, and telling them apart quickly is half the skill. In the first, the rows are opposites: three words meaning one thing on top, three meaning the reverse underneath. In the second, the top row is a set of things and the bottom row gives one fact about each, such as what an instrument measures, what an animal’s young is called, or who steers a vehicle. The difference decides which half of the grid does the work.

Example one

The grid reads:

The options are conclude, pursue, develop, resume and continue.

Read the top row as a group first: start, begin and commence all mean to set off. Now the bottom row. End and finish both mean to stop, so the missing word is another word for stopping, which alone rules out four of the options. Check the column to be sure: commence is the formal word for begin, so the word beneath it should be the formal word for finish.

The answer is conclude.

Resume is the option that tempts. It sounds serious and feels like a partner for commence, so a child who reads down the column without first settling what the bottom row means reaches for it. But resume means to begin again after a break, so it belongs with the top row, not the row with the gap in it.

Example two

The grid reads:

The options are web, field, hive, pond and barn.

The top row is three creatures. The bottom row gives a nest for the bird and a den for the fox, so it is where each creature lives, and the missing cell must be a home. That narrows nothing down, because every option could be somewhere a living thing stays. The row has done all it can, so the column takes over: above the gap is bee.

The answer is hive.

Web is the wrong option that catches children. A web really is a home, and one built by a small creature, so it satisfies the loose version of the rule in a child’s head. It belongs to a spider, though, and the column says bee. Barn and pond fail more quietly: homes, but not a bee’s.

Example three

The grid reads:

The options are forest, bush, field, fence and river.

Three fruits on the top row. Underneath, an apple grows on a tree and a grape on a vine, so the bottom row names the plant each fruit grows on. A strawberry grows on a low, leafy plant, and the word for that here is bush.

The answer is bush.

Field is the trap, and a good one: strawberries really are grown in fields. The filled columns did not answer where the fruit is grown, though, they answered which plant it grows on, and the missing cell has to answer the same question. That is the most useful habit in the format: work out the question the full columns answer, then ask only that.

How to answer it

1. Read each row as a group before you look at the options, and say aloud what the group is: words for beginning, creatures, things that measure.
2. Work out which row the gap is in and say what that row means. If the rows are opposites, this usually settles it on its own, because only one option belongs to the right side.
3. If more than one option still stands, go to the column: take the word above or below the gap and ask it the question the other two columns answer.
4. Check the strength of the word. In the opposite grids the columns pair like with like: strongest over strongest, everyday over everyday, formal over formal.
5. Read the grid back with your word in place. The row has to be true and so does the column. If only one is, the word is wrong however well it fits the other.

Common mistakes

• Choosing a word that fits the other row. Where the rows are near and far, local is offered and children take it. It suits one of the rows, just not the row with the gap in it.
• Answering a different question from the other columns. Field for a strawberry, or a whistle where the other cells named the thing a player holds. True about the topic, wrong about the link.
• Stopping at the row when every option belongs to it. In a grid of clothing and body parts, socks, scarf, belt, coat and gloves are all clothing, so the row lets them through. Only the column knows the body part is hands.
• Ignoring how strong the word is. Where the top row runs brave, courageous and something stronger, and the bottom row ends in afraid, the answer is fearless rather than a milder word: the third column holds the strongest word in each row.
• Hunting for letters. The name suggests a spelling puzzle and it is not one. There is no pattern in the letters, and time spent hunting for one is taken from reading the rows.

How to practise 11 plus Word Grid questions

The thing worth practising is not vocabulary in the abstract but the spoken sentence naming the row and the column: “these three all mean stop”, “this row says where each one lives”. A child who can say it can test it, and one who cannot is picking the word that feels closest. When an answer comes out wrong, ask what they thought the bottom row meant rather than telling them: the mistake is nearly always in the naming, not the vocabulary. Little and often beats long sessions, as it does across eleven plus preparation, which is the case we make in how much 11 plus practice a child needs each day. 11+ Daily has a Word Grid project alongside the other verbal reasoning formats, on laptop, tablet or phone, and the full list is 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