Free practice · no account · about 12 minutes
11+ non-verbal reasoning: every question type, with examples
Non-verbal reasoning is the part of an 11+ with no words and no arithmetic in it. It is shapes, and it is testing whether a child can spot a rule and apply it. GL Assessment is now the dominant 11+ provider, after CEM stopped offering paper tests from September 2023 and most grammar schools moved across.
Take the free practice testThe question types
Four kinds, each with a real example and the answer marked. Every example on this page is produced by the same code that runs our practice test, so nothing here is a simplified version of what your child will meet.
Sequences: what comes next
A row of shapes where something changes each step. At the easy end one thing changes. At the hard end three do at once, and one of them is usually a rotation.
Which shape comes next?
The choices
- Answer
- 2
- 3
- 4
Matrices: complete the grid
A three-by-three grid with one square blank. One rule runs across, a different rule runs down. This is the type most children lose marks on, because they find one rule and stop.
Which shape fills the empty square?
The choices
- 1
- Answer
- 3
- 4
Analogies: A is to B as C is to what
A change is shown once, then has to be applied to a new shape. The trap is picking the option that looks most like the second shape instead of the one that has had the same thing done to it.
Complete the pair. Which shape goes in the gap?
The choices
- 1
- Answer
- 3
- 4
Odd one out
Five shapes, four with something in common. Deliberately busy: several things vary, but only one of them splits four against one.
Which one is the odd one out?
The five shapes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Answer
What practice actually helps with
Two things, and neither is what people expect. The first is knowing what is being asked: a child seeing a matrix for the first time spends most of their thinking working out the format rather than the puzzle. The second is speed. These papers are tight, and a child who can do every question but only at their own pace will not finish.
What practice does not do is raise the ceiling much. Anyone promising that is selling something. We are not going to tell you this test will get your child into a school.
Our free test
24 puzzles across those four types, about twelve minutes, and it adapts: a right answer makes the next one harder. You get the level reached free, and a breakdown by question type with timings by email. No IQ number and no percentile, because a free test cannot honestly produce one.
Start the test