11 Plus Practice Questions by Subject

Try the original questions below to explore a method with your child. A few examples can prompt a useful discussion, but they cannot show whether a child is ready for a particular school’s test.

So this page starts with a question, before any explanation. What follows is a walkthrough of sixteen original examples across maths, English, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, each with a worked method. These examples are for practice, not a diagnostic of readiness. In the second half you will find examples of test formats; check your area's current admissions information for the subjects and timings that apply.

These examples were written for this article and are not official test-board material. Nothing is behind a form.

Start here: one question, right now

Question 1 (easy, maths). A school trip costs £7.50 for each child. Twenty-eight children go. What is the total cost?

• A: £185.00
• B: £196.00
• C: £210.00
• D: £217.50

Method. Split the price, do not reach for a calculator layout. Twenty-eight lots of £7 is £196, and twenty-eight lots of 50p is £14. Add them: £210, answer C. The habit worth building here is partitioning a decimal into an easy whole number plus a half, because it turns a long multiplication into two sums a child can hold in their head.

If your child read that and immediately started a written column method, that is fine and it will still be right. If they stalled at the £7.50, that is useful information too, and it is the sort of thing you would never learn from a downloaded PDF sitting unopened in a folder.

Before you start: what easy, medium and hard mean here

Difficulty on this page is not a mood. Easy means a relatively direct calculation or rule in this practice set; it does not guarantee that every Year 5 child has studied it. Medium means two steps, or one step plus a decision about which method applies. Hard means two ideas combined, a familiar process run backwards, or a step that is deliberately hidden inside the wording.

These labels describe the examples on this page only. Real papers differ in difficulty and structure, so a score here cannot show whether a child is ready for a particular test.

One more warning before you start, and it comes from the exam board itself. GL Assessment notes that for reasoning sections "children may not have encountered these types of questions before", which is exactly why the verbal and non-verbal sections below often feel stranger than the maths (GL Assessment free materials). Unfamiliarity is not the same as difficulty.

Maths: maths

Question 2 (medium). A recipe uses flour and butter in the ratio 5:2. A baker uses 1.4 kg of butter. How much flour does she need?

Method. Find one part first. Butter is 2 parts and equals 1.4 kg, so one part is 0.7 kg. Flour is 5 parts, so 5 x 0.7 = 3.5 kg. Finding one part is useful here. Scaling the ratio directly is also valid if both amounts are multiplied by the same factor.

Question 3 (medium). A train leaves at 09:47 and the journey takes 2 hours 35 minutes. At what time does it arrive?

Method. Add the hours first: 09:47 becomes 11:47. Then add the minutes in two bites, 13 minutes to reach 12:00 and the remaining 22 minutes on top, giving 12:22. Alternatively, add the minutes first: 47 + 35 = 82 minutes, or 1 hour 22 minutes, then carry the extra hour.

Question 4 (hard). The mean of five numbers is 12. One number is removed and the mean of the remaining four is 13. What number was removed?

Method. Convert every mean into a total. Five numbers averaging 12 total 60. Four numbers averaging 13 total 52. The removed number is 60 - 52 = 8. The idea being tested is that an average is a disguised total, and that a mean rising when you remove a number means the number removed was below the average. Ask your child to explain why removing a value below the original mean raises the mean.

English: English

Question 5 (easy). The coats belong to several girls. Which sentence uses the apostrophe correctly for that meaning?

• A: The girl's coats were soaked after the storm.
• B: The girls' coats were soaked after the storm.
• C: The girls's coats were soaked after the storm.
• D: The girls coat's were soaked after the storm.

Method. Ask who owns the coats. More than one girl, and "girls" already ends in s, so the apostrophe goes after the s with nothing added: answer B. Option A is also grammatical, but means the coats belong to one girl, so it does not match the question. The plural girls already ends in s, so its possessive is girls’. An irregular plural such as children instead takes children’s.

Question 6 (medium). Read this sentence: Marek was reserved at the party, answering politely and then returning to the window. What does "reserved" mean here?

Method. Ignore the meanings you know from restaurants and seats on a train. The clause after the comma supplies the evidence: he answers, then withdraws. So "reserved" means quiet or withheld rather than booked in advance. Read the surrounding text when choosing a word’s meaning; the relevant clue may be in this sentence or elsewhere in a passage.

Question 7 (medium). From a comprehension extract: Nana counted the coins twice before she handed them over. She kept her eyes on the counter and spoke so quietly that the shopkeeper asked her to repeat herself. What might this suggest about Nana?

Method. The details may suggest that Nana feels nervous or self-conscious, but they do not prove one exact feeling. Support an inference with a detail from the sentence, and accept another interpretation if it also fits the evidence.

Question 8 (hard). In the sentence Although the rain had stopped, the path remained slippery for hours, which words form the subordinate clause?

Method. Look for the subordinating conjunction, here "Although", and take everything up to the comma: "Although the rain had stopped". The proof is that it cannot stand alone as a sentence, while "the path remained slippery for hours" can. Explain the term as well as the example: this subordinate clause depends on the main clause to complete the sentence.

Verbal reasoning: verbal reasoning

Question 9 (easy). What comes next: AB, DE, GH, JK, ...?

Method. Write the alphabet positions rather than staring at the letters. A is 1, D is 4, G is 7, J is 10, so each pair starts three letters on. Next start is 13, which is M, giving MN. Alphabet positions make the repeated step clear in this example.

Question 10 (medium). If FROG is written in code as GSPH, how is BIRD written?

Method. Compare letter by letter: F to G is one forward, R to S is one forward, and so on for all four. Apply the same shift to BIRD and you get CJSE. Always check every letter of the given pair before applying the rule, because some codes shift by different amounts in each position.

Question 11 (medium). A four-letter word is hidden across the end of one word and the start of the next: The silver has tarnished badly. Find it.

Method. Run a finger across each word boundary and read the letters as one string: "silverhas", "hastarnished". The second gives s + tar, which is STAR. For this task, inspect letters across the word boundary rather than searching only for a word with a related meaning.

Question 12 (hard). What is the next number: 3, 6, 11, 18, 27, ...?

Method. Write the gaps underneath: 3, 5, 7, 9. The gaps rise by 2 each time, so the next gap is 11 and the answer is 38. When the gaps are not constant, take the gaps of the gaps. Here the repeated second difference supports the intended rule; check every given step before applying it.

Non-verbal reasoning: non-verbal reasoning

In a real paper these are pictures. They are described in words below so you can still see the reasoning, and if you want the full set of visual types afterwards, our guide to every non-verbal reasoning question type walks through them properly.

Question 13 (easy). Odd one out. A: a triangle containing 3 dots. B: a square containing 4 dots. C: a pentagon containing 5 dots. D: a hexagon containing 4 dots.

Method. Look for a rule linking two features rather than a feature on its own. Here the dots match the number of sides everywhere except D, which has six sides and four dots. The answer is D.

Question 14 (medium). Picture a 2-by-2 grid with cells named top-left, top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right. Three cells form an L: top-left, top-right and bottom-left. A shaded marker is in the bottom-left cell. Which option shows the L rotated a quarter turn clockwise around the grid, with the marker moving with it?

• A: top-left, top-right and bottom-right are filled; marker in top-left.
• B: top-left, top-right and bottom-right are filled; marker in bottom-right.
• C: top-left, bottom-left and bottom-right are filled; marker in bottom-left.

Method. Rotate each cell clockwise: the bottom-left marker moves to the top-left, and the missing bottom-right cell moves to the bottom-left. Option A has both positions right. Option B keeps the marker in the wrong corner; C has the wrong outline.

Question 15 (medium). A 3-by-3 grid is shaded in this order, adding one cell each time: frame 1 has the top-left cell; frame 2 has top-left and top-middle; frame 3 has top-left, top-middle and top-right; frame 4 has those three plus middle-right. Which cell is added in frame 5?

Method. The shading continues clockwise around the outside edge of the grid. The next cell is bottom-right. Naming the cells makes this text-only pattern unambiguous.

Question 16 (hard). Figures are given codes with two letters. A striped circle is AX, a plain circle is AY, and a striped square is BX. What is the code for a plain square?

Method. Find two figures that share a letter and see what they share visually. Both circles start with A, so the first letter is shape. Both striped figures end in X, so the second letter is shading. A plain square is therefore BY. This comparison separates the shape rule from the shading rule in this example.

That evening: there is no single 11 plus

Here is the thing almost no revision page says. "The 11 plus" is not one exam. GL Assessment states plainly that "11+ tests vary from area to area" and that the exact timings, the combination of topics covered and the number of questions in your local test "may differ" from its own materials. Redbridge Council tells parents the same thing in its own words, warning that the free materials it points to "might not match the exact test your child will take".

Compare four real areas and the point makes itself:

• Buckinghamshire. The Secondary Transfer Test measures verbal, non-verbal and mathematical skills. Children sit two papers of about 60 minutes each with a break between. The council also describes a shorter practice test, usually held two days before the main test, to help children understand what to expect. Check the council's current guide for details.
• Medway. The Medway Test is three papers: English (30 minutes marked, covering comprehension, punctuation and grammar), Mathematics (50 minutes marked) and Reasoning (45 minutes marked, split into 20 minutes of spatial and non-verbal work and 25 minutes of verbal). Each section has short practice questions first. There is no resit and no remarking.
• CSSE Essex, September 2027 entry. The consortium test had two papers, English (sixty minutes plus ten minutes additional reading time) and Mathematics (sixty minutes). There is no reasoning paper at all, and from September 2024 (2025 entry) the English paper no longer contains Applied Reasoning questions.
• Redbridge. Two papers, but bundled differently again: one covering English and verbal reasoning, one covering mathematics and non-verbal reasoning.

Use the questions to practise the methods, then check your council or consortium admissions page for the subjects and timings that apply to you. In Sutton, six schools share the Selective Eligibility Test. The five grammar schools use a second stage for children meeting their SET standard; Greenshaw uses the SET for its ability places. Neither qualification nor a second-stage invitation guarantees a place.

When you are ready to practise under those timings, our round-up of free 11 plus practice papers sorts the genuinely free sources by board and area.

Later that week: why 70 per cent is not a pass mark

Parents ask constantly whether 70 per cent is enough. The question does not quite apply, because in most selective areas nobody grades your child on a percentage.

Buckinghamshire describes the process precisely: each child's score "is standardised to account for their age when the test was taken, and then weighted according to the different sections of the test (verbal, mathematical and non-verbal skills)", and children reaching a standardised score of at least 121 are eligible to be considered for a grammar school place (Buckinghamshire test results).

Three consequences follow. A raw percentage describes performance on that practice paper; it cannot establish an official standardised score without the relevant conversion method and reference data. A September-born and an August-born child with identical raw marks may receive different standardised scores because age is taken into account. And strength in one section can be diluted or amplified by the weighting, so check both the weighting and any minimum component scores rather than assuming one strong section guarantees qualification. We unpack the arithmetic in how standardised scores and age weighting work.

Against that background, the right target for practice is not a percentage. It is consistency: can your child finish the medium band reliably, at pace, without careless losses?

The weekend after: what to do with a wrong answer

When a question is wrong, ask your child to explain their approach. These are possible follow-up areas, not diagnoses from the answer alone:

1. Content gap. They did not know what a mean was, or what a subordinate clause is. Teach it away from the test, in a normal lesson, then return to the question a week later.
2. Reading error. They knew the method and answered the question they expected rather than the one printed. The fix is a habit (underline what is being asked), not more content.
3. Timing collapse. They knew it and ran out of minutes. This is the one that only shows up under timed conditions, which is why full papers and mocks come later, not first.

Move on to full papers once your child gets most medium questions right untimed. Add timing after that, and add mock exams last, when the aim is stamina and nerves rather than knowledge. Adjust the order to your child’s needs and the actual test format; pause timed practice if it is not helping.

Where to go from here

If the examples raised a question, revisit the method or check the relevant topic with your child's teacher. For practice beyond this page, use material that matches the test named by your target school and review mistakes together.

Use these examples as a small practice set, not as a measure of likely test performance. The question style, content and timing vary between schools and areas.