11 Plus Verbal Reasoning

Type E - Hidden Word

With this type of question you are given a sentence in which a four letter word is hidden between two words. The letters at the end of one word and the letters at the beginning of the next word make up a new four letter word. You are required to locate the pair of words that contain the hidden word.

As the hidden word is always a four letter word, it could be the last three letters and first letter of a pair of words, the last two and first two or the last one and first three. A good strategy is to look at the whole sentence and see if the answer jumps out out at you. If not go through each pair of words systematically - look at last three letters of each word and the first letter of the next word and then move along one letter at a time. Do this with each pair of words until you find the answer. I have found that some children find it easier to position their fingers or thumbs over the words so that they can only see four letters at a time.

Lets look at an example:

These apples taste perfect

1st - look at the words 'these' and 'apples' - ESE A     SE AP    E APP - no words, move on

2nd - look at the words 'apples' and 'taste' - LES T    ES TA     S TAS - no words, move on

3rd - look at these words 'taste' and 'perfect' - STE P     TE PE     E PER - the last 3 letters
and the first letter makes up the word 'STEP' - you have found the answer.
The pair of words that contain the hidden word are TASTE and PERFECT

Verbal Reasoning Type E - 'Hidden Word' practice