CEM 11 Plus Verbal Reasoning Questions

CEM 11plus usually call one of their papers “Verbal Reasoning” but often they combine English comprehension or grammar questions with traditional Verbal Reasoning questions. The English questions will be based on what your child has been taught at school though additional work at home will raise your child’s standards and self-confidence.

English based questions might include short comprehension – answering questions based on the content of a short passage. These will be typical comprehension questions intended to test understanding of the passage they have just read. Your child will need to have well developed comprehension skills – skills that can be developed by reading a wide genre of texts.

Other question types may be “CLOZE” questions where your child has to fill in the space so that the answer makes sense.

An example of this question type would be:-

Choose one word to complete the sentence correctly.

Paul wanted to ( were / wear / we’re) his new coat.

A test of your child’s knowledge of grammar.

Another type might resemble this example.

Insert the missing letters so that the word makes sense.

The C _ _ _K said the time was 12.30.

The answer is CLOCK.

There are many other versions of this type of question but all versions will test your child’s knowledge and understanding of many aspects of English.

CEM 11plus Verbal Reasoning Questions.

The CEM 11plus Verbal Reasoning paper may well contain some common Verbal Reasoning questions. Many of the questions require your child to have a good vocabulary.

There are 21 commonly used Verbal Reasoning questions as listed below. These are the sort of Verbal Reasoning questions that CEM 11plus will use, in some version, in this section of the Verbal Reasoning paper.

The link below will take you to detailed explanations of each question type.

Type 1 Add a letter to make four new words.

Type 2 2 words that do not go with the other 3. (Related words.)

Type 3 Codes using letters.

Type 4 Two words with a similar meaning. (Synonyms)

Type 5 Find a 4-letter word hidden in a sentence.

Type 6 Find a 3-letter word missing from a larger word.

Type 7 Sums using letters as numbers.

Type 8 Move a letter to make 2 new words.

Type 9 Find the next letter in this series.

Type 10 Goat is to Kid as Horse is to Foal – Word connections.

Type 11 Number series.

Type 12 Compound words.

Type 13 Create the middle word from outside words.

Type 14 Letter connections AB is to CD as EF is to GH.

Type 15 Reading information to make logical deductions.

Type 16 Two words with opposite meaning. (Antonyms)

Type 17 Maths equations (Complete the sum.)

Type 18 Calculate the middle number from outside numbers. (Related numbers.)

Type 19 Codes using numbers as letters in words.

Type 20 Second word made from first word.

Type 21 Words with 2 meanings.

You can find detailed explanations of each question type here

CEM promote their version of the 11plus as being “tutor-proof” so they could decide to change the content without warning therefore it is important that your child has covered as many bases as possible.

Children need a very wide vocabulary and first-rate spelling skills to succeed in this version of the 11plus.