Verbal Reasoning Make a Word

A Make a Word question gives you two groups of three words. The middle word of the first group is filled in. You work out how it was built from the two words beside it.

Then you build the missing middle word of the second group the same way. You copy the rule, never the letters.

The whole rule space is small, which is the most useful thing to know here. From each word you take either the first letters or the last letters, and either one, two or three of them. That is every rule there is. Nothing is shuffled, and nothing comes from the middle.

The method

Five beats: line them up, trace each letter, say the recipe and check it rebuilds, run it on group 2, now look at the options.

1. Line them up. Write group 2 directly under group 1. First word under first word, brackets under brackets.
2. Trace each letter. Take the filled-in word one letter at a time. For each one ask: which word did it come from, and the start or the end?
3. Say the recipe out loud, then check it rebuilds the word you were given. "Last of word one, then first two of word two." That sentence is the answer to the question, and saying it is how you test it: t + op = top ✓. Exactly one recipe rebuilds the word in every one of our 35 questions, so a clean rebuild means you have the right one. If you cannot say it, you have not found it.
4. Run it on group 2. Build the word yourself, on paper, before you look at anything else.
5. Now look at the options. Your word should be sitting there. If it is not, your recipe is wrong, so go back to step 2.

About 35 seconds each.

Rules to watch

Twelve recipes turn up across our bank, but two come up far more than the rest. Try those first.

• Last of word 1, then first two of word 2 — 9 of our 35 questions, more than any other. bat + open → t + op = top.
• First two of word 1, then first of word 2 — 4 of our 35, and the shape the exam board uses in its own worked example. help + mat → he + m = hem.
• Three more arrive at the harder levels — last two of word 1 plus last of word 2 (star + plant → ar + t = art), first of word 1 plus last two of word 2 (hop + flat → h + at = hat), and first two of word 1 plus last of word 2 (can + drip → ca + p = cap).
• Easy questions read forwards. Hard ones read backwards. All 15 of our difficulty-3 questions take their letters from the start of word 2. The end of word 2 turns up only at difficulty 4 and 5, in 16 of those 20. So when a question feels hard, look at the end of word 2.
• The answer is usually three letters long — 27 of our 35, with seven at four letters and one at five. That limits how many letters the recipe can take.

Running a recipe is a different skill from finding one, so practise it on its own. Take first two of word 1, then first of word 2 and just run it. On (bake ? top) that gives ba + t = bat. Do a page of those and the finding gets easier.

Watch for these traps

• Choosing by eye instead of building. Much the most common. Nearly three quarters of all wrong options are one letter away from the answer: tin and tan beside ten, cap and cod beside cop. Glance at the list and you will pick a neighbour. Build your word on paper first, then find it.
• Copying the letters instead of the rule. The filled-in word tells you which positions to use, so reusing its letters feels natural. Five of our questions put that word straight into the option list. If group 1 makes art and art is on offer, that is the trap.
• The wrong end of the right word. "Two letters from word one" is only half a rule. In five of our questions a front-for-back slip lands you exactly on an option that is offered. hen for ten, top for cop. Say which end out loud as part of the recipe.
• Real-word decoys. Every option is a real word, so real-wordness confirms nothing. Only the word your recipe builds is right.
• Groups with different word lengths. Mac, cat and attic sit above relic, cup and upset. When the shapes do not match, count letters. Work from positions, never from how the words look.
• Doing it in your head. The words are tiny, so it feels holdable. It works right up until a recipe takes three letters from one end. A child who cannot show their recipe cannot find their own mistake.
• Muddling this with Word Pairs. Both build a new word from fixed positions, and they sit near each other in the paper. Here there are two outer words. There, only one.

If two recipes seem to fit, you have taken the letters from the wrong place. Check step 2 again.

Try these yourself

Now have a go yourself — tap the word that builds the missing word.

Related

• The complete 11+ question-type guide
• VR: Word Pairs — the same positional idea with only ONE source word
• VR: Letter Connections — one letter finishes one word and starts the next
• VR: Move a Letter — shift one letter to make two new words

All example questions come from the Brainblox question bank — practise this question type inside 15 arcade games, timed mock exams and focused practice. Brainblox is an independent app: not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by any exam board, school or assessment publisher, and it contains no past papers.