Verbal Reasoning Hidden Word
The SPLIT method in four minutes — one real question, solved step by step.
A Hidden Word question hides a four-letter word in a sentence. It is made from the end of one word and the start of the next. The five options are the pairs of words, in the order they come, and you answer with the pair, not the hidden word.
The hidden word has nothing to do with what the sentence is about. Stop reading for sense and look at the letters.
The video above and the worked example below take apart the same question.
The method
Five steps: skip the meaning, pair by pair, look at all three splits, is it a real word, take the pair — and their first letters spell SPLIT, because the hidden word is always split across two words.
- Step 1 of 5
Skip the meaning
The hidden word has nothing to do with the story. Look at the letters, not the story. - Step 2 of 5
Pair by pair
Take the pairs in order, starting with the first. Look at one gap between two words at a time. - Step 3 of 5
Look at all three splits
At each gap, four letters can split only three ways. Three and one: three letters from the end of the first word, one from the start of the next. Then two and two. Then one and three. Start with three and one, because GL's papers use it most, and always try all three. - Step 4 of 5
Is it a real word?
Four letters, across the gap, making a real word. A word inside one word doesn't count, and nor does a whole word on its own. - Step 5 of 5
Take the pair
Your answer is the pair of words that hides it, not the hidden word.
About 30 seconds each.
Watch for these traps
We worked through all 21 Hidden Word questions in GL's own practice papers. Three things catch people.
- A word inside one word doesn't count. Nor does a whole word on its own. It has to cross the gap. In "That magic show lasted an hour", that, show and hour are whole words, and last sits inside lasted. None of them crosses a gap. In 17 of GL's 21 questions, a wrong pair holds a four-letter word like this.
- Use a short word whole. All of a short word can be one side of the split. In "The pram was pushed along slowly", all three letters of was and the first letter of pushed make wasp. GL does this too, sometimes at the very first pair, so don't skip the short words.
- Look, don't listen. The hidden word often sounds nothing like the words it sits in. Show doesn't sound like how, but its last three letters spell it. How and the L from lasted make howl.
Only one pair ever hides a word. If you reach the end with nothing, you have skipped a split, so go back to the start rather than guess.
Try these yourself
Now have a go yourself — tap the pair that hides a word.
Related
- The complete 11+ question-type guide
- VR: Complete the Word — rebuild a word that has lost a chunk. There the meaning is your main clue, here it is a distraction
- VR: Make a Word — build the middle word from two outer words
All example questions come from the Brainblox question bank — practise this question type inside 25+ learning 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.