11 plus non-verbal reasoning papers

What is non-verbal reasoning, and how much of the paper is it?

A quarter of the published result, and the only area that is entirely pictures. The West Midlands Grammar Schools consortium lists “Non-Verbal/Spatial Reasoning” as one of the four areas each paper's individually timed sections test, and publishes the weighting as “50% for English/verbal reasoning, 25% for non-verbal reasoning and 25% for mathematics”. Source: West Midlands Grammar Schools, the entrance test, checked 6 September 2026.

Not every selective area tests it. The West Midlands shared test does, on the consortium’s own description, but other arrangements sample different areas, so check what the schools you are applying to actually publish before spending a term on shapes. GL Assessment or CEM, which test does my child sit sets out what each body publishes.

Nothing in it depends on reading, which is why it is often the first area where a child feels competent, and why it is also the area families most over-invest in. In our experience children improve quickly at shape and pattern puzzles once they have seen enough of them, and then level off. That is a professional judgement from the papers we write and mark, not a published finding, but it has a practical consequence worth acting on: exposure early is cheap, and a spring spent grinding shape puzzles is expensive.

Eight drawn questions, worked

These are ours, drawn for this page in the five-option format our own papers use. Each one carries a description in words underneath, so a child using a screen reader, or a parent reading this on a phone in the dark, gets the same question. No admissions authority publishes how many options its items carry.

1. Question 1 · Odd one out, dots against sides

   Four of these shapes follow the same rule. Which one is the odd one out?

   In words: A triangle with 3 dots, B square with 4 dots, C pentagon with 5 dots, D seven-sided shape with 6 dots, E eight-sided shape with 8 dots.

   Answer: D. In every other shape the number of dots matches the number of sides. D has seven sides and six dots. The habit worth teaching is to look for one countable property and test it right along the row before looking for anything cleverer.

2. Question 2 · Rotation, a quarter turn each time

   The square turns a quarter turn clockwise each time. Which option comes next?

   In words: the marked corner sits top right in A, bottom left in B, top left in C, bottom right in D, and in E the square is turned to sit on a corner.

   Answer: C. Follow the marked corner and nothing else. It goes top left, top right, bottom right, bottom left, so the fifth square brings it back to the top left. Option E is the trap for a child who sees that something is turning and stops checking how far.

3. Question 3 · Reflection in a vertical mirror

   Which option is the shape on the left reflected in a vertical mirror line?

   In words: A the shape flipped left to right, B the shape unchanged, C flipped top to bottom, D turned a quarter turn, E flipped both ways.

   Answer: A. A vertical mirror swaps left and right and leaves top and bottom alone, so the long edge moves to the right-hand side and the step still points the same way up. E is flipped twice, which is a half turn rather than a reflection, and it is the option most children pick.

4. Question 4 · Analogy, one thing changes

   An outlined square is to a filled square as an outlined triangle is to which option?

   In words: A a filled triangle, B a filled square, C an outlined triangle with a dot, D a filled circle, E a larger outlined triangle.

   Answer: A. One thing changes between the first pair, the shading, and nothing else does. So the second pair changes the same one thing. E is the distractor for a child who decides the rule is get bigger without checking it against the first pair.

5. Question 5 · Series, two more dots each time

   Each box holds two more dots than the one before it. Which option comes next?

   In words: A a square with 8 dots, B a square with 9 dots, C a square with 10 dots, D a square with 11 dots, E a circle with 9 dots.

   Answer: B. Seven plus two is nine, and the container has not changed, so the shape must still be a square. E carries the right count in the wrong container, which is the standard way this question type separates a child who checked one feature from a child who checked both.

6. Question 6 · Lines of symmetry

   Which of these shapes has exactly one line of symmetry?

   In words: A a rectangle, B an equilateral triangle with all sides equal, C a tall triangle with two equal sides, D a circle, E a parallelogram.

   Answer: C. The rectangle has two lines, the equilateral triangle has three, the circle has an endless number and the parallelogram has none at all. Only the isosceles triangle has exactly one. The usual slip is counting the parallelogram as having one line of symmetry, because it looks balanced. Fold a paper copy along the line a child thinks is there and the halves do not match.

7. Question 7 · Proportion shaded

   Four of these circles are shaded in the same proportion. Which is the odd one out?

   In words: A shaded top half, B shaded bottom half, C shaded top right quarter, D shaded right half, E shaded left half.

   Answer: C. Four circles are half shaded and one is a quarter shaded. The position of the shading changes every time and is deliberately distracting: the rule is the amount, not the place.

8. Question 8 · Series, sides increasing

   Each shape has one more side than the one before it. Which option comes next?

   In words: A an eight-sided shape, B a seven-sided shape, C a six-sided shape, D a five-sided shape, E a circle.

   Answer: B. Three, four, five, six, so seven. Counting sides on a seven-sided and an eight-sided shape quickly is a real skill, and the way to build it is to count corners rather than edges, because a corner is easier to keep a finger on.

Read the reasoning with your child rather than the answers. Every item above is solved by the same two-step move: name one property that could be changing, then test it right along the row before looking for a second one.

The families these questions come from

Almost everything in a non-verbal section is one of five things, and naming the family is most of the work. Other sites split the same material into a longer list of names, so each row below also gives the words you will meet elsewhere.

Want every family met properly rather than met by accident? Start a free week of Pathway Eleven and the Starting Assessment shows which of the five your child has never seen.

What about nets, cubes and the spatial questions?

These are the items we would not attempt to teach on a screen, and they are the reason this page is drawn rather than photographed. A net folded into a cube is a physical fact, and a child who has folded three of them reads net questions differently afterwards. A child who has only seen them printed guesses.

So the advice here is deliberately low-technology. Cut a net out of a cereal box. Mark the faces, fold it, and look at which faces end up opposite each other. Do it twice more with different nets. Cutting out and folding three real nets does more than a workbook chapter, and it costs nothing.

Three-dimensional views respond to the same treatment. Build a small arrangement of bricks, look at it from the front, then from the side, then draw what you saw. The question type is asking a child to do that in their head, and doing it in the hand first is how the picture gets there.

How often should a child do non-verbal practice?

Little, early and then rarely. Because the improvement front-loads, the return on the first few hours is high and the return on the fortieth is close to nothing. A sensible shape is occasional exposure through Year 3 and Year 4 so the formats stop being strange, then a systematic pass through the five families in Year 5, then maintenance.

What that buys is time. Non-verbal reasoning is a quarter of the marks and English and verbal reasoning together are half, so an hour moved out of shape puzzles and into reading is an hour moved towards the larger share. Families rarely make that trade, because shape puzzles feel like exam practice and reading feels like a normal evening.

Our non-verbal reasoning guide goes through the question types in more depth, including rotations, matrices, nets and cube views.

What is published about the non-verbal sections, and what we drew

The eight questions above were drawn for this page by Pathway Eleven. Every statement about the test itself was read at its published address on 6 September 2026. Pathway Eleven is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GL Assessment.

• West Midlands Grammar Schools, the entrance test, non-verbal and spatial reasoning as one of the four areas, and the twenty-five per cent weighting. Checked 6 September 2026.
• King Edward VI Foundation, entrance test information, the four areas named as English comprehension, verbal reasoning, mathematics and non-verbal or spatial reasoning. Checked 6 September 2026.
• Warwickshire County Council, the 11 plus test, the four sections and the multiple-choice format. Checked 6 September 2026.
• GL Assessment, free 11 plus materials, the free non-verbal reasoning familiarisation papers. Checked 6 September 2026.