GL Assessment 11 plus explained: papers, question types and how to prepare
Most state grammar school areas in England use papers written by GL Assessment, so for most families the GL test is the 11 plus. Here is who GL are, what the four papers contain, how the answer sheet and scoring work, and why a format-based test changes the way you prepare.
Who GL Assessment are
GL Assessment is the company that writes the 11 plus papers used by the majority of state grammar school areas in England, including large areas such as Kent, Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire. It is the name behind most of the eleven plus papers sat each September. It also produces the ability and progress tests many primary schools use internally, which is why the name may look familiar from a school report.
One distinction matters more than any other. GL writes and prints the papers, but it is not the admissions authority. The local authority or school consortium that runs admissions in your area chooses which subjects to test, the date, how scores are weighted and combined, and what counts as qualifying. GL supplies the test; it does not decide who gets a place. For local rules, confirm the current arrangements with the admissions authority. For the wider picture, our plain guide to what the 11 plus is covers who sits it, when and why.
The four GL 11 plus papers
GL produces papers in four subjects. Each area decides which to use and in what combination, so your child may sit all four or only some. Find that out before you buy a single book.
English
A reading comprehension based on a passage of a few hundred words, followed by questions on literal meaning, inference, vocabulary in context and the writer’s choices. Then technical questions on spelling, punctuation and grammar. A common GL format presents a sentence split into short chunks and asks the child to pick the chunk containing a mistake, or to say there is none.
Maths
The Key Stage 2 curriculum, with an emphasis on reasoning rather than routine arithmetic: number and place value, the four operations, fractions, decimals and percentages, ratio, measurement, shape and angles, tables and charts, and multi-step word problems.
Verbal Reasoning
The most format-driven of the four, and the one where knowing the question families pays off most. Recurring types include closest meaning, opposite meaning, hidden words, compound words, letter series, word-number codes, number series and reading information. Our guide to GL Verbal Reasoning question types walks through each family.
Non-Verbal Reasoning
Puzzles drawn as shapes and patterns: series, odd one out, analogies, codes, matrices and finding the figure most like a set of examples. Some areas include spatial reasoning, such as nets of cubes, rotations and reflections. No reading is needed beyond the instructions.
Multiple choice and the separate answer sheet
In most GL areas the papers are multiple choice. The questions come in a booklet, and the child marks each answer on a separate answer sheet by drawing a pencil line through the box for their chosen option. The sheets are marked by machine. A few areas use GL’s standard-format papers instead, where the child writes the answer, so confirm the format with the admissions authority.
The answer sheet is where well-prepared children lose marks they should not lose. Marking the wrong row, skipping a question in the booklet but not on the sheet, or rubbing out untidily are all easy to do in a hurry. It is worth practising the physical routine: read, work it out in the booklet, find the right row, mark it cleanly.
Each paper has a fixed time and a fixed number of questions. We deliberately do not print them here, because they differ between areas and change from year to year, and a figure copied from an old forum post can be wrong for you. The admissions authority publishes the current arrangements each year.
How GL 11 plus papers are scored
Your child’s raw mark is converted into a standardised score, adjusted for the performance of the whole cohort and for the child’s age in months on the test day. Scores are centred on 100. Each admissions authority then either sets a qualifying score, or ranks all candidates and offers places from the top, and it may weight the subjects differently before combining them. So the “pass mark” you hear quoted is local, and often last year’s.
There is no penalty for a wrong answer on GL multiple-choice papers, so a child should never leave a box empty. A guess between the remaining options beats a blank. As with everything in this section, confirm the current arrangements with the admissions authority.
Free familiarisation materials from GL
GL publishes free familiarisation materials for each subject on its own website: a short booklet of sample questions with the instructions worded as they are in the real test, and a sample answer sheet. Most admissions authorities link to them from their 11+ pages, and some publish a booklet of their own alongside.
Start there. They are official, short, and show your child exactly what the page will look like. They are not a preparation programme and do not pretend to be. Their job is to remove the surprise on the day. The live papers themselves are confidential and never published, so nobody outside GL and the admissions authority has seen this year’s paper.
How preparing for a GL test differs from a bespoke one
GL is a format-based test. Its papers draw on established question families, the same families recur year after year, and the instructions are worded consistently. That makes it unusually learnable. A bespoke test, such as the CSSE papers in Essex, a school’s own entrance paper, or a computer-based adaptive test like the ISEB Common Pre-Tests, may use written answers, longer problems or creative writing, and has to be approached on its own terms.
For a GL test, three things follow.
- Learn the question families first, one at a time. A child who can name the type in front of them, and knows the routine for it, saves both time and mistakes. Mixed practice comes later, once each type is secure.
- Underlying knowledge still matters. GL Verbal Reasoning is heavy on vocabulary, and the Maths paper is the Key Stage 2 curriculum. Reading widely and knowing tables cold remain the foundation.
- Pace and the answer sheet come last. Full papers under time are useful from around the spring of Year 5, roughly once a month, then more often in the final weeks. Earlier than that they mostly measure what has not been learned yet.
Our guide to how much 11 plus practice a child needs each day sets out the stage-by-stage pattern.
What “GL-style” means when a resource says it
Because the real papers are never published, every book, app or worksheet that describes itself as GL-style is making the same claim: the questions are written in the formats and question families that GL papers use. It is not saying the questions come from GL, that GL has approved them, or that they match a particular area’s paper. GL-style is a description of format, not a stamp of approval.
That is still a useful thing for a resource to be. A child who has practised closest-meaning questions in the GL layout, or marked a hundred answers on a GL-shaped answer sheet, has done something directly relevant. Be wary of anything that claims to know what will be on this year’s paper. Nobody outside GL and your admissions authority does.
Where 11+ Daily fits
11+ Daily writes original questions in the styles GL sets, across all four subjects, including the chunked sentence-error format GL uses for spelling and punctuation. The Today screen picks one subject and one skill for each seven-to-ten-minute session, so the “one family at a time” advice above happens without you planning it, and a parents area shows which skills have been covered and how accurately. Questions are organised by skill, not tagged to any area, and we are not connected to GL Assessment. It works on laptop, tablet or phone, and the 14-day free trial needs no card.
A short checklist before you start
- Which of the four subjects does your area test, and are they multiple choice?
- What is the test date, and when does registration close?
- Does your area use a qualifying score or a ranking, and is any subject weighted?
- Have you looked at the free GL familiarisation materials with your child?
Answer those from the admissions authority’s own published information, and most of the confusion around the GL 11+ disappears.
Questions parents ask
What is GL Assessment?
What subjects are in the GL 11 plus?
Is the GL 11 plus multiple choice?
Does GL Assessment publish free practice papers?
What does GL-style mean?
Try 11+ Daily with your child.
Daily 11+ practice that knows what to revise next. English, Maths, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning on laptop, tablet or phone. Real progress parents can see.