11 plus English practice

What the 11 plus tests in English

The eleven plus is not one single exam, it is set by different areas and different schools, so the exact shape of an 11 plus English paper varies a little by where you live. Even so, most versions test the same core skills: vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and grammar, and reading comprehension. Many papers also test figurative language and phrase meaning, and some schools, especially independent schools, add a short writing task on top. Confirm the current format with the admissions authority for your area before you plan a routine around it.

Two of those parts sit outside what a daily practice app can honestly help with. Reading comprehension depends on a real, unseen passage and a set of questions built around it. Creative writing depends on a person reading what your child wrote and telling them how to improve it. 11+ Daily does not include comprehension passages or a writing task, and this page says so plainly rather than skating past it, because families need to cover those parts elsewhere, through reading and through school work or a tutor. The rest of English, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, grammar and figurative language, is short, repeatable, and exactly what the app is built for.

The English question types

11+ Daily covers that half of English through 12 skill projects, grouped into four areas.

Vocabulary

• Word Cards show a word’s meaning, part of speech and a sample sentence, with native British audio, and ask your child to recall it.
• Pick the Meaning gives a word and five possible definitions; your child chooses the one that matches.
• Synonyms asks for the word closest in meaning to the one given.
• Antonyms asks for the word most nearly opposite in meaning.
• Vocab in Context gives a sentence and asks what a word means as it is used there, not in isolation.

A Pick the Meaning question, for example, might give the word “reluctant” alongside five options: eager, unwilling, careless, patient, curious. A child works through each option against the word, rules out the ones that clearly do not fit, and settles on “unwilling”.

Spelling

• Spellings shows five versions of the same word, four of them misspelled, and asks your child to pick the right one. Words return on a spaced schedule, with native British audio, so the ones already secure come round less often.
• Spot the Misspelling splits a sentence into chunks and asks which chunk contains the spelling mistake, or whether there is no mistake at all, the chunked format used across 11 plus papers.

Grammar and punctuation

• Spot the Punctuation Mistake uses the same chunked format to test punctuation: a missing apostrophe, a missing speech mark, a comma in the wrong place.
• Fill the Gap is a grammar cloze question, a sentence with a word missing and five options for the word that completes it correctly.
• Sentence Grammar works on the sentence as a whole: find the subject, spot the conjunction, count the adjectives.

Figurative and idiomatic language

• Figurative Language names the device. Your child reads a line such as “The lake was as smooth as glass” and identifies it as a simile, a metaphor, personification, alliteration or onomatopoeia.
• Idioms and Phrase Meaning tests common English idioms: given a phrase, your child picks its meaning from five options.

How to practise 11 plus English at home

Vocabulary and spelling reward short, repeated exposure over long sessions. A few new words a day, each used in a sentence and revisited a few days later, sticks far better than fifty words learned once and never returned to. That is also how spaced revision works for Word Cards and Spellings: a right answer comes back at a growing interval, so time goes on the words your child has not yet secured.

Grammar and punctuation are different. The mistakes 11 plus papers test are specific and repeatable: apostrophes, homophones such as their, there and they’re, missing speech marks, a verb that does not agree with its subject. Drilling the chunked “spot the mistake” format is useful, but the habit worth building alongside it is saying why an option is wrong, not just which one is wrong. A child who can explain the rule is a child who spots the next mistake unprompted.

Comprehension and writing need a different routine, built around real books and real feedback rather than short daily questions. How much 11 plus practice a child needs each day sets out a realistic weekly shape across all four subjects, including where reading and writing fit alongside the shorter, drillable parts of English.

Common mistakes

• Treating a half-known word as a known one. Children often recognise a word without being sure of its precise meaning, and guess rather than check. Vocab in context questions expose this quickly.
• Skipping the “no mistake” option. In chunked spot-the-error questions, children either never choose “no mistake” out of habit, or choose it too readily when unsure. Both are fixed by reading every chunk properly before answering.
• Cramming vocabulary in one long session. A big list learned the night before a test fades within days. Little and often, with real spacing between repeats, is what actually holds.
• Confusing spelling with sound. Many of the words 11 plus papers test are spelled unlike how they sound, or are commonly confused homophones, which is exactly why spelling needs its own dedicated practice rather than being folded into general reading.
• Ignoring figurative language until late. Idioms and figurative phrases feel like a small, low-value part of the paper, so children leave them until last and never build real familiarity with them.

Vocabulary work here overlaps with Verbal Reasoning too. If your child is also preparing the verbal reasoning question types, the same word knowledge carries across both subjects.

Where 11+ Daily fits

11+ Daily’s 12 English projects cover vocabulary, spelling, grammar, punctuation and figurative language, in the formats 11 plus papers use: multiple choice with five options, chunked sentence-error spotting, and spaced flashcards for vocabulary and spelling. The Today screen picks one English skill on the days English comes round, rather than mixing several skills into one session, and parents can see which projects their child has covered.

11+ Daily does not include comprehension passages or a creative writing task. Many boards test both, so families need to cover them elsewhere, for example with reading, past papers or school work. That is a genuine limitation, not a detail to gloss over, and it is worth planning for from the start rather than discovering it later. See the full FAQ for more on what is and is not covered, or the 11 plus practice hub for the same treatment of Maths, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.

Questions parents ask