11 plus Horizontal Code questions

What a Horizontal Code question looks like

Horizontal Code is a non-verbal reasoning question type, and one of the few 11 plus questions that runs on shapes yet can be set out in words, because half of it is letters. Four or five key boxes sit in a row, each a square frame with a small figure inside and two code letters at its right-hand edge, one in the top corner and one in the bottom. One more box follows, holding a figure with both corners blank, then five options, each a pair of letters. Every letter stands for one feature and always means the same thing, so the job is to work out the meanings from the key, then code the figure that has no code.

What makes this the horizontal one is that the letters sit beside the figure in its own box rather than being written as a word underneath, which fixes the code at two letters and fixes the order, top corner first. Vertical Code, the other code type, prints the code as a string under each shape and can run to three letters, so a child who meets both sometimes gives the right letters the wrong way round.

Shape and shading

The key is five boxes. A solid black kite, P in the top corner and G in the bottom. A pentagon filled with diagonal stripes, R and H. A black hexagon, T and G. A striped kite, P and H. A black pentagon, R and G. The test box holds a striped hexagon, corners empty.

Start with a letter that turns up twice. Both kites have P at the top, and one is black while the other is striped, so P is not the filling. It is the shape. Underneath, the black kite, the black hexagon and the black pentagon all have G, and they are three different shapes, so G is the filling.

The test figure is a hexagon, so the top letter is T, and it is striped, so the bottom is H. The answer is T above H. The tempting wrong answer is P above H, right about the stripes but reading a six-sided shape as a kite. T above G keeps the shape and calls the stripes black, and H above T is both correct letters in the wrong corners.

Filling and counting

This one is a real question, drawn as your child meets it.

Only two letters appear at the top, and they follow the filling: plain white is K, striped is P. The bottom letter changes with the number of triangles, so one is R, two is S and three is T.

The test box is striped with three triangles, so its code is P above T, which is C. That pairing appears nowhere in the key, and it should not: the code is built from the features, never copied off a box that looks similar. Each wrong answer breaks exactly one letter. B catches a child who counts carefully and forgets the filling. A and D get the filling right and miscount. E is the right pair in the wrong corners.

A harder one, where the letters have to be argued for

Four key boxes, each holding a flag shape whose lower half is solid black, with a small badge below it. The flag points up with a chevron badge, coded J and P. It points right with a badge of three circles, K and Q. It points left with an arc badge, L and R. It points up again with a diamond badge, J and S.

The first and fourth boxes share J at the top, but their badges differ, and so do their bottom letters, so J cannot be about the badge. The one thing they have in common is a flag pointing up. The top letter is the direction, then, and the bottom letter is the badge, so the test box, a flag pointing right with an arc badge, is K above R. The trap is L above R, picked by a child who takes the top letter for the badge and remembers the arc box carrying L.

How to answer it

1. Look at the key boxes before the options, and name what changes from one to the next: the shape, the filling, the count, which way it points.
2. Find a letter that appears on two boxes. What those two figures have in common is what the letter means, and every other difference between them can be ignored.
3. Do the same for the other corner, then test both meanings against every key box. A meaning that fits three boxes and fails on the fourth is not the meaning yet.
4. Read the test figure feature by feature and say the code out loud, top letter first, before looking at the options.
5. Check your choice one letter at a time, top corner then bottom.

Common mistakes

• Giving the right letters in the wrong order. Almost every question offers the correct pair swapped over, and it looks right at a glance because both letters are familiar.
• Assuming the top letter is the shape. It is whatever the key says: the filling, the size, the count, the way a figure points, or the mark inside.
• Studying one box instead of comparing two. A single figure cannot pin a letter down, because anything in it could be the reason. Meaning comes from what two boxes share.
• Getting one corner right and stopping. Every wrong option is correct in one corner, so a child who checks only the corner they did first is happy with three of them.
• Hunting for the key box that looks most like the test figure. Build the code from the features instead, because a box that matches on shape may not match on shading.

How to practise 11 plus Horizontal Code questions

The useful practice here is the talking, not the volume. Ask your child which two boxes they compared and what those boxes have in common, because that is the whole method. When they get one wrong, look at which corner they broke, not at the answer. 11+ Daily has a Horizontal Code project among the non-verbal reasoning skills it covers, and every answer says what the two letters stood for. Not every eleven plus area sets a non-verbal reasoning paper, so check what your own area’s test includes, and there is more on how much 11 plus practice a child needs each day.

Questions parents ask