11 plus Opposite Meaning questions

What an Opposite Meaning question looks like

Opposite Meaning is one of the word-meaning formats used in 11 plus verbal reasoning. Each question shows two groups of words inside brackets, three words in each group, and asks for the one word from the first group and the one word from the second group that are most opposite in meaning to each other. The answer always takes one word from each side. The other four words are there to pull attention away from it.

The vocabulary covers a wide range. Some questions use words a Year 5 child says every day, noisy and silent, cruel and kind, wild and tame. Others reach further: ample and scarce, candid and deceitful, dormant and active. Some sets use describing words and some use doing words, so a question may want attach and detach as readily as bold and timid. It is a sensible place to start eleven plus verbal reasoning work, because the method transfers to the other word-meaning formats.

Example one

(spicy bitter harsh) (creamy sweet rich)

Take the first word on the left and hold its meaning in your head. Spicy means full of hot flavour. Now test it against each word on the right in turn: creamy, sweet, rich. None of those is the opposite of hot flavour, they are simply other flavours. Move to the second word. Bitter means a sharp, unpleasant taste, and the plain opposite of a bitter taste is a sugary one. Sweet is sitting there on the right.

The answer is bitter and sweet.

The pair that tempts children here is spicy and creamy, because a creamy sauce cools a spicy one down. Feeling contrasting is not the same as being opposite. Spicy is about heat and creamy is about smoothness, two different things, while bitter and sweet sit at the two ends of one thing: taste.

Example two

(attach carry link) (deliver lose detach)

Attach means to fasten one thing to another. Look along the second group: deliver, lose, detach. Detach means to unfasten it and take it away again. It is built from the same word with a different beginning, which is about as direct as an opposite gets.

The answer is attach and detach.

The tempting pair is carry and deliver. Both are about moving something from one place to another, and a pair that feels connected is easy to mistake for a pair that is opposite. Carrying a parcel and delivering it are two parts of the same job, not two ends of one idea. Link is the other trap: it means almost the same as attach, so it looks like a word that matters, but the word that would undo it is not on offer.

Example three

(bold daring rude) (timid shy anxious)

Bold means confident and willing to take a risk. Test it along the second group. Timid means easily frightened, which is the plain opposite of confident. Now check the rest before committing. Daring also means willing to take a risk, so it stands beside bold rather than against anything. Rude is about bad manners, a different idea altogether, and nothing on the right is about manners.

The answer is bold and timid.

Two things tempt here. The first is bold and shy: shy is about hanging back with people rather than being easily frightened, so it is close to timid without being the word bold pulls against. The second is daring and timid, which really are opposites, but daring carries an extra shade of going looking for risk that bold does not. When more than one pair looks opposite, the answer is the plainer, more direct pair: the two words anyone would put together if they were simply asked for opposites.

How to answer it

1. Read all six words before choosing anything, and say quietly what each one means. Most lost marks on this format come from picking in the first two seconds.
2. Check what is being asked. The same two-bracket layout is used for a question that wants the two words closest in meaning, and the two instructions look almost identical on a busy page.
3. Work through the first group in order, one word at a time, testing it against all three words in the second group. Three words against three is nine pairs, and going in order is the only way to be sure none was missed.
4. Test a promising pair in one sentence. “He was not bold, he was timid” works, so that is a genuine opposite. “He did not carry it, he delivered it” does not work, so that pair is out.
5. If two pairs both seem opposite, take the plainer one. If none does, go back and try each word’s second meaning, because words like blunt, sharp, plain and fair each carry more than one.

Common mistakes

• Choosing two words from the same group. In sets like (docile tame shy) and (wild untamed fierce), the words inside one group are near-synonyms of each other, and a child working fast can pick two that both sit on the left. One word from each group, every time.
• Pairing words that share a topic. Carry and deliver, spicy and creamy, thin and generous. These belong to the same subject rather than to the two ends of one idea, and telling those apart is the whole question.
• Being pulled by the odd word out. Nearly every set plants one word in each group that belongs to a different idea: rude among bold and daring, generous among ample and abundant, lost among hidden and obscure. Those words stand out because they do not fit, and standing out feels like being the answer.
• Settling for a pair that is roughly opposite. Only one pair counts, so if two look right, one of them is a shade off. Bold against shy, obvious against lost, rash against wise: each is nearly there, and nearly there scores nothing.
• Expecting the answer in the same place each time. The pair is as likely to be the last word in each group as the first, so the checking has to be done properly on every question.

How to practise 11 plus Opposite Meaning questions

Wide reading is what sits behind this question type, because every pair turns on a shade of meaning rather than a definition, and shades of meaning are picked up from seeing words used rather than from lists. Beyond that, short and regular beats long and occasional, which is the pattern we set out in how much 11 plus practice a child needs each day. When your child gets one wrong, ask them to say aloud what their two chosen words mean, then what the two correct words mean. Most children hear the difference themselves. 11+ Daily has an Opposite Meaning project alongside the other verbal reasoning formats, on laptop, tablet or phone, and the full set is listed on our 11 plus verbal reasoning practice page. Every question is original to 11+ Daily, nothing is a past paper and nothing is licensed from another publisher, and the bank is re-checked in rounds.

Questions parents ask