11 plus Related Words questions

What a Related Words question looks like

Related Words is a word analogy, and it is one of the vocabulary formats used in 11 plus verbal reasoning. The question gives two anchor words, each followed by a bracket holding three choices: swimming is to (chlorine freestyle pool) as boxing is to (ring bell referee). Your child picks one word from the first bracket and one from the second, so that the link between the first anchor and its word is exactly the link between the second anchor and its word. Only one pair out of the nine possible pairs does that. It is easy to confuse with Word Connections, which sits in the same corner of verbal reasoning, so it is worth being plain about the difference: Related Words asks a child to carry one relationship across two separate pairs of words, where Word Connections asks for a single word that has two different meanings.

The question never says what the link is. Naming it is most of the work, and the links in our own bank are ordinary rather than technical: two words that mean the same thing, the place an activity happens, the result it produces, what an object is for, the tool a worker holds, the quality a creature is known for, how an animal moves, and the vehicle that does a job. A child is therefore doing two things at once, deciding which kind of link is in play and then finding the one word on the right that repeats it.

Example one

swimming is to (chlorine freestyle pool) as boxing is to (ring bell referee)

Take the choices on the left in order. Chlorine is a chemical put in the water, and none of ring, bell or referee is a chemical put into boxing. Freestyle is a kind of swimming stroke, and none of them is a kind of boxing. Pool is the place swimming happens, and ring is the place boxing happens. The sentence works word for word on both sides.

The answer is pool and ring.

Referee is the word that tempts, because it is the first boxing word many children reach for. But an answer needs a partner on the other side, and there is no word in the first bracket for the person who officiates swimming. Belonging to the same scene is not a link.

Example two

exercise is to (fitness dumbbell gym) as rehearsal is to (script polish cast)

Say the link in a full sentence rather than a single word. Exercise produces fitness. Now test the right-hand side against that same sentence: rehearsal does not produce a script, because the script is written before anyone rehearses, and it does not produce a cast, because the cast is the group of people doing the rehearsing. Rehearsal produces polish, meaning a performance that runs smoothly.

The answer is fitness and polish.

Gym is the trap. It sits so close to exercise in a child’s mind that it gets chosen before the right-hand side is checked at all. The moment you do check it, the choice falls apart: script, polish and cast holds no place word, so gym has nothing to pair with.

Example three

concur is to (agree debate decide) as object is to (receive protest reply)

This one turns on knowing the two anchor words. To concur is to agree with somebody. To object is to speak against something. Take agree from the left bracket: concur and agree mean the same thing, so the link is same meaning. Carry it across. Receive means to be given something, which is not what object means. Protest means to speak against something, which is exactly what object means.

The answer is agree and protest.

Reply is the tempting wrong option. In real life a person objects and somebody replies, so the two words feel joined. They do not mean the same thing, though: a reply is any answer at all, including one that agrees. Words that turn up in the same situation are not words that mean the same thing.

How to answer it

1. Read the two anchor words first and cover the brackets. Those are the fixed points, and the link is between an anchor and a choice, never between one choice and another.
2. Take the choices in the first bracket in order, and put the link into a full sentence: a pool is the place swimming happens, a knitter uses a needle, an umbrella is for shelter. A sentence is testable in a way that a word like “connected” is not.
3. Carry that exact sentence to the second anchor. If it fits one of the three choices word for word, you have both halves of the answer at once.
4. If it does not fit, go back and try the next word in the first bracket. Working in order matters, because the pair that works is often the third one tried.
5. Before committing, check that no second pair also works. If two seem to, one of them is usually a same-topic pair, and the pair joined by the sharper link is the answer.

Common mistakes

• Choosing the person who is nearby. Referee, coach, astronomer, announcer and climber all turn up as wrong options. They belong to the scene without being joined to the anchor in the way the other side needs.
• Answering the tool when the link is the result. Whistle and highlighter, dumbbell and script: these are the things you handle during an activity, and they are chosen by children who never asked what the activity produces.
• Answering the place when the link is the purpose. A siren is for warning, not for the rooftop it is mounted on. A label is for identification, not for the jar it is stuck to.
• Taking the food or the home instead of the trait. Carrot, burrow, desert and yoke all appear as wrong options where the real link is the creature’s temperament or how it moves.
• Naming the link too loosely. “They go together” lets three pairs through. “A pool is the place swimming happens” lets one through, and that is the difference between a guess and an answer.

How to practise 11 plus Related Words questions

The habit worth building is the spoken sentence, because a child who can say the link can test it, and a child who cannot say it is guessing from the topic. When your child gets one wrong, do not hand them the answer. Ask them to say aloud what joins the two words they chose. Most of the time they hear the mistake themselves. Short and regular beats long and occasional here, as it does across eleven plus work, which is the case we set out in how much 11 plus practice a child needs each day. 11+ Daily has a Related Words project alongside the other verbal reasoning formats, on laptop, tablet or phone, and the full list is 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