11+ Non-Verbal Reasoning: Question Types, Tips, and How to Prepare

Non-Verbal Reasoning is one of the subjects that catches parents off guard when they first start preparing for the 11+. Unlike English or Maths, it is not part of the primary school curriculum, and many parents have never encountered it before. But it is a core component of the most widely used 11+ exams, and with the right preparation, children can build strong skills and genuine confidence in this area.

This guide covers everything you need to know about 11+ Non-Verbal Reasoning -- what it is, which exams include it, the question types your child will face, and how to prepare effectively.

What is Non-Verbal Reasoning?

Non-Verbal Reasoning -- often abbreviated to NVR -- tests a child's ability to recognise patterns, think logically, and solve problems using shapes and images rather than words or numbers. It measures spatial and logical thinking -- skills that underpin many areas of learning but are rarely taught explicitly in primary school.

A typical NVR question presents a series of shapes, patterns, or diagrams and asks the child to identify a rule, spot a pattern, or predict what comes next. There are no words to read and no calculations to perform. Instead, the child must look carefully at visual information and reason their way to the answer.

Many parents find NVR the most unfamiliar of the 11+ subjects because it is not taught explicitly at school. The good news is that NVR skills can absolutely be developed through practice -- children who are familiar with the question types and have practised systematic approaches will perform significantly better than those encountering them for the first time. Once children understand what is being asked of them, most find NVR enjoyable -- it feels more like solving puzzles than doing schoolwork.

Which Exams Include Non-Verbal Reasoning?

Non-Verbal Reasoning appears in the two most widely used 11+ exam formats in England:

GL Assessment -- GL exams typically include a dedicated Non-Verbal Reasoning paper alongside English, Maths, and Verbal Reasoning. The NVR questions follow well-established formats, making it possible to prepare specifically for the question types that will appear. You can read more about the GL exam structure in our complete guide to the GL 11+.

CEM (Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring) -- CEM exams also test Non-Verbal Reasoning, though the format is different. NVR questions may be interleaved with other question types within the same paper, and the specific formats can vary more between sittings. Our complete guide to the CEM 11+ explains this in more detail.

CSSE and SET -- These exam formats, used in Essex and parts of the South East, do not include Non-Verbal Reasoning. If your child is sitting one of these exams, NVR preparation is not required.

It is important to check which exam your target school uses, as this will determine whether NVR needs to be part of your preparation plan.

Non-Verbal Reasoning Question Types

NVR questions come in a range of formats, but they all test the same underlying skills -- pattern recognition, spatial awareness, and logical thinking. Here are the major question types your child is likely to encounter.

Sequences and Series

The child is shown a series of shapes that follow a pattern and must identify what comes next. The pattern might involve changes in position, rotation, shading, size, the number of elements, or a combination of these. For example, a shape might rotate 45 degrees clockwise in each step while also gaining an extra side.

Sequences are one of the most common NVR question types and appear in both GL and CEM exams. The key skill is identifying all the rules that govern the sequence -- not just the most obvious one.

Analogies

These questions follow the format: "Shape A is to Shape B as Shape C is to ?" The child must work out the relationship between the first pair of shapes and then apply the same relationship to find the answer. The relationship might involve rotation, reflection, a change in shading, the addition or removal of elements, or a change in size.

Odd One Out

The child is shown a set of shapes -- typically five -- and must identify the one that does not follow the same rule as the others. This requires looking at all the shapes, identifying what the majority have in common, and then finding the exception.

The challenge with odd-one-out questions is that the common feature is not always immediately obvious. It might be something subtle, such as the number of right angles, whether a shape has an even or odd number of sides, or the relationship between inner and outer elements.

Codes

In coding questions, a set of shapes is shown alongside letter codes. Each letter represents a specific feature -- for example, one letter might represent "has a curved edge" and another might represent "is shaded". The child must work out what each code letter means and then either find the code for a new shape or find the shape that matches a given code.

Reflection and Rotation

These questions ask the child to identify a reflected or rotated version of a given shape from a set of options. Reflection questions require the child to visualise what a shape looks like when flipped over a line of symmetry. Rotation questions require visualising the shape turned through a specified angle.

A common difficulty is confusing reflection with rotation -- they produce different results, and children need to be clear about the distinction. Practising with tracing paper or a small mirror can help build understanding before moving to mental visualisation.

Folding and Cutting

The child is shown a piece of paper being folded (and sometimes cut or hole-punched) and must predict what it looks like when unfolded. Alternatively, they may be shown the unfolded result and must work out which folding sequence produced it.

These questions test spatial reasoning in a very direct way. Children need to be able to mentally track where layers of paper overlap and how cuts or holes will appear on multiple layers.

Matrices

A matrix is a grid of shapes -- usually 3x3 -- where patterns run across each row and down each column. One cell in the grid is empty, and the child must work out which shape completes the pattern. The child needs to identify the rules operating in both directions simultaneously.

Matrices are among the more challenging NVR question types because they require tracking multiple patterns at once. A systematic approach -- checking rows first, then columns -- helps manage the complexity.

3D Shapes and Nets

These questions involve either identifying which 3D shape a given net (flat template) would make when folded up, or identifying the correct net for a given 3D shape. The child needs to visualise how two-dimensional surfaces fold into three-dimensional objects.

Pay particular attention to the position of patterns or markings on the faces of the net -- this is often what distinguishes the correct answer from the distractors.

Hidden Shapes

The child is given a simple shape and must find it hidden within a larger, more complex figure. The hidden shape will be the same size and orientation, but it is camouflaged by additional lines and shapes overlapping it.

The Skills Non-Verbal Reasoning Tests

Although the question types vary, NVR consistently tests a core set of cognitive skills:

• Pattern recognition -- the ability to spot regularities and rules in visual information
• Spatial awareness -- the ability to visualise shapes being moved, rotated, reflected, folded, or assembled in three dimensions
• Logical deduction -- the ability to work out rules from examples and apply them consistently
• Visual memory -- the ability to hold shapes and patterns in mind while comparing them
• Attention to detail -- the ability to notice subtle differences in position, size, shading, orientation, or number of elements

The important point for parents is that all of these skills can be developed with practice. NVR is not a fixed measure of innate ability. Children who practise regularly and learn systematic approaches will see genuine improvement. Like any skill, it responds to consistent, focused effort.

GL Non-Verbal Reasoning

In GL exams, the Non-Verbal Reasoning paper follows a consistent structure. The question types are well-established and predictable, which means that once a child is familiar with all the formats, they can develop specific strategies for each one.

GL NVR papers are typically multiple-choice, with questions arranged in roughly ascending order of difficulty. The paper is timed, so speed matters as well as accuracy. The consistency of the GL format is an advantage for preparation -- children can work through practice papers that closely mirror the real exam. Our GL 11+ Non-Verbal Reasoning course covers all the question types that appear in GL NVR papers, with worked examples and practice questions for each one.

For full timed practice under exam conditions, our GL 11+ practice papers provide realistic exam simulations.

CEM Non-Verbal Reasoning

CEM exams handle NVR differently. Rather than having a separate NVR paper, CEM often interleaves Non-Verbal Reasoning questions with Maths questions within the same section. The question types may also vary more between papers -- CEM does not publish a fixed specification of which formats will appear.

This means that preparing for CEM NVR requires a slightly different approach. Rather than drilling specific question formats, the focus should be on building strong underlying spatial reasoning skills that transfer across any format the child might encounter. Familiarity with a wide range of question types is more important than mastery of a narrow set. Our CEM 11+ Non-Verbal Reasoning course covers a broad range of NVR question types and builds the flexible reasoning skills that CEM demands.

For realistic exam practice, our CEM 11+ practice papers replicate the mixed-format structure of the real exam.

How to Prepare for 11+ Non-Verbal Reasoning

Effective NVR preparation follows a clear progression, from understanding the basics through to timed exam practice. Here is a step-by-step approach.

1. Familiarise with All Question Types

Start by introducing your child to each NVR question type in turn. Work through examples together, explaining what the question is asking and how to approach it. There is no point attempting timed practice until the child understands every format they might encounter.

At this stage, there is no time pressure. The goal is comprehension, not speed.

2. Develop a Systematic Approach

For each question type, teach your child a consistent method. The most important general strategy is to identify what changes between shapes. There are a limited number of things that can change:

• Position -- shapes move up, down, left, right, or diagonally
• Rotation -- shapes turn clockwise or anticlockwise by a set angle
• Reflection -- shapes are flipped across a line
• Shading -- shapes change from empty to shaded, or cycle through shading patterns
• Size -- shapes get larger or smaller
• Number -- the number of elements increases or decreases
• Shape type -- the type of shape changes (e.g., triangle to square to pentagon)

Teaching your child to check each of these systematically, rather than just going with their first impression, dramatically reduces errors.

3. Practise Identifying Multiple Simultaneous Rules

Many NVR questions -- especially at 11+ level -- involve more than one rule operating at the same time. For example, a shape might rotate 90 degrees in each step while also changing shading. Children who only spot one rule will get the wrong answer.

Practise with questions that have two or three simultaneous rules, and encourage your child to check every element of each shape before selecting an answer.

4. Build Speed with Timed Practice

Once your child is comfortable with all question types and can solve them accurately, start introducing time limits. Begin with generous time limits and gradually tighten them as confidence grows.

In the real exam, children cannot afford to spend three minutes on a single question. If a question is proving difficult, it is often better to make a best guess using process of elimination and move on to easier marks elsewhere.

5. Use Process of Elimination

On difficult questions, teach your child to eliminate obviously wrong answers first. Even if they cannot work out the correct answer with certainty, ruling out two or three options significantly improves their chances. This is a particularly valuable strategy under time pressure.

6. Keep Practice Regular and Manageable

Short, regular practice sessions are far more effective than occasional long ones. Fifteen to twenty minutes of focused NVR practice several times a week will produce better results than a two-hour session once a fortnight. Consistency builds the pattern recognition skills that NVR demands -- and it prevents burnout.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Even well-prepared children can fall into certain traps on NVR questions. Being aware of these common mistakes helps your child avoid them.

Only noticing one rule when multiple rules apply. This is the single most common error in NVR. A child spots that shapes are rotating and selects the answer that matches the rotation -- but misses that the shading is also changing. The fix is a systematic approach: always check every element before committing to an answer.

Confusing reflection with rotation. Reflected shapes and rotated shapes can look similar, but they are fundamentally different. A reflected shape is a mirror image -- if it had writing on it, the writing would appear backwards. A rotated shape preserves the original orientation. Children need to be clear about this distinction and check carefully which operation a question is asking about.

Rushing through sequences without checking all elements. Under time pressure, children sometimes glance at a sequence, form an impression of the pattern, and select an answer without checking every shape in the sequence. This is risky, because the pattern might not be what it first appears. Taking an extra few seconds to verify the rule against every shape in the sequence is time well spent.

Not practising enough different question types. Some children become very good at one or two NVR formats but neglect others. In the exam, they may encounter a question type they have barely practised and lose marks unnecessarily. Make sure your preparation covers the full range of NVR question types, not just the ones your child finds easiest or most enjoyable.

Prepare with LearningBro

LearningBro offers structured Non-Verbal Reasoning courses for both major 11+ exam formats, with questions covering all the NVR question types discussed in this guide.

• GL 11+ Non-Verbal Reasoning -- covers all GL NVR question types with worked examples and practice questions
• CEM 11+ Non-Verbal Reasoning -- builds the broad spatial reasoning skills needed for CEM's varied NVR questions
• GL 11+ Practice Papers -- full timed practice papers in GL format
• CEM 11+ Practice Papers -- realistic mixed-format practice papers for CEM

Non-Verbal Reasoning might be unfamiliar at first, but it is a subject where preparation makes a real difference. With a systematic approach and regular practice, children can develop strong NVR skills and go into the exam with confidence.