11+ Verbal Reasoning: Letters and Codes

Letter puzzles look like word puzzles and are really arithmetic in disguise, which is why the first move in every one of these questions is the same: turn the letters into numbers, with A as 1 and Z as 26. Once BD, FH, JL, NP becomes 2 and 4, 6 and 8, 10 and 12, 14 and 16, two rules appear at once — the first letter jumping four each time and the second always sitting two behind it — and the answer falls out. The ten questions here cover sequences going forwards and backwards, one where the gap itself grows, codes that shift every letter forward and codes that shift every letter back, a code that runs off the end of the alphabet and carries on from A again, letters added up as numbers, a letter-pair analogy, the reversed alphabet where each position is taken away from 27, and one question that gives the code and asks for the word, which means undoing the shift rather than applying it. Every explanation writes out the positions used, and every wrong option has a rule of its own attached to it: moved one place too few, moved backwards instead of forwards, or the shift applied to some letters and not the rest. Zestly is an independent study tool. It is not affiliated with any exam board and it is not an exam centre.

• Turn letters into their alphabet positions before looking for a pattern
• Continue a letter-pair sequence where two rules run at once, forwards or backwards
• Spot a sequence whose gap grows by one each step
• Find the shift in a letter code by comparing the word with its code, and apply it to every letter
• Carry on from the beginning of the alphabet when a code runs past Z
• Use the reversed alphabet by taking each position away from 27
• Decode a word by undoing the shift rather than repeating it

If FROG is written in code as HTQI, what word does the code JCV stand for? — HAT. Every letter moved forward two places to make the code, so go backwards two places to undo it: J is 10, so 8, which is H.