11+ Verbal Reasoning: Words Inside Words

These puzzles all work the same way underneath: stop reading the words and start looking at the letters. A four-letter word hidden in a sentence does not sit inside any single word — it straddles the gap between two of them, so the method is to push each neighbouring pair together and read across the join, one gap at a time. There are only ever as many places to look as there are spaces, which makes the search finite instead of frantic. The compound questions run on a different discipline: a word that makes waterfall and waterproof still has to make watermelon, and the wrong options are built so that each of them works with one or two of the three and then fails. One match feels like progress and is worth nothing. The set also takes a letter out of a word to leave a different one, where the meaning given in the question is what decides which letter goes, since more than one removal leaves a real word; rearranges the letters of two words completely; and asks which of four longer words has an animal buried in it. Every explanation names the method rather than just the answer, because the method is what transfers to the next paper. Zestly is an independent study tool. It is not affiliated with any exam board and it is not an exam centre.

• Find a word hidden across a join by pushing neighbouring words together and working along the gaps in order
• Tell a word hidden across a join from one that merely sits inside a single word
• Test a compound-word option against all three of the given words before choosing it
• Find a bridge word that works both after the first word and before the second
• Remove a letter to leave a new word, using the meaning given to decide between several real results
• Check an anagram by counting letters, so that an extra or missing letter rules an option out
• Spot a shorter word hidden inside a longer one, using letters that are next to each other in order

A four-letter word is hidden across the join between two words in: The children ate their ice creams quickly. — RICE. Watch the other options: heir is inside their and cream is inside creams, but neither crosses a gap, and the hidden word must use letters from both sides of a join.