Codes: 11+ non-verbal reasoning
Figures with letter codes: each letter stands for one feature. Your child works out what each letter means and writes the code for a new figure.
What the questions look like
Four or five figures, each with a code of two or three letters, then a figure with a question mark. The first letter of every code is about one feature (the shape, say) and the second about another (the shading). Options are five codes.
Find two that share a letter
Two figures with the same first letter: what else do they have in common? That’s what the letter means.
Do each place in turn
Work out the first letters, then the second, then any third.
Build the new code
Choose each letter for the new figure’s features, in order.
A worked example
Which code belongs to the last figure?
AX and AY are both circles, so the first letter is the shape: A for a circle, B for a square, C for a triangle.
AX and BX are both black, and AY and CY both white, so the second letter is the shading: X for black, Y for white.
The last figure is a black triangle: C for the triangle, X for black. Its code is CX.
Try 8 questions
New questions every time, in the style of GL Assessment’s papers, and marked when you finish.
The usual mistakes
Mixing up the places
Knowing the letters but writing XC instead of CX.
Guessing from one example
Deciding what a letter means from one figure, when another example shows it means something else.
Matching the whole figure
Copying the code of the figure that looks most like the new one.
The other kinds of question
Each has its own page with a worked example and questions to try. What non-verbal reasoning is, and who tests it.
With Exam Prep, Thena sets practice papers in your child’s test’s style and goes over every mistake with them on her board: £49 a month with the Solo plan.
Questions about codes
How do you crack a code question?
Find two figures that share a letter and see what else they share: that’s what the letter means. Do the same for each place in the code, then build the new figure’s code a letter at a time.
Does the order of the letters matter?
Yes. Each place in the code is about one feature (the first letter might be the shape, the second the shading), so a code with the right letters in the wrong places is wrong.
Thena goes over every question your child gets wrong
She draws it on her board, finds where it went wrong and works it through with them, then gives them one like it to do alone.
Try 3 lessons free