Verbal Reasoning · Moving a letter between words
Move a Letter Between Words
Take one letter out of CART and put it into GAIN so that both are still real words. The other letters stay in the order they are already in.
Free to use and free to share. There is no sign-up, no score, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. What you may do with it, in full.
Loading the interactive exercise. Nothing you do here is saved or scored.
Why this works
This kind of question is two tests at once, and the trick is to do them in the right order. Start with the word that is losing a letter, because that side has far fewer possibilities: hide each letter of CART in turn and read what is left. Only the third letter works, because taking the R away leaves CAT. Now carry that R across and try it in every gap in GAIN, not just the end. It goes inside GAIN to make GRAIN. Children lose marks on these by testing the receiving word first, where a letter can go in five or six places, instead of the donating word, where it can only go in four. Do the small search before the big one.
Helping a child through Move a Letter Between Words
Hints, least revealing first
- Work on CART first. Cover up one letter at a time and read what is left. Most of the letters leave rubbish behind, and only a few leave a word.
- A letter can join GAIN anywhere, not just on the end. Try it at the front, between each pair of letters, and last of all on the end.
- The move only counts if it is true twice over. CART has to survive losing the letter AND GAIN has to survive gaining it.
When they finish it: “Both words survived!”
11+ skill this exercise practises
It has its own page, with a worked example on it.
All verbal reasoning 11+ skillsYou can reuse this. Here is exactly how far that goes
Tutors, teachers and editors keep asking, so this is the answer in writing rather than by email. You do not need to ask permission, and you do not need to tell us.
- Embed it
- Put the exercise inside your own page with the code above. It stays playable, and it keeps working when we improve the engine behind it.
- Print it
- Print the page, or print the exercise off the screen, and hand out the copies. No limit on how many.
- Use it in class
- One child or a full set, in a school, in a tutoring session, in a homework club, or at the kitchen table.
- Put it in something you charge for
- A paid course, a paid tutoring session, a paid workbook, a members-only site. You owe us no fee and you do not need to ask.
- Reuse it in your own writing
- Quote it, rewrite it, translate it, cut it up, or build something different on top of it. Treat the wording, the worked examples and the question ideas as yours to work with.
The one thing we ask is a link back to the page you took it from, so a reader can find the live, playable version and the rest of the 11+ skills next to it. That is a request, not a condition: nothing above depends on it.
This covers the interactive exercises and the teaching notes on these 11+ pages. It does not cover the Trace Learn name or logo, and it does not let you present your version as something Trace Learn published.
Embed this exercise
Paste this into your own page and the exercise runs there, playable, for your readers or your students. It is 900 pixels tall by default and as wide as the column you put it in; change the height if your layout wants a different one.
The embedded copy has no header, no footer and no sign-up prompt. It records nothing about the child using it, on your page just as on ours.
Move a Letter Between Words practises one skill. Verbal Reasoning has 26 of them
A free diagnostic covers every verbal reasoning skill and the other three subjects, and comes back with a shortlist rather than a list.