Classify one statement as presented fact or opinion.
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Practise it now
Three witnesses, one true account. Work out who can be trusted.
This exercise practises distinguish fact and opinion alongside its own main skill, Summarising & accuracy.
It covers most of this skill rather than all of it.
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A worked example
One question of the kind this skill is tested with, worked all the way through: the reasoning, and what the wrong answers are there to catch.
Which sentence could nobody measure?
Read the passage, then decide which sentence is an opinion rather than a fact.
The new footbridge is 42 metres long and opened in March. It cost the council 1.8 million pounds. It is easily the ugliest structure in the town. On its first weekend, 3,000 people walked across it.
It is easily the ugliest structure in the town.
The new footbridge is 42 metres long and opened in March.
It cost the council 1.8 million pounds.
On its first weekend, 3,000 people walked across it.
Answer: It is easily the ugliest structure in the town.
How you get there
A fact is put in a form that could be checked. An opinion is a judgement that two sensible people could disagree about. A length, a cost and a headcount can all be measured or counted. "Ugliest" cannot be measured at all, and "easily" is the writer pressing the point, so that sentence is the opinion.
Why the other answers tempt
You are not being asked whether the numbers are correct. A wrong number is still presented as a fact, and this question is about the form of the statement rather than about checking it.
If they are stuck, say this
Take each sentence and ask what you would have to do to check it. If you could measure or count it, it is presented as a fact; if two people could disagree, it is an opinion.
Three witnesses, one true account. Work out who can be trusted.
This engine’s own main skill is Summarising & accuracy. It practises distinguish fact and opinion alongside it, and covers most of it rather than all.
A good summary keeps three things exactly as they were: the size of what happened, the reason it happened, and the details that were actually written. Distortions almost always attack one of those three. Making it bigger is exaggeration, so "clung on halfway" becomes "fell all the way to the ground" and the whole meaning flips, because a boy who holds on is brave and a boy who falls is unlucky. Swapping the reason is the sneakiest, because "the kite was stuck" becomes "his sister dared him", which invents a motive the passage never offered. Adding a detail is the easiest to miss, since invented facts sit quietly among the real ones. So when you check a summary, including your own, test each claim against the exact words: if you cannot find the line, take the claim out.
Step 1. Honest. Which witness retells the passage without bending it?
Step 2. Lies. Now catch each liar. Tap the exact words they twisted.
What to say if they get stuck
Do not ask which retelling sounds best. Ask which one you could match to the passage line by line.
A distortion is usually one phrase, not a whole sentence. Look for a word that has been made bigger, or a reason nobody actually gave.
The passage says he clung on, and it never gives a reason for the climb beyond the kite being stuck. Anything else has been added.
How distinguish fact and opinion differs from the skills beside it
The same exercise practises one other skill, and telling them apart is often the difficulty rather than the exercise itself. On this page the skill is: classify one statement as presented fact or opinion, and it stops where does not require external fact checking.
Questions parents ask about distinguish fact and opinion
Answered from what the skill map records about this skill, not from a template. Every answer here is on the page, and the same questions are the page's FAQ structured data.
Classify one statement as presented fact or opinion. It is one of 41 named English skills in the 11+, in the reading strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
You are not being asked whether the numbers are correct. A wrong number is still presented as a fact, and this question is about the form of the statement rather than about checking it. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.
Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Take each sentence and ask what you would have to do to check it. If you could measure or count it, it is presented as a fact; if two people could disagree, it is an opinion.
The skill map draws the line here: Does not require external fact checking. A question past that line is testing a different named English skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.
The reading strand holds 11 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to distinguish fact and opinion are identify a main idea, identify textual mood and identify writer purpose. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.
Use Unreliable Witness, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to distinguish fact and opinion, it runs in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. It also has its own link, so you can send it to a child without sending them anywhere else first.
Comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation are four different problems
A free diagnostic separates them, so practice goes where the gap actually is rather than on whichever one is easiest to set.
