Infer the meaning of one word from its sentence and passage context.
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.
Practise it now
Four words have been censored. Decode each one using the clues around 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.
Letting the sentence decide
Notice which words around the key word give its meaning away.
Words to sort: The empty box felt surprisingly light., A paper aeroplane has to be light to fly well., Balsa wood is light for its size., We waited until it was light before setting off., The room grew light as the sun rose., By six o'clock the sky was already light..
Groups to sort them into: light = not heavy; light = not dark.
Answer: light = not heavy: The empty box felt surprisingly light. A paper aeroplane has to be light to fly well. Balsa wood is light for its size. light = not dark: We waited until it was light before setting off. The room grew light as the sun rose. By six o'clock the sky was already light.
How you get there
The word is identical in every sentence, so the context is doing all the work: "The empty box felt surprisingly light." belongs under "light = not heavy" and "The room grew light as the sun rose." under "light = not dark", which means every item here has exactly one correct group.
Why the other answers tempt
The word is spelt the same every time, so its spelling cannot help you: only the surrounding sentence can.
If they are stuck, say this
Cover the word and read the rest of the sentence - the words around it tell you which meaning has to be intended.
Four words have been censored. Decode each one using the clues around it.
A censored word is never a guess, because the sentence around it has already narrowed the answer to one. The method has three steps. First, decide the flavour the gap needs: is this word positive or negative, mild or extreme? "Rattled like loose teeth" demands something violent, so gentle and pleasant are gone before you compare them. Second, hunt for a line that contradicts a candidate outright: the boat has gone from its mooring, so the sea cannot merely have sprinkled the steps. Third, check the register, meaning whether the word sounds like it belongs in this kind of writing about this kind of person: a keeper whose entries are ruled and dated is not careless, however tired he might be. Do those three checks and the right word is usually the only one left standing.
What to say if they get stuck
Never pick the word you like best. Pick the word the rest of the sentence has already forced.
Two of the three choices are traps: one is far too mild for what is happening, one is contradicted by a line further on.
Read past the gap before you choose. The clue is often in the next clause, not the one you are staring at.
Only one of these words belongs in the gap. Keep it, and throw the rest away.
This engine’s own main skill is Cloze Sentences. It practises interpret a word in context alongside it.
Cloze questions are marked on two things at once, and you have to check both. First comes word class: after "was so" the sentence needs an adjective, a word that describes the path, which is why steeply (an adverb, describing how something happens) and steepness (a noun, the name of a quality) cannot go in however sensible they sound. Second comes meaning, and that is what separates the adjectives that are left: gentle is the right class but the wrong sense, because a gentle path would not force you to rest twice, and mountainous describes a whole region rather than one path. Steep passes both tests, so it is the answer. Read the finished sentence back to yourself every time, because your ear will catch an error your eye slides over.
What to say if they get stuck
Read the whole sentence out loud with the word dropped in. If it sounds wrong, it is wrong.
The word comes straight after "so", which means it has to describe the path itself, not how something was done.
Two of the cards are the right kind of word. Pick the one whose meaning explains why you had to stop and rest.
Three questions, three lines they were forged from. Hammer each pair together.
This engine’s own main skill is Question types. It practises interpret a word in context alongside it.
Three question types, three kinds of line, every single paper. Retrieval comes from a line that states a fact, so you copy it out. Reading between the lines comes from a line that shows without telling, so you read the clue and say what it means. Vocabulary in context comes from a line with one hard word and enough around it to work the word out. When you meet a question, name its type first. The type tells you what sort of line to hunt for and what sort of sentence to write.
What to say if they get stuck
Start with the easy weld. One question asks for a number, so it can only come from the line that states one.
A vocabulary question needs a hard word sitting in the line, with clues around it to work the meaning out.
That leaves reading between the lines, which always comes from the line that shows a person doing something without ever telling you why.
These all mean "walked". Drag them onto the rail, calmest on the left.
This engine’s own main skill is Shades of Meaning. It practises interpret a word in context alongside it.
Synonyms are not spare copies of each other - each one carries a different temperature. A writer who chooses "stormed" instead of "walked" has told you about the character's mood without ever naming it, and an examiner will credit you for spotting that. When a question asks why the author chose a particular word, the answer is almost always: because of where it sits on a spectrum like this one.
What to say if they get stuck
Start with the two extremes - which word could you never use about someone in a temper?
Picture the feet. Dawdling feet drag; stomping feet land hard.
Compare them in pairs: is "marched" calmer or angrier than "stomped"?
Uses a familiar definition that does not fit the sentence.
This is the wrong answer 11+ papers are built to offer, so it is worth watching for directly: a child who does this will look confident and still lose the mark. If it keeps happening on interpret a word in context, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
Where interpret a word in context sits in the 11+
The 11+ does not test these skills in isolation, and practising one in the wrong order wastes the practice. These are the skills the curriculum map connects this one to.
Mood judgements depend on contextual language meaning.
How interpret a word in context differs from the skills beside it
The same exercise practises several skills, and telling them apart is often the difficulty rather than the exercise itself. On this page the skill is: infer the meaning of one word from its sentence and passage context, and it stops where excludes recalling a definition without context.
Questions parents ask about interpret a word in context
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.
Infer the meaning of one word from its sentence and passage context. It is one of 41 named English skills in the 11+, in the reading strand, and this page carries 4 interactive exercises that practise it.
There is a specific mistake recorded against this skill: uses a familiar definition that does not fit the sentence. 11+ papers are written to offer exactly that answer, so a child can be confident and still lose the mark. When it keeps happening, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Cover the word and read the rest of the sentence - the words around it tell you which meaning has to be intended.
Once it is secure, the skill map opens identify textual mood. Mood judgements depend on contextual language meaning.
The skill map draws the line here: Excludes recalling a definition without context. 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 interpret a word in context are retrieve an explicit detail, sequence passage events and distinguish fact and opinion. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.
Use Redacted Files, Mind the Gap, Question Forge and Synonym Spectrum, embedded on this page. They are the exercises the skill map attaches to interpret a word in context, they run in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. Each also has its own link, so you can send one to a child without sending them anywhere else first.
One wrong answer is a slip, the same wrong answer every time is a habit
A free diagnostic looks at which mistakes repeat across all four subjects, not just whether interpret a word in context was right on the day.
