Edutest word relationships questions

They're puzzles about how words are spelt, how they sound and how one word can carry several meanings. Edutest lists word relationships among the skills in its Verbal Reasoning test. Analogies are one part of that skill and have their own page; this page covers the rest.

These questions reward a different kind of attention. Instead of asking what a word means, your child has to look at its letters one at a time.

Six kinds of puzzle come up in our Edutest-style questions. Each looks different, but each has a clear way in.

Slow down to the level of letters. These puzzles are won by checking every case, not by spotting the answer fast.

These are our own questions in the Edutest style, with the easiest first. Read each one with your child and check every letter or meaning together, then compare with the working.

These four cover homophones, a word with several meanings, a letter rule and dictionary order. If a wrong option looked right at first, go through it letter by letter together and find the exact spot where it goes off. The hidden word and linking word kinds appear on the Verbal Reasoning sample questions page.

Each of these traps rewards a quick glance. When your child slips, find which one it was and redo that check slowly.

• Trusting the spelling. Flour and flower are spelt differently but sound the same. Quiet and quite look alike but don't.
• A word that fits one meaning only. Gobble is perfect for eating fast, but it can't lock a door. Every meaning has to fit.
• Matching letters, not positions. In a letter rule, the letter that goes may change from pair to pair. What stays the same can be its place in the word.
• Stopping at the shared start. When words begin with the same letters, keep going until a letter differs.
• Skipping across gaps. In a hidden word, the letters must sit next to each other in order.

They can be quick once your child spots the kind. The time goes on checking: saying each pair, sorting each letter. That checking is where the marks are, so it's worth the seconds.

If a rule just won't show itself, your child should guess and move on. Edutest says no marks lost for wrong or blank answers, and many students will not finish every question.

Strong spelling helps with every kind on this page. Vocabulary helps with words of several meanings, since your child needs to know that bolt can mean more than a bar on a door.

The care with sounds and spellings also helps in Reading Comprehension. Edutest says that test covers reading and interpreting passages, and correcting, completing and punctuating sentences, and a homophone like their for there is one reason a sentence may need correcting. See the Reading Comprehension sample questions.

Word games do the work here: collect homophone pairs on the fridge, and hunt for animals hidden in sentences on signs and cereal boxes. Look up a few words in a paper dictionary and talk about why they sit in that order.

Words with several meanings make a good car game: bark, bat, fair, match. Ask for every meaning your child can think of.

Four examples show the checking habit; Practice test 1 shows whether it survives Edutest's clock, and its results by skill show whether these puzzles need more work. The word relationships lesson in the app has an Interactive version and Notes, and skill drills give quick rounds of these puzzles.