Selective entry analogies questions

It asks your child to name how a pair of words is linked, then find the pair that shares that link. ACER says Verbal Reasoning tests thinking and reasoning with words, concepts and logic, and an analogy uses all of them at once.

In the exam it shares 55 minutes with Reading, so a quick, sure method is worth more than a long word list.

These are our own questions, from easier to harder. The words are everyday ones; it's the reasoning that gets harder. Each one shows the answer and the working, so read them together.

Ask your child which pair looked right at first, and say the link in the first pair as a sentence. Then test both pairs on that sentence together, and see where the tempting pair stops making sense.

Say the link as a sentence, make it exact, then test it on each option. This works because a sentence can be checked, while a feeling that the words "go together" can't. It's our method, not ACER's.

If no option fits the sentence, ACER suggests your child make an informed guess and come back to it at the end if there is time.

Each wrong option in our questions is a near miss: a pair that is linked, just not in the same way. After the worked questions, read these together and ask which one would have caught your child. Then use its check on the next few analogies.

• Words that belong together, but by a different link. In the first question, a tree is where many nests are, not the bird's home itself. In the second, smoke and ember go with fire, but neither is a stronger way of burning.
• A link that is close, but not the same. In the third, hungry : eat is tempting. Being hungry means wanting to eat, not being easily eaten.
• A link that runs backwards. Also in the third, something heavy is hard to lift, the reverse of fragile : break.

Analogies suit talk in the car or at dinner, because they need no paper. Say every link out loud.

• Take turns making one up, such as "pen is to writer as brush is to…".
• Collect word pairs that show degree, such as whisper and shout or warm and scorching.
• When your child gets one wrong, ask for their sentence and fix it together.

ACER says these skills grow over time, through a culture of learning, varied engaging material and talking freely about ideas, so wide reading and talk do more than word lists. The questions here show the method; a full practice test shows whether your child can still use it with Reading on the same clock.

More worked questions are on our selective entry verbal reasoning sample questions page. Our selective entry practice tests keep the real timing, and Practice test 1 is free. Afterwards you'll see results by skill, so you know whether analogies cost the most marks.