Hidden words ask your child to find a small word camouflaged at the join between two side-by-side words in a sentence. The hidden word always straddles a word boundary, taking the last letters of one word and the first letters of the next, so in "the attic stairs" the word SEAT is waiting at the join of theSE and ATtic. Crucially the hidden word is never tucked inside a single word, only across the gap between two.
GL does not publish how many hidden-word items each Verbal Reasoning paper carries, but our research estimate is a block of roughly five to ten when this type appears. On PrepStep this is a select-two question: your child is shown five words and taps the two adjacent words that, joined at the boundary, conceal the target. The hidden word is almost always four letters long, which matches the authentic GL pattern far better than the longer hidden words some practice books invent.
Every question tells your child the length to look for and comes with a worked explanation that shows exactly where the split falls. That trains the systematic left-to-right boundary scan that turns a slow, lucky guess into a fast, reliable method.
Hidden-word questions vary mainly by where the split falls and how busy the sentence is. GL does not break the type down publicly, so the spread below is our research estimate:
Difficulty rises with sentence length and the use of uneven splits: easy items use a common four-letter word at an even 2+2 join in a short sentence, while the hardest bury a less obvious word at a 1+3 or 3+1 join with several distracting boundaries nearby.
Five questions drawn from PrepStep’s hidden words bank, spanning Foundation to Challenging. Tap “Show worked explanation” to see the full method after you’ve had a go. The correct answer is highlighted on each question so you can check immediately.
A 4-letter word is hidden across two of these adjacent words. Find the two words.
Select the two correct answers.
The word OPEN is hidden across 'tOP' and 'ENvelope'. Take the last 2 letters of 'top' (OP) and the first 2 letters of 'envelope' (EN) = OPEN. ✓
A 4-letter word is hidden across two of these adjacent words. Find the two words.
Select the two correct answers.
The word VEND is hidden where "oven" meets "door": the last 3 letters of oVEN and the first 1 letter of Door join to spell VEND. ✓
A 4-letter word is hidden across two of these adjacent words. Find the two words.
Select the two correct answers.
The word DEAR is hidden where "arrived" meets "early": the last 1 letter of arriveD and the first 3 letters of EARly join to spell DEAR. ✓
A 4-letter word is hidden across two of these adjacent words. Find the two words.
Select the two correct answers.
The word RUST is hidden across 'cirrus' and 'trails'. Take the last 3 letters of 'cirrus' and the first 1 letter of 'trails' = RUST. ✓
A 4-letter word is hidden across two of these adjacent words. Find the two words.
Select the two correct answers.
The word MEAL is hidden across 'soME' and 'ALways'. Take the last 2 letters of 'some' (ME) and the first 2 letters of 'always' (AL) = MEAL. ✓
Common mistake 1 of 4
Looking for the hidden word inside a single word.
Tip: The word always crosses the gap between two adjacent words, never sits within one. If your child finds "ever" inside "every", that does not count. Teach them to read each pair of neighbours as a join, ignoring what lives inside any one word.
Common mistake 2 of 4
Only checking 2+2 splits.
Tip: Even splits are the most common, so children stop there and miss the answer. Roughly a third of items use a 1+3 or 3+1 split. Encourage your child, when a clean 2+2 does not appear, to try one-letter and three-letter starts before moving on.
Common mistake 3 of 4
Being misled by the sentence's meaning.
Tip: GL writes sentences whose subject has nothing to do with the hidden word, so a sentence about cooking might hide RAIN. Remind your child that meaning is a decoy here; only the letters at the boundaries matter.
Common mistake 4 of 4
Skipping boundaries in a long sentence.
Tip: A twelve-word sentence has eleven boundaries, and the answer is often near the end where attention fades. Train a left-to-right scan that checks every join in order rather than jumping to the words that look interesting.
It is a question where a small word is hidden across the join between two side-by-side words in a sentence. Your child finds it by taking the last letters of one word and the first letters of the next, for example LOVE hidden in "solo venue" (soLO + VEnue). In the GL Assessment 11+ the hidden word is almost always four letters long.
Your child is given a sentence and told how many letters the hidden word has, then identifies where it sits. On PrepStep this is a tap-two-words (select-two) format, matching the way GL asks children to pinpoint the boundary. The hidden word always crosses a gap between two words and never sits inside a single word.
Almost always four letters, occasionally three. This matches the authentic GL pattern, which practitioner sources consistently describe as a four-letter hidden word. Some practice books invent five-letter or longer hidden words, but those are not representative of the real GL paper, so PrepStep keeps to four-letter items with the occasional three.
A systematic left-to-right boundary scan. Your child checks each pair of neighbouring words in turn, trying the even 2+2 split first, then 1+3 and 3+1 if needed, and ignores what the sentence is actually about. Saying the candidate letters quietly often helps the word jump out, and skipping tiny words like "a" and "I" speeds things up.
The skill responds quickly to drilling, because it is a method more than a knowledge test. Regular short bursts build the habit of scanning every boundary and trying uneven splits. Free PrepStep practice gives sentences across easy and hard difficulties with worked explanations that show exactly where each split falls, so the technique becomes automatic.
PrepStep has 150 hidden words questions in GL Assessment format: five options, instant feedback, and step-by-step explanations. Free to start.
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