Logic and language questions ask your child to reason carefully with words rather than recall facts. A few short statements are given, and from them your child must work out who is tallest, what must be true, or which word completes a jumbled sentence. The reward goes to clear, step-by-step thinking, and the punishment goes to jumping at the answer that simply feels right.
This is an umbrella group within the GL Assessment 11+ Verbal Reasoning paper, covering ordering puzzles, logical deductions, sentence rearrangements and a sprinkling of rhyming-word and simple number puzzles. Everything is multiple choice with five options (A to E) on a separate answer sheet. Our research estimate, based on GL practice papers, is that reasoning questions of this family account for roughly 10 to 15 per cent of a paper, though GL varies the mix and not every sub-type appears every time. Notably, one of the five options is sometimes "Cannot tell", and knowing when that is the right answer is a genuine skill in itself.
On this page your child works through these puzzles one at a time, with explanations that model the method: order the people on a line, test whether a conclusion truly follows, or find the subject and verb before rebuilding a sentence. The aim is a calm, checkable routine rather than a lucky guess.
This heading gathers several reasoning sub-types. GL does not publish their relative frequency, so the order below is our research estimate from practice papers:
Difficulty climbs from a three-person ordering with extreme positions, through four and five-person chains and reverse syllogisms, up to multi-step deductions where the correct answer is sometimes that nothing can be determined.
Five questions drawn from PrepStep’s logic and language 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.
Rearrange these words to make a sentence: 'cake the ate she chocolate'. What is the first word of the correct sentence?
The correct sentence is: 'She ate the chocolate cake.' The first word is 'She'. Tip: For 4-5 person rankings, write ALL names before picking your answer. ✓
Dan has more sweets than Emma. Fay has fewer sweets than Emma but more than George. Who has the most sweets?
Dan > Emma > Fay > George. Dan has the most, then Emma, then Fay, and George has the fewest. Tip: Process one clue at a time and build the ranking step by step. ✓
Kai ran faster than Toby. Omar ran faster than Kai. Toby ran faster than Hugo. Who came third in the race?
Omar > Kai > Toby > Hugo in speed. Omar first, Kai second, Toby third, Hugo fourth. Tip: For 4-5 person rankings, write ALL names before picking your answer. ✓
Some birds can fly. Penguins are birds. Penguins cannot fly. Which statement must be true?
Penguins are birds but cannot fly, which proves that not all birds can fly. The word 'some' in the first statement already tells us this. Tip: Focus only on what MUST be true, not what COULD be true. ✓
Tom is older than Sam. Sam is older than Jack. Who is the youngest?
Tom > Sam > Jack in age. Jack is younger than Sam, who is younger than Tom. So Jack is the youngest. Tip: If you can't prove it from the facts given, the answer is 'Cannot tell'. ✓
Common mistake 1 of 4
Falling for the reverse syllogism.
Tip: "All A are B" does not mean "all B are A". Holly and cacti have thorns without being roses. Teach your child to ask whether the conclusion absolutely must follow, not whether it sounds plausible.
Common mistake 2 of 4
Tripping over direction words.
Tip: "Fewer", "shorter", "slower" and "younger" reverse the ordering, and a child running on autopilot reads them as their opposites. Encourage drawing a vertical line and placing each name on it as the clue is read.
Common mistake 3 of 4
Refusing to choose "Cannot tell".
Tip: Children feel they must commit to a definite answer, so they reject "Cannot tell" even when the clues genuinely do not prove anything. Remind your child that "Cannot tell" is a real, correct option when nothing in the statements settles the question.
Common mistake 4 of 4
Answering ordering questions for the wrong position.
Tip: GL often asks for the second or third in line rather than the first or last, which is where a half-built ranking gives a wrong answer. Tell your child to write out every name in order before reading off the one the question asks for.
They are reasoning questions that give a few short statements and ask your child to deduce a conclusion: who is tallest, what must be true, or which word completes a rearranged sentence. They test careful, step-by-step thinking with words rather than memorised knowledge, and they sit within the GL Verbal Reasoning paper.
Through multiple choice with five options (A to E) on a separate answer sheet. The sub-types are mixed, so a child may move from an ordering puzzle to a syllogism to a jumbled sentence, and one of the options is sometimes "Cannot tell", which is occasionally the correct answer.
The reverse syllogism. Children read "all roses have thorns, this plant has thorns" and conclude the plant is a rose, but the statement does not say only roses have thorns. The cure is to ask "does this have to be true?" rather than "could this be true?", because logic questions reward only what is proven.
Whenever the statements do not give enough to prove a single answer. If a conclusion is merely likely rather than certain, "Cannot tell" is correct. Many children avoid it because it feels like giving up, so it is worth practising the judgement of when a puzzle genuinely has no determined answer.
Building a habit of slowing down, drawing a quick ordering line and testing whether a conclusion must follow is the key, and it comes from regular short practice rather than cramming. Free PrepStep practice presents one reasoning puzzle at a time with an explanation that models the method, so careful thinking becomes second nature.
PrepStep has 193 logic and language questions in GL Assessment format: five options, instant feedback, and step-by-step explanations. Free to start.
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