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.
This family ignores meaning completely and works on letters. Hidden words find a word buried across two others, compound words join two words into one, move a letter shifts a single letter between words, missing letters restore letters taken out, and shared letter finds one letter that completes several words.
| Question type | What it tests | What it looks like | The classic mix-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hidden WordsThis page | Whether your child can find a small word hidden across the join between two side-by-side words. | A full sentence; the hidden word, usually four letters, straddles the end of one word and the start of the next. For example: "She left the plate amid the mess". | Treating it like missing letters and looking inside one word, instead of across the join between two neighbouring words. |
| Compound Words | Whether your child can join one whole word to another to make a single, real compound word. | Two groups of words; your child takes one from each so they join into one real word, left word first. For example, "grape" plus "fruit" makes "grapefruit". | Treating it like hidden words and searching for a buried word, instead of joining two whole words openly given. |
| Move a Letter | Whether your child can move one letter from one word to another so both become new, real words. | Two real words; take one letter out of the first and add it to the second so both stay real. For example, "place" and "at" become "lace" and "pat". | Treating it like missing letters and moving three letters, when only one letter may cross between the two words. |
| Missing Letters | Restoring three letters taken from a word, where the three removed letters also spell a small word. | A word with three letters removed and shown as a gap; those three letters must spell a word too. For example, "___SNIP" becomes "PARSNIP", where the missing letters spell "PAR". | Treating it like hidden words and scanning across two words, when the missing letters come out of one single word. |
| Shared Letter | Whether your child can find one letter that sits at the join of two word parts and completes four words at once. | Two pairs of word parts, each with a bracketed gap; one single letter ends the left part and begins the right part, making four real words. For example, "CA(?)EN" and "BU(?)ANK" both take "T", giving CAT and TEN, then BUT and TANK. | Treating it like missing letters and looking for three letters, when only one letter is shared across every word. |
Ask what the letters are doing. One letter jumping between two words is move a letter, one letter completing four word parts is shared letter, whole words joining is compound words, a word buried in a sentence is hidden words, and letters put back into a single word is missing letters.
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 'entrance'. Take 'op' from the end of top and 'en' from the start of entrance to spell open. ✓
A 4-letter word is hidden across two of these adjacent words. Find the two words.
Select the two correct answers.
The word RAIN is hidden across 'extra' and 'insects'. Take the end of 'extra' (ra) and the start of 'insects' (in) to make RAIN. ✓
A 4-letter word is hidden across two of these adjacent words. Find the two words.
Select the two correct answers.
The word FARE is hidden across 'sofa' and 'remained'. Take the end of 'sofa' (fa) and the start of 'remained' (re) to make FARE. ✓
A 4-letter word is hidden across two of these adjacent words. Find the two words.
Select the two correct answers.
The word SNOW is hidden across 'was' and 'nowhere'. Take the last letter of 'was' (s) and the first 3 letters of 'nowhere' (now) to read SNOW. ✓
A 4-letter word is hidden across two of these adjacent words. Find the two words.
Select the two correct answers.
The word EACH is hidden across 'sea' and 'children'. Take 'ea' from the end of sea and 'ch' from the start of children to spell each. ✓
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.
Every PrepStep 11+ question is original, written to mirror the style and difficulty of the GL Assessment 11+ and grounded in a library of real past-paper patterns, with a worked explanation for each one. PrepStep is built by Ben Jackson, its founder and a parent who has taken one child through the 11+ with another preparing now. Last reviewed: August 2026.
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.
They all work on letters rather than meaning, but the letters do different jobs. Hidden words asks your child to find a small word buried across the join between two words in a sentence. Compound words asks them to join two whole words into one real word. Missing letters asks them to restore letters taken out of a single word, where those removed letters also spell a word of their own. Same skill family, three different letter puzzles.
Explore the other GL Assessment verbal reasoning topics, each with free sample questions and worked explanations.
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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