"Kitten is to cat as puppy is to ___?" Easy. But the harder analogies trip up many children, and the fix is always the same: name the relationship in words before you look at the options. An analogy is never asking "which word is about cats" — it is asking "which word does to dog exactly what kitten does to cat." Once your child says the rule out loud ("the young of the animal"), the answer stops being a guess and becomes a lookup. This guide covers word analogies as they appear in GL Assessment Verbal Reasoning papers, the shape analogies in Non-Verbal Reasoning, the relationship categories examiners reuse, the traps built into the wrong answers, and a timing plan so your child can do all this in about forty seconds a question.
Name the relationship first
Word analogies are one of the classic GL Verbal Reasoning question types (Bond's course labels the analogy family within its A-to-U type list). The format is fixed: A is to B as C is to ?. The single most powerful habit is to turn the first pair into a sentence. "Kitten is to cat" becomes "a kitten is the young of a cat." Now apply that identical sentence to the second pair: "a puppy is the young of a dog." The relationship — not the topic — is the answer. Children who skip this step pick a word that merely feels connected to dog, which is exactly the mistake the examiner is hoping for.
Encourage a two-part check. First, state the rule for pair one. Second, test every option against that rule and reject any that does not fit precisely. If two options seem to fit, your rule is too loose — make it more specific (not "to do with cats" but "the young of").
The relationship categories you will see again and again
GL does not tell you in advance which relationship a question uses, but the same handful come up across every paper. Teach your child to run through this mental checklist:
| Relationship | What it means | Worked example |
|---|---|---|
| Synonym | Means the same | Happy is to joyful as angry is to furious |
| Antonym | Means the opposite | Hot is to cold as fast is to slow |
| Part / whole | A piece of a larger thing | Leaf is to tree as petal is to flower |
| Category membership | An example of a group | Rose is to flower as sparrow is to bird |
| Cause / effect | One leads to the other | Rain is to flood as spark is to fire |
| Tool / user | Who uses the object | Brush is to painter as chisel is to sculptor |
| Degree / intensity | Same idea, stronger or weaker | Warm is to hot as cool is to freezing |
| Object / action | What the thing does | Knife is to cut as pen is to write |
Working through our free practice worksheets lets children see the same eight patterns repeat until naming them becomes automatic. Vocabulary is the quiet foundation here — a child who does not know that a young horse is a foal cannot complete the analogy however well they reason. Little-and-often word building, using flashcards and short synonym and antonym lists, lifts analogy scores more than any single trick.
The trap built into the wrong answers
Every analogy has a decoy — a word from the same topic that is designed to feel right. In "Kitten is to cat as puppy is to ?", options like fur, bark or bone are all genuinely about dogs, yet none matches the rule "the young of." Teach your child to treat a topic-match with suspicion, not relief. The exam rewards meaning, not association.
- Same-topic decoy: a word linked to C but not by the rule. Reject it.
- Right rule, wrong direction: if pair one goes big-to-small, pair two must too. "Tree is to leaf" is whole-to-part, so the answer must be the part, not the whole.
- Rule too vague: if several options fit, tighten the sentence until only one survives.
Analogies in Non-Verbal Reasoning
The same "A is to B as C is to ?" logic drives NVR shape analogies, only now the relationship is visual. Instead of meaning, your child spots what changed from shape A to shape B, then applies the identical change to shape C. Scan these attributes in order:
- Rotation — has the shape turned 90°, 180° or 270°? (Not to be confused with a mirror flip.)
- Reflection — has it flipped across a horizontal or vertical line?
- Shading / fill — black to white, striped to dotted?
- Size — larger or smaller?
- Number of sides or elements — has a shape or line been added or removed?
- Position and orientation — moved, or pointing a new way?
A common error is confusing rotation with reflection: after a 180° turn a shape looks flipped but the internal detail rotates with it, whereas a true mirror reverses left and right only. Our revision hub has step-by-step NVR walk-throughs with visual solutions, not just answer keys, so children can see exactly why one option is right. When two or more changes happen at once — a shape that both shrinks and rotates — the trick is to check each attribute separately rather than judging the picture as a whole.
The GL format and a timing plan
GL papers are multiple-choice with answers marked on a separate sheet, no calculator, and roughly a minute or less per question — often about 35 to 50 seconds. Speed and accuracy have to balance, so build the pacing habit early.
| Element | Typical figure |
|---|---|
| Paper length | about 50 minutes |
| Questions | roughly 50 to 80 |
| Target per question | 35 to 50 seconds |
| If stuck | mark your best guess, flag it, move on, return at the end |
The skip-and-return rule matters: one hard analogy is worth the same single mark as an easy one, so never let it swallow three minutes. A free timed session on our mock papers teaches children to feel that budget instinctively. Marks are then converted into a Standardised Age Score (SAS), which adjusts for your child's exact age in months so younger pupils are not disadvantaged. Scores typically run from about 70 to 140, with 100 as the average, and many grammar schools look for around 111 or above — though the exact qualifying mark varies by area and year, so never rely on a single number.
How to practise at home
Start with untimed practice so the child learns to name relationships correctly, then add the clock. When you mark work together, do not just tick and cross — ask "what was the rule?" A wrong answer usually reveals either a vocabulary gap or a rule that was too loose, and each tells you what to drill next. Rotate between our worksheets, a short mock, and the wider set of exam guides covering every GL question type. For region-specific preparation, our GL papers page maps the format to what your child will actually sit.
Frequently asked questions
What is the fastest way to solve a word analogy?
Turn the first pair into a full sentence that names the relationship — "a kitten is the young of a cat" — then apply that exact sentence to the second pair. The relationship, not the topic, gives the answer.
Does GL tell you which relationship each analogy uses?
No. GL never discloses in advance which question types or relationships appear in a paper, so children need to recognise all the common categories — synonym, antonym, part/whole, cause/effect and the rest — on sight.
Are analogies only in Verbal Reasoning?
No. The same "A is to B as C is to ?" structure appears in Non-Verbal Reasoning as shape analogies, where the relationship is a visual change such as a rotation, reflection, or shading swap rather than a change in meaning.