Comprehension in the 11+ — Questions, Worked Answers and Practice Papers

What examiners actually ask

Comprehension appears in 170 of our 338 ready papers (1938 tagged questions). It averages 11.4 questions a paper worth about 2.79 marks each. The typical question allows around 2.7 min. It appears in 4 CSSE papers we hold.

Comprehension is the largest English tag in our corpus for a reason: almost every selective paper tests reading under time pressure. The word is broad — inside it sit fact finding, inference, interpretation, word meaning and evidence questions. Children who “practise comprehension” without naming the question type improve slowly. Use this hub to see which papers lean hardest on comprehension overall, then jump to the related skill hubs for the rows that cost marks in your report. Teach a consistent routine: read the question first or second, locate evidence, answer in the demanded form. Independent and grammar papers both reward precision over long waffle. If a report says comprehension is weak, do not buy another random pack — diagnose whether it is retrieval, inference or vocabulary, then drill that hub.

Common mistakes

• Answering from memory of the passage instead of checking the exact lines.
• Writing generally about the story when the question asked for a specific skill (inference, word meaning, etc.).
• Running out of time because every question is treated with the same slow re-read.
• Ignoring command words (find / suggest / explain) that change what earns the mark.

Papers with the most Comprehension questions

Ranked from our tagged catalogue — open a paper to practise the questions that actually test this topic.

Related topics

• Inference
• Fact Finding
• Interpretation
• Word Meaning
• Grammar
• Creative Writing