11+ Choose the Best Word Online Tests
Choose the best word is one of the most common English question types in the 11+. A short passage is broken into numbered lines, each with a gap, and five possible answers are offered for every gap. Only one of them completes the line so that it makes sense and is written in correct English.
The lines follow on from one another and tell one short story, so the passage has to be read in order. That is what makes the question type so searching: the wrong options are real words that would be correct in some other sentence, and the only way to rule them out is to check them against the rest of the passage.
9 free Choose the Best Word tests
Timed and marked instantly, with an explanation for every question. No sign-up needed.
- English: Choose the Best Word: Easy Test 1 Easy 10 questions · 10 min
- English: Choose the Best Word: Easy Test 2 Easy 10 questions · 10 min
- English: Choose the Best Word: Easy Test 3 Easy 10 questions · 10 min
- English: Choose the Best Word: Medium Test 1 Medium 10 questions · 10 min
- English: Choose the Best Word: Medium Test 2 Medium 10 questions · 10 min
- English: Choose the Best Word: Medium Test 3 Medium 10 questions · 10 min
- English: Choose the Best Word: Hard Test 1 Hard 10 questions · 10 min
- English: Choose the Best Word: Hard Test 2 Hard 10 questions · 10 min
- English: Choose the Best Word: Hard Test 3 Hard 10 questions · 10 min
What these Choose the Best Word tests cover
- Tense and subject-verb agreement kept consistent across a whole passage
- Homophones in context: their and there, its and it's, your and you're, whose and who's
- Pronouns and determiners: a or an, me or I, who or whom, fewer or less
- Prepositions that belong with particular words: interested in, different from, arrived at
- Connectives such as although, because, however and unless
- Choosing between five words of similar meaning to find the one that fits
- Spotting the option that is correct English but contradicts the story so far
Choose the Best Word: tips that earn marks
- Read the whole passage before answering. Several gaps depend on something mentioned a line or two earlier.
- Read the line back with your chosen word in place, rather than judging the word on its own.
- Rule out the three options that are clearly wrong first - that turns five choices into two.
- Check the tense of the passage as a whole. If the story is told in the past, a present-tense answer is wrong however well it reads.
- Choose a or an by sound, not by spelling: an hour, a university.
Questions parents ask about Choose the Best Word
What is a choose the best word question?
A short passage is split into numbered lines with a gap in each. Five answers are offered per gap, and one of them completes the line so that it makes sense and is written in correct English. The lines run on from one another, so the passage is read in order.
Which exam boards use it?
It is a standard GL Assessment English format and appears in many independent school papers too, sometimes called sentence completion or a cloze passage. The skill tested is the same wherever it appears.
Why do the wrong answers look so believable?
Because they are meant to. Every wrong option is correct English somewhere, just not in this line. That is why reading the completed line back, in the context of the lines around it, matters more than picking the word that sounds best on its own.
How long should a paper take?
About ten minutes for ten gaps. These questions are answered at pace in the real exam so that time is left for the longer sections of the paper.