Match, map, mine: number codes
The Short Answer
A number code question gives four words and only three codes, printed in a random order, and asks your child to code or decode a fourth. The whole job is working out which code belongs to which word. Match the codes to words using repeated letters and word lengths, map each number to its letter, then mine that map for the answer.
What is a number code question?
Your child is shown four words along the top and three number codes underneath. Four words, three codes — so one of those words has no code at all, and that word is usually what the question is about.
Here is the part that catches people out: the codes are printed in a random order. The first code does not belong to the first word. It might, by luck, but it can never be assumed.
So the whole job is working out which code belongs to which word. Once that is settled, everything else falls out.
How do you teach the method?
Three steps, and they have names worth learning: match, map, mine.
Match. Pair each code with its word, using repeated letters first and word length second.
Map. Write out which number stands for which letter, building the list as you go.
Mine. Use the map to answer the question — coding the fourth word, or decoding the code you have been given.
Can you show me a worked example?
Where do pupils lose marks?
Assuming the codes are in order. They are not, and a child who assumes it will produce a perfectly consistent wrong answer.
Building the map from a guessed match. If the match is wrong the map is wrong, and every answer drawn from it is wrong too. The map should be checked against a second word before it is used.
Not noticing a contradiction. One number standing for two different letters means something earlier is wrong. That is useful information and children tend to push past it.
Try it yourself
Work through match, map, mine in that order. Write your letter-to-number map out as you build it.
- The words SEED, TENT and NEST have the codes 5214, 1223 and 4254 in some order. Which code belongs to SEED?
- Using the pattern of repeated letters alone, which of BOOK, LAMP and TREE matches the code 7887?
- If T is 1, E is 2, N is 3 and S is 4, what is the code for NEST?
- Why is a word with no repeated letters harder to match than one with a repeat?
- 1223. SEED repeats its second and third letters, and 1223 repeats its second and third digits. TENT repeats its first and last, which matches 4254. NEST has no repeat at all and takes 5214 by elimination.
- BOOK. The code 7887 has its repeat in the middle two positions and its first and last digits different, which is the shape of B-O-O-K. TREE repeats at the end, and LAMP has no repeat at all.
- 3241. N is 3, E is 2, S is 4, T is 1.
- Because a repeat gives you a pattern that can be seen at a glance, and a word without one gives you only its length. Words with no repeated letters are usually matched last, by elimination, once everything else has been placed.
How much practice does this type need at home?
This is one of the slower types to become comfortable with, so give it three or four weeks rather than two, in short sessions.
The most useful home exercise is making them rather than solving them. Ask your child to invent a code for a word, write out the map, and then code a second word for you to decode. Building one teaches the consistency rule — the same letter always gets the same number — far faster than solving a dozen.
Free: a Verbal Reasoning workbook
Questions across the Verbal Reasoning question types, with the method printed at the top and full answers at the back. One workbook for the whole strand, not a sheet per question type.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are there four words but only three codes?
Because the fourth word is the one your child is being asked about. The question typically gives three coded words to establish the letter-to-number map, then asks for the code of the fourth — or gives a code and asks which word it makes. The missing code is the question, not an oversight.
How does my child know which code goes with which word?
Repeated letters first. If a word has the same letter twice, its code has the same number twice, in the same positions. That is usually enough to place one or two codes immediately. Then length: a five-letter word cannot have a four-digit code. Anything still unplaced goes by elimination.
What if none of the words has a repeated letter?
Then the matching has to come from the map itself. Take a code and a word that could go together, build the letter-to-number pairs they imply, and test those pairs against the other words and codes. A wrong pairing produces a contradiction quickly — the same number standing for two different letters — and then you try the next combination. It is slower, and it is reliable.
Does the same letter always get the same number?
Yes, within a question. That consistency is what makes the whole method work: it is why a contradiction proves a pairing wrong, and why a map built from three words can code a fourth. If your child ever finds one number standing for two letters, they have made an error somewhere earlier.
Sources
- GL Assessment — 11+ familiarisation materials and question type descriptions Published 2025.
- Clever Clogs Academy — our own Year 4 and Year 5 lesson records, Winslow Published September 2025 to July 2026.
We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to GL Assessment or Buckinghamshire Council. Test arrangements change; always check the council's own pages for the current year's dates.
We Teach This Method Every Week in Winslow
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