I am struggling with 5 questions on here and would be grateful if someone could offer some help before I pull all my hair out!!

The questions are :

a) section 2 question 9

b) Section 3 , question 10

c) Section 3, question 11

d) Section 5, question 11

e) Section 5, question 12

Thanks for any help.

a) section 2 question 9
top shape goes to bottom
bottom shape goes to top, does a flip about the horizontal and inverts shading

b) Section 3 , question 10
Ok, not sure how I'm going to explain this in words but here goes...

The little triangle is moving 90 degrees anticlockwise around the circle each step so it will be in the bottom left corner facing up. This leaves a,b and e. The inside black 'bow tie' is flipping 90 degrees each step. So, it will be vertical in the answer. That leaves a and b. The big black shaded segment is moving anti-clockwise around the circle and the lined segment always stays where it is. This leaves only a. Hope that makes sense.

c) Section 3, question 11
This one is weird but...

Wherever the circles overlap each other, the shading goes to black. Imagine the top circle stays in the same place each time. The other circle is moving clockwise from bottom right around the square. The reason the middle block is black is because the two circles completely overlap at that point (like an eclipse). The next position after they overlap completely would be to the right of the top circle making the answer c.

d) Section 5, question 11
No idea - i was looking at that one yesterday and wondering how it was done. All I came up with was...

Can't be b because it has 5 sides not 4. They both have a horizontal bottoms which leaves c & d. It can't be c because the shading is parallel to the dividing line. That only leaves d. Not sure if this is the official method but that's what I came up with.

e) Section 5, question 12

The only things the first two have in common are the white circle and 4 lines. This only leaves c as the option.


Hope this helps.

Thanks for this admin...
However section 3, q9 : I understand that the shading flips. However, the answer has two black triangles. How does the 2nd black triangle materialise in the answer?? In the example, the shading flips. There are already two black triangles. I can't understand why the answer should have two black triangles!

Sorry - ignore me.....just understood.....I was looking at it the wrong way....the shading flips.....meaning that the previously white ones become black and the previous black ones become white. I was looking at it in different way. I looked at it 'as the black and white triangles swopping positions'. Thanks for the explanation.

I have been using the NFER Nelson papers for about 12 years
and I now never use Paper 11A first because in my view it's the most difficult of the 4. I start with 11B and 11C, then do 11A and finish with 11 D to restore morale!

Re: Section 5 question 11 - I always suggest that pupils tackling this type of question ask themselves first, 'What do the two figures on the right have in common'. Here the answer is that they are both rectangles, with a diagonal running from the top left to the bottom righthand corner. This rules out b, which is a pentagon, e, which doesn't have a diagonal, and c, which is a square. That leaves a and d, and a, as noted below, doesn't have a top and bottom that are horizontal, which the two figures on the left do, but d does, so the answer has to be d.

Re: Section 5, question 12. I think this is ambiguous. Most pupils quickly eliminate options a, d and e, but go for b because it has different symbols above and below the central lines, whereas the compiler of the paper obviously thinks the answer should be c because what the two figures in the column on the left have in common is that they both have a white circle... which b doesn't.

Still on NFER Nelson (now actually called something else and published by Letts, I think) and that notorious 11A paper, the question that has foxed me for years and no one has ever been able to give me a satisfactory answer, is Section 1, question 4, where the answer is c. It's a perfectly logical answer, in one way, but I don't see how you can be expected to work that out from the other squares given....