If your child sits an 11+ paper this autumn, they will see number sequence questions. Probably ten or more across the maths and verbal reasoning papers combined. They're a strange beast, because the maths inside them is usually easy. The hard bit is spotting the pattern in the first place.
Most parents I talk to think of sequences as the easy questions. Add a couple, double the last number, done. Then they look at their child's mock paper and find them stuck on something like 2, 5, 11, 23 and going round in circles for two minutes.
Two minutes on one question, in a paper that gives you about 45 seconds per question, is a disaster. So how do you fix it?
What number sequences look like on the 11 plus
You'll see number sequences in two places. They show up in the maths paper as a "find the next number" or "find the missing number" question. They also show up dressed up differently in the verbal reasoning paper, sometimes called number series or hidden inside word puzzles.
GL Assessment papers, which run in Kent, Buckinghamshire, Birmingham and parts of Berkshire, include number sequences in the verbal reasoning paper specifically. If your child's sitting Kent or Bucks, expect four to eight of these in a 50-question section.
CEM papers used to mix sequences across maths and reasoning more loosely. Most of the schools that ran CEM have moved to bespoke or GL formats now, but the question style has carried over. For independent schools and London super-selectives like Tiffin or Henrietta Barnett, you'll see harder sequences with two-step rules or hidden patterns.
The five sequence types that show up most often
There are really only a handful of pattern types worth knowing. Once your child can recognise them on sight, the actual maths takes seconds.
The first is the simple arithmetic sequence. Add a fixed amount each time. So 4, 7, 10, 13 adds three each time. Most Year 5s spot these without trying. The trap is when the gap is something awkward like 1.5 or a fraction, which throws children who default to whole numbers.
The second is the geometric sequence. Multiply or divide by a fixed amount. 3, 6, 12, 24 doubles each time. 81, 27, 9, 3 divides by three. These are common but children sometimes confuse them with arithmetic and try to add a constant when the gap is actually growing.
The third is the difference-of-differences sequence. The gap between numbers itself follows a pattern. Look at 2, 5, 10, 17, 26. The differences are 3, 5, 7, 9, which go up by two each time. This is the type that wastes the most time when a child tries to find a single rule and can't.
The fourth is the alternating sequence. Two patterns interleaved. So 1, 10, 2, 20, 3, 30 has odd positions counting up by one and even positions multiplying by ten. Children either spot this in five seconds or they don't spot it at all.
The fifth is the special-numbers sequence. Square numbers (1, 4, 9, 16, 25), cube numbers (1, 8, 27, 64), prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13), and Fibonacci-style sequences where each term is the sum of the previous two (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8). If your child doesn't know these on sight, they'll waste minutes on a question that should take ten seconds.
The "what's the gap" technique
There's one technique that solves about 80% of sequence questions on the 11+. Write the differences between consecutive numbers underneath each pair.
Take 4, 9, 16, 25. Underneath, write 5, 7, 9. Those differences are odd numbers going up by two. So the next gap is 11, and the next number is 36. Done in fifteen seconds.
Try it on 2, 5, 11, 23, 47. The differences are 3, 6, 12, 24. That's doubling. Next gap is 48, next number is 95.
This "differences underneath" method is the most useful single tool for sequence work on the 11+. Get your child doing it automatically on every sequence question, and they'll cut their time per question in half.
If the differences don't reveal a pattern, look at ratios instead. Divide each term by the one before it. If the ratio is constant, it's a geometric sequence. If neither differences nor ratios work, it's probably an alternating pattern or a special-numbers sequence. Test those last because they're rarer.
Why timed practice matters more than worksheets
Here's an opinion that won't surprise you: most parents drill sequences with worksheets and the stopwatch off. That's a mistake.
A child who can solve every sequence on a Bond paper given five minutes per question is not the same child who needs to solve them in 45 seconds in a real paper. Pattern-spotting is faster when you're under pressure, weirdly. The brain commits to a guess and tests it. Without pressure, children stare at the page and overthink.
Try this. Give your child six sequence questions. Set a timer for four minutes. Don't help during the four minutes. After the timer goes, mark them together and talk through the ones they got wrong. Then do six more the next day. After two weeks, the speed gain will surprise you.
This is the same logic that applies to any timed practice, and it's why I keep banging on about timing in our blog posts. The 11+ isn't a maths test. It's a maths-under-pressure test.
Common mistakes when checking your child's work
When you mark a sequence question wrong, look at what your child wrote down before the answer. Did they write the differences? Did they show any working at all?
A child who guesses sequences without writing the gaps is going to be unreliable. Even on questions they can do, they'll get one in five wrong because they didn't double-check. Make writing the gaps a habit, even when the answer feels obvious.
Watch out for off-by-one errors too. A child sees 2, 4, 8, 16 and writes 30 because they added 16 instead of doubling. Or 3, 6, 12 and writes 18 because they added six. These come from not checking whether the rule is plus or times. The fix is asking your child to verbalise the rule before writing the answer. Saying "each one is double the last" out loud forces them to confirm the rule.
How ReadyFor11 tests sequence work
Number sequences appear inside both the maths and verbal reasoning sections of our free benchmark. The results page breaks them out so you can see whether your child's sequence-spotting is keeping up with their general number work or lagging behind it.
That diagnostic split matters. A child who scores well on number but weakly on sequences has a clear gap to close, and you don't need to spend money on a tutor to fix it. A few weeks of timed sequence practice from a Bond paper will do the job.
If you want a free read on where your child stands, take 30 minutes at readyfor11.co.uk. No paywall, no email gate, just an honest score across the four 11+ skill areas.
FAQs
How many number sequence questions are on the 11 plus?
It depends on the paper. A GL Assessment verbal reasoning paper for Kent or Buckinghamshire usually has between four and eight number series questions out of about 50. The maths paper tends to add another two or three with sequence patterns inside word problems. Expect a total of six to eleven across both papers. That's roughly ten percent of the marks, which is too much to give away if your child finds them tricky.
What's the hardest type of sequence question?
The one most children miss is the difference-of-differences pattern, where the gaps themselves are growing. Square numbers will catch out any child who hasn't memorised them. The other tricky type is the alternating sequence with two different rules, because children try to find one rule and don't notice they should be looking at every other number instead.
Should we use Bond books or free papers for sequence practice?
Bond Maths and Bond Verbal Reasoning both have plenty of sequence work, and the difficulty ramps up sensibly. Free past papers from CGP or grammar school websites are fine too. What matters is volume and timing, not which book is on the table. If you've already got a Bond at home, use it. Don't go shopping.
My child can do sequences slowly but freezes when timed. What do we do?
This is the most common pattern I see. The fix is short, daily, timed practice with low stakes. Six sequence questions, four minutes, no help, mark together. Do that for a fortnight. Speed comes from repetition under pressure, not from understanding more theory. The theory is already in their head. They just need to trust it under the clock.