Vocabulary and Word Skills Set 7
Vocabulary and Word Skills Set 7 covers idioms, fixed phrases whose overall meaning cannot be worked out from the individual words alone, such as "a piece of cake" or "bite the bullet", which appear regularly in 11+ vocabulary and comprehension questions. Unlike the word-building skills in earlier sets, idioms usually have to be learned as whole phrases, though context can often narrow down a sensible meaning even for an idiom a pupil has not met before.
Before you start
Make sure you're comfortable with these topics first:
Method
- Recognise that an idiom's meaning is usually figurative, not literal, so the individual words should not be translated one by one.
- Build a bank of common idioms grouped by rough topic: difficulty, such as "a piece of cake"; secrecy, such as "let the cat out of the bag"; and effort, such as "burn the midnight oil", rather than learning them in a random order.
- When you meet an unfamiliar idiom, use the surrounding sentence to work out roughly what feeling or situation it must describe, even without knowing the exact phrase.
- Check whether the idiom is being used to describe a person, an action or a situation, since this narrows down what kind of meaning to look for.
- Avoid literal illustrations or explanations in your own writing; an idiom should be used to convey its figurative meaning naturally, not explained afterwards.
- Practise rephrasing an idiom in plain, literal words, since 11+ questions often ask for exactly this: "explain what is meant by...".
Worked example
Explain what is meant by the underlined idiom in this sentence: "Once she found out the surprise party had been cancelled, Freya decided to let the cat out of the bag and tell her brother everything."
- Note that the idiom "let the cat out of the bag" cannot be about an actual cat, since the sentence is about a surprise party and telling someone something.
- Use the context: "tell her brother everything" strongly suggests the idiom relates to revealing information that was meant to be kept secret.
- Recall or infer that "letting the cat out of the bag" figuratively means revealing a secret, often accidentally or before it was meant to be revealed.
- Check the meaning fits the whole sentence: Freya reveals the secret about the cancelled party to her brother, matching this figurative meaning.
- Final answer: "let the cat out of the bag" means to reveal a secret, here Freya telling her brother about the cancelled surprise party.
Practice questions
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Q1Explain what is meant by the idiom "a piece of cake" in the sentence: "After weeks of practice, the spelling test felt like a piece of cake."Show answer
Answer: It means the test felt very easy.
Q2Explain what is meant by the idiom "burn the midnight oil" in the sentence: "The whole team had to burn the midnight oil to finish the project before the deadline."Show answer
Answer: It means working late into the night, putting in extra hard effort.
Q3Explain what is meant by the idiom "bite the bullet" in the sentence: "Tom finally decided to bite the bullet and tell his coach he wanted to quit the team."Show answer
Answer: It means to face a difficult or unpleasant situation bravely, doing something unavoidable even though it is hard.
Q4An idiom you have not seen before, "jump on the bandwagon", appears in this sentence: "Once one shop started selling the toy, every other shop jumped on the bandwagon." Using context alone, suggest a sensible meaning.Show answer
Answer: Something like "started doing the same thing because it had become popular or successful elsewhere" (accept any reasonable inference matching the idea of following a trend).
Q5Rephrase the idiom "under the weather" in plain words, as used in: "Maya stayed home from school because she was feeling a little under the weather."Show answer
Answer: Feeling slightly unwell.
Q6Explain why translating an idiom's individual words literally usually leads to a wrong or confusing meaning, using "raining cats and dogs" as your example.Show answer
Answer: Because idioms have a fixed, figurative meaning as a whole phrase, raining very heavily, that has nothing to do with the literal meanings of "cats" and "dogs" falling from the sky; reading the words individually gives a meaningless or absurd literal image instead of the intended sense.
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a 11+ exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
Read the sentence: "When the coach announced the final team, Leo was over the moon, but his friend Ryan, who had missed out, felt like he had been left out in the cold." Explain what each underlined idiom means, and explain how the two idioms show a contrast between Leo's and Ryan's feelings. (4 marks)
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Explain one strategy a pupil can use to work out the approximate meaning of an idiom they have never encountered before, using an example to support your explanation. (3 marks)
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Free printable worksheet
Want more practice on paper? Download the vocabulary and word skills set 7 worksheet pack - 13 pages of exam-style questions with a full mark scheme. One email opens every download in this browser for 14 days - no account, no card. Print it for personal and classroom use.
This topic is chapter 30 of 11+ English Workbook 3, the whole course as one free printable PDF.
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