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Puzzles & Problem-Solving and Creative Comprehension – What are they testing?

 

Many schools are now including one or both of these new tests in their entrance exams. Both tests are designed to test a child's critical thinking skills rather than assessing learned knowledge. The tests assess how a child works through a problem, their ability to adapt their strategy and persevere with challenging problems.

Puzzles & Problem-Solving
This section tests the child's ability to use maths and logical reasoning to solve multi-step problems. Questions will encourage children to think about a scenario and apply mathematical techniques to solve a problem.

  • Questions may include:
  • Problems which require trial and error e.g. combinations and permutations.
  • Number problems which require logical thinking e.g. number squares.
  • Sequences and patterns e.g. finding missing digits in arithmetical calculations.

Try a Puzzles & Problem-Solving demo test here.

Creative Comprehension
Some admissions exams may refer to the Creative Comprehension element as the Analysis component. This section tests the child's ability to extract information from a variety of different sources to answer questions. The information is provided in a range of different formats, and the child may have to look at several different sources simultaneously to answer questions. Sources may include written text, graphs, maps with grid references, and tables, all centred around a theme. This section is likely to be the least familiar to children. The test is designed to assess how a child accesses their reading, reasoning and creative thinking skills to process information.

Try a Creative Comprehension demo test here.

Tips to prepapre for these tests

Tests in traditional academic subjects such as maths and English assess learned information. These new Puzzles & Problem-Solving and Creative Comprehension tests assess a child's ability to use logic and combine multiple skills to solve problems.

The activities listed will help children to develop a broad range of skills that will assist them during these new tests and in everyday life.

  1. Play word games such as Scrabble, Bananagrams and Wordle. These games help practice vocabulary and spelling.
  2. Play logic and strategy games such as Labyrinth, Cluedo, Chess and Connect 4. These games help build strategic thinking and forward planning.
  3. Play group puzzles such as escape rooms and Mystery Guides.
  4. Manual activities such as doing jigsaw puzzles, tangrams or building LEGO structures.
  5. Reading helps build a child's vocabulary. Encourage reading a wide variety of texts e.g. children's fiction books and poetry, non-fiction in a field of interest such as sport or hobbies, and news articles. Reading doesn't just have to be a sedentary activity at home or in school, incorporate reading when out and about e.g. look out for Historic England Blue Plaques, read menus and timetables.
  6. Writing for fun helps build creativity and original thinking. Write short stories or a journal, re-write the ending to a favourite book.
  7. Everyday maths such as calulating journey times - what time should you depart to arrive at an appointment on time, and monetary calculations while shopping are great for building numerical skills and applying mathematical skills to real situations. Learning how to apply numeracy skills to everyday tasks helps build mathematical confidence in children and develops estimating and reasoning skills.
  8. Visit a museum or gallery to start conversations about history, lifestyles, and objects helping to build observation and comparison skills. E.g. compare the styles of two different artists, observe details on carved artefacts, interpret and imagine what an object was used for or how it was created.

Many children will already participate in some of these activities and will have some of the skills and techniques required for these tests. Introducing new games and activities will broaden a child's skill set. Activities needn't be too time consuming, a little and often if the key. E.g. 20 minutes a week of a manual activity such as Lego play, once a week play a word game such as Bananagrams, and a monthly museum visit where journey times are calculated will cover many of the desired skills.

You can try some demo tests here. to see some of the types of question that may be seen in Puzzles & Problem-Solving and Creative Comprehension tests.

 

Last review: October 2025