Eleven Plus Reasoning

We all know story of the chicken and the egg. Your bright Eleven Plus child probably asked you to explain the chicken and the egg story at least ten times before he or she was three. An off shoot of the tale was probably: “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

This would no doubt have led to the old story about Nasrudin. He was sitting beside the road side watching chickens feeding furiously. A canal ran beside the road. A child, who was guarding the chickens, shouted to him from the opposite side of the canal: “How do I get to the other side?”

Nasrudin yelled back: “You are on the other side!”

This would lead another member of the family to come up with the story about Nasrudin who was looking for his house keys under a street light.

Two friends came on their home and asked him: “Where did you actually lose the keys?”
Nasrudin pointed an area some distance away where it was dark.

One of his friends said: “Why are you looking under the light? The keys are not here.”
Nasrudin replied: “Because it is much easier to see under the light.”

This story could lead in turn to the well known, but possibly apocryphal, Eleven Plus tale.

Nasrudin was sitting with some parents at the school end of year party. He was reading through a verbal reasoning book.

One of the parents asked him: “Nasrudin. Why are you reading through a verbal reasoning book at a party?”

“Because reasoning can be taught,” replied Nasrudin.

Almost everyone would agree that it is very difficult to teach the act of reasoning. It is, however, possible to teach the technique of answering different types of reasoning question.