Kent Test cheat sheet

Apostrophes mark omission (it's = it is) or possession (the girl's book, the girls' books); a plural noun ending in s takes the apostrophe after the s.

A simple sentence has one clause; a compound sentence joins two main clauses with a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so); a complex sentence contains a subordinate clause.

A subordinate clause is introduced by a subordinating conjunction such as because, although, when, if or while, and cannot stand alone as a complete sentence.

Commas separate items in a list, mark off fronted adverbials and parenthesis, and separate clauses; joining two main clauses with only a comma is a comma splice and is wrong.

Direct speech takes inverted commas around the spoken words, a capital letter to open the speech, and the closing punctuation inside the inverted commas.

Homophones to check: their/there/they're, your/you're, its/it's, practice (noun) versus practise (verb), affect (verb) versus effect (noun).

In comprehension, retrieval answers are stated in the text, whereas inference answers are deduced from clues; both must be supported by evidence from the passage.

Word classes are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction and determiner; adverbs often end in -ly and modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.

Order of operations: brackets, then indices, then division and multiplication left to right, then addition and subtraction left to right.

Fractions: to add or subtract use a common denominator; to multiply multiply numerators and denominators; to divide multiply by the reciprocal.

Percentage change = (change ÷ original amount) × 100; to find a percentage of an amount, convert the percentage to a decimal and multiply.

To share an amount in the ratio a : b, divide the amount by (a + b) and multiply the result by each part.

Area: rectangle = length × width; triangle = ½ × base × perpendicular height; parallelogram = base × height; volume of a cuboid = length × width × height.

Angle facts: angles on a straight line total 180°, angles around a point total 360°, angles in a triangle total 180°, angles in a quadrilateral total 360°.

Speed = distance ÷ time, distance = speed × time, time = distance ÷ speed; keep all units consistent before calculating.

Mean = total of the values ÷ number of values; the nth term of a linear sequence with common difference d is dn + c, where c is found by testing the first term.

Unit conversions: 1 km = 1000 m, 1 m = 100 cm, 1 kg = 1000 g, 1 litre = 1000 ml, 1 hour = 60 minutes, 1 minute = 60 seconds.

Letter positions run A = 1 to Z = 26; a shift of +3 turns A into D and wraps X round to A.

Atbash or mirror code: each letter is replaced by the letter whose position is 27 minus its own, so A ↔ Z, B ↔ Y, C ↔ X.

In letter series, write out alphabet positions and find the differences; look for constant, increasing, alternating or repeating gap patterns.

In letter codes, test one letter at a time and identify whether the rule is a shift, a reversal or a position swap before applying it to the new word.

Odd one out: name a single property shared by three options (category, word class, letter count, meaning); the option lacking it is the answer.

Analogies: identify the link (synonym, antonym, part–whole, object–function, degree) and apply exactly the same link to the second pair.

Hidden words can run across word boundaries, so scan the letters continuously and ignore the spaces between words.

Number codes: convert letters to positions and look for arithmetic links such as sums, differences or doubling between a word and its number.

Change one attribute at a time: shape type, size, shading, number of elements, orientation and position.

Rotation preserves a shape's handedness; reflection reverses it, so a reflected shape can never be rotated back to match the original.

Count sides, corners, straight lines, curves and intersections; these counts often form an arithmetic sequence along a series.

Position rules commonly cycle clockwise around corners, alternate between two places, or shift one step per figure.

Shading usually alternates, moves one element along, or transfers from one shape to another at each step.

In odd-one-out items, check symmetry, number of lines, curvature, open versus closed figures and shading before choosing.

In matrices, find the rule across each row and down each column; the missing figure must satisfy both directions.

A quarter turn of 90° makes a horizontal arrow vertical, a half turn of 180° reverses its direction, and four quarter turns return it to the start.

In a cube net, two faces separated by exactly one face in a straight line end up opposite each other, and opposite faces are never adjacent on the cube.

A cube has 11 distinct nets; any arrangement of six squares that folds into a cube is one of these 11.

Euler's formula for a convex solid is V − E + F = 2, so a cube has 8 vertices, 12 edges and 6 faces.

Paper folding: every fold line acts as a mirror, so unfold one fold at a time and reflect each hole across that line.

Reflecting in a diagonal mirror line swaps row and column coordinates, so a point at (x, y) moves to (y, x).

Front, side and top views show the outline seen from each direction; blocks hidden behind others still appear in the top view.

Rotating a solid preserves its handedness, so a mirror-image solid cannot be produced by rotation alone.

A cube cut into n × n × n small cubes has 8 corner cubes with 3 painted faces, 12(n − 2) edge cubes with 2 painted faces and 6(n − 2)² face cubes with 1 painted face.