How the Woordrelaties test works
Each item shows four words. Two of them belong together, either because they mean roughly the same or because they mean the opposite, and you are not told which. You tick that pair.
This is the one NOA subtest that tests word knowledge directly, so the test language matters most here. If your test is set in Dutch, the words are Dutch. NOA also offers it in English, German, French and Spanish, and the organisation that invites you sets the language.
On harder items the other words look or sound like the right ones, and some near-opposites are not true opposites. Woordrelaties is in the MCT-M, the MCT-H and the adaptive MCT-A.
How to find the pair
Twelve seconds leaves room for one quick pass:
- Look for an opposite first. Pairs like early and late jump out faster than synonyms.
- Then test whether any two words could swap places in a sentence without changing its meaning.
- If one word is new to you, ask which two of the other three could pair up. If none can, the unknown word is in the pair.
- Judge meaning, not spelling. Words that start the same way are a common decoy.
Worked example
First: ancient, rapid, modern, narrow. Nothing here means the same, but ancient and modern are opposites. Tick those two.
Second: conceal, borrow, hide, follow. Conceal and hide mean the same. Borrow and follow share an ending but not a meaning. Tick conceal and hide.
Tips for the real Woordrelaties test
- Forty-five items in nine minutes is the fastest reading pace in the battery. Do not linger.
- If the test is in Dutch and Dutch is not your first language, read widely in Dutch in the weeks before. This subtest rewards vocabulary more than any other.
- Skip an item you are stuck on. A blank costs no more than a wrong answer.
- Ask whether you can take the test in a language you read more easily. The organisation decides.
Practise Woordrelaties on CogniPrep
Our Word Relations game gives you 45 items on a 9-minute clock. Tick two of four words and press Next. The words are English, so it trains the format and the pace rather than Dutch vocabulary. An item scores only when both ticks are right. You get your number right and a Lager, Midden or Hoger band against CogniPrep users.