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The Henrietta Barnett School in Hampstead Garden Suburb is consistently named the top state school in the country. It runs an admission number of 120 girls a year, and takes around 3,000 applications each cycle to fill those places. Just 3.84% of applicants receive an offer — roughly 1 in 26.

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What makes HBS unusual is the structure of its entrance test. Almost no other London grammar uses the format. There are two separate rounds, written by two different organisations, sat roughly a month apart. Round 1 alone eliminates around 90% of applicants. Round 2 is a different exam altogether, with no commercially available past papers, and it ranks the surviving 300 candidates against each other for the final 120 places.

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Let's take a closer look at what the exam involves.

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Overview

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Round 1 is produced by GL Assessment and consists of three short multiple choice papers — Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning, and English. They are sat in a single morning or afternoon session at the school in early September.

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Round 2 is produced by the school itself and is sat in early October, by invitation only. It consists of two papers — English and Mathematics — and the format bears no resemblance to Round 1. Round 2 English is open response, written by hand. Round 2 Mathematics combines short-answer and multiple choice sections, with negative marking on the multiple choice — pupils lose marks for wrong answers.

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While Round 1 uses the GL Assessment format, make no mistake — the HBS papers are pitched well above a standard GL 11 Plus. Round 1 selects the top 300 candidates from a field of 3,000, so the difficulty curve is calibrated accordingly. Pupils who score 90%+ on standard GL practice books often find the real Round 1 unforgiving. Generic GL preparation alone is not recommended.

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Round 1

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Round 1 consists of three multiple choice papers, all answered on separate GL-style answer sheets and computer marked. The three papers are sat back to back in a single session.

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Verbal Reasoning
A multiple choice paper covering the full GL VR rotation — codes, word manipulation, analogies, antonyms and synonyms, sequence completion and more. The paper rewards a confident, decisive reader who recognises question types quickly. Verbal Reasoning is widely regarded as the most demanding of the three Round 1 papers.

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Non-Verbal Reasoning
A multiple choice paper covering analogies, sequences, odd-one-out, matrices and rotating advanced types. Pupils need to spot patterns under significant time pressure — often with little more than 30 seconds per question.

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English
A multiple choice paper combining reading comprehension with technical English (vocabulary, grammar, language use). Passages may be drawn from older or unfamiliar prose, so familiarity with a wide reading range is helpful.

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The three Round 1 scores are standardised, combined and ranked. Only the top 300 candidates progress to Round 2. The cut-off is sharp: a tied score at the boundary means everyone tied is invited through.

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Make sure to use the multiple choice answer sheet when practising — our Round 1 answer sheets replicate the format used in the real exam.

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Round 2 English

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Round 2 English is not multiple choice. Pupils write their answers by hand on the answer paper provided.

 

The paper typically contains:

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• A literary comprehension passage (around 600 words, drawn from published prose or poetry)

• Two extended comprehension questions worth around 10 marks each, demanding written answers with reference to the passage

• One creative writing task worth around 30 marks — continuation, descriptive, diary entry, letter, or stimulus-based narrative — usually with two or three bullet-point reminders

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The mark scheme is partly points-based (for the comprehension questions) and partly banded (for the creative writing). There are no quick wins, and there is no way to game the format. A child who has only practised multiple choice GL papers is unprepared for the writing demand of Round 2 English.

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Round 2 Mathematics

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Round 2 Mathematics is the most distinctive of the papers. It runs to 60 minutes and is structured in two parts:

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• Part A — short answer. Pupils show their working and write their own answers. Working is often credited even when the final answer is wrong.

• Part B — multiple choice with negative marking. Pupils lose marks for wrong answers, so guessing is actively penalised. This is rare in any 11 Plus context and changes how pupils need to approach the paper — speed alone is not enough, and confident guessing carries real cost.

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All content sits within the KS2 curriculum, but the paper pushes to the very top of what Year 5 and 6 pupils are expected to know. Topics include fractions, decimals and percentages; ratio and proportion; perimeter, area and volume; angles; coordinates and transformations; data handling (bar charts, pie charts, line graphs and tables); sequences; and multi-step word problems.

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Many questions include diagrams and the pace is brisk — around 50 questions across the two parts in 60 minutes. Children who can recognise a question type quickly, choose the right method, and judge when to attempt and when to skip will do best. Our papers are designed to build exactly this kind of discipline.

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Want to dig a little deeper?

Click below to read our in-depth article on HBS, its founder, history and reputation.

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