LEARNING CENTER

1NT. I included choices other than 1 or 1NT, but REALLY hope no one chose those. I also really hope no one chose 1. What do you do if partner bids 1NT next? The auction could get ugly fast. 1NT describes your strength and shape. Having a five-card major is fine, as is having a small doubleton. 

1NT. You have a balanced 12-14 points. You can't show hearts as that would be a reverse (Don't say "I don't play that", read my article on reverses to see why this is part of bidding). I could live with 2 if you twisted my arm, but raising partner's suit with only three small is going to lead to a disappointed partner a lot of the time. 1NT is the "normal" call. 

4. I thought about making all of the answers notrump, just to get people to bid it more, but this is a situation where people erroneously bid 2NT instead of showing the fit. Partner has four or more spades and you have four spades. If you don't tell partner about your fit, he may never find out. Jumping to 4 is a strong bid by the OPENER, showing 19-21ish points. 

1NT. Don't bother raising clubs, you want to play in notrump, and you have the suit stopped twice. Don't worry about hearts--that's not the suit they bid. 

Pass. You could think about 2NT if the vulnerability were different (vulnerable against not), but here it feels like the opponents are in trouble. You hope partner will balance with a takeout double since partner has at most two diamonds and you can pass to defend against 2x. 

3NT. Sure, you don't love bidding notrump with a singleton and a small doubleton, but you have 9 tricks if they lead a spade. You can make 3NT with partner having just enough to stop the opponents from running both clubs and hearts (QJx in both suits would be excellent for 3NT and death in 5). You could double and bid diamonds, but partner is a passed hand and slam is unlikely. 

3. You aren't control-bidding here, but showing a concentration of values ("cards") in that suit. You don't want to bid 3NT with two little diamonds here, because that is a likely lead as you've bid two of the other suits. You also don't want to play in 5 unless you have to. Partner will now bid 3NT with something like:

 76  
 KQ762  
 KQJ  
 J92.