Verbal Reasoning and Language Comprehension
What is actually tested
Verbal reasoning measures whether you can read a short passage and judge what it does and does not support. Typical formats are true/false/cannot-say, best-inference, main-point, author's-tone, and "the word X in line 3 most nearly means". The skill is disciplined reading: locating the relevant sentence and testing each option against it.
The recurring traps
The largest trap is importing outside knowledge. If you happen to know that a claim is true in the real world, that is irrelevant unless the passage states or implies it. The second is the absolute word - "always", "never", "only", "all" - which usually makes a true-looking option false. The third is scope drift: an option that is true of a related topic but not of what the passage says. The fourth is mistaking cannot-say for false. False means the passage contradicts the option; cannot-say means the passage simply does not address it. The fifth is the near-synonym in a vocabulary item that shifts the meaning subtly - "reluctant" is not "unwilling" in every context.
Worked example
Passage: "Most of the committee supported the proposal, though two members argued that the costing had been rushed." Option: "The committee rejected the proposal." This is false, not cannot-say - "most supported" directly contradicts rejection. Option: "The costing was inaccurate." This is cannot-say: two members claimed it was rushed, but the passage never asserts inaccuracy.
Rule of thumb
For every option, put your finger on the exact words in the passage that prove it. If you cannot point to them, the answer is cannot-say, however reasonable the option feels.