I85PREP
⌘ K
UCAT ANZ study materials
UCAT ANZ study resources

UCAT ANZ practice questions

One question at a time. Build your UCAT ANZ understanding.

First 50 of 200 questions. Each one lists the choices, the correct answer, and an explanation. The checker at the top of this page saves progress in this browser when it is available.

Continue in the practice tool above to load more questions, 50 at a time.

Question 1Verbal Reasoning

The Mary Rose, a warship of Henry VIII's navy, sank in the Solent in 1545 and was raised in 1982. Its timbers are now sprayed with polyethylene glycol, a waxy polymer that displaces the water held in the wood and hardens within it, so that the cells do not shrink and crumble as they dry. According to the passage, why are the timbers sprayed with polyethylene glycol?

  1. To restore the ship's original paintwork
  2. To make the timber waterproof on deck
  3. To stop the wood collapsing as it dries Correct answer.
  4. To kill any remaining marine organisms

Explanation

The passage states that the polymer drives out water so that the wood cells do not shrink and crumble as they dry, making structural support its stated purpose. No other effect is attributed to the treatment.

Question 2Verbal Reasoning

The council's response to the flooding was described by residents as tardy: sandbags arrived three days after the river burst its banks. In this context, 'tardy' most nearly means:

  1. Brief
  2. Confused
  3. Costly
  4. Late Correct answer.

Explanation

The colon introduces an explanation of the word, namely that the sandbags came three days after the flood. That delay fixes 'tardy' as meaning slow or late.

Question 3Verbal Reasoning

For decades, urban planners treated street trees as decoration, the first item cut when budgets tightened. Recent studies show that a mature canopy can lower surface temperatures by several degrees, absorb storm-water runoff and reduce childhood asthma rates. Some cities now budget for trees as infrastructure rather than ornament. Which statement best expresses the main idea?

  1. Planners have always seen trees as infrastructure
  2. Cities now fund street trees for their measured benefits Correct answer.
  3. Street trees are too costly for most city budgets
  4. Childhood asthma is rising in urban areas

Explanation

The passage traces a shift from trees as ornament to trees as funded infrastructure, justified by measurable effects. The contrast between what happened 'for decades' and what happens 'now' carries the main point.

Question 4Verbal Reasoning

A honeybee that has found food performs a figure-of-eight dance on the comb. The angle of the straight run relative to vertical encodes the direction of the food relative to the sun, while the duration of that run encodes the distance to the source. According to the passage, what does the duration of the straight run indicate?

  1. The quality of the food source
  2. The distance to the food source Correct answer.
  3. The direction of the food relative to the sun
  4. The number of foragers required

Explanation

The passage pairs duration with distance and angle with direction, so the length of the run signals how far away the food lies.

Question 5Verbal Reasoning

Buying a cheap umbrella every spring is a false economy. A well-made one costs four times as much but lasts a decade, while the flimsy kind is in a bin within weeks. The author's main purpose is to:

  1. Describe how umbrellas are manufactured
  2. Compare rainfall in different seasons
  3. Argue that landfill waste should be taxed
  4. Persuade readers to buy a durable umbrella Correct answer.

Explanation

The passage makes a cost-per-use comparison in order to recommend the dearer but longer-lasting purchase. The phrase 'false economy' signals a recommendation rather than mere description.

Question 6Verbal Reasoning

During the exam period the university library extended its opening hours to 10 pm. Book borrowing for the period was unchanged, but the number of students using the study desks more than doubled. Which conclusion is best supported?

  1. Exam results improved as a result
  2. The extra hours were used for study, not borrowing Correct answer.
  3. The library lost money by opening longer
  4. Students borrowed more books than usual

Explanation

Borrowing stayed flat while desk use doubled, so the additional hours were taken up by study rather than loans. The figures support a shift in how the library was used, not a change in outcomes.

Question 7Verbal Reasoning

The giant sequoia is not the tallest tree - that title belongs to the coast redwood - but it is the most massive, with the largest specimen estimated to hold over 1,200 cubic metres of wood. Which statement is supported by the passage?

  1. Coast redwoods are the most massive trees
  2. The two species grow to the same height
  3. The giant sequoia is bulkier than the coast redwood Correct answer.
  4. The giant sequoia is the tallest tree in the world

Explanation

The passage grants height to the redwood but assigns the greatest mass to the sequoia, so the sequoia is the bulkier of the two.

Question 8Verbal Reasoning

Two reviews of the same novel appeared in the same week. The first praised its 'ruthless economy of style'; the second complained of 'a prose so spare it seems starved'. The reviewers differ in that:

  1. They disagree about the novel's historical accuracy
  2. They disagree about the novel's plot
  3. They judge the same stylistic quality in opposite ways Correct answer.
  4. One of them read an unfinished draft

Explanation

Both reviewers describe the same sparse style; one treats it as disciplined economy, the other as emaciation. The disagreement is about evaluation, not about facts.

Question 9Verbal Reasoning

In the 1890s bicycle manufacturers did more for the mechanisation of personal transport than any carriage builder. Mass production of lightweight frames, ball bearings and pneumatic tyres gave two brothers in Ohio the components and the capital to attempt a flying machine. The passage implies that:

  1. The Wright brothers invented the bicycle
  2. Pneumatic tyres were designed for aircraft
  3. Cycle-makers supplied parts used in early flight Correct answer.
  4. Carriage builders made the first powered flight

Explanation

The passage links bicycle-era components and capital to the brothers' flying machine, implying a transfer from cycle manufacture to aviation.

Question 10Verbal Reasoning

Her biography of the chemist is scrupulous but oddly bloodless: every date is verified and every experiment reconstructed, yet the subject never quite comes alive. The reviewer's attitude to the book is best described as:

  1. Openly hostile to the book and its author
  2. Indifferent to the book's evident accuracy
  3. Admiring of accuracy, unhappy with the portrait Correct answer.
  4. Wholly admiring of both method and result

Explanation

The reviewer praises the checking of dates and experiments while faulting the portrayal as lifeless - admiration for the method combined with dissatisfaction at the result.

Question 11Verbal Reasoning

Ice cores drilled in Antarctica preserve bubbles of ancient air. The bubbles are sealed when snow compacts into ice, but the trapped gas can diffuse through the porous layer above the firn–ice boundary, so the air in a bubble is not exactly the age of the depth at which it is found. According to the passage, why do trapped bubbles not match their depth exactly?

  1. Pressure shrinks the bubbles over time
  2. The ice flows sideways as it forms
  3. Gas moves through porous firn before sealing Correct answer.
  4. Drilling contaminates the trapped air

Explanation

The passage attributes the mismatch to diffusion through the porous firn above the boundary before the bubbles close. That movement separates the age of the gas from the depth at which it is recovered.

Question 12Verbal Reasoning

Critics of daylight saving time often cite disrupted sleep. The evidence on energy is more equivocal: studies at different latitudes report savings between 0.5 per cent and nothing at all, and in some warm regions air-conditioning use rises. The main point of the passage is that:

  1. Warm regions should abandon air conditioning
  2. The energy case for daylight saving is weaker than assumed Correct answer.
  3. Daylight saving time always reduces energy use
  4. Sleep disruption is the only valid objection

Explanation

The passage concedes the sleep objection and then shows that expected energy savings range from small to non-existent, and sometimes reverse. That undermines the usual energy justification.

Question 13Verbal Reasoning

The village well was capped in 1952 when a piped supply was installed. Yet until the 1970s women continued to gather at the capped wellhead each morning, not to draw water but to exchange news. Which inference is best supported?

  1. Men were excluded from the piped supply
  2. The well was reopened in the 1970s
  3. The well had a social role beyond supplying water Correct answer.
  4. The piped supply was never used

Explanation

People kept returning to a well that no longer supplied water, in order to talk, which shows the site retained value as a meeting place.

Question 14Verbal Reasoning

The report's recommendations are sensible, modest and, one suspects, destined for a shelf. Previous reviews of the same service made almost identical proposals, and departments absorbed them with the same polite silence. The tone of the passage is best described as:

  1. Nostalgic
  2. Furious
  3. Sceptical Correct answer.
  4. Enthusiastic

Explanation

Praise for the recommendations is undercut by the prediction that they will be ignored, as identical proposals were before. This is dry scepticism about their prospects rather than warmth or rage.

Question 15Verbal Reasoning

The claim that goldfish have a three-second memory is unsupported. In the laboratory, goldfish have been trained to respond to sounds for months, and wild fish navigate mazes long after a single lesson. Which statement is best supported by the passage?

  1. All fish species have similar memory spans
  2. Goldfish forget everything within three seconds
  3. Goldfish retain learned associations for months Correct answer.
  4. Wild goldfish learn faster than captive ones

Explanation

Both examples - trained responses lasting months and maze learning after one lesson - show retention over long periods.

Question 16Verbal Reasoning

When the city pedestrianised its main shopping street, retailers predicted ruin. Footfall fell by 5 per cent in the first year, but spending on the street rose by 12 per cent and vacancy rates, which had been climbing, steadied. Which explanation best fits these figures?

  1. The street had been closed to pedestrians
  2. Fewer visitors, each staying longer and spending more Correct answer.
  3. The retailers' predictions were correct
  4. Shoppers spent less on each visit

Explanation

A small fall in footfall alongside a large rise in spending and stabilising vacancies implies higher spending per visitor. The two figures move in opposite directions, so any explanation must reconcile them.

Question 17Verbal Reasoning

In economics a public good is non-excludable - nobody can be prevented from using it - and non-rival, meaning one person's use does not reduce what is available to others. Street lighting is the standard example. Which is the best example of a public good as defined here?

  1. A privately owned swimming pool
  2. A toll motorway
  3. A national defence system Correct answer.
  4. A cinema ticket

Explanation

National defence protects everyone in the country and one citizen's protection does not diminish another's, satisfying both criteria.

Question 18Verbal Reasoning

Two historians assess the enclosure of common land. For the first, it was a ruthless seizure that destroyed a rural way of life; for the second, it was a necessary consolidation that raised yields and fed growing towns. They differ chiefly over:

  1. The date at which enclosure took place
  2. Whether agriculture was involved at all
  3. Whether the gains outweighed the social costs Correct answer.
  4. Whether the towns were growing in population

Explanation

Both accept that enclosure raised yields; the disagreement is whether that gain justifies the destruction of a way of life. Their dispute is evaluative rather than factual.

Question 19Verbal Reasoning

The novelist's later work has been called derivative, but the charge is unfair: his borrowings are so thoroughly reworked that the sources survive only as faint echoes. As used in the passage, 'derivative' means:

  1. Taken from works written after his own
  2. Unoriginal because drawn from other sources Correct answer.
  3. Mathematically complicated in its structure
  4. Unusually short for a novel of its kind

Explanation

The writer is defending the novelist against a charge of borrowing from other sources, so 'derivative' must mean unoriginal through dependence on earlier work.

Question 20Verbal Reasoning

If the vaccine had been allocated purely by population, remote rural districts would have received doses they could not store, since few of their clinics have reliable refrigeration. The passage assumes that:

  1. The vaccine must be kept under reliable refrigeration Correct answer.
  2. Population is a poor basis for allocating anything
  3. Remote districts have no clinics at all
  4. Refrigeration is unnecessary for storing vaccines

Explanation

The warning only works if the vaccine spoils without cold storage; otherwise the shortage of refrigerators would be harmless. That requirement is the unstated premise.

Question 21Verbal Reasoning

In the 1950s British recruiters encouraged Caribbean workers to settle in Britain to fill labour shortages. Many arrived to find that the jobs advertised were not the jobs available and that landlords could lawfully refuse them. Their response was not to return home but to build institutions - churches, newspapers, credit unions - that long outlasted the shortage that had summoned them. Which statement is best supported?

  1. The government quickly outlawed discrimination in housing
  2. Labour shortages persisted into the 1970s
  3. Their institutions outlasted the conditions that drew them Correct answer.
  4. Most of the migrants returned home within a year

Explanation

The passage contrasts a temporary labour shortage with institutions that 'long outlasted' it, which is exactly the comparison of durability offered.

Question 22Verbal Reasoning

Economists who study lotteries note that the poorest households spend the largest share of their income on tickets, yet they are also the least likely to hold other financial assets. On a standard measure of expected value every ticket is a loss; on a measure that counts hope, the purchase may be rational. The final sentence implies that:

  1. Value can include more than money Correct answer.
  2. Tickets would be profitable if they were cheaper
  3. Buying lottery tickets is financially prudent
  4. Poor households misunderstand the odds

Explanation

The sentence sets a monetary measure of expected value against a measure that includes hope, implying that welfare is not exhausted by cash returns. It reframes rather than denies the financial loss.

Question 23Verbal Reasoning

The biographer's treatment of her subject's failures is almost forensic: every misjudgement is laid out, dated and footnoted, while the successes are dispatched in a single paragraph. One closes the book knowing the man's flaws intimately and his achievements only by repute. The reviewer's criticism is that:

  1. The book is too short to cover its subject
  2. The subject was a failure in most of his ventures
  3. The footnotes contain factual errors
  4. The balance of the account distorts the subject Correct answer.

Explanation

The complaint is about proportion - exhaustive coverage of failures against a single paragraph for successes - so the resulting portrait is skewed. The reviewer faults the book, not the man.

Question 24Verbal Reasoning

Two explanations are offered for the collapse of the Bronze Age palace economies. The first blames a cascade of drought and migration that severed trade routes. The second accepts the disruption but argues that the palaces had already become brittle: centralised, dependent on long-distance tin and unable to adapt. On this view the droughts were the occasion, not the cause. The second explanation differs from the first by:

  1. Claiming that trade routes were expanding
  2. Denying that drought occurred at all
  3. Making migration the sole cause of collapse
  4. Locating the underlying weakness in the palaces Correct answer.

Explanation

The second account accepts the drought and migration but treats them as triggers acting on a system already made fragile by centralisation and dependence on imported tin. The disagreement concerns where the real cause lies.

Question 25Verbal Reasoning

The claim that prohibiting drugs protects the young is often treated as self-evident. But prohibition hands supply to unregulated sellers, who face no penalty for selling to minors, whereas legally regulated alcohol is subject to age checks. Whatever the merits of prohibition, the protection of children cannot be counted among them without further argument. The author's conclusion is that:

  1. All recreational drugs should be immediately legalised
  2. Age checks on alcohol sales are largely ineffective
  3. Alcohol should be more strictly prohibited than it is
  4. The child-protection case for prohibition fails Correct answer.

Explanation

The author concedes that prohibition may have merits but denies that child protection can be assumed among them, since regulated alcohol illustrates the opposite mechanism. The conclusion targets one argument, not the policy as a whole.

Question 26Verbal Reasoning

The town museum closed on Mondays until 2015, when a grant allowed it to open every day. Annual visitors then rose by a third, but almost all of the increase fell on weekday mornings, previously the quietest period. According to the passage, when did visitor numbers rise most?

  1. Weekday mornings Correct answer.
  2. Weekend afternoons
  3. Monday evenings
  4. Public holidays

Explanation

The passage reports that almost all of the increase fell on weekday mornings and identifies that period as previously the quietest. Any other period named in the options adds detail that the passage never supplies.

Question 27Verbal Reasoning

Spring tides have nothing to do with the season. They occur about twice a month, when the sun and moon pull in line, and give the largest tidal range. Neap tides, when the two pull at right angles, give the smallest. What produces the largest tidal range?

  1. The sun and moon pulling in line Correct answer.
  2. Strong onshore winds and low pressure
  3. The moon being closest to Earth in midwinter
  4. The sun and moon pulling at right angles

Explanation

The passage directly ties the largest range to the alignment in which the sun and moon pull in line. The perpendicular alignment is given as the cause of the smallest range, so the two causes cannot be exchanged.

Question 28Verbal Reasoning

One group slept six hours, another eight, and a third spent eight hours in bed but was woken repeatedly. The six-hour group scored lower on a word-recall test, and so did the frequently woken group. Sleep continuity, the authors concluded, predicted performance better than time in bed. What did the authors regard as the better predictor of recall?

  1. Continuity of sleep Correct answer.
  2. Total time spent in bed
  3. The time of night at which sleep began
  4. The length of the word list

Explanation

The frequently woken group performed like the short-sleeping group despite spending eight hours in bed, which isolates disruption rather than duration as the factor tracking performance. The authors therefore name continuity as the stronger predictor.

Question 29Verbal Reasoning

He was a frugal man, not a mean one: he repaired his own boots, kept his father's watch, and mended his coats, yet he paid his workers a full week's wage when the workshop flooded. As used in the passage, 'frugal' is closest in meaning to:

  1. Indifferent to possessions
  2. Careful with money Correct answer.
  3. Unwilling to spend anything at all
  4. Generous to strangers

Explanation

The passage contrasts frugality with meanness, and the flood payment shows the man was willing to spend when it mattered. Together these show thrift in managing money rather than an inability to part with it.

Question 30Verbal Reasoning

Most antibiotics are prescribed for infections they cannot cure. Viruses cause colds and flu, yet patients often expect a pill and a hurried consultation makes refusal hard. Public campaigns have had modest success; changing the habits of prescribers has proved more effective. Which statement best reflects the passage?

  1. Patients are usually right to expect antibiotics for flu
  2. Public campaigns have proved more effective than changing prescriber behaviour
  3. Doctors rarely prescribe antibiotics for viral illnesses
  4. Some antibiotics are prescribed for infections they cannot cure Correct answer.

Explanation

The opening sentence states that most antibiotics are prescribed for conditions they cannot treat, and the cold-and-flu example shows what that means in practice. The passage also ranks prescriber-focused measures above public campaigns and never claims that over-prescription is rare.

Question 31Verbal Reasoning

Opponents of the bypass say it will merely shift congestion from the town centre to the ring road. But traffic models of similar schemes show that a substantial share of journeys is suppressed: some drivers make fewer trips or travel at different times. Congestion should therefore fall overall. On which assumption does the argument depend?

  1. Drivers never change the time at which they travel
  2. Traffic models of similar schemes can be trusted Correct answer.
  3. The ring road currently carries less traffic than the town centre
  4. The bypass will be built within its budget

Explanation

The conclusion rests on evidence drawn from models of comparable schemes, so the argument fails unless that evidence is dependable enough to transfer. Remove that assumption and the claim that journeys will be suppressed loses its support.

Question 32Verbal Reasoning

The letters were donated on condition that they remain closed for fifty years. The archivist obeyed the letter of that condition and published no quotations, but her catalogue described each letter's contents in enough detail to identify every correspondent. The archivist can best be described as:

  1. having respected both its wording and its purpose
  2. having breached the condition outright
  3. having met the wording but not the purpose Correct answer.
  4. having refused to catalogue the letters

Explanation

No rule was broken, since nothing was quoted, yet the detailed summaries revealed exactly what the closure was meant to protect. The passage is built on the gap between the literal wording of a condition and the purpose behind it.

Question 33Verbal Reasoning

The ferry timetable lists four sailings a day in winter and nine in summer. Foot passengers travel free at all times. Vehicles pay a return fare that covers the driver and up to three children. According to the passage, which travellers make no payment?

  1. Children travelling in a vehicle
  2. Drivers of vehicles
  3. Travellers making a return journey
  4. Foot passengers Correct answer.

Explanation

The passage states plainly that foot passengers travel free at all times. Every other group named is either charged directly or covered by a fare paid for a vehicle.

Question 34Verbal Reasoning

Two accounts of the fire survive. The tenant's blames a faulty stove. The landlord's insurer blames a discarded cigarette. Both accounts agree that the alarm failed, a fact the insurer treats as decisive and the tenant's account never addresses. Which statement is supported by the passage?

  1. Both accounts blame the landlord for the fire
  2. The tenant's account was written before the insurer's
  3. Only one account mentions the alarm failure Correct answer.
  4. The two accounts agree on the cause of the fire

Explanation

The passage says both accounts agree the alarm failed but that only the insurer's account treats this as decisive, and that the tenant's never addresses it. The causes given differ, so agreement on cause cannot be claimed.

Question 35Verbal Reasoning

The clinic promised appointments within two weeks. In practice the average wait was nine days, but that average hides a split: routine bookings waited about four days, while urgent referrals waited three weeks, because urgent cases were routed to a single specialist. Which statement is best supported?

  1. The clinic met its two-week target for every category of patient
  2. The average understates the delay for urgent referrals Correct answer.
  3. Urgent referrals were seen sooner than routine bookings
  4. The single specialist handled the routine bookings

Explanation

An average combines two very different groups, so a figure of nine days conceals a wait of three weeks for one of them. Data that pools distinct subgroups cannot describe the experience of either.

Question 36Verbal Reasoning

Sales of electric kettles rose sharply after the advertising campaign, but so did sales of every other kitchen appliance, including those never advertised. The campaign, it seems, coincided with a general surge in household spending. Which conclusion does the passage support?

  1. The campaign alone cannot explain the rise Correct answer.
  2. Only kettles were advertised during the campaign
  3. The campaign caused the rise in kettle sales
  4. Household spending fell during the campaign

Explanation

A rise across unadvertised goods as well as advertised ones points to a wider cause than the campaign itself. When a trend appears in untreated cases too, the treatment cannot bear all the credit.

Question 37Verbal Reasoning

The report is careful to distinguish correlation from cause, noting that towns with more cycle lanes also report more cycling injuries. It declines to conclude that lanes cause injuries, pointing out that more cyclists on a road will produce more injuries even if each cyclist is safer. Which statement best captures the report's position?

  1. More injuries may mean more cyclists, not more danger Correct answer.
  2. Cycle lanes make each cyclist less safe
  3. Towns without cycle lanes report no cycling injuries at all
  4. Cycle lanes have no effect on injury rates

Explanation

Totals can rise purely because a population at risk grows, even when the risk to each member falls. The report uses that distinction to refuse the inference from higher injury counts to greater danger per cyclist.

Question 38Verbal Reasoning

For all its thoroughness, the study never asks whether the policy was worth its cost. It counts outputs - forms processed, meetings held - with great precision, and treats the question of value as somebody else's business. The author's attitude to the study is best described as:

  1. approval of its method, criticism of its scope Correct answer.
  2. indifference to its subject and findings
  3. contempt for its methods and conclusions
  4. unreserved admiration for its precision and thoroughness

Explanation

Praise is limited to how carefully the study measures things, while the complaint concerns what it omits. Attributing a mixed view requires noticing that the criticism targets coverage rather than technique.

Question 39Verbal Reasoning

Roman roads were engineered for drainage rather than comfort. They were cambered so that water ran off, and ditches lined the verges. The surface was often gravel over stone, not the smooth paving of popular imagination. According to the passage, why were Roman roads cambered?

  1. To mark the edges of the road
  2. To slow carts on hills
  3. To shed water Correct answer.
  4. To make the surface easier to pave

Explanation

The passage gives drainage as the purpose of the road design and immediately explains the camber as the means by which water ran off. The other functions listed are not attributed to the camber.

Question 40Verbal Reasoning

Readers who complain that the novel is too long have a point, but the length is not padding. The subplots about the shipyard, which many reviewers found irrelevant, carry the argument about inherited debt that the main story only gestures at. The author's view of the shipyard subplots is that they:

  1. justify the novel's length Correct answer.
  2. repeat the argument of the main story
  3. should have been cut
  4. are irrelevant to the novel's argument

Explanation

The author concedes the complaint about length while denying that the length is padding, which makes the subplots the reason the book needs its size. They are said to carry an argument the main story only gestures at, so they add rather than repeat.

Question 41Verbal Reasoning

Because the drug must be given within an hour of a stroke, its benefit depends less on supply than on how quickly patients reach a scanner. Hospitals with a direct ambulance protocol treated most patients in time; hospitals with the same supply but no protocol did not. Which prediction follows from the passage?

  1. Supplying more of the drug would raise the number treated in time
  2. More of the drug alone will not speed treatment Correct answer.
  3. The speed of arrival at a scanner matters little
  4. Hospitals without a protocol treated most patients in time

Explanation

Two hospitals with identical supplies achieved different results because of their protocols, which isolates the pathway rather than the stock as the limiting factor. Where the limiting factor is unchanged, increasing the stock cannot be expected to improve outcomes.

Question 42Verbal Reasoning

In the playwright's drafts the brother has a substantial part; in the final text he is reduced to two passing mentions; in later revisions he disappears altogether. Productions that restore his scenes tend to lose pace in the second act. Which statement is best supported?

  1. The part was reduced, then removed Correct answer.
  2. The playwright never finished the play
  3. Directors usually restore the cut scenes
  4. The second act is the strongest of the three

Explanation

The passage traces the brother through three stages, from a substantial part to two mentions to nothing, which describes a two-step reduction. Any claim about the quality of the acts in general, or about the frequency of restorations, goes beyond what is stated.

Question 43Verbal Reasoning

The minister said the scheme was 'under review', a phrase that in departmental usage means neither that it will continue nor that it will end, but that a decision has been postponed until after the election. In the passage, 'under review' indicates that:

  1. a decision has been delayed Correct answer.
  2. the scheme will continue unchanged
  3. an independent audit has begun
  4. the scheme will be cancelled

Explanation

The passage defines the phrase by what it excludes as well as by what it states: not continuation, not cancellation, but postponement. Meaning in this kind of text is fixed by the definition supplied, not by ordinary usage.

Question 44Verbal Reasoning

The lighthouse was automated in 1987 and the keeper's cottage sold. The buyers restored the garden exactly as old photographs showed it, down to the varieties of rose. Visitors often assume the cottage was always a private house; the photographs they admire were taken by the last keeper's wife. Which statement is supported?

  1. The garden was recreated from photographic evidence Correct answer.
  2. The lighthouse has been decommissioned
  3. The cottage has always been a private house
  4. The keeper's wife planted the garden for the buyers

Explanation

The restoration is said to follow old photographs down to the choice of roses, which makes the photographs the source of the design. The remaining statements either reverse a detail or infer something the passage never says.

Question 45Verbal Reasoning

Cheap clothing is cheap only because its costs are paid elsewhere: by rivers that absorb dye, by workers paid by the piece, and by taxpayers who fund the disposal of garments worn a handful of times. The passage is mainly concerned to:

  1. describe how worn garments are disposed of
  2. explain why clothing prices have fallen so far
  3. argue that low prices hide costs paid elsewhere Correct answer.
  4. compare methods of dyeing fabric

Explanation

The sentence's structure places the visible price against a list of costs carried by third parties, which is the point being argued. The other options name details used as examples rather than the claim they serve.

Question 46Verbal Reasoning

The race is rowed upstream over four and a quarter miles, between two pubs. Crews start one behind another at two-second intervals, so the first boat across the line is not necessarily the winner; the trophy goes to the crew that gains most places. How is the winner determined?

  1. By gaining the most places Correct answer.
  2. By recording the fastest single mile
  3. By the number of crews entered
  4. By crossing the line first

Explanation

The passage explicitly states that the first boat across the line need not win and that the trophy goes to the crew gaining most places. Speed over any section and the size of the field are not used as criteria.

Question 47Verbal Reasoning

Surveys show that 80 per cent of drivers describe themselves as above average. This is not, as is often said, proof that most people are overconfident: a minority of very poor drivers can make the average low enough for most drivers to be above it. The passage suggests that the survey result:

  1. means the survey was badly designed
  2. is consistent with accurate self-assessment Correct answer.
  3. shows that driving ability cannot be measured
  4. proves that most drivers are seriously overconfident

Explanation

A claim about being above average is compatible with reality whenever the distribution is skewed by a low-scoring minority. The passage attacks the inference from percentage to overconfidence, not the reliability of the survey or the measurability of skill.

Question 48Verbal Reasoning

The council argues that because accidents fell after the speed limit was lowered, the lower limit caused the fall. But average traffic speeds barely changed, while a new pedestrian crossing opened the same month. The council's argument is weakened because:

  1. accidents are not recorded reliably
  2. another change may explain the fall Correct answer.
  3. the speed limit was never actually lowered
  4. average traffic speeds rose sharply

Explanation

A coincidence in time cannot establish cause when a second change occurred simultaneously. The fact that measured speeds hardly moved also undercuts the mechanism the council needs.

Question 49Verbal Reasoning

Her review gives three pages to the book's index and one paragraph to its argument. Readers may draw their own conclusions. The final sentence implies that:

  1. the reviewer had run out of space
  2. the reviewer thought the argument weak Correct answer.
  3. the index is the most useful part of the book
  4. the reviewer was indifferent to the book

Explanation

Inviting readers to draw their own conclusions signals that the implication is obvious but deliberately unstated. The disproportion between the space given to the index and to the argument carries that implication.

Question 50Verbal Reasoning

Applications close on 1 March. Shortlisting takes place in the following fortnight and interviews are held in April. Offers are made only after references have been checked, which can add three weeks. When are offers made?

  1. Only after references have been checked Correct answer.
  2. In April, at the interview stage
  3. On 1 March, when applications close
  4. In March, at the shortlisting stage

Explanation

The passage sets references as a precondition for making offers, so the timing follows from the reference check rather than from any fixed month. The dates given apply to earlier stages of the process.