Verbal Battery: Analogies, Sentence Completion, and Classification
The Verbal battery of CogAT Level 11 (normally taken in grade 5) measures reasoning with words rather than memorised definitions. It contains three subtests, Verbal Analogies, Sentence Completion and Verbal Classification, and every item asks you to find or apply a relationship between ideas. A broad vocabulary helps, but the marks come from identifying the exact link and rejecting choices that are merely related to the topic.
Verbal Analogies
Each item reads A : B :: C : ?, with five answer choices. Turn the first pair into a bridge sentence narrow enough to exclude other pairs, for example 'a thermometer measures temperature' rather than 'a thermometer is used for weather'. Then apply the same sentence to C and check direction and part of speech: if B is a plural noun or a verb, the answer must be too. Frequent relationships at this level are category member (trout : fish), function (hammer : pound), part to whole (petal : flower), degree (warm : hot), opposition (scarce : abundant), cause and effect (drought : famine), characteristic (spider : eight-legged) and order in a sequence.
Sentence Completion
The sentence contains one or two blanks. Locate the logic signal, such as because, so, therefore, although, but, unless, rather than or in spite of, and decide whether the blank must agree with or oppose the rest of the sentence. Predict a word of your own before reading the options. On two-blank items the pair must both fit and stay consistent, so eliminate any option in which even one word fails.
Verbal Classification
Three words share a precise attribute and the answer must share exactly that attribute. Name the category silently before you look at the choices, then test each choice against all three words, not just against the most obvious one.
Worked example
Thermometer : temperature :: barometer : ___ (rain, pressure, weather, height, wind) Bridge: 'a thermometer is an instrument that measures temperature.' Applied to barometer: an instrument that measures ___ gives pressure. Weather is only the general topic; rain and wind are things people associate with barometers, but a barometer does not measure them. Answer: pressure.
Traps that cost marks
- Bridges that are too loose ('both are pets') admit several answers.
- Reversing the bridge: the answer must relate to C the way B relates to A.
- Choosing a word that is thematically attractive but the wrong part of speech.
- In classification, picking a word true of only two of the three words, or one that fits a broader category than the shared one.
- In sentence completion, ignoring a contrast cue so the completed sentence contradicts itself.