Verbal Reasoning and Reading Comprehension
Verbal reasoning in custodial aptitude tests checks whether you can extract the precise meaning of a short passage and judge what it does and does not support. The core concepts are main idea versus supporting detail, inference versus assumption, scope of a claim (all/some/none), and word precision (does the passage say may, must, or should?). Typical passages describe procedures, incident reports, or policy extracts, and the questions ask which statement is best supported, which weakens a conclusion, or what a word means in context.
The traps are consistent. Watch for absolute language: an option saying a rule always applies when the passage gives an exception. Watch for true-but-irrelevant options that restate a detail without answering the question asked. Watch for outside knowledge - answer only from the passage. And watch for reversed causation or swapped subjects, where the option flips who did what.
Rule of thumb: read the question stem first, then the passage, then eliminate any option that goes beyond the text. If an option needs one extra assumption to be true, it is not the best-supported answer.
Worked example: Passage: "Visitors may be searched on entry. Refusal results in entry being denied." Question: what follows? An option saying "Visitors who refuse a search will not be admitted" is correct - it matches the stated consequence. An option saying "All visitors are searched" is wrong because may is permissive, not mandatory.