Verbal Reasoning
What verbal reasoning tests
This domain assesses how precisely you read and how confidently you handle word relationships. Typical item types are vocabulary in context, analogies, sentence completion, grammar and usage, and deduction from a short passage. The exam rewards literal, evidence-based reading rather than general knowledge.
Core rules
- In analogies, name the exact relationship before looking at the options: function (thermometer measures temperature), part-to-whole, cause and effect, degree, or category.
- Treat quantifiers literally. “All” means every member; “no” means none; “some” means at least one and does not exclude “all”. “Some are not” is not the same as “some are”.
- In deduction, accept only what must follow from the premises. A conclusion that is plausible, or true in real life, can still be unsupported.
- Watch scope shifts: a passage about trainees in one region does not support a conclusion about all recruits.
- In sentence completion, use the signpost word (although, because, therefore, unless) to decide whether the missing word continues or reverses the idea.
- In grammar items, check subject–verb agreement, pronoun reference, parallelism in lists, and misplaced modifiers.
Worked example
“All station officers in the district are first-aid trained. Ama is a station officer in the district.”
The only forced conclusion is that Ama is first-aid trained. The reasoning is substitution: Ama belongs to the group “station officers in the district”, and that whole group sits inside “first-aid trained”. Now reverse it: if you are told only that Ama is first-aid trained, you cannot conclude she is a station officer, because the first-aid group may be larger. Treating “all A are B” as “all B are A” is the most frequent verbal-reasoning error.
Traps that cost marks
- Choosing an answer that is true in the world but not stated or implied in the passage.
- Reading “some” as “most” or as “some but not all”.
- Missing a negation, especially in double negatives such as “not unlikely”.
- Selecting a word because it sounds impressive rather than because it fits the sentence’s logic.
- Overreading a single detail into a broad conclusion.