Verbal Reasoning: Reading the Question Before the Passage
What this domain tests
Irish verbal reasoning questions ask you to draw strict logical conclusions from short written passages, to spot assumptions, to judge whether a statement is necessarily true, probably true, undeterminable, or false, and to detect the difference between what a passage says and what it merely suggests. The core concepts are: the claim (what the author asserts), the evidence (what supports it), the inference (what follows necessarily), and the assumption (an unstated premise the argument needs). You also need a working sense of quantifiers - all, some, most, none, only - because most verbal traps live there.
Traps to watch for
- Scope creep: the passage says some Irish primary teachers; the option says most. Reject it.
- Reversal: "Only graduates may apply" does not mean "all graduates may apply".
- Plausible-but-unsupported: true in real life, absent from the passage. The passage is your only world.
- Extreme wording: always, never, proves, impossible are red flags unless the text is equally absolute.
- Emotive language designed to push you toward a moral judgement the logic does not support.
Rule of thumb
Read the question stem first, then the passage, then test each option against the text with one question: Does the passage force this, or merely allow it? If it merely allows it, it is not the answer to an "inference" question.
Worked example
Passage: "Most applicants to the scheme had previous experience. All who were shortlisted had previous experience." Option: "Some applicants with previous experience were not shortlisted." This is not forced: it is possible that every experienced applicant was shortlisted. The correct inference would be "Some applicants had previous experience" - that follows from most.