Verbal Reasoning and Reading Comprehension
What this domain tests
Verbal reasoning and reading comprehension check whether you can identify stated facts, draw only forced inferences, and recognise the author's purpose and tone. In a computer-based test the passage often sits in one pane and the question in another, so for detail questions read the stem first and scan; for main-idea questions read the whole passage before looking at options.
Core rules and concepts
- Main idea: the claim the entire passage supports, not the first sentence or an interesting detail.
- Inference: the answer must follow necessarily from the text. If you needed outside knowledge, it is wrong.
- Fact vs opinion: words such as should, unfortunately, and clearly signal evaluation, not evidence.
- Word-in-context: substitute each option into the original sentence and check meaning, connotation, and grammar.
- Assumption: negate the option. If the argument collapses, that option is the assumption.
- Author's view vs quoted view: track who says what; a view reported in quotation marks is not necessarily endorsed.
Worked example
Passage: The city replaced 40% of its diesel buses with electric models last year. Nitrogen-oxide monitors beside two depots fell 12%, while monitors in the commercial centre showed no change. Officials called the pilot a success.
Which statement is best supported? A. Electric buses reduced air pollution across the city. B. The measured improvement was concentrated near the depots. C. Diesel buses are the largest citywide source of nitrogen oxides. D. Officials exaggerated the results.
Reasoning: A is contradicted by the unchanged commercial centre. C is plausible but not stated. D is an opinion about motive, not a reading of the data. B follows from the depot monitors falling while downtown monitors did not.
Traps that cost marks
- Extreme wording: all, never, proves, only.
- Confusing correlation with a proven cause.
- Choosing a true statement that does not answer the question.
- Reversing cause and effect, or treating an example as the main idea.