Verbal Reasoning Test

Verbal reasoning comprises of your ability to analyze and evaluate written material and reason with the information obtained, by for example analyzing relationships among component parts of sentences or recognizing relationships among words and concepts.

Below is a selection of several verbal reasoning tests that you can expect during psychometric tests.

Additional Information About Verbal Reasoning

Verbal reasoning tests are often included in psychometric tests, because they require you to analyze and understand often complex and very specialized textual information. This is very important, because it gives an indication how fast you can learn or extract new information.

 

 
Verbal reasoning is a collection of several different formats of testing and some of which are also considered as logical reasoning. The relation between between all these formats of testing is made clear in the schematic above. All the formats each of which is discussed in detail in the corresponding sections below.

 

Verbal Comprehension

The most common verbal reasoning aptitude tests are perhaps verbal comprehension tests. These tests consist of several text passages and with each consecutive passage several statements are made based on the information in the text.

The questions are often in multiple choice format and you have to decide whether each statement is right or wrong, or that it is not possible to tell. It is very important that you only use the information provided in the text and do not rely on personal knowledge or common sense.

These verbal comprehension tests determine your aptitude to extract new information from a specialized text, whether you understand and can act properly on this information.

 

Verbal Logic Test

Verbal logic tests as the name already implies rely strongly on both verbal reasoning and logical reasoning. These tests are found many different formats, but they all typically consist of a sequence of letters were you are to determine the pattern to find the missing letter. An example of a verbal logic questions is shown below.

 

 

Word analogies

Word analogies also often referred to as word relation or word relationship tests are a popular part of verbal aptitude tests. The concept of word analogies is to determine the relationship between two words and then find the best match with two other words. Below follows an example:

 

… stands to boat as road stands to …

 
The answer could be river & car, since a river is the same thing for a boat as a road is for a car.

 

Syllogisms

Syllogisms are typically considered as logical reasoning and are also referred to as deductive reasoning tests. These type of verbal logic tests typically consist of two statements, called premises which are followed by a conclusion. You have to determine whether the conclusion is right or wrong or you have to select the conclusion from multiple choice answers. Below follows the classic example of a syllogism.

 

 

English Vocabulary test

Vocabulary tests can be part of verbal aptitude tests to assess the broadness of an applicant’s vocabulary. The test questions consist typically of specific words of which the correct explanation has to be chosen from a list of multiple choice answers.

 

Synonyms & Antonyms Tests

Synonyms are words that have a similar meaning to other words, for instance strong is a synonym of robust. Antonyms on the other hand are words with an opposite meaning, for example warm is the antonym of cold. These tests consist of words were you have to select the right synonyms and antonyms. These type of tests can be part of aptitude tests which try to determine the knowledge of the English vocabulary of a person.