Improving your Verbal Reasoning skills

When are verbal reasoning skills used?

This could mean written communication in emails or reports, or spoken and written communication such as in teaching. In a commercial environment, for instance, call centre employees need to be able to converse clearly with their customers. At the graduate and managerial levels, many jobs require the interpretation and critical analysis of complex verbal information.

Almost all jobs require some form of verbal communication and/or reading written information. Internal correspondence with your colleagues can be more informal (depending upon who they are!) than when you are communicating with your customers or clients.

Comprehension Verbal Reasoning Sample Questions

Instructions – Read the passage. To each question, answer TRUE, FALSE or CANNOT TELL using only the information given in the passage.

Verbal Reasoning Example Questions Passage I

Whereas invertebrates have an external exoskeleton, vertebrates have an internal endoskeleton. The human endoskeleton is comprised of cartilage and the body’s 206 bones. These are connected to each other by ligaments. It protects and supports the body’s internal organs. Also, the human endoskeleton also works in conjunction with muscles, joints and nervous system to enable movement.

Joints occur between bones, making the skeleton flexible by acting as hinges or pivots. Tendons attach muscles to bones and contract in response to a stimulus from the body’s nervous system. Those muscles that are under conscious control, the skeletal muscles, act by pulling against the bones of the skeleton.

•      Physical activity requires the muscles and bones to synchronise.

Firstly, True. See 3rd sentence.

•     The human endoskeleton provides connection points for the body’s muscles.

Secondly, True. T

•  The human skeleton is comprised mainly of bone.

Thirdly, CT.

•    Unlike invertebrates, humans have an internal exoskeleton.

Finally, False. Humans have an internal endoskeleton as specified in the first and second sentences.

Verbal Reasoning Test Passage II

Copernicus’ sixteenth century model of the solar system has the Earth and associated planets revolving around the Sun. Nicolaus Copernicus’s theory was the first heliocentric model of planetary motion, placing the sun at the centre. That said, his solar model retained the erroneous premise – as per the Ptolemaic System – that planets move in perfect circles.

There was a complete change in people’s concept of the universe because of the move away from the geocentric view. The Copernican model of the solar system laid the groundwork for Newton’s laws of gravity and Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. It describes how each planet stays in orbit.

•      The passage suggests that the Copernician system was flawless.

Firstly, False. The Copernician system retained the erroneous premise that planets move in perfect circles.

• Copernicus developed the first geocentric model of the Earth’s solar system.

Secondly, False. The model was heliocentric.

• C paved the way for Newton’s work on the orbits of the planets.

Thirdly, True. See the last two sentences.

• The Ptolemaic system preceded the Copernican model.

Finally, True. See 3^rd sentence.

Galore Park, the ISEB publishers, also offer a comprehensive range of verbal reasoning revision papers ;

Verbal Reasoning – Sample Test questions; and Verbal Reasoning Sample Test Solutions.

Ask ROB (expert test developer) your questions by emailing passedpapers@gmail.com

An Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, Rob Williams is a Chartered Psychologist with over 25 years of experience working and designing tests. Rob has worked for the school entrance test publishers ISEB and GL – as well as the leading global psychometric test publishers including SHL, Kenexa IBM, MBTI, CAPP and SOVA Assessment.