Brilliant Verbal Reasoning Tests

PART 2

Time to

practise

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N

ow it’s time to put the strategies you learned in the pre-

vious chapters into action. This part of the book is all

about practising. Here you can find examples of the

most popular verbal reasoning tests used in Britain. Try to fit in

as much practice as you possibly can before your test date. It is

worth putting in the effort when acceptance into your future

profession is at stake. In addition to the practice test questions,

there are lots of Advice boxes scattered throughout this section.

Be sure to read them, as they suggest great ways to improve your

overall performance.

If you know your test format then you can go straight to the rel-

evant chapter. For example, if you are preparing to take the

UKCAT you should start by doing the UKCAT-specific practice

questions.The following role-specific verbal reasoning tests have

their own practice questions:

G Armed Forces (Chapter 7)

G Army

G Navy

G RAF

G Qualified Teacher Status (Chapter 8)

G Spelling

G Punctuation

G Grammar

G Comprehension

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78 brill iant verbal reason ing

G

The UK Clinical Aptitude Test for Medical and Dental

Degrees (UKCAT) (Chapter 9)

Other readers may know only that they will be taking, say, a

general graduate-level or a senior managerial-level verbal rea-

soning test. In this case, you should start with Chapter 10, which

contains practice tests at that level of difficulty.

For each test format there are many realistic practice questions

mirroring the different types of questions that are likely to come

up in the actual test. At the end of each chapter there are

detailed, step-by-step answers for every question. Most of the

practice questions are multiple choice. This doesn’t make the

questions easier. It doesn’t mean that your test is ‘multiple guess’

either. Having written many such tests myself I can assure you

that guessing is not an effective strategy.

If you don’t know your test format, choose a format that most

closely resembles the difficulty level. If you are a beginner I

suggest you start with the next chapter and work through as

many of the subsequent chapters as you can. Be selective if you

like and dip into other practice chapters. You’ll find a summary

of what each test assesses at the start of each chapter. For

example, if you want more practice at reading comprehension

you can cherry-pick questions from several different chapters –

from the QTS section onwards.

A note about difficulty levels

The questions in the following chapters appear in a rough order

of increasingly difficulty – from the most basic to the most diffi-

cult. If the practice questions you started with are too difficult

you can always go back to complete the earlier chapters. Equally,

feel free to skip ahead if you find the questions too easy! Stretch

yourself by trying the practice tests in subsequent chapters

– these harder questions will help sharpen your verbal reasoning

skills.

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The Armed Forces entrance tests in the next chapter are

examples of basic literacy tests. If you know that you are facing

a basic literacy test you can use these tests as practice. By basic

literacy I mean the ability to construct sentences and to under-

stand the meaning of individual words. Tests of basic literacy

may involve finding the most suitable replacement for a missing

word in a passage or selecting a word that is opposite in meaning

to the one shown.

More complex verbal reasoning tests build on this basic literacy

and require you to understand the meaning of more unusual

words. You may need to summarise the content of a passage or

fill in a missing word in a sentence.The literacy test for achieving

Qualified Teacher Status, for example, tests the use of grammar

and punctuation when constructing sentences. The QTS prac-

tice tests can be used by anyone preparing to face a mid-level

verbal reasoning test.

The most advanced verbal reasoning tests are those aimed at

graduates and individuals applying for managerial or senior

managerial level positions. Although there are many different

tests in common use, they all use a passage-based format, where

you read a short text and answer related questions. If you know

that you are taking a passage-based test you can practise with

questions in the graduate and senior managerial chapter, as well

as the more difficult examples from the UKCAT and QTS com-

prehension sections.

Time to practise 79

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