Tips to Succeed in Verbal Reasoning Tests
Tips below are written for candidates that are preparing to take verbal reasoning test that consists of answering true, false and cannot say questions. It gives valuable advice on how to go about answering these questions in employment ability tests. It is vital that you not only read these tips but also apply them in your daily practice in order to achieve the maximum benefit in shaping your test taking strategy. A person cannot learn to play the piano by watching! Hence, it is crucial that you incorporate the below concepts into your practice. Listed below are test taking suggestions to improve your performance in verbal reasoning tests.
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Grasp the concept of verbal reasoning
The first step to take to improve your performance in verbal reasoning is to grasp the concept of how to answer true, false and cannot tell questions. Without grasping the logic you will not get far in achieving impressive score. You need to clearly understand when the statement is to be marked as true, false or cannot say. A simple way to test yourself whether you have clear understanding is to complete one or two verbal reasoning tests without time constraints to see how many questions you can get right. Note that you should be able to answer all of the questions correctly if you were completing the assessment without a timer. You can try to take our free verbal reasoning test to see how many questions you can answer.
Read the statement first
A number of test takers wonder whether to read the passage first and then read the statement or vice versa. Well, we would recommend reading the statement prior to reading the text passage. Why? Reading the statement first will give your mind a hint as what information are needed to answer the question. So, when you read the statement prior to reading the passage it will give your mind clear purpose to focus and find information that relate to answer the question. Also reading the statement first will save you valuable time because you will not have to come back to text passage to re-read it again to search for particular information. Hence, it is a must to read the question first so that you can focus on relevant parts of the paragraph the first time.
Scan for Keywords
Verbal reasoning tests are fast paced assessments where you will usually have two minutes to read 250 – 300 words and evaluate four questions as true, false or can’t tell. Hence you will have limited time to read and process information from the passage. Particularly if you come across rather lengthy passages then one way to quickly find the important details is to read the question, choose a keyword or phrase and then quickly scan the text for appearances of the keyword or phrase. Once you find the keyword of phrase read around just before and after it and it is likely that the relevant details you would be looking for would be there. Then conclude your answer. Remember, in verbal reasoning tests there is often fluff and extraneous information that will serve to distract your attention.
Follow the flow of the passage
Another tip to go about finding pertinent information when taking into consideration time limit is to read the statement first and then to read the text only to the point to find the supporting facts you are looking for. Then once you mark the question read second argument and if you are able to quickly recall whether the information you have read so far includes information necessary to evaluate the second statement answer it; if not continue reading. Usually, questions in verbal tests are ordered in logical flow of the passage.
Guess if you must
Final tip to succeed in your upcoming assessment is that if you cannot decide which answer choice is correct take an educated guess and eliminate the least likely answers. Note that in most cases you should be able to eliminate at least one of the choices provided. For example, if passage does not support the argument eliminate true; alternatively if the argument does not contradict the text eliminate false. Once you eliminate one answer you will be left with two choices and you have 50% chances to answer the question correctly.