We get a lot of questions about Reasoning here at Mentor Education. We have 40 years of experience helping children pass exams for Alleyn's, JAGS, Emanuel, Dulwich, Trinity, Whitgift and more and 90% of our students get into their first or second choice school. We thought some information on verbal reasoning would be helpful for Nappy Valley readers.
What's on the Verbal Reasoning Paper?
Verbal Reasoning tests a child's ability to understand and logically work through concepts and problems expressed in words. The tests tell schools how well a child can extract and work with meanings, information and implications from text. It assesses critical thinking skills and the ability to apply knowledge to solve word problems.
Parents are sometimes surprised that Verbal reasoning assessments also include cracking number codes and completing number sequences. There can be some challenging maths on the Verbal Reasoning papers, including square numbers and algebra, so your child must be prepared for this too.
These are some of the most common types of Verbal Reasoning questions. It is important that your child knows how to approach these and has practised them sufficiently.
Sequences:
- Numerical sequences, including square, cube and prime numbers
- Letter sequences
- Letter connections
- Alphabet analogies
Code breaking:
- Word number codes
- Word - letter codes
Making up words:
- Using rules to make up words
- Word ladders
Logic Puzzles
- Fact puzzles
- Logic puzzles
Word meanings and vocabulary based questions
- Synonyms
- Antonyms
- Homonyms
- Homophones
- Homographs
- Definitions
- Word categories