The Verbal Reasoning section assesses your ability to read a passage of information and determine whether a specific conclusion can be drawn. Here’s what to look out for:

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Brief

1. Read the Question First

2. Focus on keywords in the question & then locate in text

3. If all else fails, GUESS. Recognise that you simply do not have time to answer every question. Go with the 'educated' guess

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1. Key Words

Look for definitive key words. It is likely the writer has included them as a clue to a link between the passage and the statement.

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2. Personal bias

Just because the passage relates to something you are familiar with, unless it is explicitly stated in the passage, do not go by your own knowledge or bias of the situation. Just rely on the information presented to you.

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3. Trick questions

Some questions may appeal to things that you know that aren’t specifically written within the question, these are trick questions to fool you.

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4. Causal relationships

Just because two statements are juxtaposed placed side-by-side doesn’t mean they are linked. Always look for bridging statements that explicitly state the connections.

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5. Extreme Words

Words like "extremely", "always" and "never" can give you useful clues for your answer. Statements which make particularly bold claims arc less likely to be true, but remember you need a direct contradiction to be able to conclude that they arc false. To answer an "always" question, you're looking for a definition. Always be a bit suspicious of"nevcr" - make sure you 're certain before saying true, as most things arc possible. 

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6. Prioritise

With UCAT, you can leave and come back to any question. By flagging for review, you make this easier. Since time is tight, you don't want to waste time on long passages when you could be scoring easier marks. Score the easy marks first, then come back to the harder ones if time allows. If time runs too short, at least take enough time to guess the answers as there's a good chance you could pick up some marks anyway.

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7. Be a Lawyer

Put on your most critical and analytical hat for this section. Carefully analyse the statements like you're in a court room. Then look for the evidence! Examine the passage closely, looking for evidence that either supports or contradicts the statement. Remember you're making decisions based on ONLY the passage, not using any prior knowledge. Docs the passage agree or disagree? If there isn't enough evidence to decide, don't be afraid to say "cannot tell". 

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8. Read the Question First

Read the question before the passage. There is simply not enough time to read all the passages thoroughly and still have time to complete everything in 22 minutes. Do not fall into the trap of trying to read all of the passage, you will not score highly enough if you do this.

 

When skim reading through the passage, it is inevitable that you will lose accuracy. However you can reduce this effect by doing plenty of practice so your ability to glean what you need improves. A good tip is to practice reading short sections of complicated texts, such as quality newspapers or novels, at high pace.

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9. Find the Keywords in the Question & then in the text

The keyword is the most important word to help you relate the question to the passage; sometimes there might be two keywords in a question. When you read the passage, focus in on the keywords straight away. This gives you something to look for in the passage to identify the right place to work from. It is usually easy to find the keyword/s, and you'll become even better with practice. When you find it, go back a line and read from the line before through the keyword to the end of the line after. Usually, this contains enough relevant information to give you the answer.

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If this is not successful, you need to consider your next steps. Time is very tight in the UCAT and especially so in section 1. There arc other passages that need your attention, and there may be much easier marks waiting for you. If reading around the keyword has not given you the right answer it may well be time to move on. It might be that there is a more subtle reference somewhere else, that you need to read the whole passage to reach the answer or indeed that the answer cannot be deduced from the passage. Either way, if it's difficult to find your time could be better spent gaining marks elsewhere. Make a sensible guess and move on.

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10. Use Only the Passage

Your answer must only be based on the information available in the passage. Do not try and guess the answer based on your general knowledge as this can be a trap. For example, if the question asks who the first person was to walk on the moon, then states "the three crew members of the first lunar mission were Edwin Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins". The correct answer is "cannot tell" - even though you know it was Neil Armstrong and see his name, the passage itself does not tell you who left the landing craft first. Likewise if there is a quotation or an extract from a book which is factually inaccurate, you should answer based on the information available to you rather than what you know to be true.

 
If you have not been able to select the correct answer, eliminate as many of the statements as possible and guess -you have a 25 - 33% chance of guessing correctly in this section even without eliminating any answers, and if you've read around some keywords in the text you may well have at least some idea as to what the answer is. These odds can add a few easy marks onto your score. 

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11. Flagging for Review

here is an additional option to flag a question for review. All it docs is mark the question in an easy way for it to be revisited if you have time later in the section. Once the section is complete, you cannot return to any questions, flagged or unflagged. But be warned coming back to questions can be inefficient - you have to read the instructions and data each time you work on the question, so by coming back again you double the amount of time spent on doing this, leaving less time for actually answering questions. We feel the best strategy is to work steadily through the questions at a consistent and even pace.

 
That said, flagging for review has one great utility in Section I. If you come across a long or technical passage, you may want to flag for review immediately and skip on to the next passage. By coming back to the passage at the end, you allow yourself the remaining time on the hardest question. This has an advantage in each of two scenarios. If you're really tight for time, at least you maximised the time you did have answering the easier questions, thereby maximising your marks. !fit turns out you have extra time to spare, you can spend it on the hardest question, allowing you a better chance to get marks you otherwise would have struggled to obtain. 

Remember to find the right balance: if you flag too many questions you will be overloaded and won't have time to focus on them all; if you flag too few, you risk under-utilising this valuable resource. You should flag only a few questions per section to allow you to properly focus on them if you have spare time.

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