Verbal Reasoning
Analogies, vocabulary, semantic relationships
What this sub-test measures
Verbal reasoning gauges crystallized intelligence — the breadth and precision of stored linguistic knowledge — alongside the analogical reasoning that lets you transfer relationships from one concept to another. The format draws from the ICAR Verbal Reasoning pool and classic Miller Analogies items: you are presented with two related words and asked to select a third pair that preserves the same relationship. Performance correlates strongly with reading volume and vocabulary depth, but the analogical mapping itself is a fluid skill: it requires holding two relationships in working memory and comparing their structure rather than their content. Verbal subtests are the most culturally loaded of the five domains, which is why responsible test designers oversample item families that resist cultural bias (synonyms, antonyms, function-of relationships) and avoid items that depend on specific cultural knowledge.
Strategy notes
- Build a sentence linking the two example words; reuse it on the candidate pairs and discard any that fail.
- Eliminate options that share surface meaning but break the underlying relation (part-of vs. type-of).
- Watch for direction: if A acts on B, the answer must preserve that direction. "Doctor : patient" is not symmetric.
- Read every option before answering — distractors are often very close in meaning to the correct answer.
- A wide reading habit transfers more to verbal scores than any drill. Read across genres for breadth.
Sample items from this domain
Item #41
Choose the word that best completes the analogy.
View itemItem #42
Choose the word that best completes the analogy.
View itemItem #43
Choose the word that best completes the analogy.
View itemItem #44
Choose the word that best completes the analogy.
View itemItem #45
Choose the word that best completes the analogy.
View itemItem #46
Choose the word that best completes the analogy.
View itemTraining drills for this domain
Analogy Warmup Set
10 min
Vocabulary Deep Practice
20 min
Hard Verbal Analogies
30 min
Anki Vocabulary Workflow
15 min
Reading-Comprehension Practice
30 min
Speed-Reading with Comprehension
20 min
Improve Verbal Reasoning
See the brain-training guide for Verbal Reasoning →
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