Learn by Novus · Open practice pack v1

Verbal reasoning: complete practice bank: open practice pack: worked explanations

100 untimed questions across 10 authored sections.

This is untimed educational practice for one cognitive skill. It is not a clinical, diagnostic, employment, or professionally recognized assessment, and it does not produce an IQ score or credential.

Worked explanations

verbal-reasoning-s01-q01

Only members may join group hikes per the passage's rule, and Maria has joined two, so she must be a member.

verbal-reasoning-s01-q02

The passage says a member who misses the session "must wait until the next one is offered". Not that they can never join.

verbal-reasoning-s01-q03

The passage says she completed orientation and "has since" joined two hikes, meaning the hikes came after.

verbal-reasoning-s01-q04

The passage directly refers to "the monthly orientation session."

verbal-reasoning-s01-q05

The passage never compares Maria's hike count with any other member's.

verbal-reasoning-s01-q06

The passage only describes this specific club's rule; it says nothing about other hiking clubs.

verbal-reasoning-s01-q07

The rule requires orientation before joining a hike, not before joining the club, and the passage never says when Maria became a member.

verbal-reasoning-s01-q08

The passage states that all members must complete the orientation before joining any group hike, which rules this out directly.

verbal-reasoning-s01-q09

The passage mentions only orientations and group hikes; it neither confirms nor denies that other activities exist.

verbal-reasoning-s01-q10

This is stated word for word in the passage, so no inference is needed. A reminder to check for direct statements first.

verbal-reasoning-s02-q01

The clue is the result: nobody needed to ask questions, which fits instructions that were easy to understand.

verbal-reasoning-s02-q02

The phrase "into one regional centre" shows several offices being merged together rather than closed or improved.

verbal-reasoning-s02-q03

The sentence itself defines the word: a reply that "left both interpretations open" can be read in more than one way.

verbal-reasoning-s02-q04

The evidence given is repeated effort over time until success: persistence, not talent or strength.

verbal-reasoning-s02-q05

The supporting detail is repetition, which points to wordiness rather than errors or difficulty.

verbal-reasoning-s02-q06

The word "only" signals that the glance fell short of a proper check. It was brief and shallow.

verbal-reasoning-s02-q07

To corroborate is to back up or confirm another account: agreement in substance, not necessarily identical wording.

verbal-reasoning-s02-q08

The warning concerns stretching what one season's data can show onto periods it did not cover.

verbal-reasoning-s02-q09

Neither side moving means progress has stopped entirely: a standstill, not a breakthrough or a deal.

verbal-reasoning-s02-q10

Praise that raises doubts about sincerity is over-the-top praise, poured out without restraint.

verbal-reasoning-s03-q01

The first word names the young of the animal named by the second, so the pattern needs the adult animal.

verbal-reasoning-s03-q02

The relationship is tool to the person who uses it, so the answer must be the whisk's user, not a place or another tool.

verbal-reasoning-s03-q03

Three of the words name trees; a tulip is a flowering plant, so it breaks the shared category.

verbal-reasoning-s03-q04

A drought is a prolonged shortage of rain, so the parallel is the thing famine is a shortage of. Hunger is the result of the shortage, not the missing thing itself.

verbal-reasoning-s03-q05

The first pair are opposites, and the opposite of restrained spending is lavish, wasteful spending: generosity concerns giving to others, which is a different axis.

verbal-reasoning-s03-q06

A sonnet is a specific type of poem, so the pattern needs the general category of which a waltz is a specific type.

verbal-reasoning-s03-q07

Three of the words describe careful watchfulness; the remaining word describes the opposite, a disregard for risk.

verbal-reasoning-s03-q08

An archipelago is a named group of islands, so the pattern needs the things a constellation is a named group of.

verbal-reasoning-s03-q09

The verb relieves the unpleasant state that follows it: alleviating eases pain, and quenching satisfies thirst. Water is the means, not the state relieved.

verbal-reasoning-s03-q10

Something ephemeral lacks permanence, so the pattern needs the quality that something opaque lacks, the ability to be seen through.

verbal-reasoning-s04-q01

The second clause is a direct result of the first, so the sentence needs a cause-and-effect connective, not a contrast.

verbal-reasoning-s04-q02

"At first" signals that the second clause reverses the initial impression, which calls for a contrast connective.

verbal-reasoning-s04-q03

Living in Lisbon explains the fluency, so the connective must introduce a reason rather than a concession or condition.

verbal-reasoning-s04-q04

Going ahead runs against what a forecast of heavy rain would suggest, so the sentence needs a connective of concession.

verbal-reasoning-s04-q05

The booking requirement qualifies the expectation set by "free", so a contrast word fits. The requirement is not an example or a consequence of free entry.

verbal-reasoning-s04-q06

The colon explains the blanks: "pointed towards" matches evidence that hints, and "without settling" rules out evidence that proves.

verbal-reasoning-s04-q07

The sentence contrasts the form's intention with what actually happened, so the connective must introduce the real-world outcome.

verbal-reasoning-s04-q08

"Far from" sets up an opposite outcome: the statement failed to put the rumours to rest and instead made them stronger, a vague statement naturally feeds speculation.

verbal-reasoning-s04-q09

The second clause describes what the committee did in place of rejecting the proposal, so the connective must signal a substituted action.

verbal-reasoning-s04-q10

"Conceded" signals a critic granting one good point before turning negative, so the second judgement must oppose the first.

verbal-reasoning-s05-q01

A good main-idea statement covers the whole passage: the bees' importance, the habitat problem, and the response, not a single detail or an overstated fix.

verbal-reasoning-s05-q02

The passage's examples all illustrate one central claim about expanded lending; the framing calls this a return to, not a departure from, the founding purpose.

verbal-reasoning-s05-q03

A good title names the passage's actual subject, the cooling effect of street trees and how it works, at the right level of breadth.

verbal-reasoning-s05-q04

Three sentences describe the community garden and how it runs; the car park sentence introduces an unrelated topic.

verbal-reasoning-s05-q05

The passage balances two findings joined by "however", steady output and a mentoring cost, so the main point must include both.

verbal-reasoning-s05-q06

The passage presents a trade-off without deciding it, so a faithful summary states both sides rather than picking a winner or inventing failures.

verbal-reasoning-s05-q07

The structure (an advantage, an obstacle, then a proposed remedy) builds a case for action, which reveals a persuasive rather than purely descriptive purpose.

verbal-reasoning-s05-q08

The researchers' caution deliberately stops short of a causal claim, so a faithful reading preserves that hedge instead of upgrading it to proof.

verbal-reasoning-s05-q09

The passage opens with a popular belief and spends the rest refuting it. "In fact" marks where the author's real point begins.

verbal-reasoning-s05-q10

The main idea links the mechanism (slowness forces selection) to the finding (better recall) while keeping the passage's stated caveat about variation.

verbal-reasoning-s06-q01

Saturday tickets were all gone before Friday, so a Friday purchase from the two weekend options can only have been for Sunday.

verbal-reasoning-s06-q02

If today were a market day, the sourdough would have been gone by noon; it is still there at 3 pm, so the rule's condition cannot hold.

verbal-reasoning-s06-q03

Everyone who cycles daily also cycles at least weekly, so the gap between 60% and 25% must cycle weekly but not daily; the remaining 40% might still cycle occasionally.

verbal-reasoning-s06-q04

The rented flats in the building are still flats in the building, so each of them must have a balcony. 'Some' rented flats with balconies is guaranteed.

verbal-reasoning-s06-q05

A larger total divided among fewer people always gives a higher per-person figure; explanations for why, and predictions about June, go beyond the evidence.

verbal-reasoning-s06-q06

The seminar running guarantees its necessary condition was met, a minimum of eight registrations, but tells us nothing about the exact number beyond that.

verbal-reasoning-s06-q07

An employee approved the claim, and Dana is barred from approving her own, so the approver must be some other employee, though not necessarily her manager.

verbal-reasoning-s06-q08

The 10% fall applies to the larger March figure, so it removes more than the rise added: 110% of February reduced by a tenth leaves 99% of February.

verbal-reasoning-s06-q09

The sopranos alone are more than half the choir, and all of them sang, so more than half the choir sang, whatever the other members did.

verbal-reasoning-s06-q10

If the bridge were ever closed on a Sunday, the bus would have to run that day, which never happens, so a Sunday closure is impossible.

verbal-reasoning-s07-q01

People walking past only helps the café if some would actually stop and buy; deny that, and the footfall is irrelevant to the conclusion.

verbal-reasoning-s07-q02

The argument transfers success from one stain type to another, which only works if the two cases are relevantly similar.

verbal-reasoning-s07-q03

Reversing a cause only reverses an effect if it really was the cause; if something else drove people away, cutting prices fixes nothing.

verbal-reasoning-s07-q04

The leap from test score to course performance needs a bridge: the test must actually measure something the course rewards.

verbal-reasoning-s07-q05

A higher count only signals more birds if the way of counting stayed the same; more volunteers or better weather could raise the count without any population change.

verbal-reasoning-s07-q06

The saving comes entirely from lower consumption for the same output; purchase price and future tariffs affect other sums, not this conclusion.

verbal-reasoning-s07-q07

Silence only proves satisfaction if unhappy customers would speak up; if they simply leave without complaining, the absence of complaints shows nothing.

verbal-reasoning-s07-q08

The layer's age only transfers to the animal if the fossil stayed where it was first deposited; movement between layers would break the link.

verbal-reasoning-s07-q09

Answering the objections that were raised proves nothing about weaknesses nobody raised; the conclusion needs the critics' list to be exhaustive.

verbal-reasoning-s07-q10

Turnover can be held down by contracts, a weak job market, or location; the argument works only if satisfaction is the main driver of the difference.

verbal-reasoning-s08-q01

A major employer closing offers a rival explanation for the fall in traffic, so the bypass can no longer take sole credit.

verbal-reasoning-s08-q02

A pilot with a comparison group turns a mere association into evidence that the programme itself produces the improvement.

verbal-reasoning-s08-q03

If health leads to bicycle ownership rather than the other way round, the association exists without cycling improving anyone's health. The causal arrow is reversed.

verbal-reasoning-s08-q04

Ruling out the other plausible causes of a sales rise leaves the redesign as the best remaining explanation.

verbal-reasoning-s08-q05

The conclusion generalises from the sample to the whole town, so showing the sample is unrepresentative cuts the argument at its root.

verbal-reasoning-s08-q06

A plan fails if it targets the wrong bottleneck: more reception capacity cannot shorten waits caused elsewhere in the system.

verbal-reasoning-s08-q07

An argument from analogy is only as strong as the relevant similarities between the two cases, so evidence of those similarities directly supports it.

verbal-reasoning-s08-q08

If cycling itself fell more than the injuries did, the drop in admissions may reflect fewer cyclists rather than safer ones.

verbal-reasoning-s08-q09

A controlled comparison showing more feed produces more yield, a dose-response pattern, is strong evidence that the feed itself is doing the work.

verbal-reasoning-s08-q10

If the consultancy selects clients who were already likely to win, the winners' record reflects that selection rather than anything the consultancy adds.

verbal-reasoning-s09-q01

The account's accuracy is used to prove the truthfulness that was supposed to prove the account's accuracy, the reasoning loops back on itself.

verbal-reasoning-s09-q02

A report stands or falls on its data and methods; the author's employment history may motivate scrutiny but cannot by itself refute the findings.

verbal-reasoning-s09-q03

The argument's force depends on there being exactly two options; if other savings or revenue sources exist, the forced choice is an illusion.

verbal-reasoning-s09-q04

A long-term trend is a pattern across many years and places, so two cold days are far too small a sample to refute it.

verbal-reasoning-s09-q05

An average summarises a whole group; any single household may own zero cars or four, so the figure cannot be read off onto one family.

verbal-reasoning-s09-q06

How many people believe a claim is evidence about opinion, not about the world; widespread belief has often accompanied false claims.

verbal-reasoning-s09-q07

Sequence is not causation: the scarf preceded the wins, but nothing links it to the outcome beyond coincidence.

verbal-reasoning-s09-q08

Qualities of individual members do not automatically combine: excellent voices can still blend poorly, so the whole needs separate evidence.

verbal-reasoning-s09-q09

The reply swaps a modest, targeted proposal for a sweeping ban nobody suggested, then refutes the invented version rather than the real one.

verbal-reasoning-s09-q10

Doubling sounds dramatic, but two extra sightings, with more people now walking past, is easily explained by increased observation rather than more orchids.

verbal-reasoning-s10-q01

The grant funds one category per year and last year's went entirely to travel, so equipment funding from that grant is excluded; priority for first-timers affects odds, not certainties.

verbal-reasoning-s10-q02

Subtracting the 90 favourable subscribers from 130 favourable responses leaves 40 favourable non-subscribers out of the 80 who responded, exactly half.

verbal-reasoning-s10-q03

Absence of evidence is not evidence of failure: sparse data means the urban question stayed open, not that the answer was negative.

verbal-reasoning-s10-q04

Every read application gets a score, so no score means no reading; but the passage gives only one stated reason applications go unread, not the only possible one, so the missing-reference conclusion overreaches.

verbal-reasoning-s10-q05

A larger slice of a much smaller pie can still be less: 12% of half the market equals 6% of the original market, which is below the starting 8%.

verbal-reasoning-s10-q06

Deferring every budget decision to a board that has not yet met entails that no budget was settled when the committee approved the design; what the board will decide remains open.

verbal-reasoning-s10-q07

The June joiners started with no experience and later managed retrievals unaided, so they at least must have learned after joining, how they learned is not settled by the passage.

verbal-reasoning-s10-q08

"Most" of twenty-five means at least thirteen ceramics, and thirteen of forty already exceeds a quarter; the exact count, and what the museum owns outside the show, are not fixed.

verbal-reasoning-s10-q09

The hedges matter: "such as they are" and the noted omission mean the records count against the critics without refuting them, since deterred enquirers would never appear in the data.

verbal-reasoning-s10-q10

The transfer route allows up to ten working days, so a wait beyond five is possible; concluding that her card had expired reads the rule backwards: expiry guarantees a transfer, but the passage never says a transfer happens only after expiry.