A Guide For The Ukcat Verbal Reasoning Section

The United Kingdom Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) is one of two medical school entrance exams. One of the five sections is Verbal Reasoning. No student who plans to take the highly competitive UKCAT can afford to perform weakly on this or on any other sub-section of the exam. Unfortunately, while students applying to medical school are presumably strong in the maths and sciences, they are not necessarily strong in English verbal skills and in high-level reading comprehension and logical reasoning. The purpose of this article is to reveal the surprisingly simple secret to unlocking the UKCAT Verbal Reasoning section.

What is especially interesting about this section is that while it looks, at first glance, deceptively simple, test-takers are routinely stumped by it. The Verbal Reasoning section contains 11 passages of about half a page each, each passage followed by 4 questions. Each question consists of a simple statement followed by the same 3 choices: According to the passage, is the statement True, False, or Can't Tell? Now how hard can that be, you may be thinking, yet unless you figure out the secret to the method of this exam, answering each question is like taking a shot in the dark. Conversely, once you know the secret, the correct answer to each question becomes so very obvious.

The Verbal Reasoning Instructions are as follows. A statement is determined to be True if, on the basis of the information in the passage, the statement is true or logically follows from the passage. A statement is determined to be False if, on the basis of the information in the passage, the statement is false. Lastly, a statement is given a Can't Tell response if you cannot tell from the information in the passage whether the statement is true or false.

Each passage needs to be read carefully in order to grasp the subject of the passage and its gist, or main claims. There is no need to commit facts or figures to memory. Then each brief statement should ideally be read twice before answering. By the second reading, the examinee should sense if any word or words are emphasized in the statement, particularly words of qualification such as never, always, frequently, rarely, one, a few, very, annually, and the like. With the statement clearly in mind, the examinee should scan the passage rapidly, looking only for the sentence or sentences that refer to the exact same topic or claim as the statement. Here is the key: if the passage says exactly the same thing as the statement but in different words – that is, it uses synonyms – then the statement is rendered True. If the passage says exactly the opposite of the statement, then the statement is rendered False. Finally, if the passage contains no sentence that says what the statement says, the statement is rendered Can't Tell.

Yes, that is the secret in its entirety to unlocking the challenging Verbal Reasoning Section of the UKCAT. Again, a statement is True if the passage says exactly the same thing but in different words; False if the passage says exactly the opposite; and Can't Tell if the passage contains no sentence of the kind. This simple yet ingenious method can be used by any test-taker of the UKCAT, and it will be especially valued by the non-native speakers of English or the student whose English verbal skills are not their strong suit.

By: Jane Shephard

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Jane Shephard is a Ph.D. in English Literature and Language. Shephard works at 'Job Test Prep', developing packages of online practice exams for leading academic entrance exams worldwide. Her area of specialty is in the Verbal and Writing sections of these exams. Please visit 'UKCAT Prep' for more information on the upcoming exam.