UCAT

Verbal reasoning asks whether a statement can be drawn from a passage of text, using only what that passage says. No medical knowledge is needed, and what you already know about the topic is a hazard rather than a help, because the question is always about the passage and never about the world. The passages are short extracts on science, history, economics, the arts and everyday affairs, written in the style of articles and reports, and the skill is reading them the way an editor would: slowly enough to see what is claimed and what is merely mentioned.

Claims, evidence and background

Most passages mix three kinds of sentence. A claim is something the author asserts is so ("Rural bus services have declined since 2010"). Evidence is what is offered in support (a figure, an example, a quoted study). Background is context that is neither (a definition, a date, a short history). A conclusion that a question offers is usually built from one of these, and mistakes come from treating one as another: a statement that a study found something is not the same as a statement that the thing is true, and a sentence of background may not support the claim it sits next to.

Reading for structure means asking of each paragraph what job it does. A first sentence often states the topic, the middle sentences give detail, and a final sentence often qualifies the whole thing with "however" or "although", so the real position of the author may only appear at the end.

Whose view is it

Passages regularly report what other people think: critics argue, some historians believe, the government claimed. A statement attributed to a group is a fact about that group's view and not a fact about the world. If a passage says that some economists think a policy will raise prices, then "the policy will raise prices" is not supported, although "some economists expect the policy to raise prices" is. The author's own position is only known where the author says it, or where the wording makes it plain.

Words that change the meaning

Small words carry most of the precision in a passage, and they are the usual place for a trap.

"Most" means more than half and says nothing about how many more, and "many" says even less: it could be a large number that is still a minority. "Some" means at least one and is compatible with "all", though a writer who meant "all" would normally say so. A passage that says a drug "may reduce" symptoms has not said that it does.

Comparatives deserve care. If town A has more museums than town B, it follows that A has at least one more, but nothing follows about which town has more people per museum, or which is larger.

Numbers and dates in a passage

Passages carry figures, and an offered statement is often a small piece of arithmetic on them. A rise from 40 to 60 is an increase of 20 units, which is 50% of the original figure; the same change is not "a 20% rise". A fall from 60 to 40 is a one-third fall. Check which quantity is the base of a percentage, and whether a figure is a total, a rate or a share. A passage that says sales doubled between 2015 and 2020 has not said when within those years the growth took place.

Dates need the same attention: "since 1990" runs up to the present, "between 1990 and 2000" is closed, and a statement about what happened "before" an event is false if the passage only says it happened "around" that time.

Reading at speed without skipping

Skimming for keywords is a reasonable first pass, and it is how a question is located in the text: the statement contains a name, a figure or an unusual word, and that word points to the sentence that settles it. The decision, though, is made on the whole sentence and the sentences beside it, because a keyword sentence is frequently qualified by the next one. A sound habit is to read the question statement first, find the part of the passage it concerns, read that part in full including the sentence on each side, and only then judge.

Where two sentences seem to disagree, look for the difference in scope. "Most patients improved" and "a third of patients did not improve" can both be true; "no patient improved" and "some patients improved" cannot.

Worked example

A regional council reports that cycling to work rose in the two years after a new cycle path opened, from 8% of commuters to 11%. Over the same period the number of commuters in the region grew by 10%. The council says the path was the main reason for the change, though a local cycling group points out that fuel prices also rose sharply in those years.

Consider the statement "The number of people cycling to work rose by more than 37%." Take the commuter count at the start as 100, so 8 cycled. After two years there are 110 commuters, and 11% of 110 is 12.1 cyclists. The rise is $\frac{12.1 - 8}{8} = 0.5125$, which is about 51%. The statement is therefore true, but only because the growth in commuters is counted as well as the rise in share; reading "8% to 11%" alone would suggest a rise of 37.5%, and that figure is the trap.

Consider the statement "The cycle path caused the rise." The council says it was the main reason, which is a view of the council, and the cycling group names another factor. The passage does not establish the cause, so the statement cannot be confirmed from it.