Find a verbal reasoning tutor

School-style verbal reasoning can ask learners to compare meanings or apply a relationship to a new pair. The Kent familiarisation booklet describes this kind of reasoning; the short example below is an original illustration.

Practice task: Match each animal to its home: bird → nest; bee → ? Choose hive or honey.

Honey is connected with bees, but it answers a different question: what a bee produces. The stated relationship is animal to home, so hive fits. A useful explanation is: “A nest is a bird’s home; a hive is a bee’s home.”

If “hive” is unfamiliar, first explain the word. If the learner knows both choices but picks honey, focus on naming the exact relationship before answering. As a follow-up, try dog → kennel or bark. Kennel keeps the home relationship; bark names a sound. The aim is to explain why the second pair fits, as well as choosing the word.

Letter patterns give a tutor a different difficulty to investigate: can the learner carry the same rule through the whole answer? This original practice example illustrates applying a relationship to a fresh set of letters.

Rule: Move every letter one place forwards in the alphabet. CAT becomes DBU. What does DOG become?

Check the first example letter by letter: C → D, A → B and T → U. Then apply the same rule to DOG: D → E, O → P and G → H. The answer is EPH.

An answer of EOG changes only the first letter. The correction is to write three separate letter pairs and check each one against the rule. Try HEN next: H → I, E → F, N → O, giving IFO. Being able to explain all three changes on the new word is a better sign of understanding than remembering EPH. Actual test questions may use other rules, so always read the supplied instructions.

For the Civil Service Verbal Test, the decision must follow from the supplied passage. Here is an original illustration of its true, false and cannot-say distinction.

Passage: “The library opens at 9 am from Monday to Friday. On Wednesdays it closes at 8 pm.”

“Cannot say” means the passage does not settle the statement. It is different from “false”, which needs information that contradicts it. A familiar library’s opening hours are irrelevant to this task.

For a follow-up, judge: “The library closes at 8 pm every weekday.” The answer is cannot say. We know Wednesday’s closing time, but the passage leaves the other weekdays open. A stronger response names the missing information rather than treating a plausible guess as evidence.

Use the learner’s own work to decide what to teach first. For school-age tuition, the Education Endowment Foundation recommends identifying learning gaps, selecting teaching accordingly and monitoring progress. The sequence below is a suggested way to apply those principles to verbal reasoning, to be agreed with the tutor. Read the EEF’s one-to-one tuition guidance.

A useful fit conversation goes beyond naming an exam. Share the learner’s age or stage, the school or test provider if relevant, and a question with their attempted answer. Ask which comparable learners or assessments the tutor has taught and how they would use that work to choose a starting point.

Latimer offers a free introductory meeting to discuss goals, teaching approach and arrangements. Use it to agree the priorities below before paid lessons.