Verbal reasoning questions, explained step by step

To explain a verbal reasoning question, name the link or the clue first, test every option against it, and say why each wrong option fails; an answer key that only gives the letter teaches none of that. Research on learning from tests suggests the explanation is what carries over to the next, different question.

What do verbal reasoning tests ask?

Mostly the same few kinds of question, in many languages. Saudi Arabia’s General Aptitude Test, known as Qudurat, is a clear example. The official test-taker’s guide from the Education and Training Evaluation Commission (ETEC) lists four verbal domains, weighted in the science-track test as verbal analogies 17%, sentence completion 7%, contextual error 10% and reading comprehension 21%, and its practice questions include odd-one-out items. The test runs to 120 questions in two hours and five minutes, in Arabic or English. The analogy relations it names are the classic ones: synonyms, antonyms, cause and effect, part and whole, classification and association.

Graduate admissions use the same building blocks. The GRE’s Verbal Reasoning measure, according to ETS, is about half reading passages and half completing sentences.

Why can’t students learn from the answer key?

Because the key skips every step of the reasoning. In Robert Sternberg’s 1977 model of analogical reasoning, solving an analogy means encoding the words, inferring how the first pair is related, mapping that relation onto the second pair and applying it to each option. A letter shows the student none of that.

Wrong options also leave traces. In a 2005 experiment, Henry Roediger and Elizabeth Marsh found that taking a multiple-choice test made students more likely to give its wrong options as answers on a later test, the more so when they had read more of them. Feedback fixes much of this: in Andrew Butler and Roediger’s 2008 follow-up, feedback, whether given straight away or after the test, raised correct answers and cut those intrusions on a delayed test. And when the next question is a new one, feedback that explains the answer beats feedback that only gives it, as Butler, Namrata Godbole and Marsh showed in 2013 experiments with university students.

Even official material often stops at the letter. ETEC’s guide explains its worked samples, but the 26 practice questions at the back come with an answer key that lists the right letter for each.

How do students prepare today?

With question banks, prep books, coaching and long recorded lessons. UNESCO’s 2021/2 Global Education Monitoring Report finds that demand for private tutoring is most closely tied to preparing for high-stakes exams, and an admissions test is exactly that. The gaps are predictable:

• Question banks give keys without reasoning.
• Recorded lessons explain a type of question, not the one in front of the student.
• Tutors explain well, but their time is expensive.
• Arabic tests add one more: the explanation has to run right to left, in Arabic, with the options named the way Arabic teachers name them.

What makes a good verbal reasoning explanation?

The same moves every time, so students learn the method and not just the answer:

1. Read the question exactly as written, then each option as it appears.
2. Name the link in a short phrase, such as “a tool and what it measures”, before judging any option. For a completion, find the clue word first; for odd one out, say what the other three share.
3. Rule out each wrong option by name, with its reason, so no wrong option is left unexplained.
4. Mark the answer and say the link again, in the same words you used for that relation last time, so it becomes a habit.
5. Trust the teacher’s key, and flag doubts openly. Verbal keys can be argued; a disagreement should be checked, not hidden.

Here is the method on one analogy. Thermometer : temperature. (A) scissors : paper (B) clock : wall (C) ruler : length (D) pen : writer.

• The link: a tool and what it measures.
• A is out: scissors cut paper; they don’t measure it.
• B is out: a clock hangs on a wall; the wall isn’t what it measures.
• D is out: a writer uses a pen; that’s a tool and its user.
• C fits: a ruler measures length, so the answer is C.

For multiple-choice videos more generally, see how to make a quiz video.

What does the Verbal questions skill do?

We make Chasca, so read our part of this with that in mind. The Verbal questions skill makes the explanation above from your own questions:

• Paste the questions with their options and your key, or add photos, a PDF or a document of the sheet, up to 20 pages. It handles analogies, sentence completions and odd one out, and other multiple-choice questions on the same board. Your wording is never changed.
• The question is read word for word with a pointer under it, and each option appears as it is named.
• The link or the clue is named and marked on the board, each wrong option is struck through as the narrator rules it out, and the right one is boxed. For odd one out, the words that belong together are marked and their shared meaning is written on the board.
• Every answer is checked against your key and solved a second time, separately. Your key stays the answer; if anything disagrees, the video’s page tells you which question to check, and the video itself never says so.
• Arabic runs right to left, with the options read as the letter names ألف، باء، جيم، دال. In other languages, the narration follows the way teachers there explain.
• Narration in any of 30 narrators or your own voice, with captions that never show a word before it is said.

Who is it for?

Teachers and coaching centres preparing students for aptitude tests with a verbal section, authors of question banks who want every question explained, and tutors who set their own analogy and completion drills, in Arabic, English or another language.

What won’t it do?

• Change a word of your question, or quietly “correct” your key.
• Hide a disagreement. If the checks don’t agree with your key, you’re told which question.
• Lay out long reading passages. It’s made for questions that fit on one board; reading comprehension passages don’t have their own layout yet.
• Give you rights to other people’s questions. Use your own, or ones you’re allowed to use.

How do you make one?

1. Open Verbal questions in Chasca.
2. Paste the questions with their options and key, or add a photo or PDF of the sheet.
3. Pick the language, the voice and a black board or whiteboard, then make the video.
4. Check the video’s page for any flagged question before you share it.

Your first two videos are free, up to a minute each, watermarked and with no card required; a free video covers the first questions that fit in its minute. Plans start at $9.99 a month (pricing).

Sources

• Education and Training Evaluation Commission (2026). The General Aptitude Test (GAT): Test-taker’s guide.
• ETS. GRE General Test: Overview of the Verbal Reasoning measure.
• Sternberg, R. J. (1977). Component processes in analogical reasoning. Psychological Review, 84(4), 353–378.
• Roediger, H. L., & Marsh, E. J. (2005). The positive and negative consequences of multiple-choice testing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31(5), 1155–1159.
• Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). Feedback enhances the positive effects and reduces the negative effects of multiple-choice testing. Memory & Cognition, 36(3), 604–616.
• Butler, A. C., Godbole, N., & Marsh, E. J. (2013). Explanation feedback is better than correct answer feedback for promoting transfer of learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(2), 290–298.
• UNESCO (2021). Global Education Monitoring Report 2021/2: Non-state actors in education.