UCAT: Verbal Reasoning

[AJ]

Hi guys,
Despite doing A LOT of questions (devoting full-time study to the UCAT) I just cannot seem to crack all questions on verbal reasoning no matter how hard I try. I was wondering, if you any body here has had experience with similar dealings? I have tried all sorts of techniques i.e. keyword, 50/50, hybrid styles etc... any advice on applicable methodologies and the 1 percenters would be great!

 

[hazell]

Was struggling on a True/False/Can't Tell question earlier. The passage stated something along the lines of (I simplified the book titles for brevity):

"An example of anti-ethnocentric anthropology is Book X (1928) and Book Y (1934)".

The question stated: "Book X was published 6 years before Book Y."

I was deciding between True/Can't Tell, ended up going for the latter but it was indeed wrong. My logic was that we don't know exactly when in 1928 and 1936 the books were published (i.e. if Book X was published was towards the end of 1928 and Book Y at the beginning of 1934, this would not be six years). Another thing, are we required to infer that years in brackets mean year published, even if the passage does not explicitly state the word "published"? Could someone give their two cents? Would be much appreciated!

I would've also gone with can't tell I'd love to hear others opinions on this!

 

[nb]

Was struggling on a True/False/Can't Tell question earlier. The passage stated something along the lines of (I simplified the book titles for brevity):

"An example of anti-ethnocentric anthropology is Book X (1928) and Book Y (1934)".

The question stated: "Book X was published 6 years before Book Y."

I was deciding between True/Can't Tell, ended up going for the latter but it was indeed wrong. My logic was that we don't know exactly when in 1928 and 1936 the books were published (i.e. if Book X was published was towards the end of 1928 and Book Y at the beginning of 1934, this would not be six years). Another thing, are we required to infer that years in brackets mean year published, even if the passage does not explicitly state the word "published"? Could someone give their two cents? Would be much appreciated!

Yes. I would say cant tell as well

 

[whys]

I would've also gone with can't tell I'd love to hear others opinions on this!

So would I. You can't even tell if the dates given are the dates in which they were first published, and even then we can't assume they are exactly 6 months apart.

 

[hazell]

Yes. I would say cant tell as well

So would I. You can't even tell if the dates given are the dates in which they were first published, and even then we can't assume they are exactly 6 months apart.

awesome thanks guys!

 

[N182]

Hi guys,
Despite doing A LOT of questions (devoting full-time study to the UCAT) I just cannot seem to crack all questions on verbal reasoning no matter how hard I try. I was wondering, if you any body here has had experience with similar dealings? I have tried all sorts of techniques i.e. keyword, 50/50, hybrid styles etc... any advice on applicable methodologies and the 1 percenters would be great!

I have a similar problem to you, in that I always misintrepet questions or don't find the best answer but rather find a good or mediocre answer. I found that simply reading the whole passage for reading comprehension is better than keyword, because 90% of the time I end up reading most of the passage anyway and continually going back and forth simply wastes more time. When reading I try to memorise key concepts+placeholder names/defintion, and if I forget I can simply go back knowing exactly where that piece of information is.

 

[Argonaute]

I would've also gone with can't tell I'd love to hear others opinions on this!

Yes. I would say cant tell as well

So would I. You can't even tell if the dates given are the dates in which they were first published, and even then we can't assume they are exactly 6 months apart.

Glad to see I'm not the only one! . Ah well

 

[fray20]

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View attachment 3617

Hey guys, these two questions threw me off. With the first one, whilst the relative degree of complexity for 'Go' isn't specified anywhere in the text, with the way its phrased in the question I thought we assume it to be additional knowledge given to us and not actually part of what the question is asking. For these types of questions, where additional information is provided in the stem but not part of what's specifically being questioned, do we pick can't tell if the additional info isn't specified in the text?

With the second question, I get the explanation as in the question specifically asked whether it can be directly inferred and so the answer is false. But I can't remember getting questions like this wrong prior to this one. Whilst it cannot be inferred there is nothing saying it can't tell whether or not its in the field of chemistry - its even stated in the explanation? With future questions phrased similar to these, would can't tell be the correct option and this is just a tad dodgy, or does the inclusion of 'it can be inferred' restrict the answer options to a true or false? Thanks guys!

I think for the first question, most questions, if not all, should be treated as a question, rather than additional information to the passage (unless stated otherwise). If I find a question confusing, I try to reword the statement as a question. i.e. "Could we conclude that Go is both more complex than chess and classified as AI from the passage?" If yes, then true, if it contradicts the passage, then false, and if there's no evidence to conclude this, then Can't Tell.

With the second question, I would ask "Does the passage allow us to conclude that Calvin won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry?", which would either be Yes or No (True or False), rather than Can't Tell. I think if it was simply "Calvin won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry", and we had to answer T/F/C, then we can choose Can't Tell, since the statement would not contradict the passage. But I understand your confusion, because I think I had a question similar, and the way they answered contradicts how we went about this question.

I hope that helps, although I feel that I made it all more confusing!

 

[sunnyrain]

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[whys]

Hello everyone.
For this question, I was wondering why it wouldn't be 'can't tell?' In the text, it says that 'he issued one of the first modern patents' to protect his invention and I picked 'can't tell' because we don't know whether he was the first. I didn't understand the explanation given.

he issued one of the first modern patents - implies that there have been non-modern patents before his (they wouldn’t have used the adjective ‘modern’ if there hadn’t been previous patents).

 

[N182]

Isn't this a false positive since the predator mistakenly thinks there is a threat but there isn't a threat?

 

[2xq]

this may seem like a weird question but is it normal to be fluctuating in scores for VR???

 

[hrj0306]

Isn't this a false positive since the predator mistakenly thinks there is a threat but there isn't a threat?

False positive here means being cautious. i.e. not eating the animal as it may be poisonous.

 

[DrDrLMG!]

Isn't this a false positive since the predator mistakenly thinks there is a threat but there isn't a threat?

I think the key is in the result (maybe?). If the hungry predator had of noted the falsely coloured (but harmless) prey and decided not to eat it, that would be a false positive.

ETA: yeah, what hrj0306 said

 

[whys]

this may seem like a weird question but is it normal to be fluctuating in scores for VR???

Yes, it is normal. It's normal to be fluctuating in scores for all subsections tbh. Some days you might just have a poorer performance due to other external factors, and sometimes you might get mostly difficult passages. As long as your fluctuations aren't extreme (e.g. going from 10/44 to 30/44) then you'll be fine.

 

[sunnyrain]

.

 

[hrj0306]

Hello everyone.
For this question, in the passage it says 'advancing of charges against the President for his impeachment and others' for the jurisdiction of Duma. I interpreted this to mean that they can make the charges against them, because of impeachment, but they can't actually make impeachment happen so that's why I said 'can't tell'. I'm not sure how we can say it's 'true' then?
For context, when they say 'houses' in the question, they're referring to State Duma and Council of Federation.
View attachment 3683

I think the answer is true because of the wording of the question, particularly "can". For the State Duma it says "advancing of charges against the president for his impeachment and others"; which is a less explicit way of saying they can be involved in his impeachment i think.

Hope it helped

 

[sevun]

I'm a bit confused here!
For the left one: how should I interpret the question? Should I interpret it as the question is stating with full certainty that the German army suffered more casualties or more of a traditional question, where it could be rephrased to "Did the German army suffer more casualties?" I assume by the answer it is the former, and this is how I should approach all VR questions? It's just that I feel like I've come across both, where the question is either interpreted as statement or could be rephrased into a question. As shown in this case, the former gives False and the latter gives Can't Tell.

For the right one: Does most imply "not 100%" or just "anything above 50%"? I think I got confused with definitions, because I thought "most" meant there were would be some accounts written by Spartans? That's why I chose False, because that would be a direct contradiction in that case.

If anyone could help, that would be great! Thanks!

 

[2xq]

View attachment 3695
I'm a bit confused here!
For the left one: how should I interpret the question? Should I interpret it as the question is stating with full certainty that the German army suffered more casualties or more of a traditional question, where it could be rephrased to "Did the German army suffer more casualties?" I assume by the answer it is the former, and this is how I should approach all VR questions? It's just that I feel like I've come across both, where the question is either interpreted as statement or could be rephrased into a question. As shown in this case, the former gives False and the latter gives Can't Tell.

For the right one: Does most imply "not 100%" or just "anything above 50%"? I think I got confused with definitions, because I thought "most" meant there were would be some accounts written by Spartans? That's why I chose False, because that would be a direct contradiction in that case.

If anyone could help, that would be great! Thanks!

Left Image: the passage shows that the russian casualties were between 500000 and 1 mil & that german casualties were 350000 (idk the whole passage but i assume it was during the Brusilov Offensive). the range of 500k to a mill is larger than 350k thus false.

Right Image: well the key words were "written by non-spartans". the passage states that they were often (i.e. most of the time) presented with an idealised image (implying there is potential inaccuracy). Thus can be concluded to be true.

Correct me if im wrong with any of my explanations.

 

[sevun]

Left Image: the passage shows that the russian casualties were between 500000 and 1 mil & that german casualties were 350000 (idk the whole passage but i assume it was during the Brusilov Offensive). the range of 500k to a mill is larger than 350k thus false.

Right Image: well the key words were "written by non-spartans". the passage states that they were often (i.e. most of the time) presented with an idealised image (implying there is potential inaccuracy). Thus can be concluded to be true.

Correct me if im wrong with any of my explanations.

LEFT: Oh! Yeah that makes sense hehe

RIGHT: Hmm but it says in the question most accounts were written by non-Spartans, not "all"? I thought "all" and "most" referred to who wrote the accounts, not what the accounts presented?
I'm getting confused with whether the definition of most is equivalent to the definition of all in this case, since 100% of accounts were written by non-Spartans and presented idealised image etc.