Verbal Reasoning Study Guide for the CLT

General Information

There are 40 questions in the Verbal Reasoning section of the CLT, and the time limit is 40 minutes, so try to pace yourself and avoid spending more than about a minute per question.

This section assesses two reading abilities: reading comprehension and analysis of text.

Questions that test comprehension may ask you about the passage as a whole, requiring you to put together all the passage parts and make a judgment or assessment. There will also be questions about details in the passage, including key points or facts. Finally, you will be asked to find connections or relationships between parts of the passage.
Analysis questions require you to do more than just understand what you read. You’ll need to take the written information and make inferences to determine things like the writer or a character’s point of view. It will also be necessary to examine both verbal and quantitative evidence in the passage.

There are four passages in the Verbal Reasoning section, with ten questions about each. The passages are mostly drawn from classical literature, with some contemporary sources used. You will see the following genres represented in the four passages:

Philosophy and Religion—These will be from a variety of time frames, but they all generally involve discussions of truth, reasoning, and ethics.
Science—The science passage will focus on a science discipline, such as physics, biology, genetics, astronomy, or chemistry, but it may also involve implications related to society, ethics, or morals. Every science passage will be accompanied by a graphic of some sort, such as a table, graph, or chart.
Literature—These passages come from classical and modern writers, especially those whose works have impacted Western culture. They are all written in prose.
Historical/American Founding Documents—This is the only part of the Verbal Reasoning test that contains two passages, but they are shorter than the other passages used. The two passages are written about the same subject but from two different perspectives. One is a historical document that may be from ancient sources, and the other was written by someone who lived during an important period in US history.

The questions about all of these passage types may deal with any of the following:

main ideas
author’s tone
a character’s motives
word meaning (given in context)
passage structure
evidence to support an answer
analogies based on the passage

This study guide will help you review some of the most important skills needed to succeed on this section of the CLT.

Main Idea

Reading comprehension and textual analysis often require you to identify the main idea of a text. As you might guess, the main idea is the central or most important point an author tries to convey to an audience. The main idea should not be confused with the topic of a text. Topic refers to the general subject, whereas the main idea is the author’s “idea” about that subject or what they want you to know about it. The main idea may be stated directly by the author, or it may be implied, and you may have to infer the main idea from the text. It is the message or understanding that you should be taking away, as the reader.

Locations of the Main Idea

For clarity purposes, the main idea is generally presented toward the beginning of a text. That doesn’t mean it’s the first sentence, but it does mean that you should usually be able to identify the main idea within the first paragraph or two of a text. This is because writers want the reader to have a clear sense of what they are reading and why.

In multiple-paragraph texts, the main idea is often found in the thesis statement that introduces the writer’s main idea or argument. This thesis statement is usually included toward the end of the text’s introduction, which may be the first paragraph or two. In shorter texts, the main idea may be introduced in a topic sentence in the first sentence or two of a paragraph. Occasionally, the main idea is stated by the author toward the end of a text, which is why reading the introduction, conclusion, and topic sentences should help you find the main idea.

Finding the Main Idea

To find the main idea in a passage, ask yourself, “What point is the author trying to make? What message are they trying to give me?” Reading with the purpose of determining the main idea means that you ask yourself questions about the text as you read. On a timed assessment, you may not have an opportunity to read each passage in depth, so skim the first and last paragraphs (likely the introduction and conclusion) and the topic sentences of each paragraph to determine the main idea. You might also look for repeated words or phrases, which indicate a point is being made that the author wants to make sure the reader doesn’t miss. Remember to differentiate between the topic or subject and what the author says about the topic, which will be the main idea.

Skim

When we read with different purposes, we read in different ways. One way to read a text is to skim it. This means that you read something quickly, looking for the main idea and important points and not necessarily reading every word. Skimming won’t help you appreciate the details of a text, but it does allow you to engage with more text in less time, focusing on just the main idea(s) and the big picture presented by the author.

Read

Reading a text requires more time and attention than skimming. When you read, you look for the details, evidence, and explanations an author provides to support their main idea. Reading may involve annotating or marking the text to highlight key words or passages, and writing notes in the margins about ideas that catch your attention. In reading, you are looking to make meaning from the text. More than just identifying the main idea, you are trying to understand what the author has to say about the main idea. When you skim a text, you may find sections that you want to read in more depth because they contain key information to support the main idea. That is usually time well spent, even in situations where you don’t have unlimited time.

Evaluate

Once you have identified the main idea and read some of the support offered by the author about the main idea, then you evaluate the text. Evaluation is the thinking about and consideration of what you have read. Based on what you read, what meaning can you find? Do you agree or disagree with the main idea? Do you trust this author and the evidence they have provided? In the evaluation step, you consider the text as a whole, critically assess what it says and how it says it, and determine its effectiveness in delivering its main idea.

Finding Details

Instead of looking for an overarching main idea, other questions will ask about less significant aspects of the passage. The term for these is details, but the task is not as simple as finding certain words or phrases that are actually in the passage.

Alternate Wording

Details are the examples or pieces of information that support or explain the main idea of a text. As with the main idea itself, sometimes details are explicitly delivered to the reader (e.g., “For example”) but sometimes they must be inferred. When looking for details, skim the text for words that introduce key ideas or examples or draw conclusions. Ask yourself who, what, where, when, why, and how, and look for answers to those questions in the text—those are likely the details. How is the author trying to prove the main idea? Regardless of how it’s worded, that proof is presented in the details.

“Except” Questions

Test questions can be tricky, and one type that commonly confuses people is the “except” question. In this type of question, you’re not looking for a detail included in the text, but considering what has been left out of the text. What detail(s) did the author not include?

Evidence to Support Answers

Some of the questions in the Verbal Reasoning test may ask you to justify an answer to a previous question by finding evidence in the passage. You will be given four choices and must determine which excerpt from the passage best supports the answer you chose for the previous question. Here are some suggestions for approaching this type of question.

Read Your Previous Answer Carefully

Depending on how you answer a question, you may need to include different types of evidence to support your response. For example, you may be asked to identify which paragraph, sentence, or line from a text supports your answer. Be sure you can identify specifically where the evidence lies to identify it accurately in your response.

Scan the Answer Choices

Careful reading applies not only to the text but to the questions as well. Before selecting your answer option, be sure to scan all of the choices. Some may seem obviously incorrect, but there may be more than one that seems plausible. Especially in questions that ask for the answer that is best supported, you need to be able to match the evidence you found in the text to the answer you choose. If there’s an answer that sounds kind of good, but there’s no evidence in the text to support it, it may not be the best (or correct) answer. Make sure you know all of the options before selecting one so you can evaluate how well the evidence supports each.

Author’s Tone

Authors are human, and their tone or attitude about a particular subject comes across in their writing. Tone is intentional, and diction, organization, and sentence structure all contribute to the tone. The words an author uses, the order in which they present ideas to the audience, and the examples and supporting details they include can all help convey the author’s message to the reader. Effective authors can take on any attitude and portray that to the reader.

Identifying the Author’s Tone

Identifying the author’s tone requires careful reading and analysis. The tone is often set in the first paragraph of a text, so start by reading the introduction to get a sense of the writer’s tone. Is it playful? Is it serious? Is it angry? Is it hopeful? If the tone isn’t evident in the first paragraph, keep reading and focus on these elements to help you determine the overall tone. The tone can also shift during a text, maybe starting playful or lighthearted and then turning serious, so it is important to at least skim the entire passage to ensure there are no shifts in tone.

Word Choice

One way an author can convey tone is by their word choice or diction. Authors intentionally select the words they use in a text for the impact they will have on the reader. Considering the wording and phrasing will help you identify the tone. Is the writer using neutral language, or are there words with strong connotations? Is it positive and hopeful overall, or is it negative and scary? Is the tone serious because the author sees this subject as worthy of consideration and respect, or is it funny or sarcastic to poke fun at a problem and get people to see the ridiculousness of a situation? Consider the word choice carefully and ask yourself, why would the author choose this word instead of another similar word? The answer may help you identify the tone.

Writing Structure

In addition to word choice, the structure of the sentences, the paragraphs, or the text as a whole may hold some clues as to the author’s tone. Short sentences can indicate strong feelings about a subject. Longer sentences can seem explanatory in nature. How many and what kinds of examples are included? How does the author explain or support the claims made? These structural choices can also point to tone.

Use of Imagery

A third way to identify the author’s tone is by looking at the type of imagery they use. What types of figurative language are they using? What kinds of connections are they making for the reader? How are those connections meant to have the reader feel as a result of reading them? Happy, peaceful imagery creates a different tone than dark, ominous imagery.

Using the Author’s Tone

Identifying the tone an author uses can give you clues for other questions. A question about how the author feels about the subject they’re writing about can be answered if you have identified their tone. Understanding the tone can help identify the author’s purpose in writing a text and can help clarify the main idea or message to the reader.

Influences on Author’s Tone

Many factors can influence an author’s tone. It’s also important to note that the tone an author takes when writing a particular text may or may not be the attitude they actually have about a particular subject. Authors can take on a particular persona as they write to deliver a particular tone that may be very different from what the author actually thinks as a person. Reading several texts by the same author on a given subject can give a broader sense of what they really think about that subject.

The Author’s Audience

Knowing the audience is key when developing a text. What kind of language will appeal to the target audience? What kind of language might alienate them? How knowledgeable is the audience about a particular subject? These types of considerations influence authors and inform the language, imagery, and structure to best serve their purpose.

Context

The context in which an author writes can also affect their tone. If they are writing in a politically charged time or during a period of unrest or uncertainty, they may choose to use a calming, reassuring tone that will help set their audience at ease. Context not only affects how the writer writes, but how the audience perceives what they have written and how they process the author’s message.