Online-Test: A verbal psychometric test (verbal reasoning) (Psychometric)

Passage 13: In the past 12 months benefit fraud has fallen by £½ billion to its lowest level for over a decade. The fall is equivalent to a 25 per cent drop to 1.5 per cent of the total £100 billion benefit bill. This spectacular fall follows permission for the benefit office to access Inland Revenue taxation data. Benefit officers can now immediately check to see if a claimant is working and claiming benefits intended only for those out of work. This new measure has led to over 80,000 people being caught making false claims. A similar initiative has also succeeded in a substantial cut in the level of fraud committed by claimants of housing benefit. Local authorities are responsible for the administration of this allowance, which is awarded to the unemployed and low paid to help with housing costs. Until recently local authority staff had been unable to access central government records to check the information provided by claimants. These checks have so far identified 44,000 claimants who have provided false information in order to make claims for allowances for which they are not eligible.
Statement: A year ago the level of benefit fraud totalled £2 billion.

Choose two words, one from each list, that are closest in meaning or have the strongest connection.

Swap two words so that the sentence reads sensibly.

Passage 5: In tropical rainforests the climate remains hot and damp all year round. In the Arctic it is cold all year, and in high mountain ranges the climate is much colder than in nearby low-lying lands. Climate is not the same as weather. The weather can change quickly whereas climate describes likely weather conditions over a much longer period. The world is divided into five climate zones. Polar is the only zone where it is always cold; tropical is hot all year round; temperate has warm summers and cold winters; desert is dry and cool; forest has cool, short summers. Mankind can affect climate (e.g., forest fires that obscure the sun; more recently, pollution has affected climate via the greenhouse effect).
Statement: In deserts the winter is cooler than the summer.

Find the new four-letter word from the end of one given word and the beginning of the next.

Passage 4: Asia is the world’s largest continent and stretches from the Baring Sea in the east to Turkey and Europe in the west. Its southern border comprises many islands, including those that make up Indonesia. Since independence of colonial powers, Asian economies have boomed. First were Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea and later Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. More recently China and India have enjoyed rapid economic growth. The south-west and central parts of the continent are deserts. The Himalayan mountains divide the cold north from the tropical south. The people of Asia make up over two-thirds of the world’s population and they live in the birthplace of the world’s earliest civilizations.
Statement: Post-colonial growth first occurred in Singapore.

Passage 15: For most of the last two decades of the previous century the economy of the city of Liverpool was mostly stagnant and far behind that of the rest of the UK. But as other cities have become more expensive, Liverpool has become a more popular place in which to invest and live. Liverpool’s population dropped from 800,000 after the war to less than 500,000 at the turn of the century. The process of depopulation has now reduced to a trickle and for the first time in decades the working population has grown. The level of unemployment, which once stood at 20 per cent, is down to under 5 per cent. Construction of office space is booming and currently being built are conference complexes, a series of department stores and two 50-floor tower blocks. It is not surprising, therefore, that the working population is expected to grow further still. Low living and housing costs have attracted many public sector organizations to relocate to the city. Forty per cent of the workforce of Liverpool work in this sector and it seems that this trend will continue as over half of the new jobs created are public appointments. Subsidy has played a significant part in attracting jobs and investment. Over £4 billion has been spent in the regeneration of the region and the lion’s share of this has been committed to the city of Liverpool itself.
Statement: Much of Liverpool’s recent success is owed to the fact that the costs of living and housing there are less than in other cities in the UK.

Find the new four-letter word from the end of one given word and the beginning of the next.

Passage 9: People assume that they go to hospital to get well. However, in the past few years this perception has been challenged by the real risk of acquiring a deadly infection while in hospital. As a consequence, public confidence in the health service has suffered. An antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria was first identified in the 1950s. It was a staphylococcus common in abscesses and bloodstream infections and it had become resistant to the antibiotic penicillin. Since then the bacteria have become resistant to a second antibiotic and have become established as a source of infection in many nursing homes and hospitals. Today they are believed to cause about 1,000 deaths each year as a result of hospital-acquired infections. Action that can beat this ‘superbug’ is simple but expensive: very high levels of hygiene and cleanliness and a programme of testing so that infected patients can be isolated and treated.
Statement: Staphylococcus infections kill around 1,000 people a year.

Rearrange the sentences into the order in which they were originally written.

Choose two words—one from each list—that are closest in meaning or have the strongest connection. Objective is to goal as: judge is to

Choose the correct word(s) from the lists to complete the sentence.

Swap two words so that the sentence reads sensibly.

Complete the analogy by choosing the opposite. Captivity is to freedom as: fit is to

Passage 1: Light is made up of electromagnetic waves. These vary in length and these differences are perceived as different colours. White light contains all wavelengths mixed together. An object looks coloured because light falls on it and it reflects only certain parts of the spectrum while the rest is absorbed. An object that looks white reflects all the light that falls on it; an object that looks red reflects the red part of the spectrum and absorbs the rest. Our eyes detect these different reflected waves and we see them as different colours.
Statement: White light is an amalgam of all the wavelengths of light.

Choose the word that means the opposite of the given word. Lucrative

Rearrange the sentences into the order in which they were originally written.

Find the new four-letter word from the end of one given word and the beginning of the next.

Based ___ new data collected last year, the ___ profession estimates hundreds of thousands more asbestos-related ___ claims over the next 30 years.

Choose two words—one from each list—that are closest in meaning or have the strongest connection. Deceit is to fraud as: decision is to

Passage 7: Credit card fraud has reached £500 million despite the introduction of new controls. Figures show that losses to fraud rose by 20 per cent last year. Most frauds result from cards intercepted in the post. One hundred thousand cards were posted to customers every day last year. This represents rich pickings for fraudsters. The banks knew the year would be difficult because it was thought that fraudsters would try to commit as many crimes as possible before new controls were introduced. It is hoped that by this time next year the effect of the new measures will be known and that the level of fraud will have fallen considerably.
Statement: Top of the table of types of fraud are those committed with credit cards stolen from people's post.

Complete the analogy by choosing the opposite. Complicate is to clarify as: busy is to

Forty per cent of the total cost base is commissions or bonuses, making it ___ easy for costs to be slashed ___ demand shrinks; offices are on short-term leases, again giving flexibility to cut back at short notice.

Choose two words, one from each list, that are closest in meaning or have the strongest connection.

Choose the correct word(s) from the lists to complete the sentence.

Choose two words—one from each list—that are closest in meaning or have the strongest connection. Corporate is to conglomerate as: focus is to

Find the new four-letter word from the end of one given word and the beginning of the next.

Passage 2: Between 1797 and 1815 Europe went through the Napoleonic wars. During this period France was at war with Prussia, Russia, Austria, Spain and Britain. At that time the French army was the most powerful in Europe. By 1808 France had conquered much of the continent and created the largest European empire since the Romans. Napoleon Bonaparte was emperor and military leader. However, a disastrous campaign in Russia, retreat from Spain and British supremacy at sea eventually allowed a combined European force to defeat Napoleon at Waterloo.
Statement: France won battles against Prussia, Russia, Austria and Britain.

Passage 10: Recent changes to the postal voting system are considered by election officials to significantly increase the risk of electoral fraud. If it were to become widespread, such fraud could discredit the electoral process. Greatest concerns centre around the very limited time the new system allows electoral administrators to check that requests for postal ballots are genuine. The government is keen to increase the number of people who cast a vote and believe that people should not be denied a vote simply because they do not apply in good time. Fraud is currently rare and there is so far no evidence of postal votes leading to widespread fraud.
Statement: There is a process for checking the validity of applications for postal votes.

Find the new four-letter word from the end of one given word and the beginning of the next.

Choose two words—one from each list—that are closest in meaning or have the strongest connection. Alleviate is to mitigate as: adverse is to

Complete the analogy by choosing the opposite. Savage is to mild as: tangible is to

Complete the sentence by choosing the correct words for blanks A and B.

Identify the word that means the opposite of the given word. Relapse

Passage 3: Traditionally medicine was the science of curing illness with treatments. For thousands of years people would have used plants and would have turned to priests for cures. In more recent times illness has been attributed to natural causes rather than to gods or magic. Medicine today is as much concerned with prevention as with cure. Doctors use treatments of many types, including radiation and vaccination, both of which were unknown until very recent times. Other treatments have been known about and practised for centuries; Muslim doctors were skilled surgeons and treated pain with opium. When Europeans first reached the Americas they found healers who used many plants to cure illnesses. The Europeans adopted many of those treatments and some are still effective and in use today.
Statement: Medicine is a science that owes its success to modern treatments.

Swap two words so that the sentence reads sensibly.

Passage 4: Asia is the world’s largest continent and stretches from the Baring Sea in the east to Turkey and Europe in the west. Its southern border comprises many islands, including those that make up Indonesia. Since independence of colonial powers, Asian economies have boomed. First were Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea and later Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. More recently China and India have enjoyed rapid economic growth. The south-west and central parts of the continent are deserts. The Himalayan mountains divide the cold north from the tropical south. The people of Asia make up over two-thirds of the world’s population and they live in the birthplace of the world’s earliest civilizations.
Statement: More of the world’s population live in Asia than in any other continent.

Complete the analogy by choosing the opposite. Incentive is to deterrent as: terrific is to

Choose the correct word.

Choose the sentence(s) that contain an error. Options are lettered A–D.

Complete the analogy by choosing the opposite. Eminent is to unknown as: descendant is to

Swap two words so that the sentence reads sensibly.

Find the new four-letter word from the end of one given word and the beginning of the next.

Choose the word that means the opposite of the given word. Purified

Swap two words so that the sentence reads sensibly.

Choose two words, one from each list, that are closest in meaning or have the strongest connection.

Find the new four-letter word from the end of one given word and the beginning of the next.

Swap two words so that the sentence reads sensibly.

Passage 9: People assume that they go to hospital to get well. However, in the past few years this perception has been challenged by the real risk of acquiring a deadly infection while in hospital. As a consequence, public confidence in the health service has suffered. An antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria was first identified in the 1950s. It was a staphylococcus common in abscesses and bloodstream infections and it had become resistant to the antibiotic penicillin. Since then the bacteria have become resistant to a second antibiotic and have become established as a source of infection in many nursing homes and hospitals. Today they are believed to cause about 1,000 deaths each year as a result of hospital-acquired infections. Action that can beat this ‘superbug’ is simple but expensive: very high levels of hygiene and cleanliness and a programme of testing so that infected patients can be isolated and treated.
Statement: Infections of the bloodstream are more serious than abscesses.

Rearrange the sentences into the order in which they were originally written.

Choose the correct word(s) from the lists to complete the sentence.

Passage 5: In tropical rainforests the climate remains hot and damp all year round. In the Arctic it is cold all year, and in high mountain ranges the climate is much colder than in nearby low-lying lands. Climate is not the same as weather. The weather can change quickly whereas climate describes likely weather conditions over a much longer period. The world is divided into five climate zones. Polar is the only zone where it is always cold; tropical is hot all year round; temperate has warm summers and cold winters; desert is dry and cool; forest has cool, short summers. Mankind can affect climate (e.g., forest fires that obscure the sun; more recently, pollution has affected climate via the greenhouse effect).
Statement: The passage describes how climate can change.

Find the new four-letter word from the end of one given word and the beginning of the next.

Find the new four-letter word from the end of one given word and the beginning of the next.

Rearrange the sentences into the order in which they were originally written.

Swap two words so that the sentence reads sensibly.

Passage 15: For most of the last two decades of the previous century the economy of the city of Liverpool was mostly stagnant and far behind that of the rest of the UK. But as other cities have become more expensive, Liverpool has become a more popular place in which to invest and live. Liverpool’s population dropped from 800,000 after the war to less than 500,000 at the turn of the century. The process of depopulation has now reduced to a trickle and for the first time in decades the working population has grown. The level of unemployment, which once stood at 20 per cent, is down to under 5 per cent. Construction of office space is booming and currently being built are conference complexes, a series of department stores and two 50-floor tower blocks. It is not surprising, therefore, that the working population is expected to grow further still. Low living and housing costs have attracted many public sector organizations to relocate to the city. Forty per cent of the workforce of Liverpool work in this sector and it seems that this trend will continue as over half of the new jobs created are public appointments. Subsidy has played a significant part in attracting jobs and investment. Over £4 billion has been spent in the regeneration of the region and the lion’s share of this has been committed to the city of Liverpool itself.
Statement: Forty per cent of the new jobs are public appointments.

Passage 14: In most parts of the developed world many middle-class people ask themselves whether they should buy or rent a house. In the United States, Spain, Ireland and the UK, most answer ‘Buy’. In these countries house prices have almost doubled over the past seven years. Other parts of the developed world have not seen such inflation and the passage asks if it is realistic to assume that prices will always continue to rise. Some argue that paying rent is like throwing money away and that it is better to repay a mortgage and build equity. But what if house prices fall? A small adjustment could wipe out the equity of many home owners. If house price inflation is a thing of the past, then home ownership becomes less attractive. Renting has some advantages too; people who rent find it easier to move for their work.
Statement: Spaniards have seen their homes more than double in value.

Complete the sentence by choosing the correct words for blanks A and B.

Find the new four-letter word from the end of one given word and the beginning of the next.

Identify the word that means the opposite of the given word. Tortuous

Passage 12: Solicitors, doctors and priests have traditionally kept in strict confidence information they hold about or are told by their clients. A doctor will not disclose a patient’s illness to anyone but the patient or next of kin. Priests have sought to keep secret the content of what they learn in the confessional and solicitors have guarded carefully the confidentiality of the client–lawyer relationship. However, under certain circumstances all these professions make exceptions and will break confidences. A doctor must by law report injuries he believes are the result of gunshots and conditions that represent serious threats to public health. Priests have provided information to the police in relation to child abuse cases and murder. Solicitors are required to report only suspicions they have of money laundering. Journalists also adopt a code of confidentiality to protect their sources. They have a reputation for being a profession far less likely to break their code even when ordered by the courts. In a number of high-profile cases journalists have chosen to go to jail for contempt of court rather than reveal the source of a story.
Statement: Solicitors are obliged to report a client to the authorities if they suspect them of tax evasion.

Complete the sentence by choosing the correct words for blanks A and B.

Choose the correct word(s) from the lists to complete the sentence.

Find the new four-letter word from the end of one given word and the beginning of the next.

Choose two words, one from each list, that are closest in meaning or have the strongest connection.

Passage 15: For most of the last two decades of the previous century the economy of the city of Liverpool was mostly stagnant and far behind that of the rest of the UK. But as other cities have become more expensive, Liverpool has become a more popular place in which to invest and live. Liverpool’s population dropped from 800,000 after the war to less than 500,000 at the turn of the century. The process of depopulation has now reduced to a trickle and for the first time in decades the working population has grown. The level of unemployment, which once stood at 20 per cent, is down to under 5 per cent. Construction of office space is booming and currently being built are conference complexes, a series of department stores and two 50-floor tower blocks. It is not surprising, therefore, that the working population is expected to grow further still. Low living and housing costs have attracted many public sector organizations to relocate to the city. Forty per cent of the workforce of Liverpool work in this sector and it seems that this trend will continue as over half of the new jobs created are public appointments. Subsidy has played a significant part in attracting jobs and investment. Over £4 billion has been spent in the regeneration of the region and the lion’s share of this has been committed to the city of Liverpool itself.
Statement: The city of Liverpool is no longer a net exporter of people.

Passage 11: Oil prices have been at record levels and are currently at around $45 a barrel. In the most efficient oilfields it costs only 80 to 90 cents to extract a barrel. Most producing countries want greater oil price stability and fear the effect on their economies and on world demand when, as in recent years, oil prices have fluctuated between $20 and $50 a barrel. In response, some producers are expanding production capacity in order that they can respond more flexibly to demand and rising prices with greater production. Exploration and research into extraction techniques have been commissioned to investigate ways in which production can be expanded. This exploration and research brought unexpected results. Oil analysts have concluded that there is much more oil in the world than current estimates assume and that new techniques make it possible to extract much more of the known reserves economically than previously thought.
Statement: It is reasonable to assume that greater capacity at times of high demand will help stabilize prices.

Rearrange the sentences into the order in which they were originally written.

Rearrange the sentences into the order in which they were originally written.

Passage 7: Credit card fraud has reached £500 million despite the introduction of new controls. Figures show that losses to fraud rose by 20 per cent last year. Most frauds result from cards intercepted in the post. One hundred thousand cards were posted to customers every day last year. This represents rich pickings for fraudsters. The banks knew the year would be difficult because it was thought that fraudsters would try to commit as many crimes as possible before new controls were introduced. It is hoped that by this time next year the effect of the new measures will be known and that the level of fraud will have fallen considerably.
Statement: The new measures are sophisticated anti-fraud strategies.

Passage 9: People assume that they go to hospital to get well. However, in the past few years this perception has been challenged by the real risk of acquiring a deadly infection while in hospital. As a consequence, public confidence in the health service has suffered. An antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria was first identified in the 1950s. It was a staphylococcus common in abscesses and bloodstream infections and it had become resistant to the antibiotic penicillin. Since then the bacteria have become resistant to a second antibiotic and have become established as a source of infection in many nursing homes and hospitals. Today they are believed to cause about 1,000 deaths each year as a result of hospital-acquired infections. Action that can beat this ‘superbug’ is simple but expensive: very high levels of hygiene and cleanliness and a programme of testing so that infected patients can be isolated and treated.
Statement: Staphylococcus became established as a source of infection in many nursing homes and hospitals in the 1950s.

Complete the sentence by choosing the correct words for blanks A and B.

Choose the word that means the opposite of the given word. Exact

Passage 4: Asia is the world’s largest continent and stretches from the Baring Sea in the east to Turkey and Europe in the west. Its southern border comprises many islands, including those that make up Indonesia. Since independence of colonial powers, Asian economies have boomed. First were Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea and later Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. More recently China and India have enjoyed rapid economic growth. The south-west and central parts of the continent are deserts. The Himalayan mountains divide the cold north from the tropical south. The people of Asia make up over two-thirds of the world’s population and they live in the birthplace of the world’s earliest civilizations.
Statement: The colonial era was a disaster for Asia.

Choose two words—one from each list—that are closest in meaning or have the strongest connection. Announce is to declare as: characterize is to

Rearrange the sentences into the order in which they were originally written.

Choose two words, one from each list, that are closest in meaning or have the strongest connection.

Rearrange the sentences into the order in which they were originally written.