Verbal Reasoning Test

There are 15 questions from easy to hard. After each one you see the answer and why the close alternatives miss. Free, untimed, no sign-up.

An analogy question hides a relationship inside the first pair and asks you to find it again. Puppy is to dog as kitten is to cat works because the link is "young animal to adult". Pen is to write as knife is to cut works because the link is "tool to what it does".

The distractors are chosen to be related to the words without matching the relationship. That is the real test: not whether you know what a knife is, but whether you can tell "used for" apart from "describes" or "goes with".

You also need to know the words. The harder items lean on vocabulary (entomologist, stanza, overture), so this test mixes reasoning with knowledge. That is normal for verbal tests, and it is why they are usually kept apart from purely visual ones.

Verbal analogies have appeared on intelligence tests for over a century, and verbal ability is one of the main parts of standard IQ batteries such as the Wechsler scales. People who do well on verbal reasoning tend to do well on other reasoning tasks too.

Our full IQ test measures analogical thinking without words. It shows you a pair of shapes that change in some way and asks you to apply the same change to a new shape. Same skill, no vocabulary needed, which makes it fairer to people reading in a second language.

This 15-question test has not been normed and cannot estimate IQ. It tells you how you did on these particular word puzzles.

First, say the relationship out loud as a sentence. "A thermometer measures temperature." Vague links like "they go together" lead you to the wrong option.

Second, plug each option into the same sentence. "Scales measure weight" works. "Scales measure balance" does not quite. If two options fit, make your sentence more specific.

Third, check direction. Drought is a lack of water, so famine is a lack of food, not hunger. Hunger is what the lack causes, which flips the relationship.

Most verbal analogies use a small set of links: young to adult, part to whole, tool to action, maker to product, cause to effect, group to member, opposites, and degree (warm to hot). Learning to name these quickly is most of the skill.