Verbal Analogy

Analogy means similarity.Verbal analogies are all about relationships. They test your ability to see a relationship between two words and to recognize a similar relationship between two other words. Verbal analogy tests measure not only your understanding of the words themselves but also your mental flexibility and ability to manipulate relationships. The key to analogy success is being able to express the relationship between the words in a pair-not words mean, but how they are related. In this type of questions, two objects related in some way are given and third object is also given with four or five alternatives. You have to find out which one of the alternatives bears the same relation with the third objects as first and second objects are related.

What do Verbal Analogy Questions Look Like?

An analogy can be written in several different ways. It may be written as a sentence, using only words, or symbols may be substituted for the connecting words.

Question 1: Winter is to summer as cold is to
(A) Wet
(B) Future
(C) Hot
(D) Freezing
(E) Spring

Answer. The correct answer is (C). WINTER and SUMMER are opposites, or antonyms. The antonym for COLD is HOT.

Some analogies supply three of the four necessary words. You must find the relationship between the first two words and then choose a word that is related to the third word in the same way.

Question 2: Spelling is to punctuation as biology is to
(A) Science
(B) Animals
(C) Dissection
(D) Chemistry
(E) Experiment

Answer. The correct answer is (D). SPELLING and PUNCTUATION are two subjects studied in English. BIOLOGY and CHEMISTRY are two subjects studied in the field of science.

Question 3:

Curd : Milk :: Shoe : ?

(A) Leather      (B) Cloth

(C) Jute           (D) Silver

Answer: Option A. As curd is made from milk similarly shoe is made from leather.

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Question 4:

Calf : Piglet :: Shed : ?

(A) Prison      (B) Nest

(C) Pigsty      (D) Den

Answer: Option C. Calf is young one of the cow and piglet is the young of Pig. Shed is the dwelling place of cow. Similarly Pigsty is the dwelling place of pig.

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Question 5:

Malaria : Mosquito :: ? : ?

(A) Poison : Death      (B) Cholera : Water

(C) Rat : Plague          (D) Medicine : Disease

Answer: Option B. As malaria is caused due to mosquito similarly cholera is cause due to water.

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Question 6:

ABC : ZYX :: CBA : ?

(A) XYZ      (B) BCA

(C) YZX      (D) ZXY

Answer: Option A. CBA is the reverse of ABC similarly XYZ is the reverse of ZYX.

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Question 7:

4 : 18 :: 6 : ?

(A) 32      (B) 38

(C) 11      (D) 37

Answer: Option B. As, (4)² + 2 =18

Similarly, (6)² + 2 = 38.