High-Level Verbal Reasoning: Statement-Assumption, Syllogism & Input-Output

An assumption is something the speaker takes for granted, NOT stated but necessary for the statement to make sense. Test: negate the assumption — if the statement now falls apart or becomes illogical, it IS an implicit assumption; if the statement still stands fine, it is NOT. Common trap: an assumption must be reasonable and directly tied to the statement — a plausible-sounding but unrelated inference is not a valid assumption.

A valid course of action must be a practical, immediate step that follows logically from the problem stated — not a long-term policy suggestion, not something requiring authority the stated party doesn't have, and not merely restating the problem. Reject options that are too extreme (banning something entirely) when a moderate corrective action is available and more realistic.

Beyond the standard "definitely true/false" syllogism rules, possibility questions ask what COULD be true given the premises, even if not guaranteed. Draw ALL valid Venn diagram configurations for the given statements (not just one), and check whether the conclusion holds true in at least one configuration — if yes, it is "possibly true."

Identify the operation applied at each step by comparing consecutive output rows for the SAME word/number set — common operations include alphabetical/numerical sorting (ascending or descending), reversing word order, swapping positions of specific word-types (vowel-starting vs consonant-starting), or arithmetic operations on adjacent numbers. Once the rule for one step is identified, verify it holds for ALL elements in that step before applying it to the target step asked in the question — a rule that works for 3 of 4 elements is the wrong rule.