ISEB English & Verbal Reasoning

This session will introduce the student to speed reading of the comprehension passages, how to identify pieces of new vocabulary in the passage from their surrounding context and how to approach the answers to the multiple-choice questions asked on the passage.

This session will introduce short extracts from a variety of famous books for analysis. Over the session, the student will explore how to deduce information from the implied meaning of a word or from adjectival association (e.g. if a passage says a man is red in the face and someone has just stepped on his foot, we can work out that he is angry).

There are 4 key styles of question within the Verbal Reasoning Test. This session will introduce and explain strategies to answer the following styles of question, and then practice questions using past paper materials:

• Analogies
• Antonyms
• Complete the sentence
• Compound words
• Crosswords
• Mixed up groups
• Odd one out
• Rhyming words
• Synonyms
• Word categories
• Word connections (e.g. ‘the man ate fish’ = finding the word them as the only hidden word between the phrase)
• Word meanings

This session will explore how the meaning of a word can be worked out from the context of a passage, especially with complex words. We will look at common prefixes and suffixes as examples too (such as duo representing a quantity of two, and ‘ly’ as a symbol of an adverb, or ‘er’ as a comparative adjective).

The lesson will focus on choice of adjectives and literary devices as ways to qualify a noun or verb or phrase. We will consider the role of alliteration, personification, similes, metaphors, and ways that an author can invoke the 5 senses.

There are 4 key styles of question within the Verbal Reasoning Test. This session will introduce and explain strategies to answer the following styles of question, and then practice questions using past paper materials:

• Add a letter
• Change a letter
• Change a word
• Join two words to make one
• Jumbled words
• Finding hidden words in sentences
• Leftover letters
• Missing three and four letter words
• Missing letters
• Move a letter
• Word chains and spot the word

This session will focus on spelling exercises and spotting patterns in reading. The student will be asked to analyse a passage with multiple mistakes and to identify those mistakes and what the corrections should be. Passages will be selected from a range of classic British stories.

The focus of this class will be to show how comparisons can be made across a text, such as between different characters and between the formality of structure of a passage. We will look to concepts like the tone and mood of the passage, as well as indicators for physical and emotional descriptors.

There are 4 key styles of question within the Verbal Reasoning Test. This session will introduce and explain strategies to answer the following styles of question, and then practice questions using past paper materials:

• Always has
• Mixed up sentences unscrambling
• Position problems
• Sorting information into categories
• True and false statements
• Can’t tell statements

These sessions will overview the key types of punctuation and their correct usage. Including full stop, comma, exclamation mark, question mark, dash, semi colon, colon, apostrophe, ellipses, quotation marks and speech marks. The student will practice forming sentences with each aspect of punctuation mentioned. We will also look at the correct use of grammatical terminology for nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, clauses, informal language, and sentence structure, with a series of example sentences to use.

There are 4 key styles of question within the Verbal Reasoning Test. This session will introduce and explain strategies to answer the following styles of question, and then practice questions using past paper materials:

• Always has
• Mixed up sentences unscrambling
• Position problems
• Sorting information into categories
• True and false statements
• Can’t tell statements

Students will practice past paper questions during the session with the tutor’s guidance and the sessions will be tailored to address any areas of weakness identified.