How to answer similarities questions
Alike how? The narrowest true class
'In what way are a spoon and a fork alike?' The best answer is the tightest class true of both. Wide truths — 'both are objects' — are the engineered trap.
Updated
Two words, five or six statements, and exactly one names their shared class as exactly as possible. The classic wrong answer here is not false — it is TRUE and far too broad. 'A spoon and a fork are both objects' is undeniable and nearly information-free. Missing on that option is a failure of abstraction LEVEL, not of vocabulary, and level is precisely what these items measure.
Two tests, in order
First: is the statement true of BOTH words? A class that fits only one member is out, and so is a resemblance of shape, colour, sound or spelling. Second: is there a TIGHTER class that is still true of both? If there is, you stopped widening too early — 'things found in a kitchen' loses to 'tools for eating'.
Climb up from the words, not down from the world
Start close to the words and widen only until one class covers both. Starting from the top — 'things', 'objects', 'living things' — always finds a fit, which is exactly why it is the trap: the widest class on offer is engineered to be true.
Surface is not structure
In these items the shared class is always conceptual — what the things ARE or are FOR. A statement about how the two look or how the two words are spelled is never the best answer, even when it happens to sound clever.
The strategy
- Name the obvious classes of each word separately.
- Take the overlap; tighten it as far as truth allows.
- Check both-ness on your finalist — true of each word alone?
- Scan the remaining options once for a tighter true class before committing.
Common traps
- The broad truth — 'both are objects' and its cousins.
- The class that fits exactly one of the pair, usually the more familiar one.
- On harder items, a moderately-wide class one rung above the best answer — true, tempting, and still too loose.
- The perceptual or word-shape resemblance.
Speed · ~40s/item: Roughly 25–60 seconds. The ladder is short: overlap, tighten, check. Most time lost here is re-reading options instead of testing them.
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Questions people ask
Will similarities questions be on the free test?
Maybe. The free test gives verbal & logic 5 of its 20 questions, spread across 11 different question types, so any one test may or may not include this kind.