publicjobs Verbal Reasoning: How It Works

Verbal reasoning is the part of the publicjobs.ie online assessment candidates most often underestimate. Read a short passage, decide whether each statement is true, false, or cannot be determined. Yet candidates regularly leave the live test surprised by how little time they had, or frustrated at having imported knowledge the passage never actually stated.

This page explains how the test is structured, where most people lose marks, and the right mindset before you sit it.

What does the publicjobs verbal reasoning test actually look like?

The format is true / false / cannot say. You get a short passage of text, typically a few sentences on a business or general-interest topic, followed by a series of statements. Your job is to judge each statement solely on the basis of what the passage says. Not what you know about the topic. Not what seems likely. Only what the text tells you.

Each statement gets one of three answers:

True - the passage clearly supports the statement.
False - the passage clearly contradicts the statement.
Cannot say - the passage neither confirms nor contradicts it. You simply do not have enough information from the text alone.

That last option is the one that trips people up the most, and there is more on it below.

The test is administered online. For the Executive Officer competition the format runs to approximately 59 questions in 35 minutes, which works out to roughly 30 seconds per question. At Clerical Officer level one widely-reported format is 40 questions in 20 minutes - the pace is similar. Always check the Competition Information Booklet for your specific role, as formats can vary between competitions.

The test provider for publicjobs assessments is generally understood to be AON Assessment Solutions, the company formerly known as cut-e. If you have been googling for practice material, this is why you will see both names appearing alongside publicjobs.ie prep guides.

How does “cannot say” actually differ from “false”?

This comes up constantly on boards.ie threads, and it is genuinely the hardest part of the format to get right under time pressure.

False means the passage actively contradicts the statement. The text says one thing; the statement says the opposite or something incompatible.

Cannot say means the passage simply does not go there. The statement might be true in the real world, or sound plausible given what you just read. But if the passage does not confirm it, you cannot call it true - and if the passage does not contradict it, you cannot call it false. The honest answer is: not enough information.

The trap is that candidates read a statement going slightly beyond the passage, think “well, that’s probably right,” and mark it true. Or they read something that sounds off and mark it false, when the passage simply never addressed it.

The rule that helps: if you would need outside knowledge or an inference the text does not support, the answer is almost certainly cannot say.

Does the verbal reasoning test count toward your order of merit?

This matters because the stakes are different depending on whether it is scored or just a hurdle.

For the Executive Officer competition, verbal reasoning scores are understood to count toward your overall Order of Merit ranking - the list that determines where you land relative to everyone else in your cohort. Your verbal score, alongside your situational judgement score, contributes to that ranking. Numerical reasoning is reported by many EO candidates as functioning more like a pass/fail hurdle at that grade, but this varies by competition and is not officially confirmed in publicjobs.ie documentation.

Always check your Competition Information Booklet for the weighting that applies to your specific role and grade.

Verbal is not something you can coast through. Because candidates are ranked against each other in a norm-referenced system rather than against a fixed pass mark, the difference between 70% and 80% is not just ten points - it is wherever that moves you in the queue relative to the cohort sitting the same test.

No official pass mark is published by publicjobs.ie. Scores are relative.

For the full picture of how verbal fits into the EO assessment, and what it means for the order of merit, the Executive Officer competition guide has the detail on how all three psychometric components work together.

Should you read the passage first or the statements first?

The right answer is whichever you can execute quickly and consistently under pressure.

The more common recommendation is to read the statements first. You know what you are looking for before you go through the passage, which lets you scan rather than read every word in full. When you do read the passage, you are matching text to specific claims rather than absorbing everything before you know the questions.

The other rule: do not linger. At roughly 30 seconds per question you cannot deliberate at length. If you genuinely cannot decide, make your best call and move on. Getting stuck on one question and running short on easier questions later is a common way to drop marks.

A step-by-step process for working through questions efficiently is set out in the verbal reasoning method guide.

How does publicjobs.ie verbal reasoning compare to generic online practice?

Most practice material you will find through a quick search - particularly from UK-based test prep providers - is built around the SHL or Saville format. These use a broadly similar true / false / cannot say structure, so they are useful for building the core skill.

Where they fall short is context. UK prep material uses pound sums in numerical questions and is calibrated to UK civil service norms, not the publicjobs.ie Capability Framework. The passages and the pacing reflect a different system.

The official publicjobs.ie website has a self-assessment section with verbal reasoning questions. The self-assessment version is untimed and uses a shorter question set - useful for getting familiar with the format, but not a substitute for timed practice on a longer question bank. More detail on how the test sits alongside the situational judgement and numerical components is covered in the publicjobs verbal reasoning test guide.

FAQ

Is the verbal reasoning test the same for Clerical Officer and Executive Officer?

The format is similar but the specifics differ. One commonly reported CO format is 40 questions in 20 minutes; the EO format is widely reported as 59 questions in 35 minutes. Always check your own Competition Information Booklet as PAS can vary the format between competitions.

Can I use general knowledge to answer the verbal reasoning questions?

No. You must answer based solely on what the passage says. This is the rule that trips people up most consistently. If the passage does not say it, the statement is cannot say, not true - even if you know from elsewhere that it is correct.

Does failing the verbal reasoning knock you out of the competition entirely?

It depends on how your specific competition is structured. For grades where verbal counts toward the Order of Merit rather than as a pass/fail hurdle, a weak verbal score does not disqualify you - it just pushes you lower in the ranking. Check your Competition Information Booklet for the component structure of your competition.

Are there practice tests on publicjobs.ie for the verbal reasoning?

Yes. publicjobs.ie has a self-assessment section that includes verbal reasoning practice with answer feedback. The self-assessment is untimed and shorter than the live test. For timed practice against a longer question bank that reflects the Irish format, that is where third-party preparation comes in.

Where to practise

The self-assessment on publicjobs.ie is a good starting point. Do it once to get your bearings on the format. Then practise under timed conditions - because the difficulty in the real test is not the question type, it is the pace.

If you want to practise on material built for the Irish format specifically, including the ranked-answer SJT format that the UK prep sites do not cover well, PublicServicePathway has a free taster you can start tonight with no card required.

Try the free taster at psp-taster.pages.dev - get a feel for the format before you decide whether you need more.

How the publicjobs.ie Verbal Reasoning Test Works