SSAT Upper Level Verbal

A comprehensive guide to mastering the verbal section of the SSAT Upper Level, focusing on vocabulary, analogies, and reading comprehension skills.

Basic Concepts

Mastering Analogies

What Are Analogies?

Analogies are comparisons that show how two pairs of words are related in the same way. On the SSAT, you’ll see questions like “Bird is to feather as dog is to ___.”

Types of Relationships

  • Part to Whole: Petal : Flower
  • Function: Pen : Write
  • Type or Kind: Sparrow : Bird
  • Degree: Warm : Hot

Steps to Solve Analogies

  1. Identify the relationship between the first pair.
  2. Apply the same relationship to the second pair.
  3. Eliminate answer choices that don’t fit.

Practice Makes Perfect

Practicing analogies helps you think logically and spot connections—skills that are useful in everyday problem-solving!

Examples

  • 'Glove is to hand as sock is to foot'—a part-to-whole analogy.

  • 'Painter is to canvas as writer is to paper'—a function analogy.

In a Nutshell

Analogies measure how well you understand relationships between words.