Virtually all City law firms make the verbal reasoning test a compulsory part of the application for a training contract.

They are therefore crucial for law students to master, whatever their skills and knowledge in law.

City law firms will often require a minimum level of competence in the verbal reasoning test, i.e. it could be the policy of that firm to only invite candidates who come in the top 20% to interview if they reach a high enough score on their ‘application form matrix’. Therefore, law students often fall victim to ‘death by spreadsheet’ by legal recruitment managers and their administrators.

“Training contract” (@tc_applications) is a Twitter account for anyone to follow.

The only way to get better at these tests is simply ‘practice, practice, practice’. Legal Recruit (click here) is a novel, independent and fun website which contains resources including practice questions, factsheets and videos. 100 people have taken the sample test so far, and the average score is 21. The test is completed within 20 minutes, and contains 30 questions. There are many free practice questions on the site as well, and all of the factsheets and videos are free.

Please do use the Twitter to say how the website can be improved. Alternatively, free feel to post on our Facebook page.

THIS INITIATIVE IS NOTHING TO DO WITH BPP.