Of the three batteries in the CogAT, the Verbal Battery is the one parents feel most confident helping with — it involves words, after all, and most parents spend a lot of time helping their children with reading and vocabulary.
But verbal analogies are different from vocabulary questions. They don't ask "what does this word mean?" — they ask "how are these two words related, and can you apply the same relationship to a different pair?" This is a fundamentally different cognitive skill, and it's one that responds very well to practice.
What the research says: Analogical reasoning is not a fixed trait — it's a cognitive skill that develops substantially through childhood and responds to training. A widely cited study in the Journal of Educational Psychology (Richland, Morrison & Holyoak, 2006) found that children who received explicit instruction in analogical reasoning showed significantly greater improvement than those who didn't, with gains maintained months later. A 2017 neuroimaging study published in Human Brain Mapping by Green and colleagues demonstrated pronounced age-related improvements in analogical reasoning between ages 6 and 10, and continued improvement through adolescence — providing direct evidence that this is a developable skill, not a fixed capacity. Further, a Taylor & Francis study on gifted children by Stevenson, Heiser & Resing (2013) found that graduated prompting training led to meaningful improvement in analogy performance, with gifted children showing the largest gains from structured instruction. See: Green et al., 2018 (PMC).
What is a verbal analogy?
A verbal analogy presents a pair of words with a relationship, then asks the student to complete a second pair using the same relationship. The classic format is:
Dog is to Puppy as Cat is to ___?
The relationship is "adult animal is to its young". So the answer is kitten.
On the CogAT, verbal analogies appear in the Verbal Battery and are one of three subtests within it (alongside Verbal Classification and Sentence Completion). They are included at all grade levels from Kindergarten through Grade 12, with the complexity of the vocabulary and relationships increasing with each level.
The nine most common analogy relationship types
Teaching children to recognise relationship types — rather than approaching each analogy fresh — is the single most effective strategy for improving verbal analogy performance. Here are the categories that appear most frequently on the CogAT:
1. Part to whole
One word is a part of the other. Finger is to Hand as Page is to Book. The key question: "Is one of these a component of the other?"
2. Object to function
One word describes what the other is used for. Pen is to Write as Knife is to Cut.
3. Cause and effect
One word causes the other. Rain is to Flood as Fire is to Smoke.
4. Synonyms
The two words mean the same thing. Happy is to Joyful as Sad is to Miserable.
5. Antonyms
The two words are opposites. Hot is to Cold as Fast is to Slow.
6. Category to member
One word is a type or example of the other. Oak is to Tree as Salmon is to Fish.
7. Worker to tool
One word is a person, the other is the tool they use. Chef is to Knife as Painter is to Brush.
8. Degree of intensity
The words represent different degrees of the same quality. Warm is to Hot as Damp is to Soaked.
9. Place and associated action
One word is a location, the other is what you do there. Library is to Read as Gym is to Exercise.
The strategy: When your child encounters an analogy, train them to first say the relationship in a sentence: "A finger is part of a hand." Then apply that sentence structure to the new pair: "A page is part of a ___." This verbal articulation step significantly improves accuracy and slows down the impulsive wrong-answer selection that catches many children out.
Common mistakes — and how to avoid them
Selecting an answer that's "related" rather than one that's "parallel"
Children often select an answer that has something to do with the target word rather than one that mirrors the original relationship. For example, given "Dog is to Puppy as Cat is to ___?", a child might select dog because cats and dogs are related, rather than kitten because that mirrors the adult/young relationship. Train children to always check: "Does this answer preserve the same type of relationship?"
Reversing the direction of the relationship
"Hand is to Finger" is a different relationship from "Finger is to Hand". The direction matters. Make sure your child reads the pair in order and articulates the relationship in the direction it's presented.
Getting distracted by the most obvious link
On harder analogies, one of the wrong answers is always designed to be superficially attractive. It will have something to do with the words involved, but it won't preserve the relationship. Children who rush — or who don't pause to define the relationship first — are most vulnerable to these distractors.
Age-appropriate practice examples
| Grade level | Example analogy | Relationship type |
|---|---|---|
| Kindergarten | Cat is to Meow as Dog is to ___? (Bark) | Animal to sound |
| Grade 1–2 | Rain is to Wet as Sun is to ___? (Hot/Warm) | Cause and effect |
| Grade 2–3 | Author is to Book as Composer is to ___? (Music) | Creator to creation |
| Grade 4–5 | Thermometer is to Temperature as Barometer is to ___? (Pressure) | Instrument to measurement |
| Grade 6–8 | Mendacious is to Truth as Penurious is to ___? (Money/Wealth) | Antonym relationship |
Building analogy skills at home (without it feeling like studying)
The most effective way to build verbal analogy skill is to make analogical thinking a normal part of conversation — not something that only happens during practice sessions.
At the dinner table: "What's a word for the sound a cat makes? What about a cow? What about a frog?" Then: "Cat is to meow as cow is to what?" Framed as a game, this is engaging rather than tedious.
While reading: When you encounter an unfamiliar word, don't just define it — compare it to something familiar. "Furious is like angry, but much, much stronger. Like how warm and boiling are both hot, but different degrees."
With vocabulary cards: A pack of vocabulary cards (available for most grade levels) can be used to create analogy pairs — but more valuably, they build the word knowledge that makes harder analogies accessible.
The most important habit to build
The single practice habit that most improves verbal analogy performance is this: after getting an analogy wrong, don't just note the right answer — say out loud why the correct answer is right. "Kitten is the answer because it's the young of a cat, just like a puppy is the young of a dog." This articulation step builds the pattern-recognition reflex that fast, accurate analogy performance depends on.
Further reading: Neuroscientific Insights into the Development of Analogical Reasoning (Green et al., Human Brain Mapping, 2018) — readable summary of what brain imaging reveals about how analogical reasoning develops and why it's trainable. Also: 5 Daily Habits That Build Reasoning Skills for how to develop analogy skills through everyday conversation rather than just formal practice.
Practice CogAT verbal analogies with Brain Booster
Brain Booster's Verbal Reasoning category includes analogy questions calibrated for all grade levels, from K through Grade 8.
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