After reading the post-attempt explainers carefully for 40+ Reasoning items, I noticed a pattern in how distractors are constructed.
Most incorrect options fall into three categories:
- Converse errors. The item gives "if P then Q" and the distractor treats it as "if Q then P."
- Negation traps. Double negatives that parse correctly but reverse the logical direction.
- Scope confusion. Quantifier shifts — "some" read as "all," or "most" read as "every."
Once I started categorizing each distractor after every attempt, my error rate on Band 3+ items dropped noticeably. I now spend the first 3–4 seconds of each item identifying the logical structure before reading the answer options.
The institution is teaching you to see the structure. The explainers are the curriculum. Read them.