Verbal Ability gives you 20 questions in 20 minutes — one minute each on standard professional English. It is the shortest aptitude section and the one where well-prepared candidates bank time.
What the verbal section covers
- Active/passive voice conversion (tense-preserving)
- Prepositions (good at, bound by) and articles (a vs the)
- Error spotting — correlative conjunctions, word choice (ships sink, people drown)
- Idioms and phrases (“hit the nail on the head”)
- Synonyms and antonyms (ephemeral, abundant, exodus)
- Jumbled sentences and sentence completion
Practice Cognizant verbal questions
Convert the sentence to passive voice: 'The company will launch a new product.'
Choose the appropriate preposition: 'She is really good _____ playing the piano.'
Identify the part of the sentence with the error: 'The committee has decided (A) / to not only increase the fees (B) / but also to reduce (C) / the number of scholarships. (D)'
Do vocabulary and grammar questions in one read — if you need to re-read, mark your gut answer and move on. Save para jumbles for last and anchor them by finding the opening sentence first.
Strong English pays twice at Cognizant: the communication assessment is a separate elimination round that tests the same skills out loud.