HOW TO CRACK GRE VERBAL
The GRE Verbal tests your ability to scrutinize and draw conclusions from conversations and perceive the meanings of words, sentences and entire texts.
Verbal Reasoning questions have a different format, which will be discussed in detail in the corresponding sections. Almost half of the questions is based on reading the passages and understanding the meaning of the passage and answering the questions asked related to that passage. The remaining half questions are based on reading, understanding and completing the existing sentences or paragraphs.
Verbal reasoning has a 30mins section with three types of questions
- Reading comprehension
- Sentence equivalence
- Text completion
Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension questions checks your ability to read and understand the content which is required in a passage which you have learnt in your school grade, which also includes the abilities
To understand the meaning of the text, sentence and paragraphs.
To understand the meaning complex bodies of text.
Finding the difference between minor and major points in a paragraph.
Understanding the outline of passage given.
Concluding the information from the given passage.
Understanding the outline in the missing data and concluding the information.
Understanding the structure of text and how each part is related.
To understand and identify the author’s premise and outlook.
Examining a text and finding conclusions about it.
Forming alternative explanations.
The above list summarizes that understanding the small and hidden meaning of texts and words are more important than a overall understanding of the texts and sentences in the given passage; it needs conceptual knowledge with the understanding, questioning, examining and concluding the given passage.
Passage has many paragraphs in from which the questions will be asked. This test contains approximately 10 passages where most of the passages have a single paragraph and only few has more than one or two paragraphs. Passages contain topics from the sciences, social science, business, books, and articles, academic, nonacademic and day today topics.
About half of the questions will be asked on the passages given and about 1 to 6 questions will be asked from each passage. Questions asked will be based on the passage, asking about meaning of the passage, estimation of the passage and the overall concept of the passage. Many questions, but not all will be a standard multiple choice question like choosing a single correct answer from the choices given but they may also ask questions which you may have to choose multiple correct answer.
Text completion
Persons who are skilled in reading does not only grasp the information given in the passage; instead, they have the ability of understanding, evaluating and concluding; reasoning and recognizing from what they have read and understood so far and picture of the whole content by recalling. Text completion tests your ability to choose the correct phrases or words that are missing in the passage.
Passage consists of sentences ranging from 1 to 5.
1 to 3 blanks.
Per blank has 3 choices of answer (5 choices of answer in the case of 1 blank).
Single correct answer has to be entered in each blank of correct choice, giving an appropriate meaning to the passage.
Directly diving into the answers, considering each possible choice of answers; trying these methods will take a long time which may lead to error; instead, try to examine the passage in the following way:
Read the passage thoroughly and understand the concept or outline of the passage given.
Text completions are sometimes a long paragraph, so it may confuse us, so break down the paragraph i.e. paraphrase the paragraph so that you can understand the outline of the passage.
First, try to fill in the blanks with your understanding of the words and then check with the choices of the words given.
Do not assume that the first blank has to be filled first; if your familiar and confident with the answers in the other blanks, you can fill it and then come back to the first blank choose from the choices given or left.
Finally, when you have your choices in all the blanks, check whether your passage is logically, grammatically and stylistically correct.
Sentence Equivalence
Similar to text completion, sentence equivalence also has an incomplete passage which checks the ability to reach a conclusion but mostly it checks on the meaning of the completed passage on whole. Questions in sentence Equivalence has a single question with one blank as text completion but in this you will be asked to choose two choices which has the same meaning and results in a sentence which gives you similar meaning with two different words of the same meaning.
The question consists of a single sentence with one blank and six choices of answers.
In this you have to choose two words with similar meaning and you don’t have credits for partial answers, so before choosing the answers ensure whether your choosing the correct one and don’t be misled. First, the choice of answers given may have the same meaning so as to get you confused but logically does not fit into the sentence. Secondly, there is no rule that pair of correct answers should mean the same unless they give the sentence same meaning. So follow these steps
Read the paragraph and paraphrase it, read each sentence until you get the meaning of it.
Identify the phrases in the sentences and fill them, so that you may get an appropriate meaning of the sentence.
Do not assume that the first blank has to be filled first; if your familiar and confident with the answers in the other blanks, you can fill it and then come back to the first blank choose from the choices given or left.
Finally, when you have selected your combination of choices in all the blanks, check whether your sentence is logically, grammatically and stylistically correct.
Understand the concept in passage/sentence
Read the passage/sentence given keenly so that you may understand the information given in the passage.
Read and understand the meaning of the words, sentences and paragraphs.
Understand the complex bodies of text.
Find the difference between minor and major points in a paragraph.
Understand the outline of passage or sentence given.
Conclude the information from the given passage/sentence.
Understand the outline in the missing data and conclude the information.
Understand the structure of text, how each part is related.
Understand and identify the premise and outlook of that passage or sentence.
Exam single text and find its conclusions.
Conclude weakness and strength of a given passage.
Methods to answer the questions
Reading a passage requires more than understanding. Read through the passage thoroughly and understand the concept or outline of the passage given.
It may confuse us, so break down the paragraph i.e. paraphrase the paragraph so that you can understand the outline of the passage.
Understanding the outline in the missing data and concluding the information.
Exam a text and find conclusion about the passage.
In text completion Passage consists of sentences ranging from one to five with one to three blanks. Identify the phrases in the sentences with your own words and fill them, so that you may get an appropriate meaning of the sentence. Do not assume that the first blank has to be filled first; if your familiar and confident with the answers in the other blanks, you can fill it and then come back to the first blank choose from the choices given or left. Finally your sentence should be coherent.
In sentence equivalence, read sentence until you get the meaning of the it. In this you have to choose two words with similar meaning and you don’t have credits for partial answers ,so before choosing the answers ensure whether your choosing the correct one and don’t be misled because there is no rule that pair of correct answers should mean the same unless they give the sentence same meaning. Finally when you have chosen your pair of choices in all the blanks, check whether your sentence is logically, grammatically and stylistically correct.
Check your answer
- When you conclude at an answer, you should check that it is reasonable and appropriate to the asked question
- Have you answered the question correctly for the asked question?
- Is your answer reasonable to the asked question? By recalling or picturing the outline of the passage or sentences given and checking whether your answer is consistent with that fact.
- Did you make any mistake in understanding the outline or logic of the question/passage, choosing the answer? Is there any key-entry error? You must check whether you have made any errors while choosing the answers.
Conclusion
Taking a mock test should be your starting point before starting with your preparation to know your level. Preparation ends in vain, when you don’t practice .Ensure mock test regularly ,which shows exactly your current level and the kind of weaknesses you have. Further it gives you an idea what GRE is and gives you an idea how to plan for the exam.
Most of your verbal ability is to check your vocabulary which includes questions from sentence equivalence and text completion. There are basically things you need to know about these types of questions:
- They test the words which are rarely used in day to day life.
- The choices of answers given in the question seems to have similar meaning so that it may be confusing to opt for the correct answer.
From this you can understand that vocabulary is very essential in verbal reasoning so, memorizing the meaning or definitions of words will not help you to score instead you must know usage of every word with its contextual meaning so that you can compare words having similar meaning.
Start practicing by taking a mock test should be your starting point before starting with your preparation to know your level. Make sure that your practice sections are really useful. Take few example passages and solve it by having a time constraint and practice reading the passage and understanding the meaning and the outline of the passage in a limited time, so that time duration for understanding the concept of passage will reduce while you’re attempting GRE test so that you can concentrate on the difficult part.