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 has 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 other half is about you to read, interpret and complete existing sentences, groups of sentences or paragraphs.
Verbal reasoning has a 30mins section with three types of questions
Reading comprehension
Senctence 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 of
understanding the meaning of the words,senctences and paragraphs.
understanding 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 structure the of text ,how each part is related.
Understanding and identifying the author’s premise and outlook.
examining a text and finding conclusions about it.
Concluding strengths and weaknesses of a given passage
Forming alternative explanations.
The above list summarizes that understanding the small and hidden meaning of texts and words are more important than a passive understanding of the words and sentences it contains; it requires conceptual knowledge with the text, asking questions, formulating and evaluating assumptions and reflecting on the relationship of the particular text to other texts and information.
Each Comprehension question is asked on a passage that has many paragraphs. The test contains approximately 10 passages, the majority of which are one paragraph in length and only one or two of which are several paragraphs long. Passages are drawn from the sciences, social sciences, business and everyday topics and are based on material found in books,articles, both academic and nonacademic.
About half of the questions will be asked on passages, and the number of questions asked on a given passage ranges from one to six. Questions asked will cover the topics from the given passage ,asking the meaning of a particular word to estimate evidence that might support or weaken points made in the passage. Many, 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 so far and having a 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 one to five.
One to three blanks.
Per blank has three choices of answer (five answer choices in the case of a single blank).
Single correct answer has to be entered in each blank of correct choice,giving a appropriate meaning to the passage.
Directly diving into the anwer,consider each possible combination of answers; trying this methods will take a long time and may lead to error;instead, try to examine the passage in the following way:
Read through 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 pargraph 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.
Senctence Equivalence
Similar to text completion,senctence equivalence also has a incompleted passage which checks the ability to reach a conclusion but mostly it checks on the meaning of the completed passage on whole. Sentence Equivalence questions has a single question with one blank as text completion but it in this you will be asked to choose two choices which has the same meaning and results in a senctence which gives you similar meaning with two different words of the same meaning.
The question consists of a single sentence, 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 senctence same meaning.So follow these steps
Read the paragraph and paraphrase it,read each senctence until you get the meaning of the it.
Identify the phrases in the senctences and fill them ,so that you may get an appropriate meaning of the senctence.
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 pair of choices in all the blanks,check whether your senctence is logically, grammatically and stylistically correct.
Understand the concept in passage/senctence
Read the passage/senctence given keenly so that you may understand the information given in the passage .
Read and understand the meaning of the words,senctences 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 senctence given.
Conclude the information from the given passage/senctence.
Understand the outline in the missing data and conclude the information.
Understand structure the of text ,how each part is related.
Understand and identify the premise and outlook of that passage or senctence.
Exam a text and find conclusions about it.
Conclude strengths and weaknesses 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 pargraph 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 senctences with your own words and fill them ,so that you may get an appropriate meaning of the senctence. 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 senctence equicvalence,read senctence 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 senctence same meaning. Finally when you have selected your pair of choices in all the blanks,check whether your senctence 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 picturizing the outline of the passage or senctences givenand 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? A key-entry error? You must check whether you have made any errors while choosing the answers.
Taking a mock test should be your starting point before starting with your preparation to know your level.Preparation ends in vane,when you don’t practice . Ensure mock test regurlarly,which shows exactly where you stand 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.
50% of your Verbal ability tests vocabulary. This includes the Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence questions. There are primarily three things you need to know about these question types:
- They test words in context.
- The words tested are rarely the kind you come across in every day life.
- The answer options tend to be very close to each other: this makes choosing between options very challenging.
These factors make vocabulary a very important aspect of Verbal Reasoning, and building vocabulary meaningfully becomes essential. You’ll realise that just memorising the definitions of a word alone is not going to help you.
Rather, you must know every aspect of a word such as its contextual meaning and usage, the connotation it carries and the degree of negativity or positivity that it has in comparison to other similar words.
Start building your vocabulary early. The most ineffective thing you can do on your GRE prep is to start cramming up words a few weeks before the test! We’ve written many blogs about building vocabulary meaningfully – keeping these aspects in mind: here’s a good place to start.
First, ensure that your practice-sessions are realistic. Either pick up 20 questions of a particular question type and solve under a time constraint or pick up 3 passages (8 questions), 6 Text Completion, 4 Sentence Equivalence and 2 Critical reasoning questions and set a time limit of 30 minutes to solve all the questions.
Second, once you’re done and you’ve checked the answers – analyse the following questions:
- Those you didn’t know how to answer
- Those you got wrong, because you were caught between two or more likely options
- Those you guessed and got correct
- Those you took too much time for (irrespective of whether you got them correct)
While analysing these questions, merely understanding what made the correct answers right will not help you scale up your score, instead, you must pay heed to WHY the wrong options were wrong – understand what made them wrong and therefore what kind of traps was set in that specific question. Having this perspective WILL ensure that you learn how to overcome tricky questions and as a result increase your GRE Score.