GRE Verbal Reasoning

Three types: Reading Comprehension, Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence. Reading Comprehension itself comes in three variants - select a single answer from five choices, select one or more answers from three choices where one to three may be correct, and select-in-passage, where you click a sentence that matches a description. The other formats ask you to fill blanks in a sentence or short passage.

Each passage is one to five sentences, with one to three blanks per sentence. If there are two or three blanks, each blank offers three answer choices. If there is only one blank, you get five answer choices. Each blank has exactly one correct answer, and the choice sets for different blanks are independent of one another.

No. Text Completion, Sentence Equivalence and the select-one-or-more Reading Comprehension questions all require a fully correct response; there is no credit for partially correct answers. In Sentence Equivalence you must choose two of six choices, and both must be right. Treat every blank and every checkbox as all-or-nothing when you budget your time.

Typically about half the questions on the test are passage-based, and each passage carries anywhere from one to six questions. Most passages are a single paragraph long, while one or two are several paragraphs. Longer passages usually restrict select-in-passage questions to one or two specified paragraphs, so you cannot select a sentence from elsewhere.

No. Passages are drawn from many disciplines, so you may meet unfamiliar material, but every question can be answered from information in the passage and no specialized knowledge is assumed. If a passage seems unusually hard or unfamiliar, ETS suggests considering saving it for last rather than letting it consume your time.

Not quite. ETS warns against simply hunting for two choices that mean the same thing: the choices may contain synonym pairs that do not fit the sentence coherently, and the correct pair need not be exact synonyms, since what matters is that the two completed sentences mean the same thing. Read the sentence, predict a word, then test your pair.

Choosing an answer simply because it is a true statement, and choosing one that only partially answers the question. Each correct choice must answer the question accurately and completely. In Text Completion, avoid testing every combination of answers - work blank by blank, then check the result is logically, grammatically and stylistically coherent. In select-one-or-more, judge each choice on its own merits.

No. ETS notes that because these questions depend on the computer, they do not appear on the paper-delivered test; equivalent multiple-choice questions take their place. If you are testing on computer, expect to click any word in the sentence you choose, and remember that a sentence must match the whole description given, not just part of it.

Start with Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence, which train you to spot structural clues such as contrast and continuation words within a sentence. Then move to Reading Comprehension, practising main idea versus supporting detail, author's stance, and implied meaning. ETS advises reading dense prose regularly for a sustained period rather than cramming, since how you read matters as much as what you read.

Those details are not stated on the ETS Verbal Reasoning overview page and are deliberately not estimated here. Consult ETS directly for the current test structure, appointment timing, fees and retake or score-reporting policies before you register, since these operational details can change and are not part of what the Verbal Reasoning page describes.