GRE Verbal Reasoning study guide
GRE Verbal Reasoning · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Verbal Reasoning measure is one of the scored components of the GRE General Test, which ETS describes as one test for graduate, business and law school. It is intended for applicants to graduate, business and law programs who must demonstrate that they can handle the kind of dense prose encountered in graduate study. The measure assesses three broad abilities: analyzing and evaluating written material and synthesizing information from it, analyzing relationships among the component parts of sentences, and recognizing relationships among words and concepts. Questions appear in three formats - Reading Comprehension, Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence. Topics on this exam: Reading Comprehension, Text Completion, and Sentence Equivalence. The GRE Verbal Reasoning study guide has 3 sections and about 1,007 words.
01Reading Comprehension: Structure, Function, and Inference
Every passage has a skeleton: a claim, evidence, a concession, a rebuttal. Before answering anything, summarize in one sentence what the author wants you to believe, and label how the parts move (e.g., phenomenon → rejected explanation → preferred explanation). Most questions, including detail questions, get easier once that skeleton is explicit. Main idea; function (“in order to”); inference; author's attitude; detail and EXCEPT; strengthen/weaken; vocabulary in context; analogy.
357 words, about 2 min02Text Completion: Logic First, Vocabulary Second
Each blank is constrained by a signal: contrast ( although, yet, paradoxically, despite ), support ( because, indeed, moreover, so ), or definition (a phrase that restates the blank). Locate the signal before weighing vocabulary; the words are the last step, not the first. Read the whole sentence ignoring the blanks and predict a plain word of your own for each. Then match your prediction to the choices.
318 words, about 2 min03Sentence Equivalence: Finding the Coherent Pair
You choose two of six options. They need not be synonyms; they must produce two sentences that mean the same thing, and both must be independently defensible. Treat the item as a single-blank Text Completion that happens to have six options. Read the sentence and name its logic signal (contrast, cause, restatement).
332 words, about 2 min