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GRE Verbal Reasoning: Breaking Down the Section

There are two multiple-choice sections on the GRE Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning. You will face each of these sections twice during the exam. For each multiple-choice section, you will be given 30 minutes to answer twenty questions. To determine a student’s composite score, which ranges from 130 to 170, both of the GRE Verbal Reasoning and both of the Quantitative sections will be combined.

Unlike other standardized tests, there is no “penalty” for answering a question wrong; in other words, a wrong answer is worth the same as a blank answer. Therefore, a student should answer every question they face regardless of whether or not they’re just guessing.

The GRE Verbal Reasoning sections, broadly speaking, test two skills: Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary, which are tested through different question types.

1. Reading Comprehension in the GRE Verbal Reasoning 

This section tests a student’s ability to process and respond to questions about lengthy passages on difficult materials. Within the reading comprehension, questions are formatted into:

1. “Standard” select one answer from five
2. Select “all that apply”
3. “Highlight the sentence that best demonstrates” something from the passage

Reading comprehension passages will further test your ability to understand the broad scope of passages, the author’s intention, and the function various parts of the passage play in both the overall message as well as the use of specific words or ideas in context of the passage. Unlike the vocabulary questions and the quantitative section in general, there is no easy fix for a student who struggles with reading comprehension.

As with any skill, it is best to do a lot of practice, especially timed practice. Further, it’s important for a student preparing to take the GRE to make time for regular reading of a high or difficult reading level outside of GRE test prep. After familiarizing oneself with difficult literature, the passages on the GRE can seem relatively straightforward by comparison.

The reading comprehension section will also contain 2-4 questions that test a student’s ability to process arguments. Typically, these are short paragraphs with a single question attached to them, usually asking a student to strengthen, weaken, or describe an argument, or to find an assumption, flaw, or paradox in the passage. On these questions, a student should remember that the question is giving you a specific task, and knowing what that task is before reading the argument can help a student avoid falling into a number of different traps.

2. Vocabulary in the GRE Verbal Reasoning 

Within the vocabulary sections, students will see the following types of questions:

1. Sentence Equivalence – questions with a single blank for which a student is expected to select two correct answers
2. Text Completion – questions with between one and three blanks for which a student is expected to select one correct answer per blank.

The GRE does not offer partial credit on questions; answers must be completely correct or they will be marked wrong, so these questions should be completed in full.

The vocabulary on the GRE can be esoteric and unpredictable, but making an intense study schedule for vocabulary is the easiest way to improve your GRE verbal score. Simply put, the more GRE words you know for the test, the better you will do on the verbal section.

Just like the quantitative sections on the GRE, the questions in the verbal sections can be answered in any order. Each section has a set question order, but by clicking the “review” button, students can see which questions they’ve answered, which questions they have not answered, and which questions they have not yet seen. This fact should influence students’ testing strategies: because the questions can be done in any order, you should consider skipping questions that you are uncertain about how to answer or believe will be significantly time consuming. The section is 20 questions long, so it’s important to reach question 20 with enough time to answer it, even if it means skipping questions earlier in the test.

Zack Baldwin is a GRE expert and senior tutor at Next Step Test Prep.