Thursday, October 16, 2014

What to Expect from the GRE Verbal Section



The revised GRE verbal section will assess how strong your vocabulary is in additional to your understanding and structuring of complete and correct sentences. You will also be examined on how well you can analyze the given paragraphs and sentences. You need to begin your practice for this section months ahead if you are aiming for a high score.  

In the GRE online test, you will come across a mandatory section known as the GRE Verbal. You can probably understand by the name itself that this section will test out three separate areas of your command over the English language:

1.         Sentence Equivalence
2.         Reading Comprehension
3.         Text Completion

This blog will discuss the best test strategies that can be applied across these three sections in detail- each of these steps all entail improving your vocabulary—which is the key to completing this section. By doing just this, you can easily improve your chances of getting a high score in this section alone.

A better understanding of English as a language is correlated to how strong your vocabulary is- possessing a strong vocabulary is the only way through which you can effectively express any ideas that you may have in an articulate and cogent way. The following steps are the best ways by which you can improve your vocabulary; you need to however invest two months to cover all these steps properly:

•          Word List by Barron: This list contains approximately 4000 words and going through all of them is one way to ensure that you land that 160+. The revised format of the GRE test does place as much emphasis on this section, so if you manage to complete at least 800 of these words, you can easily get a 150+.

•          Regular Revision: To have to revise regularly, this is only way that you can learn the entire list of words. You can apply these words that you learn in everyday situations, or whenever you get the opportunity. 

•          Flash Cards: Flash cards help you to revise even when you are busy. You can get them ready made or can even make your own- this way you will learn faster as you will be writing them.

Sentence equivalence:
This is actually the easiest section and should be no trouble at all if your vocabulary is strong. Always begin by selection two words that have the same meaning, then move on to completing the sentence correctly by choosing any of the six given choices. You will notice that three of these choices will be incorrect, and the others will be suitable answers. Always stick with the two synonyms as these are the best answers.

Reading comprehension:
This section will be very tough and without a strong vocabulary, you will get stuck. You will also need to possess a good understanding of the language and have a very high understanding/ reading speed. To ensure that you score well in this section, you will need to:

• Read plenty of novels by the best authors, as the language and its usage will be very good.

• Read through a good newspaper or magazine every day as the quality of the language will be good here.

• Strengthening your understanding of the reasoning and flow of the text.

• Read up on as many questions as you possibly can. This will help you to save on time on each question and answer them quickly.

• Ensure that you practice regularly using as many mock question papers as you possibly can.

Text completion:
You ability to be able to complete an entire picture will be tested here. So you will have to pick out the right words to fill in the blanks in sentences, in a way that it will be easy to read and make sense as well. There will be many clues hidden throughout the passage that is given; you can use these to try to figure out the right answer. So make sure that you read the passage carefully before you begin on the answers.


What has been mentioned above requires loads of effort and time from you, but this has its benefits. To know how you can score a 160+ in this section, log on to www.gregurus.com.

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