Introduction
The GRE Verbal Reasoning section of the GRE General Test assesses the ability of the candidates to analyze and evaluate written material and synthesize information obtained from it; analyze relationships among component parts of sentences and recognize relationships among words and concepts; analyze and draw conclusions from discourse; reason from incomplete data; identify author's assumptions and/or perspective; and understand the meanings of words, sentences and entire texts. This article describes the GRE Verbal Reasoning Scoring Strategies for enhanced performance in the GRE Verbal Reasoning section.
The GRE Verbal Reasoning consists of 2 sections, and the test takers need to answer around 20 questions in all the sections, the time duration for each section is 30 minutes.
Verbal Reasoning questions appear in 3 formats: Reading Comprehension, Sentence Equivalence, and, Text Completion. Few questions require test-takers to read passages and answer questions on those passages. The other questions require test-takers to read, interpret and complete existing sentences, groups of sentences or paragraphs.
The new GRE Verbal Reasoning Scoring Strategies score ranges on a 130-170 score scale, with 1-point increment.
Do's & Don'ts
GRE Verbal Reasoning Scoring Strategies - Do's and Don’ts
| Do’s | Don’ts |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary is essential- When it comes to the GRE Verbal section, that’s the bottom line. Be proactive, look up for the words you don’t know. |
Avoid re-reading- Don’t read a sentence for a long time, rereading will waste a lot of time, for the sentence with a lot of terminologies and which is impossible to understand in a one go, try reducing the reading speed for that particular sentence. |
| First and last sentences- Focus on the first and sentences, they may provide the important clues to the meaning of each passage. |
Avoid useless words- Don’t spend much time on useless words, every sentence in English has about 40% useless words. Which are useless in sense, and they have no point in using that word in the sentence, even though if the word removed the sentence have the same meaning. |
| Don’t succumb to perfectionist tendencies- When it comes to an exam like GRE, it’s all too simple to dwell too long on every question for fear of answering it incorrectly, this type of stubbornness will prove unsuccessful by reducing the number of questions you have time to attempt, that in turn is likely to lower the score. Moreover, you run the chance of over-analyzing queries and going against your initial hunch, which more often than not is correct. |
Word separation- Don’t read the words separately, read multiple words at a time, try to read the chunk of words at a single instance, and complete every sentence in a maximum of two or three instances. |
| Become a word detective- Try to know the meaning of the word every time, learn as many words as you can while practicing for the exam. |
Viewpoints- Don’t simply select the answer choice in one viewpoint, try to make sure the passage is coherent; logically, grammatically and stylistically. |
Tips
GRE Verbal Reasoning Scoring Strategies - Advice or Tips
Key Points-
- Improving the vocabulary is the key point to improve the score on the verbal section.
- The answers on the reading comprehension section will not be negative answers but rather be positive or neutral.
- Try to fill the easiest blank first in the sentence completion. And don’t assume the first blank to be filled first.
- Read the regular news updates, try to read the well-written magazines to improve the vocabulary.
- First, think up your own words for the blanks. Try to fill in the blanks with words or phrases that seem to you to fit and then see if similar words are offered among the answer choices.