STRATEGIES - VERBAL SECTION

Sentence Completion

The following strategies can be used in tackling the sentence completion questions in a more effective manner. They are

• Read the incomplete sentence and try to fit your own words in before looking at the answer choices.
• Pay attention to grammatical clues.
• Break down sentences with two blanks into parts and analyze each part individually.
• See that both parts of your answer choice fit the sentence correctly.

Antonyms

The below points will be helpful in answering the antonyms accurately:

• Try to define the word precisely
  
• Look for shades of meaning of the given word
• Make a sentence with it
• Analyze the prefix or suffix to help establish a individual words meaning
• Eliminate irrelevant answer choices

Analogies

The key points to tackle in the analogies are given below:

• Try to establish a strong relationship between the given pair of words
• Consider relationships of kind, size, spatial contiguity, or degree.
• If more than one of the answer choices seems correct, try to state the relationship more precisely.
• Check for second meanings of the given words

Reading Comprehension

This is the more difficult and a very challenging section with regard to the students. To solve them, you need:

• Go through the passage once to get the general idea of the passage.
• Do not try to memorize details but instead pay attention to the topic and the focus of the passage as you read.
• For questions asking you to give the passage a title, look at the first and last lines of the passage for clues.

Verbal Section

Hi am back with the GRE - Verbal section now. Most of the students of the non-western origins especially Asians will be taken aback when they face this section. To be honest, Indians speak even a notch higher than the well-educated Americans, which is the greatest asset. The true fact is the cream layer of the students going to US are mostly Indians when compared to other countries. It is just perseverance with patience, with which we can make it . The main aspect is Hardwork and deep concentration. The verbal section comprises

• Sentence Completions
• Antonyms
• Analogies
• Reading Comprehensions

Multiple-choice response sections are graded on a scale of 200-800, in 10 point increments. This section primarily tests vocabulary, and average scores in this section are substantially lower than those in the quantitative section. In a typical examination, this section may consist of 30 questions, and 30 minutes may be allotted to complete the section.

Sentence Completions

GRE Sentence completions in GRE Verbal measure your:

• ability to understand the logic of a sentence
• recognize words or phrases that complete the meaning of a sentence

You are given a sentence with either one or two words missing. Your job is to pick the answer choice with the word, or words, that best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

Antonyms

GRE Antonyms measure your:

• vocabulary
• ability to reason from a given concept to its opposite

You are presented with a single word followed by five choices containing words or short phrases. You have to select an answer choice that is nearly opposite in meaning to the original word. Since the questions often require you to distinguish finer shades of meaning, go through all the possible answer choices before making your selection.

Analogies

Analogies measure your ability to recognize:

• relationships among words and concepts they represent
• parallel relationships

You are presented with a related pair of words followed by five choices containing lettered pairs of words or phrases. Select the lettered pair that best expresses a relationship similar to that expressed in the original pair.

Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is the toughest one in GRE Verbal. Many students get a poor GRE Score in GRE Verbal section because of the toughness of the reading comprehension questions. GRE Reading comprehension measures your ability:

• to read with understanding, insight, and discrimination
• to analyze a written passage from several perspectives

Passages are taken from the humanities, social sciences, biological sciences and physical sciences. The passages are of varied lengths, but generally of 75 to 150 lines. The number of questions pertaining to a particular passage could range from 3 to 5.

Finally, i think you all would have got an idea about the GRE Verbal section,. If not, a hint of what happening in Verbal and what to do for answering in it. In the coming posts, we will discuss the strategies how to tackle the verbal section as such.

Catch you later!!!!

Analytical writing section

The analytical writing section consists of Issue and Argument. The writing section is graded on a scale of 0-6, with half-point increments. The essays are typed in the computer using a word designed by ETS. On a whole, a test taker is given 75 minutes for this section. The split is 45 minute for Issue and 30 minute for Argument. The program do not contain any spell checker or any error correcting features. It is necessary for a test taker to take care of the mistakes which they might commit, say spelling and grammatical slips. Each essay irrespective of the Issue or Argument is evaluated by atleast two readers in a holistic manner for a Six-Point scale.If the two scores are within one point, the average of them is taken. If the two scores differ by more than a point, a third reader examines the written essays.

Issue task

The test taker will be able to choose between two topics upon which to write an essay. The time allowed for this essay is 45 minutes. It is recommended to take the topic which makes more comfortable, in your thought process to earn quality points respective of your stand, either for or against or even a neutral stand at times, depending on the format used. The Issue can be written in two formats: Website and Princeton. It is a Thumb rule that a Website format is better in relative terms of earning quality points rather than in Princeton.

Argument task

The test taker will be given an argument and will be asked to write an essay that explains why one side of the argument is superior. Typically, the task requires the test taker to identify and critique through logical fallacies of the argument. The time allotted for this essay is 30 minutes. Unlike Issue, Argument cannot have a neutral stand either support or oppose. This same fact boils down to take up Princeton rather than Website format.

Let's discuss more of Princeton and Website in the coming posts. Any comments or suggestions is purely welcome. Will be Back!!!