In my last post I discussed the importance of vocabulary, not as an exercise to be done in isolation but instead as a habitual tool for learning and reinforcing unknown or unfamiliar words you come across. As I noted, this skill translates not only into improvements on Sentence Completion and Equivalence problems but also on Reading Comprehension, […]
GRE Vocabulary: The Sage Continues…
THE NEVERENDING STORY: There were some pretty strange children’s movies when I was a kid. Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, the so-bad-it’s-good Ron Howard movie Willow (featuring Real Genius and Top Gun star Val Kilmer), and the still-disturbing leporine epic Watership Down. But insofar as capturing the imagination of the archetypical misunderstood eight-year-old (imagine the eighties version of Harry Potter), nothing surpassed The Neverending Story, […]
How is the GRE Scored?
Confused by the scoring used in the GRE? Let’s break it down. The GRE has three distinct sections that score differently: Quantitative, 40 questions, It reports on a 130-170 score scale in 1-point increments. Verbal, 40 questions. It reports on a 130-170 score scale in 1-point increments. Analytical Writing, 2 essays. After both essays receive […]
No Vocab, No Cry
Let’s be honest: No one can memorize all the vocabulary you might encounter on the GRE. There are lists of words everywhere, so much so that it’s become a cliché, “SAT words.” Most of the lists of “GRE words” are just “SAT words” on steroids, and prep books frequently instruct students to keep a vocabulary […]
GRE Verbal Scores for Top Education Programs
Education is a popular field of graduate study in the US. It’s the number one discipline for doctoral degrees (MD and JD excluded) and a close second to Business for master’s degrees. Hoping to get into a top program? A strong GRE Verbal score may help. Take a look at the Verbal scores for Education programs ranked in […]
GRE Text Completion Challenge: Follow the Clues
GRE Text Completion gives you a sizable chunk of text to parse when you have multiple blanks to fill. Putting all the context clues together can be tricky, and any hard vocabulary that pops up, whether in the text or the answer choices, won’t make your work any easier. Get some practice with this challenging three-blank […]
Sentence Equivalence Challenge: Work Around Unknown Words
GRE Sentence Equivalence has a knack for finding the limits of your vocabulary. Fortunately, the GRE isn’t a vocabulary test. You don’t have to know every word in a question to know the answer. Sometimes filling in the blank is a matter of relying on easier words and eliminating answer choices. To see what I mean, try […]
Doing GRE Reading Comprehension Exercises to Prepare for the Argument Essay
In the Analytical Writing section’s “Analyze an Argument” task, you’ll critique a short argument that’s being made for or against some prediction (“profits will rise”), explanation (“genetics is the cause”), recommendation (“repeal the ban”), or other topic of debate. Your directions may be to ferret out hidden assumptions or to identify evidence that could help […]
Reading Comprehension Challenge: Deconstruct the Argument
Argument passages in GRE Reading Comp vary in complexity. If you’re asked to weaken or strengthen an argument, then the passage probably contains just one conclusion. But if you’re asked to identify the roles that parts of the passage play in an argument, then the text may include a main conclusion and an intermediate conclusion. […]
Real-world prep for the GRE Reading Comprehension and the Argument Essay
A sizable chunk of the GRE requires you to think about arguments. Half of Analytical Writing is the Analyze an Argument task, and about half of Verbal Reasoning is Reading Comprehension, a question type that often uses argument-based passages. Conveniently, you can prepare for Reading Comp and the Argument Task simultaneously using free (and modestly […]