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How to Approach GRE Application Questions

By posted January 31, 2012

Although less common than Detail or Main Idea questions, you may see one or two Application questions on test day. Application questions asking you to apply what you have read in the passage to a different or hypothetical situation.

1. Read above and below the line numbers. You’ll need more context to answer these challenging questions. Don’t expect the quoted line numbers to give you enough information to solve. Tricky answer choices will mimic the subject of the specific line number provided, but won’t accurately reflect the full situation. It may help to use arrows or other symbols. Your ultimate goal will be to consider what the described situation is “like” so make sure you understand the original situation well.

2. Consider the author’s argument. Some application questions will focus on the author’s point of view. Just like you would for a Main Idea or Tone question, identify the author’s purpose and put yourself in the author’s shoes. Ask yourself questions. What is the point of this detail? How does it help the main argument?

3. Focus on process. Another useful tip for Application GRE questions is to pay attention to how a particular process is performed. For example, if the passage focuses on describing an historic development, you must clarify step-by-step how the development occurred, before you can apply that same manner of development to a different situation. Go back through the passage and list the verbs on your scratch pad. This will help you to understand the steps of the process and not be confused by the timeline.

Let’s try a sample Grockit GRE practice question!

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Revised GRE Verbal: What to Expect

By posted January 28, 2012

The Verbal Reasoning sections of the GRE assess your reading comprehension skills and your understanding and usage of vocabulary.  About half of the Verbal questions will require you to read a passage and answer questions about it.  The other half will have you fill in the blanks of sentences or paragraphs with vocabulary.

Timing: There will be 2-3 Verbal Reasoning sections on the GRE, depending if the unidentified, unscored section is Verbal or Quantitative.  Each section will contain approximately 20 questions which you will be given 30 minutes to complete.

Format: The three types of questions that make up the Verbal sections are:

-Reading Comprehension

-Text Completion

-Sentence Equivalence

There are several different question formats, so let’s break down the formats within each question type.

Reading Comprehension: Some questions will be standard multiple choice, with 5 possible answer choices and 1 correct answer.  The letter for each answer choice will appear in a circle.

Test your GRE skills with this reading comprehension, long passage practice question.

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GRE Practice: Consistent Ideas in Sentence Equivalence

By posted January 26, 2012

Sentence Equivalence is one of the newer GRE Verbal question types (replacing the older Sentence Completions). Like Sentence Completions, Sentence Equivalence consists of one sentence with one blank. Unlike Sentence Completions, there are two correct answers and not one, and you must get both to get the question correct.

To solve Sentence Equivalence, you’ll need to know 1) the relationship of the blank to the rest of the sentence, and 2) the meaning of the entire sentence. There are approximately 8 total Sentence Equivalence questions on the GRE, 4 on each Verbal section. These questions should take approximately 1 minute each.

Consistent Ideas is one of the four types of Sentence Equivalence questions. In Consistent Ideas questions, the blank will mirror or extent the logic of the rest of the sentence. Like it sounds, the blank will continue the ideas of the rest of the sentence. You’ll be able to recognize this type because of certain constructions.

Here are common “Consistent Ideas” key words and phrases to look out for: for this reason, again, to reiterate, along with, in addition, for example, to illustrate, thus, likewise, similarly, since, also, and, next, as well as, as a result, to sum up, concluding, additionally, etc.

Try this GRE sentence equivalence question for more practice before test day.

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GRE Review: An Overview of the New Text Completion -Three Blank Questions

By posted January 23, 2012

The new revised GRE now categorizes sentence completion questions as text completion questions.  Why?  Just as it sounds, most of these text completion questions are longer and made up of more than one sentence, particularly the two and three blank questions.  The three blank questions are often a paragraph.  With three unknowns in your paragraph, there can be a lot more ambiguity as to which vocabulary best completes the sentences.  Also keep it mind that these questions are “all or nothing”–if you miss one of the three blanks, you don’t receive any credit for the two blanks you filled in correctly.

The good news is that each blank has only three choices, as opposed to the five choices given on the one and two blank sentence completion questions from the old GRE, and the one blank text completion questions on the revised GRE.  However, each blank’s correct choice is chosen independently.  This erases the advantage of having an answer choice with two words that fill in the blanks.  For example, on the old test, an answer choice for a two blank question would appear like this:

Here’s another Text Completion practice question to try out. Be prepared for the new test! See what the new 3 blank questions look like on the new GRE.

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3 Tips to Find the “Big Idea” in GRE Reading Passages

By posted January 13, 2012

It’s important to keep in mind for all GRE Reading Comprehension questions that just because an answer choice is reasonable, true, or (and this is critical) mentioned in the passage, does NOT mean it is necessarily correct. Always ask yourself: which answer choice best addresses the specific question being asked here? Look to eliminate answer choices that are outside the scope of the question, or ones that contain extreme language such as always and never. These three tips will help you get more “Big Idea” questions correct in your GRE practice.

  1. Keep it within Scope. For “Big Idea” questions, we’re looking for the answer choice with a scope that matches that of the entire passage. For example, if the passage was about hurricanes and the necessary steps that need to be taken in order to predict and prevent hurricane damage, then perhaps one paragraph referred to one leading hurricane researcher. However, it would be incorrect to say that the main idea of the passage was to “research Mount St. Helen’s” as that is the main idea of only one paragraph. The “Big Idea” would need to be something like “to discuss ways of predicting and preventing eruptions” since that is the more general focus. For “Big Idea” questions, we need to try to see the picture that is being formed by all of the puzzle pieces, and not get distracted by the individual pieces themselves.
  2. Always find the Purpose. It’s easy to do this if you write down the Purpose of the passage BEFORE reading the first question. Remember that active reading and note-taking are essential to GRE Reading Comp success. When you see a “Big Idea” question, you can quickly refer back to your Purpose to form a prediction.
  3. The Thesis and the Conclusion count most. If you forgot to write down the Purpose, or you can’t make a strong prediction, there are a few good places in the passage to look for the “Big Idea.” Try re-reading the last few sentences of the opening paragraph. Does the author include a thesis? Does he express a strong point of view about the topic? In the final paragraph, what conclusion does the author leave the reader with? Does the author re-iterate a main purpose here? What is he summarizing? Focus especially on the first and final sentences of the conclusion.

Try this GRE Reading Comprehension practice question and put these tips to the test!.
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Causation in Sentence Equivalence on the GRE

By posted January 11, 2012

Sentence Equivalence is one of the newer GRE Verbal question types. Sentence Equivalence consists of one sentence with one blank. There are two correct answers, and you must find both to get the question correct. According to ETS, SE questions require you to know how a passage should be completed “on the basis of partial information, but to a greater extent they focus on the meaning of the completed whole.” You will see approximately 8 total Sentence Equivalence questions on the GRE, 4 on each Verbal section. These questions should take approximately 1 minute each.

Causation is one of the four types of Sentence Equivalence questions. Unlike Definition, Consistent Ideas, and Contrasting Ideas (the other three types), Causation might be less familiar to you. In Causation questions, the blank will be part of a cause/effect relationship with the rest of the sentence. You’ll be able to recognize this type because of certain constructions.

Here are common “Causation” key words and phrases to look out for on Test Day: resulting in, causing, making, thereby, being that, due to, because of, leading to, owing to, so as to, forcing, as, in view of, in light of, the reason for, effecting, consequently, etc.

Find out how Grockit can track your performance, improvements and offers a study plan based on your skill needs.

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GRE Review: The New Sentence Equivalence Questions

By posted January 10, 2012

Sentence equivalence is a new type of question on the revised GRE that presents a different challenge than your typical fill-in-the-blank sentence question.  All sentence equivalence questions have only one blank, but have two correct answer choices out of six.  The two correct choices must not only make sense in the sentence, but also convey the same meaning.  Essentially you are looking for two synonyms that correctly complete the sentence.

Remember that just because an answer choice makes sense in the sentence does not mean that it is one of the two correct choices.  If there is no other answer choice that is a synonym for this word and also fits in the blank, it is not the right answer.  Additionally, don’t pick two answer choices just because they are synonyms.  They may not have definitions that fit the context of the sentence.

What are some strategies to approach sentence equivalence questions?  Here are a couple ideas.  You could:

Stay up to date with the latest in GRE news by checking out Grockit’s facebook page!

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5 Essential Tips for GRE Reading Comprehension Passages

By posted December 29, 2011

As you study for the GRE Verbal section, you’ll be doing a lot of reading. Unlike the Sentence Equivalence or Text Completion questions, you can get a great score on the RC questions even without an impressive vocabulary. A little strategy can go a long way on the GRE Verbal section, so use these GRE strategies on your Grockit practice GRE questions to get one step closer to your graduate school admissions goal!

Give this GRE reading comprehension practice question a try!

Begin with the Topic and the Scope. The topic should be obvious within the first 1-2 sentences of the passage. Look for the noun that appears to be the focus of the sentence. Is the topic a historical figure, a scientific phenomenon, a business plan, a social theory, etc? The scope is a little more specific than the topic. What about the topic interests the author? Think of the topic as the top of an umbrella. The scope shows the parabola of the umbrella and describes what would and would not fit under it. For example if our topic is “radiocarbons” maybe our scope is “theories about how carbon dating works.”

The Tone is either Neutral or Strong/Complex. Look for the adjectives the author uses to describe the topic, and the main topics of the individual paragraphs. What does he/she like or dislike? Look for descriptive phrases, and write down a “happy face” or “sad face” symbols to track the opinions and how they change or develop. Does the author introduce other people’s opinions? In harder passages, the author will have mixed feelings. He may feel overall positively towards the topic, but have certain specific reservations. It’s also possible the author is removed from the passage, and takes on a more neutral/scholarly tone. Don’t worry if the opinion is subtle – just select answer choices that reflect that.

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GRE Sentence Equivalence Traps: Part 2

By posted November 2, 2011

Looking for online test prep for the new GRE?  Grockit has the info that will help you get a higher score!  On the new GRE, approximately four of the test questions in the verbal section will be sentence equivalence questions.  These sentences will look like the standard “fill in the blank” sentences, but there’s a twist: of the six answer choices provided, you have to choose TWO.  Those choices, when plugged into the sentence, must create the same meaning; essentially, this means that the words must be synonyms.  While the task might feel familiar, this new format means that there are new obstacles to navigate on your way to the correct answer.

Missed part 1 of this series? Check it out here.

One trap to keep your eye out for is synonym pairs that don’t make sense in the sentence; we talked about that in Part 1 of this series.  In this section, though, we’re going to discuss the second kind of trap: words that seem perfect but for which you can’t identify a synonym.  Here’s an example:

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GRE Sentence Equivalence Traps: Part 1

By posted October 26, 2011

Looking for online test prep for the new GRE?  Grockit has the info that will help you get a higher score!  On the new GRE, approximately four of the test questions in the verbal section will be sentence equivalence questions.  These sentences will look like the standard “fill in the blank” sentences, but there’s a twist: of the six answer choices provided, you have to choose TWO.  Those choices, when plugged into the sentence, must create the same meaning; essentially, this means that the words must be synonyms.  While the task might feel familiar, this new format means that there are new obstacles to navigate on your way to the correct answer.

The first trap to keep your eye out for is synonym pairs that don’t make sense in the question.  Here’s an example:

Nancy’s landlord told her and her housemates that because of their failure to pay rent for the previous two months, they would need to ——— possession of the residence by the end of the week.

a.  allocate

b.  surrender

c.  mandate

d.  designate

e.  relinquish

f.  circumvent

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