GRE Verbal Reasoning: question types and practice

How does GRE Verbal reading comprehension work?

Each passage has one to six questions. Most passages are one paragraph long, and one or two are several paragraphs. Topics come from the sciences, social sciences, business, the arts and humanities, and everyday life, and you don’t need outside knowledge: the answer is always in the passage.

• Select one answer: five choices, one correct.
• Select one or more: three choices, one to three of them correct. You must pick all the right ones to get credit.
• Select in passage: click the sentence that fits a description.

Text completion

A passage of one to five sentences has one to three blanks. A single blank gets five choices; with two or three blanks, each blank gets three. There’s one right answer per blank and no credit for getting only some of them. ETS suggests filling the blanks with your own words first, and you don’t have to start with the first blank.

Sentence equivalence

One sentence, one blank, six choices, and you pick two. Both words must make the sentence make sense and give it the same meaning. ETS warns against simply picking two synonyms: a pair can mean the same thing and still not fit the sentence.

Is there a GRE vocabulary test?

Not a separate one. Vocabulary is tested through these three question types, which ask you to understand words in context and the relationships between them. ETS doesn’t publish an official word list. It does sell GRE Vocabulary Flashcards, more than 1,600 cards made with Brainscape, and a book of 150 real Verbal questions.