Section guide ยท Verbal
Verbal: reasoning first, vocabulary second
Both exams test whether you can analyze an argument and read closely under time pressure. The GRE adds a heavy vocabulary load; the GMAT leans harder on argument structure. Either way, verbal is a skill section, and skills respond to deliberate practice faster than memorization does.
The worked examples on GMAT GRE Prep follow the method in this guide, so read this, then drill with the practice bank.
What each exam includes
| Question type | GMAT | GRE |
|---|---|---|
| Critical reasoning | Yes, about a third of the section | Yes, embedded in reading sets |
| Reading comprehension | Yes | Yes, roughly half the section |
| Text completion | No | Yes, 1 to 3 blanks |
| Sentence equivalence | No | Yes, pick two answers that both fit |
Critical reasoning: name the job before reading choices
Every critical reasoning question gives an argument and asks you to do one job: strengthen it, weaken it, find its assumption, draw an inference, or explain a discrepancy. Read the question stem first, then the argument, then predict the answer shape before looking at the choices. In our assumption question, the job is spotting what an analogy silently requires; in theweaken question, it is supplying an alternative cause.
- Assumption: use the negation test. If negating a choice destroys the argument, it is necessary.
- Weaken: look for alternative causes, reversed causality, or broken analogies.
- Strengthen: fill the exact gap between premise and conclusion, nothing broader.
- Inference (must be true): the correct answer is small and safe; trap answers overreach. See the remote work inference.
Reading comprehension: map, do not memorize
You cannot remember a whole passage under time pressure, and you do not need to. Read for structure: what is the topic, what is the author's claim, and where are the pivots (however, but, yet, still). Then answer questions by returning to the lines that matter. Main-idea and attitude questions are answerable from the map alone, as shown in theanchoring passage.
GRE vocabulary: text completion and sentence equivalence
Vocabulary questions are signal questions. Pivot words (although, but, despite) reverse direction; support words (because, since, moreover) continue it. Predict your own word for the blank from the evidence in the sentence, then match. Theopaque lectures question shows the reversal pattern, and the mediator question shows how meaning and idiom both constrain the blank.
- Learn words in clusters (words about praise, words about criticism, words about brevity) rather than alphabetical lists.
- For sentence equivalence, the two correct answers must produce equivalent meanings; near-synonyms that fail the sentence are classic traps.
- Twenty minutes of spaced-repetition vocabulary daily beats a weekend cram, every time.
Pacing
- GMAT: 23 questions in 45 minutes, roughly 2 minutes each, question-level adaptive, so protect accuracy early.
- GRE: 12 questions in 18 minutes, then 15 in 23. Bank the vocabulary questions fast and spend the savings on reading sets.