GRE Verbal Test Prep

Doing well on the GRE is part intelligence, part achievement, and part grit. It is a measure of how well you might do with the rigors of a post-graduate program.

In the Verbal part of the GRE you’ll face these challenges:

• vocabulary

• normal reading comprehension

• logic-based reading comprehension

• two essays

Vocabulary

You may be surprised (and relieved) to hear that word memorization is NOT my general recommendation. There are about 170,000 words in the English language; we want the widest (if shallow) exposure possible; time spent on memorizing definitions does not pay off as well.

Most of the vocabulary questions contain context clues and hints, so we will build your tools through a broad exposure, a review of prefixes, and elimination strategies. There will even be some funny mnemonics! It’s a training process and may involve breaking some habits that worked in the past, but for different kinds of tests.

Normal and logic-based reading comprehension

We will work to help you identify the logic-based passages. This is important as there may be logic issues that need to be untangled in the passage before trying to find the correct answer. The test makers are very skilled in providing answers that make sense at first blush but are actually incorrect!

Essays

Surprisingly, an important part of the score for essays is simply following directions. You don’t have to write the Great American Novel. For any students that need a lot of help with writing I have a form to start with that can help almost anyone get at least an average score. There is hope for everyone, with enough time to prepare. The essay section appears to be as much a test of the candidate’s grit as it is a signifier of writing ability.