One of the most common problems test takers face on GRE is time management. I have talked to many students in my work line, and they complain that they run out of time on the reading passages and have to rush their answers. This is a common occurrence, especially for first-timers, because the verbal section’s time allotment is unforgiving. You are given 30 minutes for each section to answer 20 questions, which comes down to about a minute and a half per question.

It is no wonder then that so many students struggle with reading the passages in a timely fashion. Moreover, it doesn’t help that GRE passages are incredibly nuanced and contain so much information that mere 90 seconds aren’t enough. You have to read the passage while looking for important details, and if you come across a word that you don’t understand, that can make things even worse.

Thankfully, however, there are some tips to help you breeze through the passages and cut-down on time. Let’s see some of the things you can incorporate to improve your verbal score and not fall victim to the ticking clock.

Read the Questions before the Passage

I see so many people reading the passage first and then coming to the questions. While this may seem intuitive to you, it can end up costing you time. When you read a passage without knowing the problems, you don’t actively look for the information to answer them. For example, let’s say a question asks you about something that happened in 1877. If you already know the problem, you will actively look for the date 1877. This way, you end up saving time because you don’t have to reread the passage to filter out the relevant information. Read the questions quickly and then move onto the passage itself.

Concentrate on Opening and Closing Paragraphs

This tip is handy on some of the longer passages you will encounter on GRE verbal. If you are running short on time and a long passage comes up, you can skim through the opening and closing paragraphs because, most of the time, they contain the main idea of the passage. You can try this out on practice tests and see for yourself how well it works. Reading the whole passage will only cost you more time, and you will probably miss the subsequent questions.

Don’t Get Stuck on a Passage.

If you come across a passage that is extra difficult and you can’t seem to process it, don’t make the mistake of getting held up. I see students who get fixated on a passage, and instead of skipping it and circling back to it later, they waste essential seconds that could have been used to answer more straightforward passages ahead. Think of it this way, if you skip a passage that you know you are struggling with, you may quickly respond to the ones that come after it. However, if you choose not to ignore the passage and waste time on it without actually answering it correctly, you have now lost the said passage points and the ones following it because you didn’t skip it. The moment you realize that the passage isn’t making any sense to you, move on. The chances are that you will skip that passage eventually anyway. So why waste time on it?

Learn to skim through

You need to understand that GRE passages are designed to confuse you. A common trap that beginner test-takers fall into is reading the passage word-by-word as if they are carefully researching a journal article for their thesis. In my experience, this is not a time-efficient way. You need to be able to skim through the text multiple words at a time. You are not reading to critique the writing; you are reading to filter out relevant information. Ideally, you will read the questions first and then scan through the article to find critical information. However, do keep in mind that this does not come naturally to everyone. Hence, practice is your friend. Get some practice material and time yourself skimming through passages and answering questions. You need to build this ability and refine it; chances are you won’t do good on your first try.

Look for Linking Words

ETS loves to use linking words in GRE passages because they are subtle and can deliver crucial information without stating much. If you know what these linking words are how they alter the meaning of succeeding sentences, you will save-up time.

• yet
• but
• however
• on the other hand
• in contrast
• in addition
• firstly, secondly
• in conclusion

For example, the word “however” is used to contrast what is being discussed in the passage. When you see it, you will automatically know that whatever follows “However” will be the opposite of what was being discussed before it.

Understand the General Structure of a GRE Passage

ETS is very crafty when it comes to designing the reading passages. They use various topics from the different subjects, and they never seem to run out. While the passages themselves change over time, what remains the same is the structure of the passage.

Generally, a GRE passage goes like this:

1. An idea or theory is introduced.
2. The author will provide some background or support for this idea.
3. The author will bring in an opposing view and scrutinize it.
4. The passage is concluded by addressing the implications of the ideas above/arguments.

This is usually how a GRE passage is structured. If you learn how to recognize this, you will know roughly where you are in the passage and where you need to look for relevant information. Try this out on practice material and see for yourself if it works. You will be surprised.

Use the Process of Elimination to Find the Correct Answer

Wrong answers can be crucial in determining the right one. Sounds odd. Here is how it works. Let’s say that you are unsure about the correct answer choice, but you know for certain that some of the options are incorrect. You can then eliminate these wrong answer choices and narrow down the possibilities. Even if you manage to narrow the choices down to two, you will have a fifty percent chance of choosing the correct answer. However, the key here is to know for certain which answer choices are incorrect.

You can weed out the wrong choices by knowing how ETS chooses GRE passages. Since GRE is an international test, ETS avoids using “absolute” or “extreme” language. ETS will try to be as neutral as possible, which is why they don’t use words like:

• only
• all
• always
• every
• never
• exclusively

In the majority of instances, answer choices that have the above words in them are incorrect. Correct answer choices typically lie somewhere in-between the two extremes.

Moreover, there is usually an answer choice that has nothing to do with the passage’s topic. It will introduce a new idea or a fact that isn’t in the passage. These are the most apparent incorrect answers to spot.

Pace Yourself for Practice

I cannot stress this enough; you need to pace yourself while solving practice tests. Nobody has ever scored high by only learning the concepts and then taking the test the next day. Practice is crucial – not only for the quant section but also for the verbal. It would help if you got yourself full-length practice tests. Replicate the testing environment of the actual test and time yourself while solving the verbal passages. This will tell you exactly how much time you currently need and how accurate you are. Without a baseline measure of your skills, you will have no idea if you are improving or not. Fast reading is a skill, not an instinct. You need to develop it by testing yourself and practicing.

Improve Your Attention Span

Thanks to the instant gratification world that we live in, our attention spans are getting shorter with each passing day. We are surrounded by notifications, comments, and click-bait headlines everywhere. Why read a book when you can listen to someone explain the summary of the book on YouTube? Why read a detailed article when you can google the key points? This constant cycle of living in a click-click world has taken a toll on many people’s attention span. You may have noticed this just today; how many times do you find yourself reading and rereading a paragraph because your head was someplace else. You read the words, but no meaning comes from it. You reread them and find yourself none the wiser.

This happens to you because you have gotten used to quick information at a touch of a button. Real-life is not click-click, and a short attention span will leave you distraught when reading those GRE passages.

The good news is you can get back your attention and improve it considerably. Start with 10 minutes of mindful meditation and increase the time as you master control over your thoughts. The improvements you make here will bleed into your GRE prep within a month.

A Good Vocabulary Can Save You Time

I know you are probably tired of hearing about the importance of vocabulary in GRE. However, in my experience, a good vocabulary can help you tackle passages faster. I hear from students all the time that they are throw-off by an obscure word in a passage, and they fail to regain their flow. Not knowing essential vocabulary for GRE puts you at a greater risk of wasting time on a passage because you have no other option but to guess the meaning. Guessing is not suitable for time-management, and hence you should pay considerable attention to your vocabulary. Get yourself a helpful vocabulary resource such as Magoosh vocabulary builder or Manhattan’s 500 essential words. The stronger your vocabulary, the better you will avoid roadblocks.