The verbal section of the GRE is primarily designed to assess whether you will understand and interpret written English on a Graduate level. The whole idea behind the GRE is to gauge your readiness for a graduate-level program; hence the test places so much emphasis on elevated prose. Unlike math, which is empirical science, there are no formulas for solving reading passages. The skills needed to ace the verbal section of GRE are an amalgamation of your reading practices leading up to the test.

However, that doesn’t mean that you cannot improve your verbal score if you don’t have a history of reading books. While there are no sure-fire formulas to navigating the verbal section, there are key strategies that you can use, both during the test and in your prep, that can help improve your score.

This article will discuss essential advice and strategies that helped me achieve a perfect score in GRE verbal.

Preparation Time For Non-Native English Speaker

In my teaching both native and non-native English speakers, I have noticed that non-native students require considerably more time to prepare for the exam. If you are a non-native English speaker, I will suggest that you spend at least three months on your verbal prep. The reason for this is simple. As someone who doesn’t use English as frequently as a native, you will lack the subtleties to analyze difficult passages.

The English language varies profoundly in its style and usage from one segment of society to another. Most non-natives come in contact with English via popular culture, i.e., movies, cartoons, magazines, songs, etc. Often, this sort of English gives you a false sense of familiarity with the language when, in reality, the English spoken in academic circles is vastly different.

I am not saying that popular English is not beneficial. It is immensely better than not being able to speak English at all. However, if you are a U.S. graduate school aspirant, you will have to put extra effort into developing your academic English.

Hence, don’t take your verbal prep lightly. Many non-native English students come into GRE prep thinking that it is a piece of cake, but they end up getting surprised. Dedicate half of your time to Verbal prep; for example, if you have six months before your test day, three of those should be exclusively for verbal prep.

Reading is as Important as Vocabulary

If you have been around various GRE forums and blog posts, I am sure you know how much emphasis people place on vocabulary when it comes to GRE verbal. In my experience, however, an equally important piece of the puzzle is reading.

Firstly, vocabulary is indeed essential, and I am not suggesting otherwise. However, memorizing hundreds of words from a list doesn’t magically give you insight into how these words are used and what context.

There are two essential aspects of English Vocabulary. One is the literal “meaning” of the word, and the other is “usage.” Most people, especially non-natives, fail to realize that usage of an English word varies with context.

You can memorize the meaning from a list but reading high-level prose improves your understanding of the usage.  

In this respect, the three most helpful resources I recommend to students are The NewYorker, The Atlantic, Longreads. These resources are perfect for the sort of prose you will encounter in GRE verbal. They will familiarize you with complex sentence structures, word usage, linking words, arguments, etc. I would advise that you spend at least an hour every day reading from these journals.

Secondly, reading from reputable journals like those I mentioned above will also expose you to hundreds of GRE words. The difference is that you will learn these words in the proper context rather than rot. Keep a notebook and pencil handy whenever you are reading to note down every new word you come across along with its meaning.

Process of Elimination

Even the most well-prepared students will come across words that they haven’t encountered before in their lives. This is where strategies like “POE” or Process of Elimination are a lifesaver.

When you are confused about the correctness of multiple answer choices, you can improve the probability of selecting the correct answer choice by eliminating the blatantly wrong ones.

The idea is to narrow down potential correct answer choices so that even if you have to make a guess, your chances of selecting the correct answer are high.

You can weed out the wrong choices by knowing how ETS chooses GRE passages. GRE is a global test, and it avoids using “absolute” or “extreme” language. Generally, absolute answer choices are incorrect. Some words that give away such an answer choice are the following:

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

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, to begin with. These are the most apparent incorrect answers to spot.

Don’t Pace Yourself in the beginning.

Time management is a significant ingredient of scoring well on the GRE. However, I advise students not to obsess over time-management in the initial phase of their verbal prep. At the start of your GRE verbal prep, the chances are that you will find the reading passages to be significantly challenging than what you are used to.

If you fixate yourself on how long it takes you to read a passage, you will miss out on deriving meaningful insights from the passage to answer correctly. Instead, you shouldn’t worry about pacing yourself for the first month of your prep but instead, pay attention to the writing’s nuances. Familiarize yourself with the type of language GRE uses, and once you are comfortable with that, then move on to timing yourself.

Consistency is Paramount

In my consultations, I have found that students, who score poorly on GRE verbal, often prepare the verbal section for a set amount of months but then stop altogether and move on to Quant. This is a wrong approach.

You can spend months perfecting your verbal prep, but you will end up disappointed on test day if you don’t consistently engage your verbal faculties. Scoring well on mock tests doesn’t absolve you from halting your verbal preparation. Instead, it would help if you stimulate your brain regularly by doing a few verbal exercises or reading journals.

If you have set aside six hours in a day for quant prep, you can easily spend an hour of that time to freshen up your verbal prep. This will help you tremendously come test day.

You Don’t Need to get all Questions Right for a Perfect Score.

Many people don’t know this, but unlike the quant section, which is far more competitive than verbal, you only need to answer correctly 65-70 percent of the questions to achieve a 95h percentile score.

Knowing this makes a world of difference because if you are running short on time and cannot answer all 20 questions in 30 minutes, you can skip 3-4 questions and answer the remaining ones correctly.

You will only have about a minute and a half to answer a single question. That is not nearly enough to carefully read through the passage and then choose the correct answer. Hence, it is crucial to know that you have more leeway in the verbal section.

Don’t make the mistake of fixating on a question that doesn’t make any sense to you. The moment you realize you are struggling with a problem, quickly move on to the next and save those essential seconds.

Even if you get 3-4 questions wrong, you will still score better than 95 percent of the people.

When in Doubt Rely on Your Strengths

As I stated in the previous point, you don’t need to get all the answers right to score perfectly. Based on this fact, I advise students to prioritize questions based on their skills. In a GRE verbal section, half of all problems are vocabulary related whereas the other half is reading passages.

Suppose you know that your vocabulary knowledge is far greater than your comprehension skills, most time into answering vocabulary questions and vice versa. This approach maximizes your chance of acquiring a near-perfect score since you only need to answer 16 questions correctly.

Hence, if you answer the ten vocabulary questions correctly, you only need to get six of the passages right to come out on the very top. Use your time intelligently.

Don’t Skip Quant Sections On Mock Tests.

The GRE test has a total of six sections. Two are verbal, Two are Quant, One is AWA, and One is an unscored experimental section that can either be verbal or quant.

The AWA section is the only one that we know comes at the very beginning of the test. The other sections are randomized and may appear in any order. I am telling you all this because students make the mistake of only solving the mock tests’ verbal portion. They skip the AWA or the quant section because they think it doesn’t matter since they are preparing for verbal.

What this does is that they miss out on developing their endurance level. What happens when a verbal section shows up at the very end? They are tired and less focused, which in turn costs them points.

You must treat your mock tests as actual GRE tests because that would build your stamina accordingly. You don’t want any test day surprises; they throw you off your game and are bad for morale. Try to replicate an actual testing environment whenever you take mocks. This will ensure that you have familiarity with what lies ahead and will result in a better score overall.