The verbal section of the GRE is designed to measure your ability to analyze and evaluate written material. Since the test’s purpose is to determine your readiness for graduate school, the passages and vocabulary you will encounter in GRE would be academic. This means you will have to memorize hundreds of new words and read up credible news journals to get familiar with the sort of language tested on GRE.

The verbal section contains three question types. One of these is “Text Completion,” which is meant to test your verbal reasoning skills by omitting crucial words from a passage. This question type can be a bit tricky for some, but knowing specific key tips can make the process a whole lot easier.

This article will briefly explain what a text completion question is and list five key tips to improve your performance.

What is a GRE Text Completion Question?

A text completion question is one to five sentences long and can contain one to three blanks. If you have a single bank question, you will have five answer choices for that blank. However, if you have two or three blanks, you will have three answer choices per blank. You do not get any credit for partially correct answers. You have to pick all right answer choices to be awarded a single point.

Here is what a text completion question looks like:

It is refreshing to read a book about our planet by an author who does not allow facts to be (i)__________ by politics: well aware of the political disputes about the effects of human activities on climate and biodiversity, this author does not permit them to (ii)__________ his comprehensive description of what we know about our biosphere. He emphasizes the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations, and the (iii)__________, calling attention to the many aspects of planetary evolution that must be better understood before we can accurately diagnose the condition of our planet.

The above example is the most challenging text completion question you can get as it contains the maximum number of blanks. Notice that each blank is numbered, and the answer choices correspond to that number.

In case you are wondering, the correct answer choices are (i) Choice A overshadowed, (ii) Choice E obscure, and (iii) I superficiality of our theories.

You can find more sample questions on ETS’s website here.

Five Tips for GRE Sentence Completion

Skip three-blank Questions When in Doubt

Remember that no matter the number of blanks, sentence completion questions carry equal points. Due to this reason, if you find that you are having a tough time with a three-blank question, simply move on. You don’t need to waste time on a more difficult question when you could be answering an easier one instead.

Here is what you need to know. On a typical GRE verbal section, you will encounter about six text completion questions. At least two of these would be three-blank questions. Since you have limited time and a three-blank question takes considerably longer than a one or two-blank question, there is no need to attempt a three-blank question first.

Instead, you can circle back to it if you have time in the end. This is especially useful if you know that text completion is not your strong suit. If you have solved multiple mock tests before the actual GRE and you know text completion gives you trouble, skip the three-blank questions.

Moreover, not many people know this but the verbal section of the GRE is far more forgiving than the quant section. Since the competition isn’t as high on verbal, you can get up to 4 questions wrong on a verbal section and still score above the 95^thpercentile.

Read The Entire Passage First

I know the short time duration can prompt you to answer as you go, but this can end up costing you points. Instead, read the entire passage first and only then move to the answer choices. Don’t make the mistake of reading the answer choices before the passage, either. This can affect your judgment as you now know mutiple potential words without even knowing what the passage is about.

Always finish reading the passage first to make sense of the structure and meaning of individual sentences. Once you understand the overall gist of what the author is talking about, only then pick the relevant answers.

Predict the Answers

A great way to choose a correct answer is to predict what a suitable response would be. As you read a sentence and come across a blank, try to come up with an answer without looking at the given answer choices. If you understand a sentence’s context, you would know what word needs to go into the blank to complete it. This word doesn’t even have to be a fancy GRE word. The important thing is that you understand the meaning of what is required. Once you have that, go through the answer choices and pick the word that most closely resembles the blank’s sentiment or meaning.

Process of Elimination

Process of elimination is a tried and tested strategy that works for all the different verbal questions. The idea is straightforward. If you are uncertain about the correct answer, begin by eliminating the most obviously wrong answer choices.  The more choices you eliminate, the better chance you have of picking the right answer.

You can do this by taking note of how GRE models its questions. Firstly, there will always be atleast one answer choice that is blatantly wrong. You would recongize it the moment you see it. For example, consider the sample question I stated above. As you read the passage, you start to understand that it can only be “refreshing” if an author doesn’t fabricate facts regarding our planet. You know that the opposite of this sentiment wouldn’t be something praise-worthy, and hence the context gives you the “feeling” of the passage.

Now that you know why a book is “refreshing” in regards to facts, you can eliminate the answer choices “illuminate” and “enhance” because they mean the exact opposite of what is expected to be in those blanks.

Another way to go about this is to know the distinction between positive and negative words. This is something that most of us know inherently, given that we know the meaning of the word. However, there are also ways to tell if a word is positive or negative by understanding roots.

Anyway, context will often give away if a blank requires a generally positive or negative word. This will allow you to narrow down your options by omitting the answer choices that aren’t positive or negative depending on the blank.

Always Reread the Passage After Answering

Don’t pick the answers and move on to the next question. Instead, always make a quick pass-through of the passage and see if it makes sense with the answer choices you selected. Reading a passage in its entirety after choosing the answer choices will give you a better sense of the passage. We tend to get fixated on individual sentences when confronted with blanks and forget that the whole passage has to make sense.