Chapter 4

Verbal Foundations and Content Review

Introduction to Verbal Foundations and Content Review

The GRE Verbal section tests critical thinking skills that are essential to handling graduate-level work. To do well on this section, you will need to grasp how ideas relate to one another in sentences and passages. To measure this skill, the GRE evaluates your mastery of college-level vocabulary and your ability to read dense academic text for meaning. There are many strategies you can use to improve your vocabulary and reading comprehension.

To improve your vocabulary: Learn words in context Tell stories about words Use flashcards Keep a vocabulary journal Think like a thesaurus—word groups and word roots Use all your senses Use other people Use other languages Use online resources Learn very common GRE words

To improve your reading comprehension: Attack the passage Change your reading habits

This chapter will cover all of these strategies to improve your GRE vocabulary and reading comprehension, boosting your performance on Text Completion, Sentence Equivalence, and Reading Comprehension questions. In addition, you’ll find short practice sets that will introduce you to each of these question types.