How to Approach GRE Sentence Equivalence
To boost your score on GRE Sentence Equivalence, you do NOT need to memorize tons of obscure vocabulary words. Staring at vocabulary flashcards or a GRE app is a wildly ineffective way to improve your results on Sentence Equivalence.
Instead, focus on understanding the author’s intended meaning, pinpoint the role that the blank plays in the sentence as a whole, and use the process of elimination to select two similar words to fill that blank. Perfecting this approach is the fastest way to improve your GRE Sentence Equivalence performance.
First, a note about GRE Sentence Equivalence vs. GRE Text Completion
These vocabulary-based question types are very similar, with one primary difference:
GRE Sentence Equivalence: choose two similar words to fill the blank
GRE Text Completion: choose only one word per blank
Because the question types are so alike, there is significant overlap in how to approach them. If you’ve already read our article on how to approach GRE Text Completion, feel free to skip the next three sections, and rejoin us on the Using Process of Elimination section below.
GRE Sentence Equivalence doesn’t just test your vocabulary skills
One mistake students often make on GRE Sentence Equivalence is to think of it solely as a test of vocabulary. Sure, you’ll almost definitely run into some words you don’t know, and a large vocabulary certainly can help your GRE verbal score.
But your reading habits are at least as important as your vocabulary knowledge, because GRE Sentence Equivalence doesn’t just evaluate your vocabulary skills. At its heart, GRE Sentence Equivalence tests your ability to understand the logic and structure of complex sentences, and to precisely identify the author’s intent.
Before we get into how, exactly, to approach GRE Sentence Equivalence questions, let’s get this out of the way:
Should you study vocabulary flashcards for GRE Sentence Equivalence?
We realize that this is heresy in test-prep tutoring circles, but here’s the unfortunate truth: unless you plan to dedicate six months or more to beefing up your vocabulary, memorizing definitions isn’t likely to help your GRE verbal score very much.
For starters, there are more than 170,000 words in the English language, and it would require some good fortune – or a TON of studying – for you to learn the words that happen to appear on your GRE exam. The GRE verbal sections include just 20 vocabulary-based questions (12 Text Completion and 8 Sentence Equivalence questions), and nearly any of English’s stockpile of 170,000 words are fair game.
Also, when most students use GRE vocabulary flashcards, they attempt to learn through visual repetition – in other words, staring at the word and its definition until they commit it to memory. Unfortunately, this simply isn’t a very effective or efficient way to improve your vocabulary. In one peer-reviewed study, students who attempted to learn vocabulary via visual repetition actually performed worse than their peers on a vocabulary exam.
If your goal is to build a truly large working vocabulary in English – and if your goal is to understand the words deeply enough to use them effectively on GRE Sentence Equivalence questions – the bad news is that the process simply takes time.
If you have months or even years to become a better reader in general, that’s wonderful. But if you’re like most GRE students, you’re probably hoping to conquer the exam in just a few weeks or months, and that’s unlikely to be enough time to truly move the needle on your working vocabulary.
Don’t get us wrong: if you have some extra time on your hands, it probably doesn’t hurt to try to learn a few more vocabulary words. In particular, it may be worthwhile to use a vocabulary app when you’d otherwise struggle to use your time productively – while riding public transit, for example, or standing in line at a grocery store. But otherwise, your time is better spent on other GRE preparation activities.
And this might not sound exciting, but the best way to improve at GRE Sentence Equivalence is to learn to read the questions in a systematic way.
How to Read GRE Sentence Equivalence Questions
Warning: what you’re about to read might sound silly. But we can promise that the overwhelming majority of GRE test-takers make this mistake.
When most people encounter GRE Sentence Equivalence for the first time, they often read the sentence itself fairly quickly, and then start punching answer choices into the blank to see which ones sound right.
Don’t do this. We know: it’s tempting. You might not even be aware that you’re doing it. But after more than 20 years of GRE tutoring, we can guarantee that this approach will lead to disappointing results on Sentence Equivalence questions.
Instead, take your time reading the sentence. Make sure that you understand two things:
What is the author REALLY trying to communicate in this sentence? Ask yourself: what argument or distinction is being made, and why did the author write this? If you shortcut this process, your odds of making a silly error will increase enormously.
What role does the blank play in the sentence as a whole? Does the missing part of the sentence support some other part of the sentence? Does it contradict something else in the sentence, or provide some sort of counterpoint? You’ll need to be specific and precise with this step; just saying that the blank is “positive” or “negative” won’t help you at all.
The key is to answer these questions thoroughly BEFORE you start worrying about the answer choices at all. If you don’t, you’ll be at risk of falling for answer choices that “sound good”, but don’t actually convey the logical meaning of the sentence.
Using Process of Elimination on GRE Sentence Equivalence
So you’ve read the sentence carefully and then thoughtfully determined how the blank relates to the overall meaning and purpose of the sentence. Now, it’s time to tackle the answer choices.
This is also going to sound silly, but here’s the key: don’t fall in love with an answer choice.
Even if you’ve done a brilliant job of analyzing the sentence and the purpose of the blank, it’s remarkably easy to just pick an answer choice that “sounds good.” Often, a wrong answer choice will “sound” absolutely perfect, given the words that immediately surround the blank. But if that nice-sounding word doesn’t match the logical meaning of the sentence, it’s wrong.
So stay focused: after you’ve determined the role of the blank, evaluate each answer choice to see whether it successfully performs its role in the sentence as a whole. At this point, three outcomes are possible:
If you’re certain that the answer choice does NOT perform that role, eliminate it.
If you’re certain that the answer choice DOES perform that role, keep it.
If you’re not sure – or if you have no freaking clue what the word means – keep it for now, unless you’re 100% certain that you have a better option.
Here’s where GRE Sentence Equivalence differs from GRE Text Completion: you may end up with more than two words that create a logical meaning for the sentence.
That’s because on GRE Sentence Equivalence, your job is not only to find two words that “work,” but also to ensure that the meaning of the sentence stays the same when both answer choices are inserted into the sentence.
So, your final task while eliminating options on GRE Sentence Equivalence is to:
Determine which two remaining answer choices create a similar meaning for the sentence as a whole.
For example, let’s say that your sentence reads:
The weather is ___ today.
Maybe you eliminate a few answer choices, and you’re left with “beautiful,” “gorgeous,” and “dismal.” Independently, all of these options make sense in the sentence! However, “beautiful” and “gorgeous” give the same meaning to the sentence, while “dismal” changes that meaning. Eliminate “dismal.”
The bottom line: instead of choosing two words that “sound good,” stay focused on meaning, making use of the work you’ve already done in analyzing the sentence and its blank. On your first pass through the answer choices, be conservative: if you’re not sure that an answer choice is wrong, hold onto it. And as you make your selections, choose two words that create a similar meaning for the sentence as a whole.
Applying this process to a GRE Sentence Equivalence question
Let’s try applying this to an actual GRE Sentence Equivalence question.
It was her view that the country's problems had been _______ by foreign technocrats, so that to ask for such assistance again would be counterproductive.
We can’t say this enough: our first job as test-takers is to invest thoroughly in understanding the purpose of the sentence. In this case, the author’s main point is that asking for help from foreign technocrats would be “counterproductive.”
Our second job is to think carefully about the purpose of the blank. Here, the author is describing what happened to the country’s problems when foreign technocrats stepped in previously.
So logically, the blank needs to be filled with two words that convey that the problems were not resolved by foreign technocrats. This would provide a reason for the author to conclude that asking for their assistance again would be counterproductive.
Now we’re ready for the answer choices:
(A) ameliorated
(B) ascertained
(C) diagnosed
(D) exacerbated
(E) overlooked
(F) worsened
But before we continue, let’s illustrate how things can go wrong.
How to screw up a GRE Sentence Equivalence Question
Now, we’re going to demonstrate what NOT to do with blank (i). On this particular question, we’ve heard plenty of our tutoring students say something like this:
If problems were “exacerbated” by foreign technocrats, then it would be counterproductive to ask for their help again. Same thing with “overlooked” – if someone overlooked your previous problems, why would you ask for their help again? I’ll choose (D) and (E).
There are two huge problems with this:
The student didn’t use process of elimination, and “fell in love” with a pair of answer choices without fully considering the others.
The student didn’t check to see whether the two answer choices he/she selected maintained the same meaning of the sentence.
Independently, “exacerbated” and “overlooked” aren’t terrible answer choices. However, the meaning of the sentence changes quite a bit when you plug in each of those two options – did foreign technocrats just ignore the country’s problems, or did they make those problems worse? By sticking to the process of elimination and considering the meaning of the sentence, the student would have the opportunity to find a better pair of answers.
How to NOT screw up GRE Sentence Equivalence questions
Here’s the full question again:
It was her view that the country's problems had been _______ by foreign technocrats, so that to ask for such assistance again would be counterproductive.
(A) ameliorated
(B) ascertained
(C) diagnosed
(D) exacerbated
(E) overlooked
(F) worsened
Again, the blank should describe how the country’s previous problems were not resolved by foreign technocrats.
(A) is fairly easy to eliminate. “Ameliorated” means “made better.” If technocrats made problems better, then the author would WANT to ask them for help. That’s the opposite of his/her intention, so get rid of (A).
(B) doesn’t make sense. “Ascertained” means “to make sure of something.” That can’t really describe what happened to previous problems.
(C), like (A), actually makes the technocrats sound useful – if they diagnosed a previous problem, the author might want them to come back and help again. (C) is out.
(D) looks good. If foreign technocrats exacerbated problems, it means that they made the problems worse, and it would be counterproductive to ask for their help again. Keep (D).
(E) also potentially works – if someone overlooked your previous problems, why would you ask for their help again? Keep (E) for now.
(F) makes sense as well, and is a good match with (D).
You could make an argument that (D), (E), and (F) all make sense in the blank. However, because (D) and (F) have similar meanings while (E) says something different, you can eliminate (E). So (D) and (F) are the correct answer choices.
What to do with Words You Don’t Know on GRE Sentence Equivalence
No matter how precisely or carefully you read, you’ll almost certainly encounter words you don’t know on GRE Sentence Equivalence – maybe tons of them. And that’s not a pleasant feeling at all.
Let’s start with what NOT to do when you encounter words you don’t know on the GRE:
Don’t obsess over them! Time is your most precious resource on the GRE, and it’s very unlikely that you’ll figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word just by staring at it for several minutes. Some students try to figure out a word’s meaning by breaking it down into roots. Unfortunately, aside from a few cherry-picked examples that GRE test-prep companies love, this method is usually a waste of time.
Don’t eliminate (or select) answers just BECAUSE you don’t know them. Complicated words are just as likely to be right as to be wrong. So if you don’t know the meaning of a word, there’s no point in eliminating (or selecting) it right away. Just hold onto it, and see if you can eliminate the other options.
Use the “similar meaning” requirement to your advantage. Let’s say that you’re confident in two words that could fit the meaning of a given sentence, but there’s another option that you really don’t know. Do the two words that you know have a similar meaning? If so, choose them as a pair. If not, you know that only one of the words can be correct – choose the one that fits best with the logic of the sentence, and consider choosing the unknown word for your other selection.
So what should you do instead when you see an unfamiliar word in a Sentence Equivalence answer choice? Don’t obsess, don’t stress – just hold onto the answer choice and keep going.
But what if a question includes lots of words you don’t know?
If that happens, mark the question, make your best guess, then come back later if you have time. Again, time is your most precious resource on the GRE, so don’t waste time on questions that you’re unlikely to answer correctly anyway. If you have time at the end of the section, you can always come back to the questions you marked, and obsess over them as much as you’d like until time expires.
Use Official GRE Sentence Equivalence Questions Only
The creators of the GRE exam spend considerable resources developing each individual test question, so even the very best test-prep companies are bound to fall short. On GRE Sentence Equivalence, the difference between a right and wrong answer might be a tiny nuance of language, and it’s unreasonable to expect non-official verbal questions to nail those nuances.
Put another way: using non-official GRE Sentence Equivalence questions can do more harm than good.
So without exception, we strongly encourage you to use official practice questions from resources such as the GRE Official Guide or the Official GRE Verbal Reasoning Guide. Just keep in mind that there are remarkably few official GRE Sentence Equivalence questions in print, partly because Sentence Equivalence has only existed since 2011, and partly because the GRE simply doesn’t release many practice questions. So use the small supply of official Sentence Equivalence questions wisely.
WANT to learn more about the GRE?
How to approach GRE Text Completion (spoiler alert: it’s not so different from Sentence Equivalence)
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