Sentence completion
questions consist of a sentence, a part or parts of which have been
omitted. Below the sentence are five letter choices that can be substituted for the omitted parts.
You have to select the choice that best completes the sentence. These questions test a
combination of reading, comprehension skills and vocabulary.
Suggested Answering
Approach:
· The verbal
section of your GRE will contain five to seven sentence completion questions.
Familiarize yourself with the directions, so you need not waste valuable testing time reading
directions.
· Sentence
completions are among the most crackable items on the entire test.
· As you read
each sentence, look for the word or phrase that captures the essence of the
meaning of the sentence and thus holds the key to its solution. This is important. When you
have found the word or phrase, use it to anticipate ETS’s answer before you look at the
answer choices. Cover the answer choices on the screen, so they won't confuse you. After you
think of your own "everyday word," uncover the answer choices and find a synonym for your
word.
· Practice on old actual tests so you will
recognize what level of difficulty each question on your
test is.
· Avoid easy
choices that remind you of the question on difficult items.
· Don’t
eliminate a choice unless you are dictionary-sure of its definition (except on the easy
questions).
· When you
find that you are unable to anticipate ETS’s answer, you may be able to zero in on
it by making some general guesses about whether each missing word has a generally positive
connotation. You can then eliminate accordingly.
· Two-blank
sentence completions are harder than one-blank sentence completions only if you
insist on trying to fill both blanks at the same time. Instead, tackle one blank at a time, beginning
with the easier one. On medium-difficult and difficult questions, the easier blank is usually the
second one.
· Pay careful
attention to the sentence-completion trigger words: but, although (though, even
though, while), rather, yet, despite, however, unfortunately, in contrast, heretofore,
previously. These words provide clues to ETS’s answer.
· Easy questions
have easy answers; hard questions have hard answers.
· When all
else fails on the difficult questions, simply select the answer choice containing the
hardest words.
1. readin'
