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Remember to always look out for trigger words, or words that change or limit the direction of a sentence in some way. What are some trigger words in the following sentence?
Loading ...The words “only” and “not” place significant logical restrictions and directions on the word in the blank. What are some other common trigger words you know?
Posted in Barron's Courses, GRE, Verbal
Tagged GRE Question of the Day, Sentence Completions
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Every now and then, the GRE will throw you softball – a question that appeals to both your instincts and your grammatical knowledge. If you happen to stumble upon a question like this and recognize it quickly, go with your instincts and move to the next question quickly! How quickly can you get the answer to this question of the day?
Loading ...The clues in this question are comprehensive; in fact, the entire second half of the sentence can be used to find the answer. If you come across a question that you feel very comfortable with, carefully but quickly choose and answer and move on! You can use the time you save to improve your selections on tougher questions in the same section.
Posted in Barron's Courses, GRE, Verbal
Tagged GRE Question of the Day, Sentence Completions
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While technically GRE Sentence Completions don’t require outside knowledge (except for grammar and language knowledge, of course), they do occasionally rely on some common sense. What do you need to know in order to answer this question of the day?
Loading ...The GRE will only use this kind of test if there is legitimately only a single choice that could possibly be correct. You won’t be expected to have advanced knowledge of any particular subject matter, beyond of course “common” sense.
Posted in Barron's Courses, GRE, Verbal
Tagged GRE Question of the Day, Sentence Completion
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Sometimes a sentence may use subtle clues to indicate a change of direction or contrast within its context. What are some of the clues that you can identify in the following example that affect the direction of the blank?
Loading ...It’s not easy to spot the contrast indicator in this question – the best clue that points to a contrast here is the term “much simpler”, which implies that the foreign exchange students regard the American version as the opposite of that, or “complex” or “difficult to understand” (enigmatic).
Posted in Barron's Courses, GRE, Verbal
Tagged GRE Question of the Day, Sentence Completion
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Every sentence must have distinct and obvious clues about the blanks in question. What are the two words that are most important to answer the following question?
Loading ...“Puritanical disciplinarian” is the most important term in this sentence for determining the meaning of the blank. Keeping it in mind, “mercilessly” is far and away the best choice possible out of the five answers.
Posted in Barron's Courses, GRE, Verbal
Tagged GRE Question of the Day, Sentence Completion
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Are you thinking of taking the GRE and want a test drive? Taking a realistic test or sample questions is often an illuminating experience for most people. Using a realistic test and score report, you can evaluate where you stand and how much prep is needed to get into the graduate school of your dreams. For those of you interested in a quick GRE test drive, we have three ways to sample GRE questions before the real thing:
- The GRE Diagnostic Test: Nothing beats a solid test drive of GRE. We expose you to a real GRE sample test with Quantitative Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning Sections that includes the new question types in the revised GRE. It does not stop here, you also get a realistic GRE score report, a GRE study plan and a skill report.
- GRE Practice Questions: You can find plenty of Free GRE practice questions right here on the Barron’s GRE blog. These questions are based on the revised GRE format and includes new questions such as multiple correct responses, sentence equivalence besides the regular quantitative comparison questions.
- Full Length GRE Practice Tests: The premium version of the Barron’s GRE course offers 4 online tests that are modeled after the revised GRE. Nothing beats the real thing but these tests come real close.
Hope you will find these free resources helpful.
Posted in Adaptive Learning, Barron's Courses, Course Features, GRE, Quant, Verbal
Tagged GRE practice test
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How does the following sentence use analogy and/or description to portray contrast?
Loading ...By describing amazement regarding their friendship, the author has directly established a framework for expressing contrast. Contrast isn’t always expressed through explicit trigger words such as “however” or “yet”; sometimes situational clues can be used to determine logical relationships in sentences like this.
Posted in Barron's Courses, GRE, Verbal
Tagged GRE Question of the Day, Sentence Completion
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For all ye social media aficionados. Here is the new meaning of Accomplishment:
- Cut index cards up and make flashcards.
- Fold a piece of paper hot dog-style and use one side for the word and the other for the definition.
- Download an app on your phone that lets you review vocabulary while you’re on a crowded bus.
If you think about it, simply memorizing words is a somewhat easy—I do say this with
caution—task. You’re smart and probably still relatively young so you have the brain capacity to memorize a vast number of words. But really now—I highly doubt that this is all you’ll need to do in order to get a tantalizingly awesome Verbal score on the GRE or GMAT.
There are far too many non-native English speakers who still think that they only way to learn more words for your test is to just memorize lists of possible words that may show up. This is just how they were taught to study English vocabulary. From my experience of doing this (I admit that I did it too and I’m a native English speaker), I was very disappointed to see that maybe five of the words I memorized actually showed up on the test. All that memorization of words I’d never seen or used before just proved to be a failed attempt to improve my vocabulary.
So what words did show up on the test? To be quite honest, they were words I recognized from books I’ve read, magazines articles I’ve dog-eared, blogs I follow, TV shows I watch, angry Facebook statuses that show up in my News Feed, conversations with and between friends, and professors’ lectures. Do you see where this is going? Yes, actually opening up a dictionary and looking up definitions and reviewing different synonyms are very important—you can’t always expect to know the exact meaning of a word without ever looking it up. But the key to being able to answer questions on the GRE and GMAT Verbal sections is knowing how words are used in context. A dictionary may give you a sentence or two using the word, but it’ll never provide a conversation that shows the different ways the word can be used.
Studying vocabulary doesn’t always have to be a serious and dreadful obligation; it can be fun and should be interactive. Make an effort to gradually build your vocabulary through tasks that you enjoy. The world is filled with words—why limit your resources to just flashcards? Take what you hear, pay attention to how it’s being used, look up the literal meaning, use it on your own, and play around with it even. You’d be surprised as to how much you learn by just opening your eyes and ears a little more.
Depending on your current level of familiarity with the GRE, you may or may not know that it is somewhat similar to the SAT. Identical question types, essays, and even some particular question formats appear on both tests, leading many students to believe that a good SAT performance will translate directly to the GRE.
But although students who perform well on the SAT do have a better chance of scoring well on the GRE, this perspective can be very counterproductive. Generally, students who approach their GRE prep with this kind of mindset are doing themselves a disservice by not treating the GRE as its own unique test with its own unique challenges. The biggest reason being is that in the minds of some, the GRE doesn’t require much preparation because “it’s just like the SAT which wasn’t even that hard.” People will study for the MCAT, DAT, or LSAT for almost a year (or even more) before taking the exam because most of the material requires the test-taker to know how to take the test.
These strategies aren’t explicitly taught at school—they have to invest in taking time to practice these strategies on their own if they want to do well. What future GRE test-takers don’t realize is that this is the same for the GRE! They can’t expect their high school test-taking abilities to suffice, or depend solely on what they learned while preparing for the SAT to miraculously get them a high score on the GRE. There’s a reason why the SAT is taken before going to college and the GRE is taken before going to grad school—in high school, you learn how to solve the problems that show up on the SAT step by step, while in college, you practice applying test-taking strategies. Ultimately what all these exams are trying to test is how much you’ve learned about strategic problem-solving even when all the steps haven’t been laid out perfectly for you. So, what then, needs to be done in order to not have a brain hemorrhage while taking the exam?
The answer is simple: start studying now, and approach the GRE as if you have never seen it before. Students taking the GRE should generally invest just as much in studying as students taking the MCAT or LSAT – don’t wait until the last minute to get started! Especially with the revised format of the GRE, you’re going to need all the preparation time you can get, so take advantage of all the help Barron’s offers and take control of your grad school destiny – today!
