Top 4 Tips for Acing GRE Sentence Equivalence Questions

Before diving into the preparation of the GRE verbal section, it is important to understand its structure and the magnitude of contribution of each category of questions towards the final score. Once equipped with this information, you will be able to ration your time and efforts among the various categories to maximize your GRE score. So, first we will take a quick look at the structure of the GRE verbal section and then, for this post, focus on how the Sentence Equivalence category can contribute towards you achieving a GRE score of 160+.

The GRE verbal section consists of two subsections of 20 questions each. It is a computer-adaptive test, i.e the difficulty level and hence the highest possible score of the second sub-section depends on your performance in the first section. You get 30 minutes to attempt each sub-section. Each sub-section consists of the following types of question:

Text completion – 6 Questions
Sentence equivalence – 4 Questions
Reading comprehension – 10 Questions

Since this post is about Sentence Equivalence, let's zoom in on this category. As you can see, there will be about four sentence equivalence questions on each 20-question subsection of the Verbal section, adding up to about eight total. This means that an accuracy of 80% or more in Sentence Equivalence is critical to pull the probability in your favor of getting a score of 160 or more in the Verbal section. Sentence Equivalence questions can act as score boosters provided you invest time and effort to understand the strategies needed to solve the question and avoid the traps. Let's begin by first understanding what Sentence Equivalence is exactly all about.