Prepare for the GRE

What to practice: Main ideas, details, inferences, author attitude, argument evaluation, multiple-answer questions and sentence selection.

1. Identify the passage’s main claim and how each part contributes: background, evidence, qualification, objection or conclusion. Keep the author’s position separate from a view the author reports.
2. Use the question to locate the relevant evidence, then read the surrounding context. Match the answer’s scope and certainty to the passage instead of adding outside facts.
3. For a multiple-answer question, evaluate every choice independently and select all and only the supported answers. Full credit requires the exact correct set; a partly correct set receives no partial credit.
4. For sentence selection, select the sentence that performs the requested role, not merely one that mentions the same topic. For an inference, distinguish what the text supports from what is merely possible.

Check your work: Point to the passage’s support for every selected answer and check any claim about all, most, only or always.

What to practice: One-, two- and three-blank passages, contrast and continuation clues, tone and relationships between blanks.

1. Read the complete passage before filling a blank. Mark contrast, cause, concession and emphasis signals such as although, therefore and even.
2. Predict a simple meaning for the blank with the clearest clues first. You do not have to solve the blanks in their printed order.
3. Choose each answer from that blank’s own options, then reread the completed passage. Every choice must fit its local sentence and the overall logic; do not force a later blank to rescue a weak first choice.
4. Submit a choice for every blank. Each question is scored as a whole: all blanks must be correct for credit, and a partly correct completion receives no partial credit.

Check your work: Read the sentence with every selected word in place and explain the clue supporting each blank.

What to practice: Context clues, six-choice vocabulary sets, equivalent sentence meanings and misleading synonym pairs.

1. Read the sentence and predict the missing idea from its evidence, tone and connectors before examining the choices.
2. Check each candidate in the sentence. Eliminate a word that breaks the logic even if it has a synonym elsewhere in the option list.
3. Compare the meanings of the two completed sentences, not just the isolated words. Both choices must fit and yield equivalent meanings in this context.
4. Select exactly two of the six options. Both must be correct for credit; choosing one correct word, an additional word or a partly correct pair earns no partial credit.

Check your work: Explain why both words fit the clue and why the resulting sentences mean the same thing.

What to practice: Number properties, fractions, ratios, percent change, units, rates and estimation.

1. Identify what is given and what is requested, including the unit and the base of each percentage. A share of the new total is not necessarily the same as a share of the original total.
2. Write a relationship before calculating. For a percentage change, multiply by 1 plus or minus the rate; apply successive changes in order rather than adding their percentages.
3. For ratios and rates, keep units attached and distinguish a part-to-part ratio from a part-to-whole fraction. Combine totals before finding an overall rate.
4. Use number properties or a rough estimate to check the result. Enter an exact value unless the question requests rounding, and round only after completing the calculation.

Check your work: Name the denominator of every fraction or percentage, then check the answer’s unit and size.

What to practice: Expressions, linear and quadratic equations, inequalities, systems, functions and coordinate relationships.

1. Define the variable and list any restrictions before manipulating the expression. Denominators cannot be zero, and a word problem may restrict a value to a positive integer or a stated interval.
2. Choose a useful representation: factor a quadratic, substitute between equations, or read slope as a rate of change. Preserve equality by applying a valid operation to both sides.
3. Reverse an inequality when multiplying or dividing by a negative number. If a variable’s sign is unknown, separate the possible cases rather than assuming the direction stays the same.
4. Substitute each candidate into the original equation and the problem’s conditions. Squaring or clearing denominators can produce candidates that do not solve the original problem.

Check your work: Verify the candidate in the original problem, including restrictions that disappeared during simplification.

What to practice: Lines and angles, triangles, polygons, circles, coordinate geometry, area, surface area and volume.

1. Mark the relationships established by the text and labels. Do not infer equal lengths, a right angle or a special shape solely from how a diagram looks.
2. Choose a formula that uses the requested quantity and known information. Distinguish lengths from areas and volumes, and keep units consistent.
3. Add a useful segment when the given facts justify it: a perpendicular height, a radius or a diagonal can reveal a right triangle. Use triangle relationships before introducing unnecessary algebra.
4. Check the result against the shape. A triangle’s height cannot exceed the sloping side in the resulting right triangle; scaling all lengths by k scales area by k² and volume by k³.

Check your work: Explain why each relationship you used follows from the information, and distinguish the base from its perpendicular height.

What to practice: Tables and graphs, mean and median, spread, weighted averages, counting, probability and interpreting data.

1. Read titles, axes, units, keys and notes before using a number. Distinguish a count from a percentage and a percentage-point change from a relative percent change.
2. For a combined mean or rate, recover each group’s total, add the totals and divide by the combined count. An unweighted average works only when the relevant weights are equal.
3. Separate what a summary establishes from what it leaves unknown. A mean does not identify the median or every individual value; a correlation does not by itself establish causation.
4. For probability, define the possible outcomes and the event. Check whether order matters, whether selection is with replacement and whether independence is stated or justified before multiplying probabilities.

Check your work: State which population the number describes and what weight each group should receive.

What to practice: The four fixed comparison answers across arithmetic, algebra, geometry and data analysis.

1. Read the common conditions and both quantities. The four answers are always: Quantity A is greater; Quantity B is greater; the quantities are equal; or the relationship cannot be determined from the information given.
2. Simplify the comparison with operations that preserve the relationship. Avoid dividing by an expression of unknown sign or assuming that a square root equation has only a positive solution.
3. Test permitted boundary and contrasting cases: zero, negatives, fractions between zero and one, and values above one when allowed. Two permitted cases with different relationships establish that the relationship cannot be determined.
4. If the relationship appears fixed, justify it for every permitted case rather than stopping at a convenient example. Quantitative Comparison is a question format, so apply the arithmetic, algebra, geometry or data-analysis knowledge the item requires.

Check your work: For “cannot be determined,” give two valid cases with different relationships. For another answer, explain why no permitted case changes it.