Everything You Need to Know About Sentence Equivalence Questions of GRE
The GRE is a test not only of your academic knowledge, but also of you critical and analytical skills. The questions that you will come across in this examination are so designed that it tests both these faculties, at the same time. Hence, the GRE questions are apparently easy, but that should not deceive you as the question paper gives equal importance to both English and mathematics.The Verbal Reasoning section consists of 3 parts, of which sentence equivalence is a very important sub-section. To help you understand the type of questions that you will need to answer in this part of the GRE; the basic structure of the thesequestions has been discussed in the following section of the article.Understanding the Sentence Equivalence QuestionsGRE sentence equivalence questions are unique to the examination. The various features of this sub-section of the examination are as follows:
- Like fill-in-the-blanks questions, here too you will have to choose the correct word or phrase among the provided options, so that the sentence or sentences makes complete sense.
- However, here you will have to choose 2 correct answers instead of 1. This will test your analytical skills, because the possible answers are not always synonymous to each other.
- You will not get the marks allotted for the question, if you are not able to choose both the answers correctly. In other words, if one of the answers that you have chosen is correct and the other one is wrong then you will receive no marks for answering the question.
- You will have to choose the correct answer from a list of 6 possible answers. Therefore, ensure that you have understood the question properly before you choose the answer.
In order to help you further understand these questions a sample question, along with the answering strategy have been discussed in the following section of the article.Sample QuestionUnderstanding the sentence equivalence questions becomes easier with an example. In order to help you do so, a sample question is given below:Unappealing, disproportionate and totally unsatisfactory, is how I would define the particular exhibition of paintings, of maybe real artist, but forgotten, because he was a painter of —– talents.A. inadequateB. incompleteC. unexploredD. restrictedE. banalF. concealedAnswer: A and DAnswering strategy:The statement here is regarding the paintings of an artist, who is very much ‘real’, but whose artistic endeavors are quite disappointing. Thus, the terms used to fill the blank should indicate a reason as to why the author found this particular exhibition to be disappointing. The terms ‘inadequate’ and ‘restricted’ best describe this notion, because they portray a notion of the exhibition, as well as, the talent of the artist as not being satisfactory. The term ‘incomplete’ is applicable with regard to the exhibition, but becomes meaningless when used in the context of the talent of an artist. Talent cannot be ‘incomplete’ (it can be ‘incompletely developed’, but not just ‘incomplete’) and hence, cannot be used here. The term ‘banal’ too cannot be used here; because talent cannot be ‘banal’ and using it in the blank would make the entire statement meaningless. The terms ‘unexplored’ and ‘concealed’ are synonyms for one another. Nevertheless, none of the terms can be used here, because they do not explain why the author found the particular exhibition and the painting to be disappointing.Link to Help You PracticeIf you want to check more such examples then click on the following link:http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/verbal_reasoning/sentence_equivalence/sample_questionsOnce you have understood the type of questions that you will have to answer, you can begin practicing for this sub-section of the test. One point that you must remember while solving the questions, is that both the words when used to fill the blank should make the meaning of the sentence clear. You should read it thoroughly and then select the correct answer. So start practicing as manysentence equivalence questions as you can, because practice alone will ensure a good score in the test.