Really need help in TCs

GRE Verbal Problem Solving
1

Hi
I am struggling with Text completions a lot.
I believe mostly because I get trapped in the “sounds good by ear” loop, and force myself to pick an option which “seems right”.

The above usually happens when I am not able to figure out the meaning after /before the blank, or when not able to distinguish between support and contrast. Best examples would be the two blankers.

When I try to solve the old Big book questions (ones which I already completed, in order to start afresh ), I somehow remember the answer and then its not fresh anymore.

Has anyone been in this position ?
Please suggest me a plan/methodology to overcome this mental bug.

I am just a 152 V guy.

1 Like
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So, one very reassuring thing about ETS is that they always give the evidence for the answer in the question itself, in this case the sentence.

So I sort of had a similar problem. How I circumvented it, is by consciously looking for evidence suggesting the answer. There’s two-three lines, so its not like you’re scouring through a 100 word RC. So it shouldn’t take very long to find evidence.

In addition, the evidence is usually an adjective or adverb. Essentially any word that you can’t find an antonym for, can “usually” be ignored. Again gotta be careful, but usually, say you have the word “chair”, well it doesn’t really have an antonym. But say you have a word like “rigid”, the antonym would be supply or pliable, thus that word might directly/indirectly help you find the answer.

Hope this helps.

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  • Make sure you’re working on finding the division word in the question.
  • Always come with your answer choices without using the words for the options
  • Always ask why is this option correct , justify your reasoning with an evidence from the question itself.
  • Even if you don’t understand a word /phrase in the question try to work on the overall all idea of the sentence instead. Whatever you do, don’t get stuck on a question mark random answer choices and move on.
  • Make sure your vocab game is strong and you revise your vocab list everyday.