Graduated Record Examination

Graduate Record Examinations®

Preparing for the Verbal and Quantitative Sections of the GRE General Test
Sample Questions with Explanations

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Sample Questions withExplanations
The sample questions that follow are organized by content category and represent the types of questions included in the General Test. The purpose of these questions is to provide some indication of the range of topics covered in the test as well as to provide some additional questions for practice purposes. These questions do not represent either the length of the actual test or theproportion of actual test questions within each of the content categories. 1. COLOR : SPECTRUM : : (A) tone : scale (B) sound : waves (C) verse : poem (D) dimension : space (E) cell : organism The relationship between color and spectrum is not merely that of part to whole, in which case (E) or even (C) might be defended as correct. A spectrum is made up of a progressive, graduated series of colors, as ascale is of a progressive, graduated sequence of tones. Thus, (A) is the correct answer choice. In this instance, the best answer must be selected from a group of fairly close choices. 2. HEADLONG : FORETHOUGHT : : (A) barefaced : shame (B) mealymouthed : talent (C) heartbroken : emotion (D) levelheaded : resolve (E) singlehanded : ambition The difficulty of this question probably derivesprimarily from the complexity of the relationship between headlong and forethought rather than from any inherent difficulty in the words. Analysis of the relationship between headlong and forethought reveals the following: an action or behavior that is headlong is one that lacks forethought. Only answer choice (A) displays the same relationship between its two terms.

VERBAL ABILITY
The verbal abilitymeasure is designed to test the ability to reason with words in solving problems. Reasoning effectively in a verbal medium depends primarily upon the ability to discern, comprehend, and analyze relationships among words or groups of words and within larger units of discourse such as sentences and written passages. The verbal measure consists of four question types: analogies, antonyms, sentencecompletions, and reading comprehension sets. The examples of verbal questions in this section do not reflect precisely the difficulty range of the verbal measure.

ANALOGIES
Analogy questions test the ability to recognize the relationship that exists between the words in a word pair and to recognize when two word pairs display parallel relationships. To answer an analogy question, you mustformulate the relationship between the words in the given word pair and then must identify the answer choice containing words that are related to one another in most nearly the same way. Some examples of relationships that might be found in analogy questions are relationships of kind, size, spatial contiguity, or degree. Some approaches that may be helpful in answering analogy questions: Before lookingat the answer choices, try to establish a precise relationship between the words in the given pair. It is usually helpful to express that relationship in a phrase or sentence. Next, look for the answer choice with the pair of words whose relationship is closest to that of the given pair and can be expressed in a similar fashion. Occasionally, more than one of the answer choices may seem at firstto express a relationship similar to that of the given pair. Try to state the relationship more precisely or identify some aspect of the relationship between the given pair of words that is paralleled in only one choice pair. Remember that a single word can have several different meanings. Check to be sure you have not overlooked a possible second meaning for one of the words. Never decide on...