GRE Verbal Precision: Raise Your GRE Verbal Score

Animated Intro to the GRE Basics chapter.

Six important facts about the GRE that everyone should know.

A quick explanation of how the GRE is scored.

A quick explanation of how the GRE's difficulty changes depending on how many questions you get right.

Animated Intro to the GRE study planning chapter.

A simple 3-step process to start your study plan.

Reminder: my study plans are all free on vincekotchian.com.

How to pick a study plan and why we do what we do.

Why it's SO VALUABLE to analyze your mistakes, and how to do so.

Animated intro to the Verbal Reasoning chapter.

Here's an easy breakdown of the types of verbal questions you'll see on the GRE.

How to build a strong foundation of verbal ability to make the GRE easier.

Bonus tip: The ETS GRE Big Book (containing 27 old GRE tests) is an excellent way to practice reading long passages. Google it (it's out of print but is online as a PDF).

I discuss two effective ways to learn new words: my vocabulary cartoon mnemonics and spaced repetition.

Animated intro to Sentence Equivalence questions.

The basics of working through a sentence equivalence question.

Why we ask "continuation or contrast?" and, "does it HAVE to be?"

Minor clarifying point: a contrast can also indicate something surprising, or can indicate going from one level to a higher level.

For example, "I thought Pizza Hut pizza was bad. However, I soon realized the worst pizza in the world was that of Domino's.

Notice we went from just "bad" to "the worst".

Not knowing a word sucks. Here's what we can do.

How to deal with the rare case in which the answer choices aren't really synonyms.

"Huh??" What to do when you can't understand the sentence itself.

Can you get this question right? It's pretty difficult, but it has a good lesson or two to teach us.

Don't forget to read the sentence with your choices in it.

Animated welcome to the Text Completion chapter.

Single-blank TC questions are much like sentence equivalence questions.

Now we have to deal with two blanks in a question.

Three blanks! Noooo! Just kidding - you can totally do these.

Occasionally, you'll have to use trial and error with the answer choices.

As it usually does in real life, a topic sentence in a text completion question usually tells us what the whole passage will be about.

Up for a challenge? I thought so.

A final text completion reminder - read the whole thing with your choices inserted.

Welcome to reading comp!

Some passages are factual - i.e., they don't present opinions or theories.

The general process of answering a reading comprehension question.

At first glance, many wrong answers look pretty damn good. This is done purposefully by ETS.

Why right answers often DON'T look very good.

Why your natural instincts about reading an answer choice may have to be refined.

"They believe _________; however, I believe ________."

How to answer questions about the point of a passage.

In this video, I talk about how to deal with questions focused on a particular detail in the passage.

Tip: You will sometimes have to work backwards from the choices on a detail question. In other words, the question wording might NOT make it clear where to read. By finding a keyword in an answer choice, you can find the part of the passage that lets you evaluate that choice.

Why that goofy guy with the striped shirt and glasses can remind us of the skill involved in certain GRE questions.

Some passages introduce an issue, then present, rather than argue, theories about that issue.

How to use the GRE's own tricks against it!

Six more tips that should come in handy.

Animated intro to Critical Reasoning questions

Reconciling a paradox means allowing both contradictory facts to co-exist given a new piece of information.

To strengthen an argument, get rid of an alternate explanation.

Undermining an argument means introducing an alternate explanation. BONUS TIP: you can also weaken an argument by discrediting evidence on which it is based.

For example, if you say GMO foods are harmless based on a study, but then an answer choice explains that the study was funded by Monsanto (which sells GMO seeds and technology), then the choice weakens your argument since it discredits the study.

"Evaluate the Conclusion" questions are all about finding the right question to ask.

How to answer questions that ask about assumptions.

How to construct your Issue Essay.

The four things that should be in an Issue Essay body paragraph.

Test-day tips animated intro.

Important: Start practicing these tips now so they'll be habits by test day.

I describe a few of the things you'll go through at the GRE computer testing center.