Text Completions
At present, the Verbal Ability section of the GRE consists of sentence completions, analogies, antonyms, and reading comprehension questions. In the near future, however, the exam will include text completion questions, in which you will be required to select the most appropriate additions to a given passage. Unlike sentence completions, which only test your vocabulary, text completions also will test your grammar, syntax, and punctuation skills. Each problem will be based on a passage of text from one to five sentences long. Each of these passages will have two or three blanks. Beneath the passage will be a list of words. Your job will be to identify the answer choices that should fill the respective blanks in order to produce a passage that is coherent and sensible. It is possible that you will select the same answer choice to fill more than one blank. In addition, there will be no partial credit on each exercise. If you make one incorrect selection, you will receive no credit.
The best way to approach these questions is by first reading through the passage slowly and carefully. You should have a general understanding of what each blank requires before you move to the potential answer choices. For instance, you should be able to determine which part of speech (for example, noun or verb) is required for each blank in the text. You should also be alert for any contextual words that indicate what must fill each of the blanks. Once you have made your selections, you should reread the completed passage. If your selections have created a logical and grammatical passage, you can feel good about your prospects.