Verbal Reasoning: Section Strategy
Twelve questions in 18 minutes, then 15 in 23 at a difficulty your first section chose — pacing, skipping, abandoning, and why nothing punishes a guess.
7 topics · 27 questions
Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.
The Two Verbal Sections and Section-Level Adaptivity
- How it worksHow does section-level adaptivity differ from a test that re-aims after every single question?
- How it worksHow do 12 questions in 18 minutes and 15 in 23 combine into one score between 130 and 170?
- Worked exampleWalk me through a minute-by-minute plan for a 12-question, 18-minute verbal section from the first click.
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't a harder-feeling second section mean you are doing badly?
- Going furtherWhat changes about first-section strategy once you know that it routes the second one?
Your turneasy1 of 3
The verbal measure has one 12-question section and one 15-question section, 27 scored questions in all. A test taker gets 9 right in the first and 11 right in the second. Find the percent of the 27 scored verbal questions answered correctly.Pacing at About 90 Seconds a Question
- How it worksHow do you split a section's clock unevenly between short completions and long passage sets?
- Worked exampleFind the average seconds per question in a 15-question, 23-minute section and where the surplus should go.
- Going furtherWhat happens to your pacing when one passage eats four minutes of reading before a single answer?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't equal time on every question the right way to spend a verbal section?
Your turnhard1 of 3
In the 23-minute, 15-question verbal section, a test taker spends 8 minutes reading the passages before answering anything. Find the average number of seconds then left per question.Skipping, Returning and Reordering Within a Section
- How it worksHow does the mark-and-review screen let you sweep a section twice instead of once?
- How it worksHow do you decide in ten seconds whether a question is a now, a later or a never?
- Worked exampleWalk me through a two-pass sweep of a 15-question section that leaves four questions for the second pass.
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't skipping a hard question cost you anything while the section is still open?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
On a first pass through the 23-minute, 15-question section a test taker answers 11 questions in 14 minutes. Find the average number of seconds available for each remaining question.When to Abandon a Three-Blank Item
- How it worksHow do you price a question in seconds against the points it is actually likely to return?
- Worked exampleFind the expected points from three minutes on one three-blank item versus two single-blank items.
- Going furtherWhat changes about the abandon rule when only 90 seconds remain on the section clock?
Your turnhard1 of 3
A three-blank completion would take the remaining time and you judge your chance of getting it right at 37 percent. The same time would cover two single-blank items you would each get right with probability 79 percent. Find the expected points from the pair minus the expected points from the three-blank item.No Wrong-Answer Penalty
- How it worksHow does a scoring rule with no deduction for a wrong answer change the arithmetic of guessing?
- Worked exampleFind the expected gain from blind-guessing four unread five-choice questions in the last 30 seconds.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't guessing punished on the GRE the way older admissions tests once punished it?
Your turneasy1 of 3
In the last seconds of a section a test taker blind-guesses on 9 unread questions, each of which offers five answer choices and exactly one correct answer. Find the expected number of points gained.Attack Order Within a Verbal Section
- How it worksHow do you scan a section in 20 seconds to find where its cheap points are sitting?
- Worked exampleWalk me through ordering a section holding two passage sets, four completions and three equivalence items.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't answering in the order given the safest plan on a verbal section?
- Going furtherWhat changes about attack order when one passage carries six of the section's questions?
Your turnhard1 of 3
A verbal section holds two passage sets carrying 3 and 5 questions, plus 5 text completions and 3 sentence equivalence items. Find the percent of the section's questions that require reading a passage first.The 130-170 Verbal Scale
- How it worksHow do 27 scored verbal questions become a scaled score in one-point steps from 130 to 170?
- Going furtherWhat happens to a scaled score when extra right answers land in a harder second section?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't a percentile the same thing as a scaled score, and why do programs quote both?
- Ties togetherHow does the all-or-nothing rule on completions connect to the shape of a whole verbal score?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A program reports the verbal scores of its admitted students as 156 at the 25th percentile and 166 at the 75th, both on the 130 to 170 scale. Find the width of that range in scaled points.AP®, SAT® and PSAT/NMSQT® are trademarks registered by the College Board (PSAT/NMSQT® jointly with the National Merit Scholarship Corporation). ACT® is a registered trademark of ACT Education Corp. GRE® is a registered trademark of ETS. LSAT® is a registered trademark of the Law School Admission Council. MCAT® is a registered trademark of the Association of American Medical Colleges. ISEE® and SSAT® are registered trademarks of their owners. None of these organizations is affiliated with, or endorses, Jentoo.