The 5 lb. Book: How to Study Sentence Equivalence
We’re using the launch of our latest book, the 5 lb.
Book of GRE Practice Problems, as motivation to take a look at each of the major question types. The book contains more than 1,100 pages of practice problems “ crazy! “ so you can spend all of your spare time doing nothing but studying. (Kidding. : ) )
Let’s try out one of the problems! Give yourself approximately 1 minute to get to your answer. Afterwards, we’ll solve the problem and also discuss how to approach SE questions in general.
Note: If you haven’t done SE before, you need to pick two answers, either of which could fill in the blank!
A field trip was arranged so that this troupe of ___________ dancers could observe the real masters of their art.
- seasoned
- fledgling
- expert
- torpid
- novice
- lithe
© ManhattanPrep, 2013
Do you have your two answers? Let’s go! There are several important steps that help us to answer SE questions both effectively and efficiently. (Note: if you’ve already read the TC article, the steps are the same!)
(1) Read only the sentence
Read all the way to the period, but do NOT then jump to the answer choices. Instead
(2) While reading, look for the Target, Clues, and any Pivots
The Target: The blank is talking about something; what is that thing? Is it a particular person or other noun in the sentence? Is it an action?
Clues: At least one clue will be present to tell us what kind of meaning the answer choices must have
Pivots: Does the sentence change direction at any point? Do the clues point in the same direction as the blank, or should the blank go in the opposite direction?
In our sample question, the blank is placed in an interesting way: a troupe of _________ dancers The structure indicates that we’ll need something that’s going to describe a characteristic of the noun dancers “ in other words, we need an adjective.
Are there any clues that’ll help us figure out what the adjective should mean? Let’s see the dancers are going on a field trip “ oh, and the purpose of the trip is to observe the real masters. These dancers, then, must not be masters “ they’re less experienced, or they’re amateurs, or something like that.
Are there any pivots? There are no contrast words that might indicate a change of direction. In other words, the meaning in the blank agrees with the clue.
(3) Write your own Fill-In, then find a match in the answers
This is a crucial step; do not skip it. Figure out what kind of meaning you think the blank should reflect before you look at the answer choices.
Then, when you look at the answer choices, ask yourself does this word match the meaning of what I decided should go in the blank?
Why is that so important? Let’s say that I tell you I want the two answers that mean really sad. Then I show you a list of 6 words (SE’s always have 6 options). Here they are:
- sullen
- apoplectic
- ecstatic
- garrulous
- morose
- zealous
Which of these questions is easier to answer:
(1) What does each word mean?
(2) Which two words mean really sad?
You do not care what each word means. You only care about finding the two that mean really sad. You can look at a word and think this doesn’t mean sad much more quickly than you can articulate the actual definition of that word.
Don’t make your life harder: figure out what you think the blank means before you look at the answers. In our original problem at top, we came up with words like amateur and less experienced “ either would be a good fill-in.
Write your fill-in down. Okay, now we can look at those answers!
- seasoned
- fledgling
- expert
- torpid
- novice
- lithe
Which of these answers means amateur or less experienced?
Seasoned means experienced, as does the word expert. These are the opposite of what we want. (Note: the answer choices will often include a wrong pair like this one “ the two words do have similar definitions, but they’re not the pair that we want.)
Fledgling does mean inexperienced or less experienced; this is one of the correct answers. This word is sort of poetic: a fledgling is also a baby bird just learning to fly. Novice is a synonym of fledgling; these two are the correct answers.
Torpid is a very hard word; do you know what it means? During the test itself, it’s enough to tell yourself that you’ve already found two other words that do mean less experienced. Alternatively, if you have a vague idea of torpid‘s meaning, then you might know it does not mean less experienced, which is also enough to eliminate the answer. (Torpid means sluggish, sleepy, or apathetic.)
What about lithe? This one means supple or flexible “ not the meaning we said we wanted.
The correct words are fledgling and novice. (Note: you do have to select both answers correctly in order to get any credit on SE questions.)
Key Takeaways for Sentence Equivalence Problems:
(1) Know your three steps: (1) read the full sentence; (2) find the target, clue, and pivot; (3) write your own fill-in, then match to the answers.
(2) While the clock is ticking, do NOT try to fully define each answer; rather, try to find the one answer that matches what you think should go into the blank. Afterwards, of course, study any words you don’t know well enough.
(3) Aim to average about 1 minute per question on sentence equivalence.
© ManhattanPrep, 2013