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What’s Tested on GMAT Verbal

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Manhattan Prep GMAT Blog - What's Tested on GMAT Verbal by Chelsey Cooley

Every GMAT Verbal problem tests reading and understanding text. But different problems test those skills in different ways, and GMAT Verbal also tests some other less obvious skills. In this article we’ll break down what you need to know for GMAT Verbal, one question type at a time. 

What’s Tested on GMAT Sentence Correction

Sentence Correction problems make up about 12 to 13 of the 36 Verbal questions on the GMAT. In this type of problem, you’ll have to choose the most correct sentence out of five similar options. To decide whether a sentence is right or wrong, you need to master two different types of grammar.

First, GMAT Verbal tests your knowledge of grammar rules—the same ones you learned in school. Grammar rules explain why these sentences are wrong:

  • Neither of my uncles live in Boston.
  • Before 2001, I have seen Titanic thirty-six times.
  • There is a significant connection of GMAT performance and time spent studying.

And these sentences are right:

  • Neither of my uncles lives in Boston.
  • Before 2001, I had seen Titanic thirty-six times.
  • There is a significant connection between GMAT performance and time spent studying.

Sentence Correction tests whether you know these rules, and whether you can tell that a sentence is disobeying them. Here are some examples of rules you should be familiar with:

The GMAT is also interested in the way that grammar changes a sentence’s meaning. Grammar isn’t just about whether sentences are right or wrong. It also helps us ensure that our words mean what we want them to mean. These two sentences are very similar, but because of a small difference in grammar, they have different meanings:   

  • Travis, who hates losing, lost six games of chess to Stefan.
  • Travis lost six games of chess to Stefan, who hates losing.

Neither of these sentences is incorrect, but they mean two different things. In the first sentence, Travis hates losing; in the second, Stefan does. This meaning change is caused by a grammar change: the modifier, “who hates losing,” is in a different place in each sentence.

On GMAT Verbal, some sentences will have illogical meanings. The second part of your job is to know how a sentence’s grammar determines its meaning, so that you’ll notice when a sentence doesn’t make sense. Here’s an example:

  • Travis lost six games of chess, who hates losing, to Stefan.

A GMAT Sentence Correction expert knows that “WH modifiers,” such as “who hates losing,” typically describe the closest major noun. Since “chess” is right next to the modifier, this sentence actually means that chess hates losing. That meaning is illogical, so this sentence is wrong.

A number of grammar rules will change what a sentence means. Here are some grammar changes that also cause meaning changes:

  • Putting a modifier in a different location
  • Using a different type of modifier
  • Using a different verb tense
  • Changing the main subject or main verb of a sentence
  • Comparing different things to each other

If you know how these grammar changes influence a sentence’s meaning, you’ll be able to spot bad sentences on GMAT Verbal.  

If you master all of the grammar in the Sentence Correction Strategy Guide, you’ll be well on your way. However, you should also spend some time doing Sentence Correction problems. That’s because Sentence Correction isn’t just a grammar quiz. To solve a problem, it isn’t enough to decide whether one sentence is right or wrong. Instead, you need to choose the right option out of five similar-looking ones, in under 90 seconds.

To do so, you’ll need to eliminate multiple answer choices at once, by finding several answer choices that have the same grammar or meaning error. That task tests whether you can spot the similarities and differences among the answer choices, and whether you can decide which differences are important. The GMAT loves to test your ability to decide what’s important—it’s a key part of the Quant section as well!

What’s Tested on GMAT Critical Reasoning

GMAT Critical Reasoning problems represent about 9 or 10 of your 36 GMAT Verbal questions. That makes Critical Reasoning the least common problem type on GMAT Verbal.

This type of problem has three parts: a short paragraph (usually a few sentences in length), a single question about that paragraph, and five answer choices. The paragraph is almost always in the form of an argument: it’s written by someone who’s trying to convince you of something, using evidence and logic.

The first thing that GMAT Critical Reasoning tests is whether you understand this argument. It tests whether you can figure out what position a person is arguing, why they hold that position, and what their evidence is. Often, you’ll also need to find the flaws or loopholes in the argument.  

This is the same skill you use when you read the news or watch a debate. You’re being tested on whether you can quickly follow someone’s reasoning and make your own judgments about it without getting confused by details. Want to quickly try it out? Read this article, in which GMAT instructor Stacey Koprince analyzes a full Critical Reasoning problem.

Critical Reasoning also asks you to answer certain types of logical questions correctly. GMAT Critical Reasoning problems come in a small number of flavors:

  • Describe the Role: what’s the point of a certain part of the argument?
  • Find the Assumption: find an underlying, unspoken assumption the author is making.
  • Strengthen/Weaken/Evaluate the Argument: what extra evidence would make the argument stronger or weaker?
  • Draw a Conclusion: in this problem type, the paragraph isn’t an argument at all—it’s a series of facts, and you need to make your own argument by using them.
  • Explain the Discrepancy: there’s not really an argument here, either. Instead, the paragraph tells you about something surprising that happened, and asks you to figure out why it might have occurred.

Because the GMAT is a standardized test, each of these problem types has rules. The GMAT has its own sense of what makes an argument strong or weak or what counts as a valid conclusion. Luckily, the test is very consistent, so you can learn these rules yourself. (Start with the Critical Reasoning Strategy Guide!)

The downside is that the rules might not always line up with your own intuitive sense of what makes a good argument and what makes a bad argument. So these GMAT Verbal problems also test your ability to let go of your own biases & preconceptions and use a standardized definition of what makes an argument strong or weak.

What’s Tested on GMAT Reading Comprehension

GMAT Reading Comprehension problems start with a passage. When you do Reading Comprehension on test day, you’ll read one passage and answer three or four questions that relate to that same passage. In total, you’ll see about four passages and about 12 to 14 problems.

The first thing Reading Comprehension tests is how effectively you read the passage. While Critical Reasoning passages are like a news blurb or a clip from a debate, Reading Comprehension passages are more like articles from a news magazine or passages from a textbook. They’re typically several paragraphs long and can be extremely dense.

Some Reading Comprehension passages involve an argument, but others don’t. In fact, part of what GMAT Verbal tests is whether you can figure out—in three minutes or less—what a long passage is really all about. It’s not about reading quickly, since you don’t have to be a speed reader to master Reading Comp. It’s more about reading efficiently, skimming when you need to, and slowing down when you spot something important. Indirectly, it’s also testing your note-taking skills!

Some Reading Comprehension questions will ask you for the main point of the passage, or a part of the passage. That’s just another test of your GMAT reading skills. Other questions will ask you about specific details from the passage. Those questions are testing your ability to skim a long passage to find something specific, even if you don’t know exactly what words you’re looking for. They’re also testing whether you get thrown off by long and complex sentences.  

The trickiest type of Reading Comprehension question is the Inference question. This type of question isn’t actually asking you to make a deep inference. It’s asking you to take something stated in the passage and apply just a tiny bit of logic to it to turn it into a new conclusion. Part of what you’re being tested on is your ability to not jump too far—to avoid making statements you can’t back up!

Everything that GMAT Verbal Tests

Now that we’ve looked at each GMAT Verbal problem type, here’s a summary of the skills that GMAT Verbal tests.

  • Knowing the grammar rules
  • Knowing how grammar can change a sentence’s meaning
  • Quickly spotting differences and deciding whether they’re meaningful
  • Understanding someone else’s written argument: knowing what they’re arguing for and how strong their argument is
  • Quickly translating a long, complex piece of writing into simple terms
  • Learning and applying the GMAT’s rules for what makes an answer choice correct

These are the skills that are tested by the various GMAT Verbal problem types. There are also a few other skills that are tested throughout the Verbal section.

Just like GMAT Quant, GMAT Verbal tests your executive reasoning skills. You need to do all of the above things in an environment where you have very little time, and where you have to make difficult choices about which problems to prioritize.

In other words, GMAT Verbal doesn’t just test whether you can answer a Verbal problem correctly. It tests whether you can tell how likely you are to get a problem right before trying it. That’s a tough skill to develop, and it requires doing and thinking deeply about a lot of problems! But it’s worth developing, since you should only invest your limited time in problems you have a chance of getting right. The other problems? Let them go!

GMAT Verbal also tests your reading skills. The best way to improve your reading skills is to read a lot. Use your GMAT studies as an excuse to do more, higher-quality reading!

Finally, GMAT Verbal tests pattern recognition. It might not look like it, but GMAT Verbal questions test the same exact things, over and over again. The GMAT is just really good at hiding it, because there are an infinite number of different sentences, arguments, and passages they can write! But, under the surface, a lot of those are just testing the same old grammar rules, the same old argument structures, and the same main ideas, over and over. What matters isn’t what the passage says. What really matters is how it’s put together under the surface. Start comparing different Verbal problems to each other, and see if you can catch the GMAT testing the exact same thing twice! ?

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Chelsey CooleyChelsey Cooley Manhattan Prep GRE Instructor is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Seattle, Washington. Chelsey always followed her heart when it came to her education. Luckily, her heart led her straight to the perfect background for GMAT and GRE teaching: she has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and history, a master’s degree in linguistics, a 790 on the GMAT, and a perfect 170/170 on the GRE. Check out Chelsey’s upcoming GMAT prep offerings here.