Pop Quiz: Positive or Negative?
Pop Quiz!
Because the GRE is a computer-adaptive test, chances are you’re going to see words you don’t know. When that happens, one useful strategy is to try to ferret out whether the unknown words have positive or negative connotations. You can do this using roots, your knowledge of similar words in English or Romance languages, or just your “gut” feeling.
Decide whether each word is positive, negative, or neutral, then click “more.”
MALAISE
DELETERIOUS
VARIEGATED
SPECIOUS
PULCHRITUDINOUS
Malaise is definitely negative. “Mal” is the Latin root for “bad.”
Deleterious is also negative. It contains the same root as “delete”!
Variegated is neutral. It contains the same root as and has a similar meaning to “varied.”
Specious is negative. Despite sounding like “species,” specious means fake.
Pulchritudinous is positive. It means “beautiful.” Turns out the Latin word “pulchritudino” meant “beautiful.” This one’s pretty hard to guess.
Using positive and negative connotations is, of course, a backup plan, but since you have to answer every question on the GRE (you’re not allowed to leave anything blank), even a gut feeling is better than nothing. Of course, the best thing is to learn a plethora of words!