GRE Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence: Formats, Signals and Method

ETS describes Text Completion passages as one to five sentences long with one to three blanks. A single-blank item offers five answer choices; items with two or three blanks offer three choices for each blank. Every blank has exactly one correct answer, and the choices for one blank do not constrain the choices for another.

There is no partial credit. On a three-blank item, two correct blanks and one wrong one score the same as three wrong ones, which is why checking the finished passage as a whole matters so much.

Each Sentence Equivalence question is a single sentence with one blank and six answer choices. You select two, and ETS states that both must produce complete, coherent sentences that mean the same thing. Again, there is no credit for getting one of the two right.

ETS makes a point that is easy to overlook: the correct pair need not be exact synonyms. What matters is that the two completed sentences say the same thing. The choices may also include a pair of true synonyms that do not fit the sentence at all, placed there to catch anyone matching words instead of reading.

ETS advises identifying words that emphasize a sentence's structure, giving although and moreover as examples. Those small words tell you whether the blank continues an idea, reverses it or explains it.

Punctuation works as a signal too. A colon or a semicolon usually introduces an explanation or elaboration, so the words after it often define what belongs in the blank.

ETS lays out an approach that works for both formats, and it is worth turning into a fixed routine. Read the entire passage or sentence first. Mark the signal words and the phrase that the blank must agree with. Then predict, in your own plain words, what should go in the blank before you look at the choices. Only then compare your prediction to the options.

On multi-blank items, ETS notes that you do not have to start with the first blank. Begin with whichever blank has the strongest clue, lock it in, and use it to settle the others. If nothing fits a later blank, revisit your first choice. When every blank is filled, read the whole passage once more to confirm it is logically and grammatically coherent.

Resist testing every combination of answers on a multi-blank item. ETS warns that it takes too long and invites errors.

Single-blank Text Completion. Although the committee's early reports were ______, its final recommendation was blunt enough to surprise even its critics. Choices: equivocal, incisive, lengthy, popular, unanimous. The word although sets up a contrast with blunt, so the blank needs something like hedging or noncommittal. Equivocal fits. Incisive is close to the opposite of what the contrast requires, and the other three do not oppose blunt at all.

Two-blank Text Completion. The biographer's portrait is (i) ______ rather than worshipful: she records the inventor's generosity to young colleagues but does not (ii) ______ his habit of claiming their work as his own. Blank (i) choices: balanced, reverent, cursory. Blank (ii) choices: gloss over, publicize, imitate. Start with blank (ii), where the clue is stronger: a biographer who reports both virtues and flaws does not hide the flaw, so gloss over fits. That supports balanced in blank (i), which also contrasts properly with worshipful. Reverent repeats worshipful rather than contrasting with it, and cursory has no support in the sentence.

Sentence Equivalence. Critics who expected the director's second film to be as ______ as her first were surprised by its restraint: it runs barely ninety minutes and contains almost no dialogue. Choices: flamboyant, ostentatious, subdued, laconic, somber, costly. The phrase surprised by its restraint tells you the first film was the opposite of restrained. Flamboyant and ostentatious both describe something showy and produce sentences with the same meaning, so they are the pair. Subdued and somber are fairly close to each other in meaning, which makes them a tempting pair, but they describe restraint and would remove the surprise. Laconic points the wrong way, and costly does not oppose restraint in the sense the colon explains.

When you review missed completion items, ask which of these happened. Each one has a different fix, and most retakers find that one or two dominate.

Practice in short, frequent sets so the routine becomes automatic. Keep a list of words you missed, with the sentence that taught you each one, and review it a few minutes a day. RetakePrep's practice includes completion and equivalence items, though its Sentence Equivalence questions are adapted to a four-option, single-answer format, so use official ETS materials to rehearse the true select-two format before test day.