The causal word “since” indicates that the teammates’ feelings about verbalizing
their feelings explains why they remained silent. You know that the feelings were
“hostile” and the teammates were afraid that these feelings would “undermine”
something necessary for the team’s success. So to make the prediction, ask the
following question: What component of team success would “hostile” feelings
most likely “undermine”? A good prediction is unity. Now look at the choices, and
find the two words closest in meaning to unity. The best choices are harmony and
cooperation. The correct answer is A and E.Look for Synonyms
As shown previously, the general strategy for Sentence Equivalence questions is
very similar to the general strategy for single-blank Text Completion questions.
However, one key difference between the two question types is the fact that you
must select two words for the blank in Sentence Equivalence questions. Though
it might appear that this format makes Sentence Equivalence questions more
difficult, you can take advantage of this fact by recognizing that the correct answers
will almost always be synonyms.
This strategy is beneficial because you can usually eliminate answer choices
that have no synonyms. For illustration, let’s block out the sentence in the Sentence
Equivalence question below and only show the choices. Look at which choices you
can eliminate:- Success in this business requires constant of one’s reputation, since even
one negative perception can often.
A determined
B morose
C dejected
D apathetic
E exaggerated
F motivated
Since determined and motivated have similar meanings, you can keep A and F.
Since morose and dejected have similar meanings, you can keep C and D. But
notice that there is no synonym for apathetic and no synonym for exaggerated.
Thus without even seeing the sentence, you can eliminate choices D and E!
This strategy could have helped you in the original question in this section. Perhaps
you chose diligence as one of your answers. However, if you look back at the
choices, you’ll notice that there are no synonyms for diligence. Thus diligence could
not have been correct.108 PART 2 ■ GRE ANALYTICAL WRITING AND VERBAL REASONING02-GRE-Test-2018_107-172.indd 108 13/05/17 11:06 am