McGraw-Hill Education GRE 2019

Reading

Comprehension

Study this chapter to learn about:

■ Question formats

■ Information-based passages

■ Question types

■ Argument-based passages

O

f the 20 questions that you will see in each scored Verbal section,

approximately 9 will be Reading Comprehension questions.

Reading Comprehension questions can be divided into two

categories:

■ Information-based passages. These passages can be classified as “long” or

“short.” A long passage is generally three to four paragraphs and 500+ words.

Each long passage will have four associated questions. You can expect to

see one long passage on your test. A short passage is generally one to two

paragraphs and 100 to 300 words. Each short passage will have one to four

associated questions, though most of the time there will be two or three

questions. You can expect to see five to six short passages on your test.

For both long and short passages, the questions concern the meaning of

the passage, the author’s purpose, details about the passage, inferences that

can be drawn from the passage, and application of the passage’s information

to other contexts.

■ Argument-based passages. Each of these passages has a single associated

question. An argument-based passage will always be one paragraph (and

sometimes as short as a sentence) and will always have one associated

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