McGraw-Hill Education GRE 2019

multiple-choice question. You can expect to see four to six argument-based

passages on your test.

For argument-based passages, the questions concern the logic and

structure of an argument. Typical questions will ask you to find an

assumption in the argument, to find ways to strengthen or weaken the

argument, and to identify the logical structure of the passage. The content

for the passages will generally come from the humanities (e.g., art, literature,

and philosophy), sciences (e.g., biology, ecology, astrophysics, and geology),

and from the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology).

No previous familiarity with the information in the passages is assumed or

required.

Question Formats

Reading comprehension questions have three formats.

Multiple-Choice Questions—Select One Answer Choice

These are standard multiple-choice questions. You will be given five answer choices

and will be asked to select one. Note that argument-based passages will always be

“multiple choice, choose one.”

Multiple-Choice Questions—Select One or More Answer Choices

In these questions, you will be given a question and three answer choices. (In

these questions, the answer choice letters will be in square boxes rather than ovals,

as a signal that you may choose more than one.) You are to select all the choices

that provide a correct answer to the question. In these questions, at least one of

the choices will always be correct. There is no partial credit. These questions are

inherently more difficult, so if you are short on time, you should guess on these

questions.

Select-in-Passage

In these questions, you will be asked to highlight the sentence in the passage that

best answers the question. The suggested approach for argument-based passages is

fundamentally different from the approach for information-based passages, so let’s

consider the two groups separately.

Information-Based Passages

Many test-takers preparing for the Reading Comprehension section are intimidated

by both the length and scope of the passages. Though the content of the passages is

certainly not straightforward (most of them are graduate-level texts), the following

strategies will equip you with the proper mind-set and approach for both the

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