This guide breaks down everything you need to know about the GRE Verbal section, with a sharp focus on vocabulary. You’ll learn why vocab matters, how to study it effectively, and the best resources to use to boost your score. If you want a no-fluff roadmap that saves time and gets results, this post is worth your read.
If you are just thinking of appearing in GRE or if you are familiar with the exam, this guide is going to immensely helpful to you.
In this comprehensive guide to GRE Vocabulary, you will learn why vocabulary in GRE is that much important, what kind of questions you find on GRE, and how many words will you need to learn for GRE.
I will also link to the best resources, guides, tutorials and courses you can take to improve your vocab.
At the end, I will also provide you with a worksheet for Free that you can use to make your vocab practice smoother.
We have a lot to cover, so better get on to it.
Why Vocabulary matters in GRE
Imagine two students who are to take the GRE. Both have strong reading skills. But one stumbles over unfamiliar words in a Text Completion question, while the other breezes through because those words are already second nature to him.
Guess who ends up with the higher score?
Vocabulary isn’t just “nice to have” on the GRE: it’s a make-or-break skill. The test is designed to measure how well you can untangle meaning, and vocabulary sits right at the heart of that challenge.
Before moving forward, if you want to assess your present level of vocabulary, you can test it here.
Vocabulary’s role in GRE Verbal Reasoning
GRE doesn’t test your knowledge of English vocabulary directly. You won’t see a question simply asking, “What does this word mean?” But vocabulary is still the backbone of the Verbal section — every question type appearing in GRE hinges on your ability to understand words in context.
The Verbal section has two parts, 41 minutes in total. The first part contains 12 questions in 18 minutes, and the second has 15 questions in 23 minutes. Within these, you’ll face three main question types: Reading Comprehension, Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence.
Here’s a sample GRE verbal practice test designed on the latest pattern with a total of 27 questions.
Reading Comprehension
About half the questions in GRE verbal ability section are of Reading Comprehension.
You’ll face passages that range from a single dense paragraph to several paragraphs of academic-style writing. Each passage is followed by 1 to 6 questions, and these questions can cover anything from the author’s main idea to subtle inferences or the meaning of a single phrase in context.
What’s being tested here is not just whether you can read English, but whether you can follow the author’s argument, recognise the tone, and see how the ideas connect. Some questions will ask you to distinguish between the author’s viewpoint and that of someone being quoted, or to identify assumptions hidden in the text.
This is where vocabulary shines. Strong vocab lets you see the difference between “cautious” and “skeptical,” or spot how a word like nevertheless changes the entire argument.
This section is also the most time-consuming on the GRE Verbal. If you’re stopping every few words to figure out what something means, you’re done. You’ll burn time and still miss the point of the passage.
Bottom line is success in Reading Comprehension is as much about vocabulary-in-context as it is about critical reasoning. The better your word power, the faster and more accurately you’ll decode the GRE’s tricky prose.
Text Completion
Almost 20% of the GRE Verbal section is Text Completion. Here you’ll see a sentence or a passage with 1 to 3 blanks.
If there is 1 blank, you will usually have 5 answer choices. If there are two or three blanks, each blank has 3 answer choices. You will have to pick one correct choice for each blank. You get no credit unless all answers are correct.
Here’s a sample question (single-blank):
Despite her reputation for bluntness, Maya found it difficult to __________ criticism from people she trusted.
A. welcome
B. dismiss
C. cherish
D. embrace
E. avoid
Among the given choices, you have to select the word(s) that make the text coherent and logically consistent. A strong vocabulary helps you recognise tone and nuance so your choices fit naturally, not awkwardly.
By the way, the correct answer to this question is B. dismiss. The phrase “Despite her reputation for bluntness” signals an upcoming contrast – she is open, yet she finds it difficult to handle criticism. “Dismiss” fits contrast (reject). Other options either agree (“welcome,” “embrace,” “cherish”) or avoid (“avoid”), which don’t contrast properly.
Sometimes, even if you are unfamiliar with the meanings of one or more options, there are strategies you can employ to solve fill-in-the-blank questions on the GRE.
Sentence Equivalence
Sentence Equivalence makes up nearly a quarter of the GRE Verbal section.
In this type of questions, you see a single sentence with one blank. You get six answer choices from which you must select two. Both the choices must fit in the sentence logically and most importantly, the sentence should make similar sense when any of your choices is put in place of the blank.
You get zero points for answering the question, unless both the choices are correct.
Let’s see an example:
Although the mountain trail appeared __________ from a distance, once you started hiking each twist, root, and boulder revealed its true difficulty.
A. formidable
B. treacherous
C. simple
D. rugged
E. inviting
F. benign
You have to choose two correct answers from the 6 options.
The key to this question lies in the contrast signalled by although. The second half tells us the trail turned out to be difficult, so the blank must describe how it only looked easy from afar.
Words like formidable, treacherous, and rugged already suggest difficulty, which breaks the contrast, while inviting leans more toward “attractive” than “easy.” That leaves simple and benign, both of which mean harmless or not challenging.
They fit smoothly: “appeared simple from a distance” or “appeared benign from a distance,” before reality revealed the trail’s true difficulty.
Hence, the correct pair is C. simple and F. benign.
This article explains in much detail how you can solve the verbal ability questions in GRE.
Weightage of Vocab in GRE Verbal Section
Let’s talk numbers.
Combined in both sections, you will get around 13-14 questions of Reading Comprehension, 6-7 from Text Completion and 7-8 from Sentence Equivalence.
From the examples above, you can see how much vocabulary really matters. A one-blank Text Completion question already tests you on 5 GRE words (the answer choices), plus whatever words appear in the sentence itself. A Sentence Equivalence question tests you on 6 choices at once. Do the math—across just these two question types, you’re looking at exposure to more than 70 words on test day.
And that’s before you even touch Reading Comprehension, which brings in dense passages filled with nuanced vocabulary. Without a strong grasp of meaning, connotation, and usage, you can’t follow the author’s argument clearly.
The message is clear: if you want a competitive score, you can’t afford to skip vocabulary prep.
Common myths
It is a common misconception among students that GRE is a vocabulary demon. That you need to memorize many thousands of words to stand a chance. This misconception has been fueled by popular wordlists such as Barrons 3500, or 5000 words.
Well, In popular estimation, the real number of new words you will need to learn to score good in GRE is between 700 and 1000, of course depending on how many words you already know.
Okay, so if the real number is so modest, where did those bulky wordlists come from? They date back 30 years, when the GRE included word-pair questions and often tested obscure words just to trip students up.
But since past few years, the pattern of verbal section in GRE has been revamped. Now, Instead of those arcane words that you might never encounter in your reading, it often uses academic or formal vocabulary that appears in well‐written essays, editorials, or scholarly articles.
Now, to prepare for GRE, it’s more helpful to focus on, say, a few hundred high-frequency, useful words + lots of exposure (reading, practice questions) than on blindly memorizing thousands of isolated definitions.
Chapter 2: How to Learn GRE Vocabulary
In this section, you’ll see how to build vocabulary the right way. The methods here outlined below will help you prepare in a fast, efficient manner that actually pays off on test day.
Learning roots, prefixes, suffixes
English words often carry Greek or Latin roots, which is why so many words look connected once you notice the pattern.
Take “aud” (to hear) for example. Words like audience, audio, audition, auditorium all come from the same root. Or “scrib/script” (to write): describe, prescribe, proscribe, subscribe, scribble, manuscript, inscription.
Learning a single word root can unlock 5–10 related words at once, making them a major time-saver.
Just like word roots, there are prefixes and suffixes which can help you untangle the meanings of several of unknown words. Prefixes like “anti–” (opposite) or “sub–,” (under) and suffixes like “–ology” (study of) or “–phobia” (fear of) pop up everywhere. If you know the pieces, you can often guess a word you’ve never seen before.
If you don’t know anything about word roots, I’d recommend you pick up a copy of the highly popular book, Word Power Made Easy by Normal Lewis.
The GRE loves words built from these pieces, so learning a few dozen common roots can unlock hundreds of terms without you having to memorize them one by one.
Contextual learning vs. rote memorization
In absence of proper guidance, many students stick to the unhealthy practice of rote memorisation for learning vocabulary. This not only wastes time as rote memorisation is highly inefficient but also very very counter productive, when viewed especially from the point of view of as eminent an exam as GRE.
As I have outlined in one of the sub-section above, GRE doesn’t ask you to “define obsequious” or to select the correct option showing its meaning.
Instead, the exam uses the word into a sentence filled with clues, such as contrast markers like however or although, logical pivots like therefore, continuation markers like moreover, similarly, additionally or tone indicators that shift the meaning.
The word is never standing alone, it’s meaning is always influenced with the surrounding context. Take a seemingly innocent word ‘draft’ for example. It can have 5 distinct meanings depending on the sentence:
- Air current: A cold draft blew through the window crack.
- Preliminary version: I finished the first draft of my essay last night.
- Military service: He was called up in the army draft during the war.
- Beer from a keg: Let’s order a pint of draft instead of bottled beer.
- Pulling load: Horses were once used as draft animals for heavy wagons.
See how the meaning of the word shifts depending on the context.
That’s why reading short editorials, essays, or even well-written magazine pieces trains your eye in the right way. Plus, you also tend to remember these words for far longer since they get implanted in your brain through stories, not rote memorization.
Here’s a detailed article on how you should learn words for GRE.
Wordlists and Flash cards
Wordlists and flashcards are one of the oldest tools for GRE vocabulary prep.
A wordlist like Barron’s 333 or Magoosh’s 1000 gives you the scope of high-frequency GRE words you should focus on first. Flashcards help you retain the meanings until they stick into your memory.
However, some students get their methods of vocab learning in reverse. They start by cramming random words from wordlists and flashcards, which is not only inefficient but also the anti-thesis of the kind of learning the GRE Verbal section actually tests.
GRE Verbal isn’t about parroting definitions—it’s about knowing how a word behaves in a sentence. That means understanding collocations, common prepositions, connotations, and fine shades of meaning.
For example:
1. Collocations: Words often pair together to sound natural. You’d say “heavy rain”, not “big rain” or “huge rain.” On the GRE, a phrase like “cast serious doubt” will feel natural, but “cast strong doubt” would not.
2 Prepositions: Many GRE words carry typical prepositions. You don’t just “acquiesce”—you “acquiesce to a demand.” Similarly, you “rely on” someone, not “rely over” them. Wordlists and Flashcards ignore these patterns and leave you half-prepared.
3 Connotation: Every word has a tone—positive, negative, or neutral. Take “meticulous.” It means paying close attention to detail (positive in most contexts). But “pedantic”, while similar, carries a negative sense of being fussy or nitpicky. If you confuse the two on test day, you’ll fall into the trap.
4 Nuances: Many words may look like synonyms but aren’t exactly interchangeable. For example, the words ‘accept’ and ‘obtain’ may appear synonyms but they have a slight difference:
- “accept” means to agree or consent what is offered to you, while
- “obtain” means to get or acquire through your own efforts.
The difference is subtle but it can cost you some points if not paid attention to.
Similarly, consider “poison” and “venom.” Both can kill, but “venom” is injected (snakes, spiders) through veins while “poison” is ingested or consumed through mouth.
The GRE is notorious for testing student’s knowledge of such subtle shades of difference.
The true method of learning vocabulary is through a framework I like to call the Vocabulary Learning Ladder (VLL).
Step 1 is learning words in context. Next comes testing your retention through flashcards. Finally, wordlists serve as a safety net, to quickly spot if any important words have slipped past your attention.
Thus, you ascend the ladder towards your mastery of English vocabulary. I have written more in the linked article so be sure to check that out.
Mnemonics and memory tricks
Sometimes a silly trick sticks better than logic which is the reason many students stress on mnemonics as a useful device to learn words.
Personally, I don’t like the idea of using mnemonics to learn something as fluid as vocabulary. Going through mnemonics enforces the idea that the meanings of the words are fixed. Well, there are clearly not as I showed you above.
This is the reason I put them last in my list of helpful tips to learn vocabulary.
My misgivings aside, if mnemonics are the only thing that are helping you memorise the words, you are welcome to use them, but remember you lose precision and much more when you cram words through mnemonics.
Daily/weekly word targets
Vocabulary learning works best when done in moderation. If you tried to zip through 50 words a day through rote memorization, you’re probably just wasting your time. Most words will slip away after a few days.
Remember that consistency beats cramming. Ten new words a day, maybe fifty a week, is realistic. More than that and you’ll forget as fast as you learn.
Read: How Many GRE Words Should You Learn Every Day
Whatever words you learn, write them down in a diary and review old words every few days. Otherwise they start to fade. Build a rotation system: new words plus revision, always.
Practice Resources That Actually Work
When it comes to vocabulary & verbal prep, using the right materials makes a big difference. Here are resources that are high yield, plus pros/cons and how to use them well.
Comprehensive Reading
Reading material outside test prep is critical for seeing words in real context and building reading stamina.
What to read
Newspapers & Magazines: The Economist, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times. If you are in India, the editorial sections of ‘The Hindu’ and ‘Indian Express’ are good. These publications include dense prose, sophisticated vocabulary, and arguments.
To get an edge in the Reading Comprehension section of the GRE, expand your daily reading to non-fiction books in fields like science, history, and essays. Begin with topics that already interest you, then branch out to other areas over time.
My favourite choices for non-fiction are Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond, Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins, and Animal Liberation by Peter Singer.
I recommend non-fiction over fiction because it mirrors the GRE passages: it presents an argument, supports it with sub-arguments, contrasts it with opposing views, and illustrates it with examples. Exactly the kind of thing you are likely to see in GRE exam.
How to read to improve vocabulary
Whenever you come across an unfamiliar word in your reading, pause and try to infer its meaning from the context. Write down your guessed meaning, either in the margin of the book, in your notes, or in a separate journal. Resist the urge to check the dictionary immediately.
Instead, continue reading and see if your inferred meaning keeps the text sensible. If it does, your brain has likely absorbed the new word in a more lasting way.
Do this consistently with every unfamiliar word. Once you finish your reading, go back and reflect: did the meanings you inferred still make sense?
At this stage, write the words in a vocabulary journal along with the meanings you remember, ideally based on the text and context rather than copying a dictionary definition. This becomes your personal word bank for regular revision.
For words that still feel shaky, take the extra step of creating your own sentences. Actively using the word cements it in memory and ensures that when you see it again, you will not only recognise it but also understand its nuance.
Books and Flash cards
Once you have learned a good chunk of words, you may wanna test them through flash cards. Here are a few popular ones:
Kaplan New GRE Vocabulary Flashcards – Compact set of 500 important words. Great for quick review.
Kaplan GRE Vocabulary Flashcards, Sixth Edition (with online access) – Includes both physical cards and digital practice.
Barron’s Essential Words for the GRE – Covers 800+ high-frequency words with example sentences and exercises. Solid for building a base, but a bit old-school and sometimes includes less relevant words.
Digital Tools (Apps, Flashcards)
Magoosh GRE Vocabulary Flashcards (Web + App) – Free, user-friendly, and covers ~1,000 common GRE words with spaced repetition. Great starter, but examples are limited.
Brainscape GRE Vocab Genius (iOS/Android) – Around 1,900 words with roots and sample sentences. Uses smart repetition based on confidence levels. Paid features unlock more, but quality is solid.
Quizlet & Anki GRE Decks – Flexible and customisable with spaced repetition. Many user-made decks available, but quality varies—choose curated GRE decks only.
Word lists
When hunting for the perfect wordlist, don’t run behind the bigger number. The following few are good for starters:
- PrepScholar’s “The 357 GRE Words You Must Know” is a solid mid-size list that covers many high-frequency words.
- Magoosh’s GRE Word Lists & Flashcards. These are well organized by difficulty and include example sentences.
- “900+ Essential GRE Words” list by Vocabulary.com.
Remember that wordlists are the third step in your vocabulary journey and only to be used as a safety net.
Takeaway
Vocabulary Is Not Just Words, but Application
The GRE doesn’t reward raw memorisation. It rewards knowing how words function—their collocations, connotations, and nuances—inside real sentences.
Flashcards and wordlists are valuable tools, but only when paired with practice that reflects the test: text completions, sentence equivalence, and complex reading passages.
Think of vocabulary less as a checklist of words and more as a toolkit you actively apply.
Next Steps
Don’t let all this stay theoretical. Put it into action right now:
- Download the Free GRE Vocabulary Worksheet (PDF) for practice questions that feel like the real test.
- Try the Interactive Quiz to test how well you’ve actually learned the words.
- Subscribe for Weekly GRE Word Posts so your prep stays fresh and consistent until the test day.
Mastering GRE vocabulary isn’t about stuffing your head with thousands of new words. It’s about building a flexible, test-ready word bank that you can yourself use.
Start small, maybe 10 new words a day, and soon, you will have mastered the GRE vocabulary.
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