Struggling with GRE Verbal traps? In this video, Erika Tyler-John—expert GRE instructor with a 339 score, 10+ years of teaching experience, and 4M+ YouTube views—breaks down five of the most common GRE Verbal wrong answer traps that appear across RC, CR-style RC, Text Completion, and Sentence Equivalence.

You’ll learn how each trap works, how it shows up in different question types, and how to recognize the patterns that test makers use to mislead you.

We cover the five major traps:

• Opposite Answers—flip the meaning of the correct answer
• Almost Right Answers—correct except for one extra idea that breaks the meaning
• Too Extreme Answers—go further than the passage supports
• Wrong Part of the Passage Answers—pull info from the text but not the right place
• Not in the Passage Answers—sound reasonable but aren’t actually stated

Erika also explains why these traps work so well, including tone shifts, intensity mismatches, subtle wording differences, and the use of real-world assumptions to throw you off.

Once you can identify these patterns, it becomes much easier to spot trap answers and stay locked in on choices that actually match the passage.




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Warmest regards,

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder & CEO, Target Test Prep