For some people planning to take the GRE General Test, the competition for spots at their target graduate schools is so stiff that they need extremely high GRE scores. Others want high GRE scores to make up for deficiencies in other areas of their applications. For one of these or other reasons, you may want to achieve a perfect 170 GRE Verbal score. So, in this article, I’m going to discuss how to get 170 in GRE Verbal, providing ideas based on my experience and what has worked for many GRE test-takers.

👉 How Many Questions Can You Miss and Get 170 on GRE Verbal?

For understanding how many questions you can miss and get 170 on GRE Verbal, it helps to understand how the GRE Verbal Reasoning section is scored.

Your GRE Verbal score is based on your performance on two Verbal sections, each of which contains 20 questions. So, there are, in total, 40 Verbal questions on the GRE. Your GRE Verbal score is basically 130 plus the number of those 40 questions you answer correctly. So, for instance, if you were to get 25/40 Verbal questions correct, your score could be 130 + 25 = 155.

However, there is more to the story because your score may also include bonus points. Here’s how bonus points work.

If you get enough questions (around 13 or more) correct on the first Verbal section of the GRE, the second Verbal section will be a hard section. When the second section is a hard section, the GRE adds 2 to 5 bonus points to 130 plus the number of questions you answered correctly to arrive at your Verbal score. The number of bonus points varies because the number given for a particular GRE depends on how hard its Verbal sections are in comparison with those of other GREs.

Because of these 2 to 5 bonus points, you can miss some questions and score 170 on GRE Verbal. Getting 5 bonus points is rare. So, you can’t count on it, but you can count on getting at least 2. So, you can miss 2, and possibly up to 5, Verbal questions and score 170 on GRE Verbal.

Now that we understand the performance required for scoring 170 on GRE verbal, let’s discuss something at the foundation of achieving that score, a winning mindset.

👉 Develop a Winning Mindset to Score 170 on GRE Verbal

The foundation of success in any challenging endeavor is a winning mindset. So, a key thing you can do to succeed in scoring 170 on GRE Verbal is develop a mindset conducive to achieving your goal.

To develop a winning mindset, you can start by considering the fact that, every year, many people score 170 on GRE Verbal. So, you can take that attitude that, if other people can do it, you can too.

Another way to develop a mindset conducive to achieving a perfect GRE Verbal score is to adopt what is known as a “growth mindset.” The basis of a growth mindset, a concept developed by psychologist Carol Dweck, is the idea that our basic abilities, such as verbal reasoning skills, are not fixed but can be developed.

So, in adopting a growth mindset, you take the attitude that, even if your skills currently are not strong enough for getting a 170 Verbal GRE score, you can develop strong skills through preparation. The more clearly you understand that you can develop yourself, the more conducive to GRE success your mindset will be.

Of course, to achieve a perfect GRE Verbal score, along with a winning mindset, you’ll need a strong vocabulary. So, let’s discuss learning the vocabulary you need for scoring 170 on GRE Verbal.

👉 Max Out Vocabulary Study to Ace GRE Verbal

Coming into preparing for the GRE, you may already have a strong vocabulary, or you may have a limited one. Either way, you’ll almost certainly have to study at least some vocabulary to get a perfect GRE Verbal score.

After all, correctly answering Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence questions requires knowledge of many different words. Even understanding GRE Reading Comprehension passages requires knowing some hard vocabulary words. Meanwhile, even if you have a strong vocabulary, there likely are GRE words you don’t know or whose meanings you’re not 100 percent sure of.

You want to minimize the probability that you’ll see a word you don’t know in a GRE question. So, when choosing how many words to study, you’ll want to be closer to the typical maximum of around 3,000 GRE words than to the typical minimum of around 500 words.

At the same time, if you want to ace GRE Verbal, simply learning definitions of words isn’t likely to be sufficient. Rather, you should learn how to use the words in sentences, so that you can readily determine which words make sense in the context of Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence sentences.

Learning synonyms is also helpful. In fact, what can work well is including synonyms in your definitions of words. For example, you could define “taciturn” as meaning “inclined to be silent, reserved, reticent, laconic.” That way, when you study one GRE word, you’re learning multiple words.

Along with developing a strong vocabulary, to score 170 in GRE Verbal, you’ll need to master every GRE Verbal topic. So, let’s discuss how to do so.

👉 Master Every GRE Verbal Topic

If you want to get a perfect score on GRE Verbal, your move is to master every topic, and here’s a key thing to keep in mind. Even in question types you find relatively easy, there can be tricky questions that could fool you. So, you should devote at least some work to every GRE Verbal topic, not just to the topics you’re having the most trouble with.

The best way to master GRE Verbal is to work on one topic at a time. By mastering one topic at a time, you’ll eventually master all of GRE Verbal.

To master a GRE Verbal topic, first learn the relevant concepts and strategies involved in the topic. Then, do GRE practice questions involving that topic until you get them correct consistently. Once you’ve mastered one topic, you move on to the next one and do the same thing.

To get a perfect score on GRE Verbal, you’ll also have to achieve close to 100-percent accuracy. So, let’s discuss how to achieve super-high accuracy.

👉 How to Develop High Accuracy in GRE Verbal

To get a perfect 170 score on GRE Verbal, you’ll have to get close to 100 percent of the Verbal questions you see on test day correct. So, it won’t be enough just to know how to answer questions. You’ll also need to be skilled in getting questions correct reliably. So, you’ll need to do GRE Verbal Reasoning practice that supports development of this accuracy-related aspect of your skillset.

The best way to do this practice is to shoot for long streaks of correct answers in a row and, ultimately, 100-percent accuracy when answering GRE practice questions. Ideally, you’ll learn to get questions correct in streaks of 20 in a row to match the 20 questions in each GRE Verbal section.

What works best for learning to achieve high accuracy and long streaks is to start off practicing untimed. The idea is to take your time and learn to do whatever it takes to get questions correct 100 percent of the time. Then, once you’re achieving high accuracy and long streaks, you work on reducing your time per question to test pace.

👉 Analyze and Address Every Error You Make

As you practice, if you miss a question, carefully analyze what you did to determine why you missed the question. Then address whatever went wrong.

If you didn’t know a word, add the word to your list and study it. If you didn’t know how to properly answer a question, go back and review the strategy for answering that type of question. If you made a careless error, determine why and what you have to do to not make such an error again.

Over time, you’ll address basically every possible reason why you’d miss a question and get to a point at which you get virtually every question correct.

👉 Learn to Go From Stumped to Winning

Even after learning thousands of vocabulary words and answering many sample questions, you may still run into questions that stump you. For instance, you may not know some words in a GRE Sentence Equivalence question or may have trouble choosing between the last two choices in a GRE Reading Comprehension question.

Thus, since you need to get virtually every question correct to achieve a perfect score, you’ll want to develop skill in getting questions correct when you’re stumped at first.
So, practice going from stumped to winning.

For instance, practice working your way around words you don’t know in Sentence Equivalence questions or going back and forth from the answer choices to the passage in Reading Comprehension questions until you see which choice is correct. Learn to compare, reread, hack, and do whatever else it takes to go from stumped to knowing which answer choice is correct. Once again, you can practice doing this untimed at first and work your time per question down to test pace as you become more skilled.

To learn more about how to get 170 in GRE Verbal, please read the complete article here.

Reach out to me with any questions or concerns. Happy studying!

Warm regards,
Scott