The most powerful move students seeking to develop strong GRE Verbal skills can make is to do most of their GRE Verbal practice untimed.

In fact, one of my first questions for anyone having trouble with GRE Verbal score improvement is, “How much time do you normally spend on each practice question?” Often, the response is, “about one to two minutes.” In such a case, I know that we’ve found a key way for that person to achieve better results: by shutting off the timer and taking as much time as needed to fully understand each question and arrive at the correct answer.

This tip may surprise you, since the GRE Verbal Reasoning section gives you only 30 minutes to answer 20 questions. In fact, many GRE students think the best way to learn to answer questions on the GRE quickly is to answer them at test pace when practicing. However, untimed practice works much better than timed practice for developing skill in answering GRE questions at test pace. Let’s discuss why.


The reason you’ll be able to answer tricky Verbal questions in an average of 1:30 each on test day won’t be that you’ve raced through many GRE Verbal practice questions. The reason will be that you’re so skilled that you can readily answer questions at that pace. In other words, speed comes from skill, and the best way to become skilled is to practice untimed.

When you take all the time you need to fully understand a practice question and carefully use logic to answer it correctly, you give yourself time to develop strong skills. In other words, you give yourself time to learn to go through the motions that lead to success.

So, as you prepare for GRE Verbal, take all the time you need to carefully read the questions, note key words or phrases, and do whatever else it takes to get questions correct. In other words, shoot for complete understanding and high accuracy, regardless of how much time per question you need to do so.

Once you’re getting questions correct consistently, you can work on answering questions at test pace. Also, you’ll get timed practice when taking GRE Verbal practice tests.

Reach out to me with any questions.

Warmest regards,
Scott