Incorrect answer choices in GRE Verbal questions play on our cognitive biases in all sorts of ways. They employ “realistic” or common scenarios, stereotypes, word associations, and other bits of real-world knowledge or ideas we have in order to tempt us into thinking an incorrect choice must be correct.

When we see an idea or story we recognize from real life in an answer choice, we may gravitate toward that choice or assume it’s correct. The choice has an air of plausibility.

Unfortunately, we may not always realize we’re prone to making this mistake. We may even think that because something is or seems true in the real world, it must be true for the GRE question at hand.

Choosing answers based on “what you know” rather than what a passage says is a recipe for falling for trap answers to Verbal questions. For example, Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence answer choices may present words and concepts that people naturally associate but that aren’t actually related to each other in the particular context presented. Similarly, Reading Comprehension answer choices may present information that is true in real life but completely unsupported by the passage.

All of the information you need to answer any Verbal question is contained within the given context. Yes, we have to bring our logical reasoning skills, vocabulary knowledge, and sentence-analysis skills to the text in order to properly interpret the information we’re given. However, we do not need to bring in any outside knowledge of the subject matter discussed. And if we do, we will almost certainly fall for a trap answer.

Warmest regards,

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder & CEO, Target Test Prep