You may have heard of the GRE Verbal strategy known as “pre-thinking.” Pre-thinking involves coming up with a possible answer to a Verbal question — usually a TC or CR question — before going to the answer choices. This strategy is flawed in a few ways, including in that it can waste precious time.


One issue with pre-thinking is that it involves spending time doing something you really don’t have to do. The answer choices are right there in front of you. So, you don’t have to come up with an answer on your own. You can simply analyze the choices presented. After all, if you understand the passage, question, and choices you’re dealing with, then analyzing the choices is the most direct path to the correct answer.


Secondly, pre-thinking can cause you to waste time looking for an answer choice that resembles your pre-thought answer. Yes, in some cases, the correct answer will resemble your pre-thought answer. However, especially in the case of harder questions, there is a good chance that the correct answer will not match your pre-thought answer.

In such cases, at best, your pre-thought answer will be a distraction that slows you down as you go through the choices. At the same time, what often happens is that people end up going through the choices twice. First they go through looking for their pre-thought answer. Then, when no choice matches it, they go through the choices again to actually analyze them. What a waste of time.

Much of the reason why some people recommend pre-thinking is to get students to pay attention when reading GRE Verbal questions and think carefully about them. Of course, you can pay attention and think carefully without pre-thinking answers, and thus save time.

So, to speed up in the GRE Verbal section and complete it on time, don’t pre-think.

Happy studying! ✨

Warmest regards,
Scott