By making the right moves, anyone can get faster at GRE Verbal, complete the section in the allotted time, and achieve a high Verbal section GRE score. I’m going to discuss 4 key tips for speeding up in GRE Verbal that will help you to achieve your Verbal score goal.


The first move you can make to get faster at GRE Verbal is to have a clear, reliable strategy for answering each type of GRE Verbal question. Why? Well, even if you can get most GRE Verbal questions correct without clear strategies, you’ll likely answer them significantly faster if you have such strategies. For example, you may be able to find your way to the correct answer to a Main Idea Reading Comprehension question without a clear strategy.

However, if you know in advance that, when you see a Main Idea question, you should identify important points in the passage, use those points to bring the main idea into focus, and determine which choice fits what the important points indicate, you’ll likely answer the question faster. By learning or developing a strategy for answering each type of question, you’ll save time in answering every question you see.


It’s easy to get the impression that you could complete the GRE Verbal section in the allotted time if you didn’t have “timing issues.” However, the truth is that, when people have difficulty completing the GRE Verbal section, timing itself generally is not the main issue. The main issue is a skills issue. After all, what enables you to answer GRE Verbal questions quickly is skill. So, another key move you can make to increase your GRE Verbal speed is simply to develop stronger GRE Verbal skills. Now, you may be wondering how exactly to develop stronger GRE Verbal skills. The answer may surprise you because much of the answer is to slow down when practicing. It’s true: practicing slowly is the way to speed up in GRE Verbal. Here’s why.

When you’re practicing GRE Verbal, your goal is to develop skill in doing things such as identifying keywords in Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence questions, finding information in Reading Comprehension passages, and analyzing arguments in Critical Reasoning questions. Sure, once you’re fully prepared for the GRE, you’ll be able to do these things in a minute or two per question. However, to develop skill in doing these things, you’ll have to spend much more time on each question. In other words, you’ll have to give yourself time to learn.


You might think that reading more carefully would slow you down in GRE Verbal rather than speed you up. However, the truth is that reading more carefully can really help you complete the Verbal section on time. Careful reading sets you up to answer Verbal questions faster by giving you a clearer picture of the sentence, passage, question, or answer choice you’re dealing with.

For instance, people often quickly glance over the sentences in a Text Completion question, and then go to the answer choices without having a clear picture of what the sentences say. Such an approach can end up wasting time rather than saving time because it leaves you operating on incomplete information. So, rather than quickly narrow down the choices and select a correct answer, you may end up circling through the choices wondering what makes one better than the others. Simply put, you spend time doing something you would not have to do if you read carefully in the first place. On the other hand, if you read sentences, passages, questions, and answer choices carefully, you set yourself up with all the information you need for evaluating answer choices. Thus, the correct answers may practically jump out at you.


Some GRE Reading Comprehension passages, especially longer ones, present many details. For instance, a passage may discuss two different authors and various details of their approaches to writing. Or a passage might discuss the ins and outs of how a particular natural phenomenon arises. In reading such passages, it’s easy to get bogged down in the details of what is discussed.

The issue is that fully understanding and keeping straight all those details takes time, and the questions about the passage likely won’t ask about all those details. Furthermore, you can always go back to the passage to find details you need for answering questions. So, if you spend time seeking to fully process all the details of a passage, you’ll unnecessarily use up some of the precious time you have to complete the Verbal section.

Accordingly, a time-saving move to make when reading a detail-heavy RC passage is to focus on understanding what the passage says overall, rather than seek to fully process every detail. That’s not to say that you should skim the passage or use a gimmicky strategy such as reading only the first sentence of each paragraph. You do need to comprehend what the passage says. The point is that you can save time by not attempting to fully process or memorize every detail when you first read a passage.

Good luck studying, and reach out to me if you have any questions!

Warmest regards,
Scott