One of the most valuable GRE Sentence Equivalence tips for any student is to create synonym pairs as the first line of attack when evaluating answer choices.

Creating synonym pairs is the quickest way to narrow down answer choices. Why? Well, regardless of whether a word would make sense in the sentence, if it doesn’t pair with any other choice to produce an equivalent sentence meaning, it can’t possibly be correct.

So, if you start by eliminating any choices that don’t pair with another choice, then you reserve the more complex, time-consuming work of evaluating whether a choice fits the context of the sentence for a smaller number of choices.

Furthermore, the choices left can be evaluated in pairs, thus killing two birds with one stone. In other words, evaluating 2 remaining synonym pairs in context, for example, is quicker than evaluating 4 individual choices.

Thus, to shorten the amount of time you have to spend on each SE question, when you start evaluating answer choices, your first task should be to pair choices that mean essentially the same thing and eliminate any choices that don’t pair with another choice. In some cases, it may even be that after that initial step, you’re left with only 1 pair!

Warmest regards,

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder & CEO, Target Test Prep