GRE – Secrets of Antonyms

When it comes to the Verbal Reasoning section of the GRE one of your greatest assets will be your mastery of vocabulary. This is especially true when it comes to the antonym portion of the exam. Unlike in the Reading Comprehension and sentence completion questions this type of question lacks context that might help you deduce the meaning of a word you do not know.

Antonym questions will provide you with a word and then 5 possible answers. You must choose the word that has the most opposite definition of the word given in the question.

Although vocabulary is the single most important factor in doing well on the Antonym section there are some techniques that you can use to get the most out of your vocabulary no matter its size.

First identify the kind of word that is involved in the question. There are roughly 3 categories:

• Words you know and can precisely define.
• Words you kind of know but in a general way.
• Words you don’t know.

To approach an antonym question first decide what category the stem word fits in.

1. If you can precisely define the question word – start by writing down a simple opposite for the word’s definition. Then look at the possible answer choices. Eliminate the words that are totally unrelated. Then use the same process of defining opposites to whittle down the remaining words.
2. If you only kind of know the question word – start by determining whether the word given is a positive word or a negative word. Then determine whether each answer is positive, negative, or neutral. Eliminate the ones that are not opposite in sentiment to your question word. You can also eliminate neutral words because the correct answer must be opposite to the question word.

Once you have eliminated words based on their sentiment define an opposite for the remaining words. See if any of the opposites you have defined match the given question word.

If there are words that have no clear opposites you can eliminate them immediately because if they have no opposite then they cannot possibly be the opposite of the question word.

Another technique you can use for words you kind of know is to create artificial context. Use the word in a sentence and see if any of the possible answers make sense when substituted for the given word.

If you don’t know the word at all – Try the most extreme answer choice because they are more likely to be correct than moderate words. Don’t spend all your time on these problems. Remember that educated guessing is a good approach especially if you can eliminate 2 of 5 of the possible answers.