The Verbal Section of the GRE consists of 4 types of questions- Analogies, Sentence Completion, Reading Comprehension and Antonyms.

What’s an Antonym?

Generally, an Antonym is the opposite of a given word. In the GRE, you’ll be given a question word, and then 5 different options of words. You must pick the one option that’s closest to the opposite of the given question word.

The entire section is based on your knowledge of vocabulary. This means that if you happen to get a word you don’t know at all, you probably won’t be able to solve the question, in this case, there are a few little tricks you might be able to still use to guess the right answer.

Antonym techniques

If you know the word that’s given, try to search your head for a simplified definition of that word. Then, think of an opposite of that definition. Finally, look at the options and try to see which one is a word that answers the opposite definition. It’s usually best to stop yourself from looking at the options until you can think of a few good examples to look for.

If you don’t entirel know the meaning of the given word, don’t panic. Try to look for a root-word you do know, or judge whether the word is ‘positive or negative’ (does it have ‘un-’, ‘in-’ or ‘de-’ at the beginning, for example?). Then, try and judge whether the answer choices have the same ‘direction’ or not. Sometimes, one option in particular will point you to the right direction, or else you can at least eliminate a few options.

You can also work backwards, looking at the choices. Always eliminate options that don’t have a clear opposite. A lot of nouns fall into this category. Also, trying to look for opposites (antonyms) of the choice-options might help you eliminate more wrong answers.

Finally, if you have no idea what the answer might be, just guess. Don’t spend too much time on a problem, since you only get 1 minute per question on the Verbal Section. You might want to go with the more extreme choice out of the presented words, since often it’ll be correct.

Examples!

UNDERMINE

1. Overlook
2. Render
3. Discourage
4. Champion
5. Crumble

Answer: What does undermine mean? It’s means hinder or sabotage. You might be tempted to say ‘overlook’ because the beginning of the word seems opposite, but that’s usually a bad sign, and overlook is not related to undermine at all. Crumble and discourage are not opposites at all, they’re in fact similar to undermine. Champion works best here- it can mean to promote or advocate. It’s the opposite of undermine.

IMPROMPTU

1. Extensive
2. Prepared
3. Imaginary
4. Improper
5. Disastrous

Answer: What a funny looking word! Impromptu means ‘improvised or unplanned’. You might see right away that prepared is a good antonym. If you didn’t know what the word meant, you could’ve probably eliminate ‘improper’ and ‘imaginary’ just by looking at them, because they look too much like the question-word. Then you’d have to guess, probably between extensive and prepared, because the two are rather similar, so the right choice might be one of them.

A short list of useful antonyms:

Anomaly:Norm
Convoluted:Simple
Eloquent:Inarticulare
Mundane:Extraordinary
Perfunctory:Thoughtful
Relegate:Promote
Squander:Save
Truculent:Tolerant
Veracity:Dishonesty
Wonky:Even

You can find lots of these in the dictonary, which you should be using in order to improve your vocabulary. The GRE uses lots of vocabulary, so make sure you don’t only learn new words, but learn their opposites as well!

Online GRE Practice Tests

When you’ve learned lots of new words, come practice some antonym questions:

GRE Antonyms (10 questions), GRE Antonym Questions (10 questions), GRE Antonym Quiz (10 questions), GRE Antonym Practice Quiz (10 questions), GRE Antonym Practice Tests (10 questions), GRE Antonym Practice Tests (10 questions), GRE Antonym Practice Test 2 (10 questions), GRE Antonym Practice (10 questions), GRE Antonyms (10 questions), GRE Antonym Practice Tests (10 questions)

More Verbal Questions:

Check out the other types of questions in the Verbal Section of the GRE- Reading Comprehension, Sentence Completion and Analogies questions.