GRE Reading Challenge

[Vince Kotchian GRE Prep]

Imagine the person whose job it is to write a GRE reading question. Four out of the five choices have to be straight-up wrong. But to make the question challenging, some of those choices must be made attractive to test-takers. As a GRE studier, you should be interested in exactly why these wrong choices are wrong, but also why they might seem right at first.

So, I have a challenge for you all that will improve your GRE reading comprehension question skill:

Post a specific way the test writers are trying to make a wrong answer choice attractive. Give us an example from an ETS reading question.

I'll start: GRE test writers like to use familiar-looking words and phrases from the passage when they write incorrect choices, since some people will pick a choice just because its wording looks familiar.

For example, in the ETS Verbal Reasoning Practice Book, pg. 18, #1, choice A is wrong, but attractive (for some) because it uses the word "coincided" - which is also used in the passage and which gets at the timing aspect of the question.

You can also post another example of this kind of trick, or find another way they're trying to make wrong answers look right. This is an important drill: the GRE is a standardized test, so anything you figure out about the way the test is written will show up again and again.

Edited July 1, 2016 by Vince Kotchian GRE Prep