A text completion is one of the new question types on the GRE. It is similar to a sentence completion, but has a few important differences. For one, there can be multiple sentences in a text completion. In fact, the question may sometimes run on for an entire paragraph. That’s because some have as many as three blanks.
The other important difference is that each blank only has three possible answer choices, but you have to get all three correct in order to get the question correct (that amounts to a 1 in 27 chance in guessing).
Now that we know our enemy, below are five important strategies you should follow if you want to do well on text completions:
1. Don’t Dive In
Read the entire stem first. The reason for this strategy is that the first blank is often ambiguous, unless you have read the entire paragraph.
2. Breaking Down the Text Completion
Text Completions are sometimes a paragraph long, so it is easy to get lost in them. A great strategy is trying to understand the big picture. Breaking down the paragraph in your own words (paraphrasing the paragraph) will help you get a grasp on what the sentences are talking about. Then you’re ready for step #3.
3. Use Your Own Words
Here, we’re on familiar footing. Much like the sentence completions and the sentence equivalence questions, we want to use the strategy of putting in our own word(s) in the blank or blanks. To do so, you must always justify your answers not just on the context, but some of the specific words or phrases in the sentence itself. I’ve commonly referred to these word(s) as the clue.
4. The Second (or Third) Blank First
Because the first blank is difficult to deal with, first try finding a word for the second or third blank. Then work your way backwards to the first blank. The caveat—this technique only applies if you can come up with a word for the second or third blank. If you can’t, then work with the first blank.
5. Use the Entire Text Completion as Context
When you’ve finally chosen your two/three answers, plug them back into the blanks. Does the completed sentence make sense with how you earlier paraphrased it?
To read more about strategies for text completions, and to do a few practice questions, you should read all of our text completion blog posts.
Chris, I hope you can answer this question quickly because I am taking the test soon! With text completion, how do you differentiate the answer choices between using outside knowledge and not using outside knowledge? I already know that you have to eliminate outside knowledge at ALL costs, but sometimes, the sentence is too vague or incomplete in of itself to make the correct choices without putting in your own world view. For example, this question was on the GRE test prep II software:
“With the 1985 discovery of an ozone hole over Antarctica, an international ban on the production of chlorofluorocarbons- implicated in causing the ozone hole-began to appear___________, especially since chemical companies’ opposition to such a ban had weakened.”
A) Imprudent
B) fortuitous
C) premature
D) Imminent
E) unlikely
The correct answer is of course D, because of the second phrase, I chose E and it was wrong.
The first word I actually came up with is something similar to imminent, such as “manifest,” then I changed it to “coming” as I read the sentence before the comma after the blank, but when I read the rest of the sentence, it was saying the companies opposition was waning. How can I tell what the companies position is, if the phrase after the comma is supposedly a clue? (or distraction, not sure which). Today’s world, companies would obviously oppose a ban at all costs even if it was waning, and certainly if the ban was more imminent, in today’s world, we’ll see even more companies spend more money in opposition of the bill. So in today’s world, it is unlikely that the company’s opposition would weaken especially if a bill looks like it was imminent.
Of course, if the chemical ban was “unlikely,” then it would make sense for companies’ opposition to weaken.
Nowhere in the sentence does it give me a clue that it is unequivocally “imminent.” Perhaps the real answer, if it were boiled down to 2 possible answers in GRE’s world, when you have to make an interpretation, is the more egalitarian world view? That the companies are rational beings who have a sense of fairness? The problem is that these 2 answer choices can work, but in reality, E works better because many companies that I am familiar with, and what I studied in college, is that they are unfair.
-Cy
Hi Cy,
Yes, that can be quite tricky. While there is no hard and fast rule to where a clue is going to be, typically right after blank is a good place to look. This question throws us a bit of a curve ball at the end. I agree – the weakened opposition could make the ban unlikely, if you reason as follows: a chemical company will weakly oppose a proposed ban if it seems unlikely of passing. But what if evidence is so damning that it seems pointless to lobby anymore?
Either interpretation works. Thus the real clue is in the first part of the sentence. Basically, because CFCs were the cause of hole in the ozone, they are likely to be banned soon. But I think you noticed this clue as well. Hence you were able to come up with the correct words for the blank (manifest/coming = imminent).
The twist here is how you interpreted the weakening opposition. While you reasoned a way to make ‘unlikely’ work, you shouldn’t let that override the entire first part of the sentence. See, if chemical companies weaken their opposition then there is very little stopping the ban from going into effect soon.
At the end of the day you do not have to bring any outside knowledge into the question (in fact, I think that kind of hurt you here). So I would say always match up the answer choice with your own word.
On the other hand, if you see an answer choice that kind of works, you can find a rationalization to make that answer work. Sometimes the reasoning involved to make a wrong answer valid – or so my theory goes – takes more mental steps, so, in the end, you tend to belief more in this elaborate explanation than in a more straightforward one.
Hopefully, that last part makes sense. And let me know if you’ve come across any similar to this. I’d be glad to help!
Imminent
Hi, Chris.. kindly explain this sc
The intellectual flexibility inherent in a multicultural nation has been (i)____ in classrooms where emphasis on British-American literature has not reflected the cultural (ii)____ of our country.
Blank (i)
A. inculcated
B. encouraged
C. stifled
Blank (ii)
D. unanimity
E. diversity
F. aspirations
The answers are given as option c and option e. Can you explain to me the meaning of the question and then the approach?
Quick question – this looks vaguely familiar – what’s the source?
The way I would approach this question is to notice the clues: “intellectual flexibility” and “not reflected.” Therefore I know that what is going on in the classroom is not consistent with our cultural values. So the intellectual flexibility has been compromised/suppressed. Stifled (C) works best.
This stifling does not reflect our “multicultural nation” or cultural diversity (E).
Thanks Chris.. Its a practice set from http://www.majortests.com
Hey Chris,
Found these text completion questions.Can you explain them for me What are the clues in these , i mean how would you go about these sentence specially when you did’nt knew the meaning of right words.
Q) Old world cures typically had a pungent smell or unpleasant taste which served to emphasize their potency. An odorless, tasteless __________________ could not be relied upon to effect a cure.
Pestle
Nostrum
Aria
Aphrodisiac
Medico
Q)Two tomes by the French nuclear physicist are already required reading for graduate students; the latest work will complete Dr. Alain Boussard’s _______________ on atomic energy.
Treatment
Trilogy
Lectures
Research
Experimentation
Q)He always seemed to speak with a(n) (i)_____________ tone that made even the most (ii)_____________ conversations sound somewhat (iii)_____________.
(i) affected, berating, conspiratorial
(ii) engaging, innocuous, secretive
(iii) alluring, incomprehensible, illicit
Please help…
Thanks and have a great weekend
Hi Aman,
Besides the last question, I would say the other two are just poorly written questions that don’t reflect what you’ll see test day
. Can I ask where you found these questions?
Nonetheless for the first one, unpleasant taste, is a clue as is old world cures. That is enough to solve the question. You don’t need to know the word pungent to be able to answer the question.
The second question the clue is ‘two’ – you don’t have to know the words ‘tomes.’ You just have to know that his new book will be his third in the series (this question is esp. silly and unreflective – where did you find these questions).
Anyhow, the takeaway is you do not have to know every word in the sentence. Work around the words you don’t know based on the ones you do know.
(I’m a little confused with the third one, since I’m sure you know all the words in the sentence).
Chris,
This was exactly what i responded during the mock but wanted one espouse for my point of view : d
These are from score 800 by mgre n The explanations given are also not justifiable enough as per GRE is concerned
Well as per the last.question.the answer is
(i) conspiratorial (ii) innocuous (iii) illicit
And my choice was berating engaging and incomprehensible
This is its explanation(i dnt knw how did one found the tone and innocent as the idea)
This sentence must be taken as a whole. The idea of the sentence is that even innocent conversations appeared to be not so innocent because of his tone. The only words that logically fit together to convey this message are the 3 correct ones: conspiratorial (secretive planning), innocuous (harmless) and illicit (immoral). It is the middle blank that is the best one to address first. While “engaging” could fit blank 2 and it could be supported by blank 3’s “alluring,” there is no appropriate word in Blank (1) to logically finish the thought. Similarly, no other set of three words could go together to complete the thought that is conveyed in the sentence.
Hey Chris there’ s one.more thing
Questions like these where u need to put in options and try to find an appropriate match are very time consuming and prone to error ….
Any easy methods for these i am sure u would have one….
Thanks
These very vague question types unfortunately require one to work backwards from the answers. I think as you get more practice with them (they are a rare form of TC) you will get more adept.
I think the takeaway here Aman is not to use these suspect sources, as questions (and explanations) such as these only serve to frustrate and eat up time.
That said, only the given answers provide a coherent meaning.
Hi Chris,
I took the ETS mock test yesterday.I got a good score in Quantitative section.But in Verbal i scored very less.I feel very demotivated because the verbal score.First of all i do not have much time to finish all the questions and secondly i found that i need to practice lot of “Text completion” and “Sentence equivalence”.I also find difficult to comprehend the question quickly.Can you please suggest some book to take lot of practice questions for TC,SE and also tips to complete all the verbal questions in time?.Your help is highly valued and appreciated.
Thanks&Regards
Madan
Hi Madan,
First off, use the blog to its full extent – meaning, click on the bar at the very top of the magoosh homepage, where it says ‘verbal.’ This will take you to myriad posts I’ve written on TC and SE that will help you break down this question type and make you faster and more accurate.
If you want even more practice, you can just try out the Magoosh product: gre.magoosh.com.
Let me know if the TC and SE blog posts are helpful – I’ll be standing by to answer any questions you have
.
Hi Chris,
First of all thank you for your wonderful blog. I have noticed positive change in my verbal score after picking tips from your blogs. However, I am unable to identify key words in few of TC questions – how do I approach these Q’s ? For example :
“During periods of social and cultural stability, many art academies are so firmly controlled by ______________ that all real creative work must be done by the ___________.
a. dogmatists…….disenfranchised
b. Managers………… reactioners
c. reformers ………….dissatisfied
d. Imposters …………….academicians
e. specialists ……………elite
Source : GRE bigbook
Thank you for your time.
aadya
Hi Aadya,
This is a tough question, one in which you sort of have to plug the answer choices back into the question to see which ones fit. Of course, the judgment of which ones fit should be informed, so you do need to notice the following keywords: stability, firmly controlled… all real creative work…
We can see that the first blank aren’t the people who do creative work. (A) dogmatists is the best fit. Then you can plug ‘disenfranchised’ back in the blank. Why does ‘disenfranchised’ work? Because it describes those who are not part of the academy. They are outsiders.
Using the traditional method of coming up with one’s own word would in all likelihood not yield ‘disenfranchised.’ With the difficult questions, you have to be a bit flexible in your approach.
Hope that helps
.
Thanks Chris,
I will try this strategy and report back with my progress
Aadya.
Great, looking forward to hear how it goes
.
Hi,
Please help in solving following problem.
It cannot be denied that without creative reasoning it would not have been possible to (i)____ of classical physics. Yet classical physics has no contribution to make to the understanding of (ii)_____. This kind of (iii)____ is surprisingly common in logic as well as in life.
Blank (i)
A. dispute the value
B. lay the foundations
C. understand the basics
Blank (ii)
D. creative reasoning
E. other sciences
F. the arts
Blank (iii)
G. circular reasoning
H. inflexibility
I. symmetry
I marked CDH as the answer, which is wrong.
Thanks,
Shubham Goel
Hi Shubham,
Frankly, this question is written rather awkwardly, and wouldn’t make the final (indeed the penultimate) cut. The logic behind the question itself is suspect, and even some of the correct answer choices are suspect.
I’m guessing the correct answer is CFH.
The reasoning with ‘F’ is you don’t want to repeat ‘creative reasoning’ and you want a broader application to apply to arts. This is iffy reasoning – and one you would never employ on an actual question.
(H) inflexibility is off stylistically. The word asymmetry would have been perfect.
The thought behind the sentence, classic physics is informed by creating reasoning, but the creative endeavors (arts) have not been informed by classic physics makes for a potentially provocative text completion. In this question, the execution leaves something to be desired
.
Hey Chris,
Can you please help me through this text Completion.
Although it appeared to be________ after its stagnation and eventual cancellation in 1989, Doctor Who returned to BBC in 2005 to become the longest-running science-fiction show in history..
The credited response is Defunct but among the choices there’s Moribund, so why not moribund?
As the show was stagnated, it was in the process of dying so moribund makes sense
to me
Thanks
Muhammad
Check out Aman’s explanation below
.
Also, what is the source of the question?
Defunct is a more strong word – not coming back which is supports both.the words stagnation and EVENTUALLY CANCELLATION moribund is someone who is in the verge of getting into this state however i still think these are two close calls
Whats your say Chris?
Great answer, Aman
.
You looked for the clue, ‘eventual cancellation’ and backed up the answer, defunct. So, yes, we need a stronger word (dead) vs. the weaker moribund (almost dead).
Thanks Aman.
It’s from the MGRE easiest section. I don’t feel like doing their harder question because they have only stuffed in arcane vocabulary.