The Verbal section gives you 30 minutes for 20 questions, so pacing is critical. Expert tutors teach students to spend 1-1.5 minutes per question, with flexibility to skip difficult questions and return to them. Effective strategies include identifying question types quickly, recognizing common trap answers, and using process-of-elimination on reading comprehension. Your tutor will help you practice under timed conditions so pacing becomes automatic on test day.

Taking a full-length practice test is the best way to identify your strengths and weaknesses across reading comprehension, text completion, and sentence equivalence. A tutor can analyze your practice test results to pinpoint patterns—for example, whether you struggle with inference questions or vocabulary-heavy sentences. From there, you'll focus your study time on the areas that will have the biggest impact on your overall score.

GRE reading passages are dense and often cover unfamiliar academic topics, making it easy to miss key details or misinterpret the author's main point. The questions test deep comprehension—not just finding information, but understanding relationships, tone, and logical structure. Tutors help you develop active reading techniques, such as annotating passages and identifying main ideas before answering questions, which significantly improves both accuracy and confidence.

You don't need to memorize an exhaustive vocabulary list, but building familiarity with 300-500 high-frequency GRE words is helpful. More importantly, tutors teach you context clues and word-building strategies (prefixes, suffixes, roots) that help you decode unfamiliar words during the test. Strategic vocabulary study combined with these inference techniques is far more effective than rote memorization.

Most students benefit from taking a full practice test every 1-2 weeks during their preparation period, with at least 2-3 complete tests before test day. This frequency lets you track progress, identify persistent weak areas, and build test-day stamina. Between full tests, your tutor will guide you through targeted drills on specific question types, so you're combining focused skill-building with realistic practice conditions.

Anxiety often stems from unfamiliarity with question formats or uncertainty about your preparation. Tutors build confidence by repeatedly exposing you to GRE question types in a supportive environment, teaching you strategies that feel automatic, and helping you develop a realistic sense of what to expect on test day. Practicing under timed conditions with your tutor also reduces the shock of the actual testing experience.

Your first session typically includes a diagnostic assessment to understand your current skill level, goals, and timeline for the GRE. Your tutor will review your practice test results (if available), discuss which Verbal sections feel most challenging, and outline a personalized study plan tailored to your needs. This foundation ensures your tutoring is focused and efficient from day one.