THE VERBAL SECTION OF THE GMAT

The Verbal section of the GMAT assesses your ability to read and comprehend written material, but also to reason, to evaluate arguments, to understand and correct sentences using basic conventions of standard written English. The Verbal section consists of 36 multiple-choice questions, and you have a total of 65 minutes to complete it.

The verbal section consists of three question types: sentence correction, critical reasoning, and reading comprehension. All questions are multiple choice and have five possible answers, only one of which is correct. 


Sentence correction

Sentence correction questions test your proficiency in written English. You are presented with a sentence, part of which is underlined. The possible answers are five different ways to phrase the underlined part.  You will need to select the correct and most effective version, based on grammar, word choice, and sentence construction.

Critical reasoning

Critical reasoning questions assess your ability to analyze and evaluate a given argument. These questions consist of a passage of text, usually fewer than 100 words, followed by a question about the text. Typically, you will need to point out which of the five possible answers strengthens or weakens the argument being made in the passage.


Reading comprehension

In the reading comprehension questions, you will also get a short text to read, but with three to five questions about it instead of one. You will be asked to summarize the main idea, analyze the logical structure of a passage, or deduce the author’s attitude towards a certain topic. The topics vary from social sciences and humanities to physical and biological sciences, to business-related fields. The questions are designed in such a way that you won’t need specific knowledge on the subject matter to answer them.

Could you use some help with the Verbal section? Then we recommend our Verbal course and Verbal Bootcamp. These courses are taught by experienced tutors specialised in solving Verbal questions.