Strategy: Map the Passage, Attack the Traps

Read for Structure, Not Storage

You cannot memorize a GRE passage, and you should not try. Read once for the architecture of the argument:

• What is the author's main claim? (Often stated in the first or last sentence of a paragraph.)
• What is each paragraph doing? Introducing a view, objecting to it, giving evidence, qualifying a claim?
• Where does the author stand? Neutral surveyor, advocate, skeptic?
• What are the pivot words? But, however, yet, although, nevertheless mark the turns where the real argument lives — and where questions concentrate.

Build a quick mental map: "Paragraph 1 sets up the old theory; paragraph 2 objects; paragraph 3 offers the author's alternative." With that map, you can return to the exact spot any question targets instead of rereading everything.

Question-Type Playbook

• Main idea / primary purpose: Predict the one-sentence summary before looking at choices. Correct answers cover the whole passage; wrong ones are true of only one paragraph (too narrow) or overreach (too broad).
• Inference: The answer must be forced by the text — a claim the passage guarantees, not merely one it permits. If you need an outside assumption to make a choice true, it is wrong.
• Function: Replace "what does it say" with "why is it here." A sentence can state a fact while its function is to set up a contrast, concede a point, or provide an example.
• Strengthen / weaken: First state the argument's conclusion and the gap between its evidence and that conclusion. To weaken, find the choice that introduces an alternative explanation or attacks a hidden assumption. To strengthen, find the choice that closes the gap or rules out an alternative.

The Four Classic Trap Answers

The GRE recycles the same wrong-answer archetypes. Learn to name them on sight:

Trap	How to spot it
Too extreme	Uses all, none, never, always, only, impossible, proves where the passage hedges with some, may, suggests, tends to
Half-right	The first clause matches the passage; the second clause distorts it. Both halves must be correct.
True but not asked	A statement that is accurate per the passage but does not answer this question
Out of scope	Introduces a comparison, recommendation, or fact the passage never raises

The half-right trap is the most dangerous because the correct-sounding opening lulls you into selecting it. Read every word of every choice. A single distorted clause disqualifies the whole option.

A Note on Extreme Language

GRE authors are careful, hedged writers. When a passage says a factor "may contribute" to an outcome, an answer that says the factor "is the cause" has overshot. Match the strength of the answer to the strength of the passage's claims, not just its content.