Analogy cracking Tips

In verbal analogy questions students are provided with a pair of words having some meaningful relationship. This relationship between words is generally accurate and definite. To answer analogy questions students have to select a pair of words, which outdo all the available options and present the best connection in regard to main word expression. Consider the following example:

Sedative: Drowsiness

You feel sleepy or drowsy after taking sedative or sleeping pills.

Anesthetic: Numbness

You become numb after taking anesthetic drug

Lawyer: Courtroom

The place of lawyer is in classroom.

All these above mentioned pairs have an explicit relationship, and it is obvious that to constitute the relationship, a meaningful sentence is to be formed taking both words into consideration.

Types of relationships for analogy questions

In analogy questions of GRE, the relationship between the words takes priority over the meanings of the words. The most common analogy relationships include:

Definition: This type of analogy relation gives exact meaning or definition of the other word.

Eg. Meteorologist: Weather

(Meteorologist is a person who predicts weather)

Degree of intensity: One word of expression shows mild whereas other word conveys a more severe aspect of same phenomenon.

Eg. Braying: Tittering

(Both words are different aspect of laugh braying means laugh loud whereas tittering means laugh nervously.)

Gender: One word is for male and other one represents its female counterpart.

Eg. Mare: Goat

( A female horse is a mare whereas  stallion is a male horse)

Part to Whole: In this type of analogy, the first word is part of the second word or vice- versa.

Eg. Soldier: Regiment

( A soldier can be part of  the regiment ).

Antonyms: In this type of analogy relation one word is the antonym of other.

Eg. Opaque: Transparency

(Both words are antonym to each other).

Synonyms: In these types of analogies both words convey similar meaning.

Eg. Beautiful: Gorgeous

(Both words are synonyms to each other).

Some useful tips to solve analogy questions:

• Create logical relationship between words.
• Omit options that do not have a clear and reasonably necessary relationship to the main word.
• Do logical guess if you think more than one option could be a correct option.
• Furthermore, contemplate about secondary meanings of words, as well as alternative parts of speech.
• Beware of misleading options. They are put deliberately to confuse you.

In total there are 11 analogy questions to answer in the GRE’s verbal section. Analogies can be improved with little bit practice, and could be helpful in scoring well. Do share with us your views, comments on this blog by filling up the feedback section.

Good luck with GRE exam!!!

Warm Regards,

Shipra  Srivastava

Team Learnwordlist.com

21 Responses to “Analogy cracking Tips”

1. nurudeen muhd haruna on July 28th, 2010 12:15 pm

   iam very appreciat God bless they advance my bocavulary

2. Silvia on July 29th, 2010 2:59 am

   It is fantastic to have people working so hard in order to help us.
   God bless you and your language because a lot of people thakns to languages knowledge can work and have a safety job.
   Thank you!!!!!

   How would a teacher who always teaches children be able to improve her/his english into a high level?…

3. shipra on July 31st, 2010 5:04 am

   Thanks for your comment siliva .It is all about experience siliva, kindly post your query related to GRE exam,if you have any.We are here to help you.

4. deepika chauhan on August 5th, 2010 2:37 pm

   thankuu so much to all of you for all your efforts that really help us in making our concepts clear and make us up to the mark for our exam..thankss alotaaa..

5. shipra on August 6th, 2010 5:14 am

   Thanks for your comment deepika , we are truly blissful with those encouraging words of yours. Kindly keep visiting us.

6. Lingling on August 10th, 2010 7:38 am

   THANKS A LOT. I CAN ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING REALLY PRECIOUS HERE. I BELIEVE OTHER GRE TAKERS FEEL THE SAME. THANK YOU GUYS.

7. Ayan saha on August 21st, 2010 6:36 pm

   Hi!I hope many students will get a helpfull hand from here….to improve there vocabulary….

8. shipra on August 23rd, 2010 4:17 am

   Thanks for your comment Ayan,kindly run through other blogs.

9. BEDE UWALAKA on August 30th, 2010 8:48 am

   Please correct the mistake below in the relevant section above:

   Lawyer: Courtroom

   The place of lawyer is in classroom.

   The place of a lawyer is in courtroom not classroom.

10. shipra on August 31st, 2010 4:20 am

    Thanks Uwalaka,we shall fix it soon.

11. pradeep on September 16th, 2010 5:21 am

    how to get good score in verbal? can u plz tell this iam taking my gre this november is it sufficient time to crack the gre?

12. Shubham Tulsyan on September 16th, 2010 12:54 pm

    Dear Mam/Sir
    In previous one month, my lots of friends has given GRE and they got score in range of 1200-1300. They are saying that words are not coming from Barron, Princeton and Kaplan. Can you tell me, how can we overcome with this situation?

13. Humraf on September 16th, 2010 5:51 pm

    analogy questions seems to be the most difficult part of GRE…. how can I improve it at the time when I am only one month away from taking exam

14. shipra on September 17th, 2010 5:58 am

    Shubam, don’t get mislead mostly words come from Barron, Princeton and Kaplan.

15. shipra on September 17th, 2010 6:12 am

    Pradeep, you are better person to answer this question, if you are registerd then go for test ,take all the test available on learnwordlist.com,this will definitely boost your confidence.

16. tehmina on October 3rd, 2010 6:24 pm

    hello, i wanted to know that after doing the analogy test how can i have the list of right answers. with the timer… its a bit swift so the words i have done wrong, i want to go over them and think… can you kindly guide me how to get the correct answers for rechecking my score…

17. shipra on October 5th, 2010 4:25 am

    Tehmina, you can send your questions in which you have doubts, surely we will help you out.

18. Arbit on October 5th, 2010 12:01 pm

    First of all, I would like to thank the whole team for putting up such a great effort. I really appreciate the help. Just an observation though, many a time, the options are very obvious. I mean, if 3 of the 4 available options mean one thing, and the fourth one means the opposite, the answer becomes obvious and leaves little to think.
    So, if this little shortcoming is checked, learnwordlist is an awesome preparation aid.

    Thanks & Regards

19. shipra on October 6th, 2010 4:16 am

    Arbit, yes but this happen only few times but thanks for sharing with us. Kindly keep visiting our blog segment and keep putting your valuable views.

20. ttsole on October 13th, 2010 5:43 pm

    Very helpful tips

    Thank you

21. shipra on October 14th, 2010 4:53 am

    ttsole, kindly keep visiting our blog segment

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