Achievable logoAchievable logo
GRE
Sign in
Sign up
Purchase
Textbook
Practice exams
Feedback
Community
How it works
Resources
Exam catalog
Mountain with a flag at the peak
Textbook
1. Welcome
2. Vocabulary approach
3. Quantitative reasoning
4. Verbal reasoning
4.1 Verbal intro
4.2 Text completion and sentence equivalence
4.3 Reading comprehension
4.3.1 Introduction
4.3.2 Reasoning prompt
4.3.3 Regular prompt
5. Analytical writing
6. Wrapping up
Achievable logoAchievable logo
4.3.1 Introduction
Achievable GRE
4. Verbal reasoning
4.3. Reading comprehension

Introduction

1 min read
Font
Discuss
Share
Feedback

Reading comprehension questions are presented in the middle and end of the Verbal sections of the GRE. As you can imagine, reading comprehension questions ask you to read a passage and answer questions about the content.

There are two types of reading comprehension prompts that you will see in the GRE: regular prompts and reasoning prompts.

Regular prompts are the usual newsletter, article, or excerpt from a book about science, history, politics, art, etc. Regular prompts can be of any length and have 1 to 4 questions each.

Reasoning prompts, however, are only of the short variation and have just one question each. Because they are so short and unique, we will be discussing the reasoning prompts first.

When answering reading comprehension questions, you mustn’t overthink the answers. There will undoubtedly be multiple interpretations of the passage, but the goal here isn’t to read critically and form your own opinion. Instead, you should aim to understand what the author of the passage is trying to convey, and adopt their mindset when thinking through any vague points.

All rights reserved ©2016 - 2025 Achievable, Inc.