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Last Updated on January 19, 2024
For some people planning to take the GRE General Test, the competition for spots at their target graduate schools is so stiff that they need extremely high GRE scores. Others want high GRE scores to make up for deficiencies in other areas of their applications. For one of these or other reasons, you may want to achieve a perfect 170 GRE Verbal score. So, in this article, I’m going to discuss how to get 170 in GRE Verbal, providing ideas based on my experience and what has worked for many GRE test-takers.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- How Many Questions Can You Miss and Get 170 on GRE Verbal?
- Develop a Winning Mindset to Score 170 on GRE Verbal
- Max Out Vocabulary Study to Ace GRE Verbal
- Master Every GRE Verbal Topic
- How to Develop High Accuracy in GRE Verbal
- Work on Your Unconscious to Achieve Flawless GRE Verbal Performance
- Take Multiple GRE Practice Tests
- Maintain Your Health and Wellness to Support Success
- Summary: How to Get 170 in GRE Verbal
- What’s Next?
Let’s begin by discussing the performance you need for scoring 170 on GRE Verbal.
How Many Questions Can You Miss and Get 170 on GRE Verbal?
For understanding how many questions you can miss and get 170 on GRE Verbal, it helps to understand how the GRE Verbal Reasoning section is scored.
Your GRE Verbal score is based on your performance on two Verbal sections, the first of which contains 12 questions and the second of which contains 15 questions. So, there are, in total, 27 Verbal questions on the GRE. Your GRE Verbal score is basically 130 plus the number of those 27 questions you answer correctly. So, for instance, if you were to get 25/40 Verbal questions correct, your score could be 130 + 25 = 155.
However, there is more to the story because your score may also include bonus points. Here’s how bonus points work.
If you get enough questions (around 10 or more) correct on the first Verbal section of the GRE, the second Verbal section will be a hard section. When the second section is a hard section, the GRE adds 2 to 5 bonus points to 130 plus the number of questions you answered correctly to arrive at your Verbal score. The number of bonus points varies because the number given for a particular GRE depends on how hard its Verbal sections are in comparison with those of other GREs.
Because of these 2 to 5 bonus points, you can miss some questions and score 170 on GRE Verbal. Getting 5 bonus points is rare. So, you can’t count on it, but you can count on getting at least 2. So, you can miss 2, and possibly up to 5, Verbal questions and score 170 on GRE Verbal.
KEY FACT:
You can miss 2 Verbal questions and still score 170 on GRE Verbal.
Now that we understand the performance required for scoring 170 on GRE Verbal, let’s discuss something at the foundation of achieving that score, a winning mindset.
Develop a Winning Mindset to Score 170 on GRE Verbal
The foundation of success in any challenging endeavor is a winning mindset. So, one key thing you can do to succeed in scoring 170 on GRE Verbal is develop a mindset conducive to achieving your goal.
To develop a winning mindset, you can start by considering the fact that, every year, many people score 170 on GRE Verbal. So, you can take that attitude that, if other people can do it, you can too.
Another way to develop a mindset conducive to achieving a perfect GRE Verbal score is to adopt what is known as a “growth mindset.” The basis of a growth mindset, a concept developed by psychologist Carol Dweck, is the idea that our basic abilities, such as verbal reasoning skills, are not fixed but can be developed.
So, in adopting a growth mindset, you take the attitude that, even if your skills currently are not strong enough for getting a 170 Verbal GRE score, you can develop strong skills through preparation. The more clearly you understand that you can develop yourself, the more conducive to GRE success your mindset will be.
TTP PRO TIP:
To optimize your psychology for acing GRE Verbal, adopt a growth mindset.
Of course, to achieve a perfect GRE Verbal score, along with a winning mindset, you’ll need a strong vocabulary. So, let’s discuss learning the vocabulary you need for scoring 170 on GRE Verbal.
Max Out Vocabulary Study to Ace GRE Verbal
Coming into preparing for the GRE, you may already have a strong vocabulary, or you may have a limited one. Either way, you’ll almost certainly have to study at least some vocabulary to get a perfect GRE Verbal score.
After all, correctly answering Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence questions requires knowledge of many different words. Even understanding GRE Reading Comprehension passages requires knowing some hard vocabulary words. Meanwhile, even if you have a strong vocabulary, there likely are GRE words you don’t know or whose meanings you’re not 100 percent sure of.
You want to minimize the probability that you’ll see a word you don’t know in a GRE question. So, when choosing how many words to study, you’ll want to be closer to the typical maximum of around 3,000 GRE words than to the typical minimum of around 500 words.
At the same time, if you want to ace GRE Verbal, simply learning definitions of words isn’t likely to be sufficient. Rather, you should learn how to use the words in sentences, so that you can readily determine which words make sense in the context of Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence sentences.
Learning synonyms is also helpful. In fact, what can work well is including synonyms in your definitions of words. For example, you could define “taciturn” as meaning “inclined to be silent, reserved, reticent, laconic.” That way, when you study one GRE word, you’re learning multiple words.
TTP PRO TIP:
To ace GRE Verbal, learn how to use vocabulary words in context, and include synonyms in your GRE word definitions.
Along with developing a strong vocabulary, to score 170 in GRE Verbal, you’ll need to master every GRE Verbal topic. So, let’s discuss how to do so.
Master Every GRE Verbal Topic
If you want to get a perfect score on GRE Verbal, your move is to master every topic, and here’s a key thing to keep in mind. Even in question types you find relatively easy, there can be tricky questions that could fool you. So, you should devote at least some work to every GRE Verbal topic, not just to the topics you’re having the most trouble with.
The best way to master GRE Verbal is to work on one topic at a time. By mastering one topic at a time, you’ll eventually master all of GRE Verbal.
To master a GRE Verbal topic, first learn the relevant concepts and strategies involved in the topic. Then, do GRE practice questions involving that topic until you get them correct consistently. Once you’ve mastered one topic, you move on to the next one and do the same thing.
TTP PRO TIP:
To master GRE Verbal, master one topic at a time by learning the relevant concepts and strategies, and then practicing.
To get a perfect score on GRE Verbal, you’ll also have to achieve close to 100-percent accuracy. So, let’s discuss how to achieve super-high accuracy.
How to Develop High Accuracy in GRE Verbal
To get a perfect 170 score on GRE Verbal, you’ll have to get close to 100 percent of the Verbal questions you see on test day correct. So, it won’t be enough just to know how to answer questions. You’ll also need to be skilled in getting questions correct reliably. So, you’ll need to do GRE Verbal Reasoning practice that supports development of this accuracy-related aspect of your skillset.
The best way to do this practice is to shoot for long streaks of correct answers in a row and, ultimately, 100 percent accuracy when answering GRE practice questions. Ideally, you’ll learn to get questions correct in streaks of 15 in a row to match the 15 questions in the second GRE Verbal section.
What works best for learning to achieve high accuracy and long streaks is to start off practicing untimed. The idea is to take your time and learn to do whatever it takes to get questions correct 100 percent of the time. Then, once you’re achieving high accuracy and long streaks, you work on reducing your time per question to test pace.
Analyze and Address Every Error You Make
As you practice, if you miss a question, carefully analyze what you did to determine why you missed the question. Then address whatever went wrong.
If you didn’t know a word, add the word to your list and study it. If you didn’t know how to properly answer a question, go back and review the strategy for answering that type of question. If you made a careless error, determine why and what you have to do to not make such an error again.
Over time, you’ll address basically every possible reason why you’d miss a question and get to a point at which you get virtually every question correct.
Learn to Go From Stumped to Winning
Even after learning thousands of vocabulary words and answering many sample questions, you may still run into questions that stump you. For instance, you may not know some words in a GRE Sentence Equivalence question or may have trouble choosing between the last two choices in a GRE Reading Comprehension question.
Thus, since you need to get virtually every question correct to achieve a perfect score, you’ll want to develop skill in getting questions correct when you’re stumped at first.
So, practice going from stumped to winning.
For instance, practice working your way around words you don’t know in Sentence Equivalence questions or going back and forth from the answer choices to the passage in Reading Comprehension questions until you see which choice is correct. Learn to compare, reread, hack, and do whatever else it takes to go from stumped to knowing which answer choice is correct. Once again, you can practice doing this untimed at first and work your time per question down to test pace as you become more skilled.
TTP PRO TIP:
To ace GRE Verbal, develop high accuracy by practicing untimed, analyzing every error, and learning to do whatever it takes to get questions correct.
Another powerful way to improve your GRE Verbal score is to work on your unconscious. Let’s discuss that approach.
Work on Your Unconscious to Achieve Flawless GRE Verbal Performance
You’ve likely had the following experience. You miss a multiple-choice question, and when you review the question, you see that you could have easily gotten it correct. Then, you wonder why you didn’t get it correct.
So, let’s discuss something that can cause us to miss questions we could have answered correctly: unconscious self-sabotage. In other words, we can have things going on unconsciously that cause us to miss questions or otherwise sabotage our test performance. Here are some examples I’ve seen.
Examples of Unconscious Self-Sabotage
A person who liked his life situation was unconsciously sabotaging his test performance because his achieving his score goal would have meant that he would change his life to attend graduate school. Another person perceived high scorers as arrogant. So, he was unconsciously sabotaging his test performance to keep himself from being arrogant. Others have unconsciously believed that they didn’t deserve to score high on their tests.
In general, unconscious conflicts with scoring high can cause you to miss questions.
Accordingly, one way to improve your test performance is to consider what you might have going on unconsciously and address it. For example, the person I mentioned who liked his life situation addressed that issue by committing to applying to graduate schools regardless of whether he achieved his ideal score. By eliminating the possibility that self-sabotage would allow him to continue to put off applying, he got himself to stop sabotaging his performance and achieved his goal.
Addressing Unconscious Self-Sabotage
The topic of working on your unconscious is too big to cover in depth in this article. However, you can start to work on your unconscious by asking yourself why you might unconsciously want to miss GRE questions and seeing what kinds of answers you come up with. Then, if you want to do more, you can read articles like this one to learn more about this powerful way to improve your test performance.
TTP PRO TIP:
To improve your GRE performance, consider what you might have going on unconsciously that could be sabotaging your performance and address those issues.
Of course, to get a 170 Verbal GRE score, you’ll have to effectively handle the GRE test experience itself. So, let’s now discuss learning to do that by taking GRE practice tests.
Take Multiple GRE Practice Tests
Ultimately, the purpose of all this test prep is to score 170 on GRE Verbal on test day. So, to set yourself up for success, make the GRE your game by taking practice tests.
The best GRE practice tests are the official PowerPrep tests, but you don’t need to limit yourself to those. You can take third-party tests as well.
You can start off taking the free PowerPrep test and see how you do. If you score close to 170, then you could move straight to the paid PowerPrep Plus test. Otherwise, you may want to add some third-party tests to the mix. Third-party tests may not be perfect representations of the actual GRE and may not generate accurate scores. Still, you can still use them to practice finding your way to the answer to one question after another under time pressure.
The more practice tests you take, the more skilled and comfortable in handling the GRE test experience you’ll be.
TTP PRO TIP:
To set yourself up for GRE success, take practice tests to become skilled in handling the test experience.
There is one more thing that makes sense to discuss here: supporting your success by taking care of your health and wellness.
Maintain Your Health and Wellness to Support Success
Your degree of health and wellness has a significant effect on performance both in test preparation and on the GRE. So, an important aspect of your GRE prep is taking care of your health and wellness.
As you prepare for the GRE, be conscious of taking care of your health and wellness by doing things such as consuming healthy foods, staying hydrated, exercising, and getting sufficient sleep. Also, take care of your emotional health. Often, people have trouble achieving their GRE score goals because of something they have going on emotionally. For instance, issues related to anger or anxiety can make performing at your best difficult.
TTP PRO TIP:
Take care of your health and wellness to perform at your best when preparing for and taking the GRE.
OK, having covered multiple multiple aspects of achieving a perfect GRE Verbal score, let’s review what we’ve discussed.
Summary: How to Get 170 in GRE Verbal
- Develop a winning mindset by realizing that you can achieve what other people have achieved and by adopting a growth mindset.
- Prepare to correctly answer every GRE Verbal question you see by studying vocabulary extensively.
- Master GRE Verbal topics one at a time to master the entire GRE Verbal section.
- Achieve high accuracy by shooting for long streaks of correct answers and, ultimately, 100-percent accuracy when practicing, analyzing every error you make, and learning to do whatever it takes to get questions correct.
- Work on your unconscious to achieve flawless GRE Verbal performance.
- Take multiple GRE practice tests to become skilled in and comfortable handling the GRE test experience.
- Take care of your health and wellness to maximize your performance and support your success.
What’s Next?
Now that you better understand how to score 170 on GRE Verbal, you may be interested in learning how to increase your GRE quant score. Also, check out this post that details the learning phases of preparing for the GRE.
