Sentence Equivalence Questions
Like Text Completion questions, Sentence Equivalence questions test the ability to reach a
conclusion about how a passage should be completed on the basis of partial information, but to a
greater extent they focus on the meaning of the completed whole. Sentence Equivalence questions
consist of a single sentence with
just one blank, and they ask you to find two choices that lead to a
complete, coherent sentence while producing sentences that mean the same thing.
Question Structure
•
Consists of:
o
a single sentence
o
one blank
o
six answer choices
•
Requires
you to select
two
of the answer choices; no credit for partially correct answers.
Tips for Answering
Do not simply look among the answer choices for two words that mean the same thing. This can be
misleading for two reasons. First, the answer choices may contain pairs of
words that mean the
same thing but do not fit coherently into the sentence. Second, the pair of words that do constitute
the correct answer may not mean exactly the same thing, since all that matters is that the resultant
sentences mean the same thing.
•
Read the sentence to get an overall sense of it.
•
Identify words or phrases that
seem particularly significant, either because they emphasize
the structure of the sentence (words like
although
or
moreover
) or because they are central
to understanding what the sentence is about.
•
Try to fill in the blank with a word that seems appropriate to you and then see
if two similar
words are offered among the answer choices. If you find some word that is similar to what
you are expecting but cannot find a second one, do not become fixated on your
interpretation; instead, see whether there are other words among the answer choices that
can be used to fill the blank coherently.
•
When you have selected
your pair of answer choices, check to make sure that each one
produces a sentence that is logically, grammatically and stylistically
coherent, and that the
two sentences mean the same thing.
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