Another tactic for answering analogy questions is to eliminate obviously incorrect choices. For example, even without knowing the original analogy, consider the following choices which are given to you as possible answers:
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monkey: primate |
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apple: satellite |
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glove: compartment |
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expedition: vice |
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baggage: precedence |
Quickly glancing at the choices, note that for each answer choice, both the first word and the second word is a noun, so there's no way to eliminate choices based on parts of speech. However, only two of the possible choices make sense; or, rather, for only two of the possible choices is there any relevant relationship. Remember that the analogy relationships on the GRE are meant to be precise, so if you find yourself coming up with far-reaching analogies, chances are that you either don't know one of the vocabulary words or that there really is no analogy there. In this example, there is no obvious relationship between apple and satellite, expedition and vice, and baggage and precedence, and so only two possible answer choices are left, namely monkey:primate and glove:compartment, and we've been able to arrive at this conclusion without even knowing the original analogy question. Of course, most often you'll be confronted with only one, or at most two answer choices that aren't at all related by means of any simple or straight-forward analogy, but any choice that you eliminate as not being feasible helps you out as it will increase your chance of getting the right answer if you do have to guess.
Test Tip |
If you are down to making educated guesses, eliminate first those word pair choices that have no clear relationship because all GRE relationships are precise, and so any unlikely or far-reaching analogy choices cannot be the answer. |