GRE "previous year papers" are not a thing you can practise from. The test is delivered year-round and is section-adaptive, so no two candidates are guaranteed the same set of questions, and no past live forms are published. What ETS does publish is the question types and, in its own practice material, examples of them. The twelve questions below are drawn from the Myndaq practice bank and are not reproductions of any official item. They cover every Verbal and Quant question type, each with a worked answer and the method it rewards, alongside the Myndaq GRE course.
The pattern you are practising for
- About 1 hour 58 minutes, no scheduled break.
- Analytical Writing first — one Analyze an Issue task, 30 minutes.
- Verbal Reasoning — 12 questions in 18 minutes, then 15 in 23 minutes.
- Quantitative Reasoning — 12 questions in 21 minutes, then 15 in 26 minutes; basic on-screen calculator.
- Section-level adaptive — the second section of each measure depends on how you did on the first.
- Verbal question types: Reading Comprehension (about half the measure), Text Completion, Sentence Equivalence.
- Quant formats: Quantitative Comparison, multiple choice with one answer, multiple choice with one or more answers, Numeric Entry, sometimes in data interpretation sets.
- Scores: Verbal and Quant 130–170, Analytical Writing 0–6.
Within a section you can mark questions, go back and change answers, so a hard question is never worth getting stuck on.
Text Completion
Question 1 — one blank. The committee's report was criticised as overly __________; rather than taking a firm position on the controversial proposal, it offered vague generalities that could be read as supporting either side.
- A. candid
- B. partisan
- C. exhaustive
- D. incisive
- E. equivocal
Answer: E, equivocal. The second half of the sentence defines the blank: "vague generalities that could be read as supporting either side" is equivocation. Candid and incisive mean the opposite; partisan means taking a side, which is exactly what the report did not do.
Method: before looking at the options, write your own word for the blank from the sentence's clue. Then pick the option closest to it.
Question 2 — two blanks. Once the company's finances were scrutinised, the CFO's reputation — formerly (i) __________ — became (ii) __________, tarnished by revelations of systematic misreporting.
- Blank (i): questionable / negligible / impeccable
- Blank (ii): irreparable / restored / consolidated
Answer: impeccable, irreparable. Formerly signals a reversal, and "tarnished by revelations" fixes the direction: from very good to very bad. Blank (ii) is easier, so solve it first — restored and consolidated are the wrong direction — and let it confirm blank (i).
Question 3 — three blanks. The committee's report was notable for its (i) __________ language: every recommendation was carefully hedged, every statistic accompanied by extensive caveats, and the overall tone suggested that the authors were more concerned with appearing (ii) __________ than with providing the clear guidance that practitioners in the field so urgently (iii) __________.
- Blank (i): incendiary / equivocal / authoritative
- Blank (ii): impartial / decisive / erudite
- Blank (iii): disputed / overlooked / required
Answer: equivocal, impartial, required. "Carefully hedged" and "extensive caveats" define blank (i). "More concerned with appearing ___ than with providing clear guidance" needs a quality the authors preferred to clarity — appearing balanced, so impartial; decisive would contradict the hedging. Practitioners "so urgently" required the guidance. Solve the blank with the clearest clue first, then check that all three read as one coherent sentence.
Sentence Equivalence
Question 4. Even his most loyal supporters conceded that the candidate's grasp of economic policy was __________, betraying gaps that a few pointed questions quickly exposed.
Select the two answer choices that complete the sentence and produce sentences alike in meaning.
- A. superficial
- B. shallow
- C. dubious
- D. flawed
- E. erratic
- F. deceptive
Answer: A and B. "Gaps that a few pointed questions quickly exposed" describes a lack of depth, and superficial and shallow both say that. Dubious and deceptive suggest dishonesty, erratic inconsistency, and flawed is too general. The trap in this type is picking two synonyms that do not fit the sentence, or one word that fits with a partner that does not match it.
Reading Comprehension
Passage. The medieval guild was far more than a trade association. In addition to setting standards for the quality of goods and regulating prices, the guild governed the entry of new workers into a craft. A young person hoping to become, say, a weaver would first serve as an apprentice, living in the master's household for several years and receiving training in exchange for labor. Upon completing the apprenticeship, the worker became a journeyman, paid a wage and free to seek employment in various workshops. Only after producing a piece that demonstrated full mastery of the craft could a journeyman petition to become a master and open an independent shop. Guilds also offered a measure of social welfare, supporting members who fell ill and providing for the families of those who died. In these ways the guild bound economic activity tightly to community obligation, blurring any sharp line between commerce and mutual aid.
Question 5. The main idea of the passage is that the medieval guild
- A. combined economic regulation with social and community functions
- B. existed primarily to keep the prices of goods artificially high
- C. prevented young people from entering skilled crafts
- D. was chiefly a charitable organization for the sick and bereaved
Answer: A. The first sentence ("far more than a trade association") and the last ("blurring any sharp line between commerce and mutual aid") frame the whole passage. B and D each take one part and inflate it to "primarily" or "chiefly"; C contradicts the apprenticeship route.
Question 6. According to the passage, a journeyman differed from an apprentice in that the journeyman
- A. received a wage and could seek work in different workshops
- B. lived in the master's household during training
- C. was permitted to open an independent shop immediately
- D. set the prices for goods sold by the guild
Answer: A. "Paid a wage and free to seek employment in various workshops." B describes the apprentice; C skips the masterpiece step.
Passage. An economist studying a mid-sized city observed that neighborhoods with more coffee shops per capita also reported higher average household incomes than neighborhoods with fewer coffee shops. On the basis of this correlation, the economist recommended that the city encourage the opening of new coffee shops in lower-income neighborhoods as a strategy for raising the incomes of residents in those areas. The economist reasoned that since prosperous neighborhoods are densely served by such establishments, introducing more of them into poorer areas would produce similar prosperity. The recommendation was presented to the city council as a low-cost intervention that could be implemented through modest tax incentives for new businesses. The economist emphasized that the strength of the observed correlation across dozens of neighborhoods made the relationship between coffee shops and income difficult to dismiss as mere coincidence.
Question 7. Which of the following identifies the central flaw in the economist's reasoning?
- A. The economist relies on data from only a single city rather than several cities.
- B. The economist treats a correlation between coffee shops and income as evidence that the coffee shops cause the higher income, when the higher income may instead attract the coffee shops.
- C. The economist fails to specify exactly how many coffee shops would be needed in each neighborhood.
- D. The economist does not address whether residents prefer coffee to other beverages.
Answer: B. Correlation presented as causation, with the likely direction reversed. A is a real limitation but not the central flaw; the argument would fail even with data from fifty cities. The last sentence — the strength of the correlation — is a decoy: a strong correlation does not establish which way the cause runs.
Quantitative Comparison
The four choices used for Quantitative Comparison here are: Quantity A is greater; Quantity B is greater; the two are equal; the relationship cannot be determined from the information given.
Question 8. Let f(x) = x² + 1. Quantity A: f(2). Quantity B: f(−3).
Answer: Quantity B is greater. f(2) = 5 and f(−3) = 10. Squaring removes the sign, so the input with the larger absolute value wins.
Question 9. x is a nonzero real number. Quantity A: |x − 3|. Quantity B: |x| − 3.
Answer: the relationship cannot be determined. Try x = 4: both equal 1. Try x = 1: A is 2, B is −2. Two test values giving two different relationships settle it. Method: when a variable is unrestricted, test a positive value, a negative value, a fraction and zero if allowed — here zero is ruled out, which is itself a hint that the answer turns on sign.
Multiple choice, one answer
Question 10. When a positive integer n is divided by 5 the remainder is 3, and when n is divided by 7 the remainder is 4. What is the smallest such value of n?
- A. 18
- B. 23
- C. 28
- D. 33
- E. 38
Answer: A, 18. List the numbers that leave remainder 3 on division by 5 — 3, 8, 13, 18 — and test each on division by 7: 3, 8 and 13 leave 3, 1 and 6, but 18 = 2 × 7 + 4. Listing beats algebra here: four candidates in under a minute.
Question 11. A boat travels 36 miles downstream in the same time it takes to travel 24 miles upstream. If the speed of the current is 3 miles per hour, what is the speed of the boat in still water, in miles per hour?
- A. 9
- B. 12
- C. 15
- D. 18
- E. 30
Answer: C, 15. Equal times: 36 / (b + 3) = 24 / (b − 3), so 36b − 108 = 24b + 72, 12b = 180 and b = 15. Check by back-solving: at 15, downstream is 18 mph and 36/18 = 2 hours; upstream is 12 mph and 24/12 = 2 hours. On the GRE, back-solving from the middle option is often faster than setting up the equation.
Multiple choice, one or more answers
Question 12. Triangle ABC has a right angle at C, with AC = 9 and BC = 12. Indicate all statements that must be true.
- A. AB = 15
- B. The area of triangle ABC is 54
- C. sin(angle B) = 3/5
- D. The perimeter of triangle ABC is 36
- E. AB = 21
Answer: A, B, C and D. 9-12-15 is the 3-4-5 triangle scaled by 3, so AB = 15. Area = ½ × 9 × 12 = 54. The side opposite B is AC = 9, so sin B = 9/15 = 3/5. Perimeter = 9 + 12 + 15 = 36. E adds the legs. Test each option separately rather than stopping after the first one that works — the instruction is to indicate all that must be true.
How to use practice like this
Practise by format, then by clock. Verbal allows about 1.5 minutes per question and Quant about 1.7, so a method you have to reconstruct will not survive the timer. Log every miss by type — a run of Sentence Equivalence misses is a vocabulary-in-context problem; a run of Quantitative Comparison misses is usually a failure to test enough cases. For the content list and structure, see the GRE syllabus and sections; for a full study plan, see the GRE preparation guide.
Quick answers
Are there GRE previous year question papers?
No. No past live forms are published, and the test is adaptive by section. Practise each question type instead.
What are the GRE Verbal question types?
Reading Comprehension, Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence. Reading Comprehension is about half of the measure.
What are the GRE Quant question types?
Quantitative Comparison, multiple choice with one answer, multiple choice with one or more answers, and Numeric Entry, sometimes grouped as data interpretation sets.
Can I skip and come back to GRE questions?
Within a section, yes: you can mark questions, review them and change answers before the section ends.
How much time do I have per GRE question?
On average about 1.5 minutes in Verbal (27 questions in 41 minutes) and about 1.7 in Quant (27 in 47).
