Advanced Text Completion: Three-Blank Questions
Three-blank text completion questions appear on both the medium and hard sections but are more common and more complex in the hard (high-difficulty) second section. These questions require filling three blanks in a multi-sentence passage, with three answer choices per blank and no partial credit. Advanced three-blank questions often involve two related ideas with a logical dependency between blanks. The key strategy is to identify the logical chain: which blank creates the premise that determines the meaning of another blank? Begin with the blank whose context is most explicitly constrained, then use that answer to narrow choices for dependent blanks. Common logical structures in three-blank questions: Causal chains (A causes B, which causes C — fill A first); Contrast-then-illustration (Sentence 1 makes a claim, Sentence 2 contradicts it, Sentence 3 illustrates the contradiction); and Attribution (the passage attributes a quality to someone, then qualifies or intensifies that attribution). Advanced vocabulary traps in three-blank questions: answer choices at the high-difficulty level are often distinguished by connotation or degree rather than meaning. For example, between 'criticize,' 'censure,' and 'excoriate,' all mean to criticize, but 'excoriate' implies severe, public denunciation while 'censure' implies formal official criticism. The GRE will use precisely the word whose degree matches the passage context.