Common Type of Analogies
Common Types of Analogies Used on the GRE
To be successful at solving GRE analogies, you need to be able to form a sentence defining the relationship between the key words of this question. The sentence you form should be tightly focused on the key relationship between the words. To help you formulate these sentences, this handout gives you the main types of relationships that the GRE uses in formulating analogy problems. To better help you remember these types we have grouped the 21 types into four general categories.
Group A: Definitions
These types of analogies play off of the grammatical relationship between the words. As such, they tend to be highly specific regarding meaning. In other words, these types of analogies usually rely on very strict meanings of the words involved.
• Definition Coward : Brave A coward is by definition not brave
• Antonyms Miser : Spendthrift A miser is the opposite of a spendthrift
• Synonyms Interloper : Intruder An interloper is an intruder
• Level of Intensity Mad : Furious Furious is more extreme than mad
Group B: Traits and Subsets
These kind of analogies concern what you might call the adjective-subset type of analogies. In these types of analogies, one word will generally be a noun and the other word will be either an adjective describing a trait of the noun OR another noun that describes a subset of the first noun.
• Part to Whole Star : Galaxy Many stars make a galaxy
• Defining Characteristic Slippery : Ice Ice is slippery
• Class and Member Eucalyptus : Tree A Eucalyptus is a type of tree
• Manner Boisterous : Speak Boisterous is to speak loudly
• Sex Ewe : Sheep A ewe is a female sheep
• Age Puppy : Dog A puppy is a young dog
Group C: Worker and Work
These types of analogies
To be successful at solving GRE analogies, you need to be able to form a sentence defining the relationship between the key words of this question. The sentence you form should be tightly focused on the key relationship between the words. To help you formulate these sentences, this handout gives you the main types of relationships that the GRE uses in formulating analogy problems. To better help you remember these types we have grouped the 21 types into four general categories.
Group A: Definitions
These types of analogies play off of the grammatical relationship between the words. As such, they tend to be highly specific regarding meaning. In other words, these types of analogies usually rely on very strict meanings of the words involved.
• Definition Coward : Brave A coward is by definition not brave
• Antonyms Miser : Spendthrift A miser is the opposite of a spendthrift
• Synonyms Interloper : Intruder An interloper is an intruder
• Level of Intensity Mad : Furious Furious is more extreme than mad
Group B: Traits and Subsets
These kind of analogies concern what you might call the adjective-subset type of analogies. In these types of analogies, one word will generally be a noun and the other word will be either an adjective describing a trait of the noun OR another noun that describes a subset of the first noun.
• Part to Whole Star : Galaxy Many stars make a galaxy
• Defining Characteristic Slippery : Ice Ice is slippery
• Class and Member Eucalyptus : Tree A Eucalyptus is a type of tree
• Manner Boisterous : Speak Boisterous is to speak loudly
• Sex Ewe : Sheep A ewe is a female sheep
• Age Puppy : Dog A puppy is a young dog
Group C: Worker and Work
These types of analogies