GRE Verbal Reasoning Grammar Tutorial on Noun, Pronoun, Adjective etc.
The GRE does not test you on grammar. Or so, you think. But to solve questions in GRE Text Completion and Reading Comprehension, you need to apply your knowledge of grammar.
Noun
A noun can be a place, thing, person or attribute. Nouns are classified as proper nouns and common nouns. Proper nouns include names of people and places. Common nouns can refer to basic things and attributes.
Here is a list of proper nouns:
- Harry Potter
- Hermione Granger
- Ron Weasley
- Hogwarts
- Great Britain
- Australia
- New York City
Here is a list of common nouns:
- Thing
- Book
- Phone
- Adulation
- Love
- Hatred
- Vow
When you use common nouns in sentences, they are used as such while proper nouns need to be capitalised.
Example: Ram left for New York City to catch his flight to San Francisco.
The Jim Corbett National Park is famous for its tigers.
Subject/Object
We have seen that the subject is the main entity if the sentence and everything else is built around it. An object is also a noun and it is a secondary noun associated with the subject.
Who killed whom? (‘Who’ is the subject here and ‘Whom’ is the object)
Molly killed Bellatrix. (Molly: Subject. Bellatrix: Object)
Bellatrix had earlier killed Sirius. (Bellatrix: Subject. Sirius: Object)
Pronoun
Use the right pronoun for nouns.
Hermione is a gifted witch. But she is not an expert with potions.
Ron is scared of spiders. He shivers when he sees them.
Harry, Ron and Hermione went in search of Hagrid but they couldn’t find him.
Hagrid’s dog, Fang hates the dark and it makes a lousy hunting dog.
Adjectives
Adjectives describe a noun. They add an attribute to the given noun. A rose is a noun. When you add the word, ‘red’ which is an adjective, you add the attribute of red colour to the rose. Red qualifies rose here. Red is an adjective while rose is a noun.
Here are examples of adjectives:
A handsome Harry Potter manoeuvred the tough broomstick over a rough atmospheric terrain with his expert navigation skills.
I read the news today, oh boyÂ
About a lucky man who made the gradeÂ
And though the news was rather sadÂ
Well I just had to laughÂ
I saw the photograph
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn’t notice that the red lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They’d seen his face before
Also Read:
GRE Grammar Tutorial Part-II
GRE Reading Comprehension
BYJU’S will be glad to help you in your GRE preparation journey. You can ask for any assistance related to GRE from us by just giving a missed call at +918884544444, or you can drop an SMS. You can write to us at gre@byjus.com.