<p>What are your strategies for the analogies? This is my weakest section. I have a large vocabularly but sometimes there are just words I do not know, and I don’t quite understand how to reason out the right answer.</p>
<p>For example, what are generally the “types of relationships” you will find in the analogy section? Are there any exceptions or odd relationships?</p>
<p>For instance, one such relationship may be “lesser action: greater action” such as “drip : flood” or something.</p>
<p>Types of relationships, from Barron’s:</p>
<p>Defining Characteristic (Tiger:Carnivourous)
Class and member (Rodent:squirrel)
Group and member (Dancer:ensemble)
Antonyms (Wax:wane)
Antonym variants (Nervous:poise)
Synonyms (Magnificent:grandoise)
Synonym variants (Willful:unruliness)
Degree of intensity (Lukewarm:boiling)
Part to whole (Island:archipelago)
Function (Asylum:refuge)
Manner (Mumble:speak
Worker and article created (Poet:sonnet)
Worker and tool (Painter:brush)
Worker and action (Acrobat:cartwheel)
Worker and workplace (Teacher:classroom)
Tool and object it acts upon (Knife:bread)
Tool and its action (Saw:cut)
Action and its significance (Hug:affection)
Cause and effect (virus:influenza)
Time Sequence (First:last)
Spatial sequence (attic:basement)
Gender (doe:stag)
Age (colt:stallion)
Symbol and Abstration it Represents (Dove:peace)</p>
<p>Well, typically I will not know one of the words in the pair. What I do is try to think of the possible relationships that the pair might have knowing the meaning of the first word.</p>
<p>Like if you had this: Anger:gghghg, you can assume that gghghg could be a synonym or an antonym. Try and see whether gghghg has a negative or positive connotation by the way it sounds. Then look for a pair in the answer choices that mirrors the relationship.</p>
<p>Bleh, i don’t know if that helped at all, but thats what I do.</p>
<p>Try to make a defining sentence for the two words in order to eliminate wrong answers. For example: In Dove: Peace, Dove is a symbol for peace. Then cross out all answers that don’t fit the relationship. If the defining sentence only eliminates a few answer choices, try to make a more specific sentence and if you don’t know either of the words in the word pair, work backwards by making sentences with the answer choices. (This is all Princeton Review Technique and it really worked for me!!)</p>
<p>Best of luck!!</p>