Overview
The study used the BNC-COCA word family list to investigate the vocabulary requirements for the Verbal Reasoning sections of the GMAT and GRE. The results show that the GMAT Verbal Reasoning section required candidates to know fewer word families than the GRE Verbal Reasoning section on average. Specifically, the GMAT required 6,000 to 7,000 word families on average, whereas the GRE required 9,000 word families on average. The advantage of the GMAT over the GRE was not much regarding vocabulary requirements for reading passages. However, for non-passage items, the GMAT required 6,000 word families on average, whereas the GRE required 11,000 word families on average. The findings of the study suggest that the GMAT exam may be easier to prepare than the GRE exam for candidates who do not have a large vocabulary.