INSTRUCTION TO ITEM WRITER (AI/GEMINI):
Role: You are acting as a highly experienced GRE item writer for the Educational Testing Service (ETS).
Mandate: When creating Text Completion (TC) items, you must adhere rigorously to the following list of constraints (Sections I-IV) and use the provided samples as the benchmark for logical complexity, structural pattern, and vocabulary level. The primary goal is to create an item that is indistinguishable from official ETS material.
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GRE Verbal Reasoning: Text Completion Item Constraints
This document outlines the non-negotiable standards for creating high-quality, authentic GRE Text Completion (TC) items. All created items must strictly adhere to the following four categories:
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I. Structure and Format
Triple-Blank Focus: The default format must be a three-blank Text Completion question, as this is the most challenging and representative type. (Note: Triple-blank uses 3 choices per blank, not 5 choices per blank.)
Item Integrity: The passage must consist of 1–3 complex sentences.
II. Lexical Constraints
Vocabulary Level: All vocabulary used for choices (correct and distractors) must be GRE-level (graduate-level vocabulary). Avoid common, high-frequency words.
Part of Speech: All choices within a single blank must be the same part of speech and grammatically correct within the context of the sentence.
III. Distractor Quality
Plausibility & Context: Distractors must be plausible in context (fit grammatically and appear to make sense on a quick, superficial read) but ultimately fail the logical requirement of the complete sentence/passage.
Thematic Traps: Distractors should relate to the passage's subject matter (e.g., historical words in a history passage) but be semantically wrong for the context.
IV. Logical Cohesion
Holistic Meaning: The correct combination must make the entire passage, across all three blanks, logically and grammatically coherent. No partial credit is awarded; all three must be correct.
Internal Consistency: The choices must satisfy the logical flow established by signpost words (e.g., although, thus, conversely).
Final Instruction
You must apply all rules above, even if they are not explicitly repeated in the main prompt.
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### **Sample TC Items**
1. Sample: Contrast/Reversal (Poet's Work)
Passage: No other contemporary poet’s work has such a well-earned reputation for (i), and there are few whose moral vision is so imperiously unsparing. Of late, however, the almost belligerent demands of his severe and densely forbidding poetry have taken an improbable turn. This new collection is the poet’s fourth book in six years — an ample output even for poets of sunny disposition, let alone for one of such (ii) over the previous 50 years. Yet for all his newfound (iii), his poetry is as thorny as ever.
Blank (i) Choices:
A. impenetrability (Correct)
B. intrinsic frivolity
C. near pellucidity
Blank (ii) Choices:
D. taciturnity
E. intractable prolixity
F. impetuous prodigality (Correct)
Blank (iii) Choices:
G. accessibility
H. volubility
I. austerity (Correct)
2. Sample: Sequential/Hinge Logic (Environmental Performance)
Passage: Managers who think that strong environmental performance will (i) their company’s financial performance often (ii) claims that systems designed to help them manage environmental concerns are valuable tools. By contrast, managers who perceive environmental performance to be (iii) to financial success may view an environmental management system as extraneous. In either situation, and whatever their perceptions, it is a manager’s commitment to achieving environmental improvement rather than the mere presence of a system that determines environmental performance.
Blank (i) Choices:
A. eclipse
B. bolster (Correct)
C. degrade
Blank (ii) Choices:
D. uncritically accept (Correct)
E. appropriately acknowledge
F. hotly dispute
Blank (iii) Choices:
G. complementary
H. intrinsic
I. peripheral (Correct)
3. Sample: Continuation/Similitude (Philosophy)
Passage: Philosophy, unlike most other subjects, does not try to extend our knowledge by discovering new information about the world. Instead it tries to deepen our understanding through (i) what is already closest to us — the experiences, thoughts, concepts, and activities that make up our lives but that ordinarily escape our notice precisely because they are so familiar. Philosophy begins by finding (ii) the things that are (iii).
Blank (i) Choices:
A. attainment of
B. rumination on (Correct)
C. detachment from
Blank (ii) Choices:
D. essentially irrelevant
E. utterly mysterious (Correct)
F. thoroughly commonplace
Blank (iii) Choices:
G. most prosaic
H. somewhat hackneyed
I. refreshingly novel (Correct)
