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Admission Tests GRE - GRE General Test

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Total 407 questions

The (i)_________between the scholar's arguments and their (ii)_________has long been evident: the arguments

claim that we live in a world of rhetoric and contingency, but the arguer presents her claim as anything but rhetorical and contingent.

A.

contradiction

B.

progression

C.

manage

D.

moans of dispatch

E.

critical reception

F.

lack of absolutism

The politician's record while in office, though (i)_________- hardly accounts for her high standing three decades later

—a standing all the more (it)_________because of continuing assaults on her reputation during those years.

A.

bewildering

B.

admirable

C.

unappreciated

D.

unusual regrettable

E.

persistent

Normally, seeds of Emmenathe penduliflora stay dormant for years and germinate only when a fire burns through their habitat. Nitrogen dioxide in the smoke induces the seeds to germinate. Fires clear the brush, allowing germinating seeds to receive the sunlight they need to grow. The plants mature quickly, produce seeds, and then die. In areas with heavy automobile traffic, however, the seed germinates in the absence of lire, with automobile exhaust supplying the required nitrogen dioxide.

The information given, if accurate, most strongly supports which of the following hypotheses?

A.

Fires in the habitat of £. pendulijlora do not entirely destroy the plant's seeds even in the places where the fires burn most intensely.

B.

The nitrogen dioxide in automobile exhaust eannot harm plants of E. pendulijlora after germination.

C.

If human intervention decreases the number of fires in the habitat off. pendulijlora. automobile exhaust can replicate the conditions the plant requires in order to thrive.

D.

Within the habitat of E. pendulijlora . natural fires are significantly more frequent in areas with heavy automobile traffic than they are in other areas.

E.

Unless E. pendulijlora seeds that have germinated can survive in the shade, automobile exhaust threatens the long-term survival of the plant in areas with heavy automobile traffic.

When applied to written records, the word "preservation" is fraught with multiple meanings and connotations For some archivists, preservation involves the attempt to save artifacts from physical deterioration and is synonymous with the conservation of original documents. For archivists with a contrary view the overriding obligation is to save intellectual content through the use of surrogates. Thus the original earners of information are seen as superfluous and consequently disposable The practice of microfilming old newspapers and discarding the originals is one example of such preservation. On yet another level, preservation considers whether limited storage space should be allotted indefinitely to materials that are rarely consulted or whether certain items are so peripheral to current interests that they should be discarded altogether to ensure a home for more-pert inent materials.

It can be inferred that which of the following approaches to preservation would be unacceptable to "some archivists: but acceptable to the archivists with a contrary views as the two groups positions are described in the passage?

A.

Displaying a historical document in a glass case m order to allow the public to view the document without damaging it

B.

Scanning a governor's handwritten commentary on political correspondence into a computer file and disposing of the originals in order to save physical space

C.

Destroying videotapes containing eyewitness accounts of news events if the files have not been viewed by anyone in the previous five years

Lohr's (i)_________the trappings of literary celebrity creates a Romantic aura tor him: by distancing himself from all public discourse about himself or his work. Lohr becomes an even greater, albeit more (ii)_________. celebrity than most authors manage in all their interviews and memoirs.

A.

refusal to wear

B.

renowned

C.

eagerness to understand

D.

appealing

E.

inability to renounce

F.

mysterious

Although a Inch concentration of cholesterol in the blood increases the body's ability to fight off infections it typically also increases the risk of dying from a stroke or heart attack, two of the most common causes of death However, in a recently completed ten-year study of people eighty-five and older, higher cholesterol levels tended to be associated with greater longevity.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the contrast between the highlighted effect of high cholesterol levels and the result of the study?

A.

Both heart attacks and strokes are typically brought on by an obstruction of the flow of blood through a blood vessel.

B.

Blood cholesterol levels can be controlled in part by suitable dietary regimens

C.

Among the participants m the study, the proportion with very high blood cholesterol levels was higher than among the general population.

D.

Regular monitoring of the participants in the study revealed that most of them maintained relatively stable blood cholesterol levels over tune.

E.

As people age. the body's ability to fight off infections diminishes.

Discussions of the collapse of the lowland Maya are not new. However, it might be better to say that Maya civilization as a whole did not collapse, although many zones did experience profound change. Because societies are not bounded, unitary entities. collapses are rarely total, and continuity is a normal pan of collapse At the end of the Classic period [200 900 C.E.]. the institution of divine kingship and many of the well-known markers of elite culture such as carved stelae [slabs erected for funerals or commemorative purposes] and hieroglyphic polychromes [multicolored artistic pottery) ended, but Maya civilization continued in modified form with many important features intact (e.g.. literacy, war. art. the production of fine ceramics). In some cases large buildings were constructed in the Postclassic period [900-1512 C.E.], but the transition to the Early Postclassic [900-1200 CXj era is distinctive for a decrease in elite goods and contexts. The variability in artifact changes during the Terminal Classic [800-900 C.E.] and into the Postclassic. even within artifact classes (e.g.. fine versus unslipped ceramics), suggests weaker centralized control than during the Classic period. Site abandonments in the Terminal Classic indicate the collapse of the functional ability of Maya states, but sites that survived show that Maya civilization continued albeit without divine kingship and much of the spectacle around it.

The passage suggests which of the following about Maya living after the Terminal Classic in "sites that survived"?

A.

Their customs were identical to those of their ancestors.

B.

Their pottery was totally utilitarian in nature.

C.

They no longer created caned stelae.

D.

They stopped erecting large buildings.

E.

They did not use written language.

Larvae of many marine invertebrate species delay their metamorphosis into juveniles when cues signaling an appropriate juvenile environment are absent, thereby increasing then* likelihood of thriving as juveniles and of ultimately reaching adulthood Nevertheless, delayed metamorphosis has potential costs for juveniles including reduced growth and increased mortality Nearly all evidence of such costs involves species whose larvae do not feed but rather subsist on stored nutrients, indicating that insufficient energy reserves may be an underlying cause of these costs. Supporting this hypothesis are laboratory studies showing that in a certain bryozoan. the prolonged larval swimming that results from delayed metamorphosis is associated with size reductions in the juvenile feeding organ (the lophophore) and that one factor influencing the size of juveniles of certain barnacle species is how long larvae delay metamorphosis However, other studies show that while significantly fewer juvenile Capitella worms survived to adulthood when metamorphosis had been delayed, prolonged larval swimming had no significant effect on juvenile size, suggesting, perhaps, that in some species, factors other than insufficient energy reserves account for the negative effects of the larval stresses that result from delayed metamorphosis.

The "hypothesis" implies that compared to marine invertebrate larvae that subsist on stored nutrients, marine invertebrate larvae that feed are less likely to

A.

exhibit prolonged larval swimming as a result of delayed metamorphosis

B.

experience negative effects as a result of delayed metamorphosis

C.

thrive as juveniles in environments inappropriate for juveniles

D.

delay metamorphosis in the absence of appropriate environmental cues

E.

delay metamorphosis for an extended period of time

Some archaeologists speculate that the Americas might have been initially colonized between 40.000 and 25.000 years ago. However, to support this theory it is necessary to explain the absence of generally accepted habitation sites for that time interval in what is now the United States. Australia, which has a smaller land area than the United States, has many such sites, supporting the generally accepted claim that the continent was colonized by humans at least 40.000 years ago. Australia is less densely populated (resulting in lower chances of discovering sites) and with its overall greater aridity would have presented conditions less favorable for hunter-gatherer occupation. Proportionally, at least as much land area has been lost from the coastal regions of Australia because of postglacial sea-level rise as in the United States, so any coastal archaeological record in Australia should have been depleted about as much as a coastal record in the United States. Since there are so many resource-rich rivers leading inland from the United States coastline, it seems implausible that a growing population of humans would have confined itself to coasts for thousands of years. If inhabitants were present 25.000 years ago. the chances of their appearing in the archaeological record would seem to be greater than for Australia.

The passage is primarily concerned with doing winch of the following?

A.

Presenting an objection to a claim

B.

Accounting for an apparent anomaly

C.

Outlining an alternative interpretation

D.

Correcting a particular misconception

E.

Questioning the validity of a comparison

There is a long-standing historical presumption that social custom during ihe early years of the United States forbade women from public speaking. In fact, though, the standard mode of education of the 1790s and early 1800s. which emphasized oral recitation and performance, taught girls that educated and well-spoken women had an important role to play in American society. By depicting skilled speech as a necessary talent for women in a civilized society, elocutionary education encouraged a certain degree of female ambition and even political involvement. Transmitted via standard, inexpensive schoolbooks. this message reached virtually all who read schoolbooks or attended schools. This environment did not last long, however: even by the 1S10s. attitudes about women's education had changed considerably.

The passage suggests that women's education during the IS 10s differed from women's education during the 1790s and early 1800s in that women's education during the 1810s

A.

placed less emphasis on public speaking

B.

emphasized the relationship between rhetorical skills and civic virtue

C.

assumed that women could become politically active

D.

was based on a more modem vision of what constituted civilized society

E.

suffered from the reduced availability of inexpensive textbooks