Admission Tests GRE - GRE General Test

In 1755 British writer Samuel Johnson published .in acerbic letter to Lord Chesterfield rebuking his patron for neglect and declining further support. Johnson's rejection of his patron's belated assistance has often been identified as a key moment in the history of publishing, marking the end of the culture of patronage. However, patronage had been in decline for 50 years, yet would survive, in attenuated form, for another 50. Indeed. Johnson was in 1762 awarded a pension by the Crown—a subtle form of sponsorship, tantamount to state patronage. The importance of Johnson's letter is not so much historical as emotional: it would become a touchstone for all who repudiated patrons and for all who embraced the laws of the marketplace.

Which of the following best describes the function of the highlighted phrase in the context of the passage as a whole?

There is a rather________ reason for astronomers sudden interest in comets: most other bodies in the solar system have been explored already.

The inventory of confirmed planets outside our solar system is growing rapidly, although it is_________by the fact that it is easier to detect big planets than small ones and planets close to their parent stars than those farther away.

Business leaders who prefer centralized, pyramidal managerial structures to diversity and competition tend to (i)_________dissent in the decision-making process. But this insistence on (ii)_________can be dangerous in that it deprives decision makers of a full range of alternatives.

Recent research has identified_________bats' navigational tool, echolocation: smooth, vertical surfaces

such as the metal or glass plates on buildings can trick a bat into thinking it is flying in open air.

Ultimately the ethical implications of neuroscieuce may be (i)_________than those of genetics. The transformations of behavior possible by manipulating neurons are both more predictable and more thorough than what can be achieved by altering genes. Even if the ethical and practical constraints on genetic experimentation suddenly (ii)_________- we'd have to wait decades to see the outcome of such experiments. Altering the brain's functioning, by contrast, can produce startlingly (iii)_________results.

Because they require abstraction and generalization, many theories end up_________practical relevance as they tail to capture the richness and complexity of phenomena encountered in real settings.

The efficacy of a placebo may not _________ deception: inert sugar pills have been shown to reduce the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome even in patients who were explicitly told they were receiving a placebo.

Researchers concluded thai although the success of pearl millet crops in the region varied with seasonal

climatic conditions, cultivation remains_________because of pearl millet's predisposition to perform under

stressful growing conditions, including drought.

Many people eschewed botany as merely the_________business of renaming and reclassifying plants until the concern over Earth's loss of biodiversity brought botany into everyday discussions.