GRE-TEST Online Practice Questions and Answers

Harriet Monroe, who founded Poetry: A Magazine of Verse in 1912. argued that the more heterogeneous and sprawling the modem world became, the more poetry needed "an entrenched place, a voice of power." But this goal could only be realized if poets were valued in ways that encouraged them to participate in the world and made writing verse economically viable. Monroe argued that poets needed sites of institutional opportunity like those that had been developed for visual artists, architects, and musicians. She believed that the hand-wringing anticapitalism dominating genteel literary* culture--particularly the idea that poetry ought to be removed from "sordid" pecuniary considerations--brought no economic and only illusory aesthetic benefits, instead severing poets from meaningful participation in the modern world.

The author mentions "visual artists, nrchitecis. and musicians" primarily lo

A. note a challenge that Monroe faced when attempting to implement her ideas

B. highlight what Monroe regarded as a contrast between the economic needs of poets and those of other artists

C. explain Monroe's ideas about measures that would advance poetry

D. acknowledge that anticapitalism had not hail undesirable consequences for all art forms

E. illustrate the point that some art forms are inherently more economically viable than others

Sensationalism--the purveyance of emotionally charged content. focused mainly on violent crime, to a broad public--has often been decried, but the full history of the phenomenon has yet to be written. Scholars have tended to dismiss sensationalism as unworthy of serious study, based on two pervasive though somewhat incompatible assumptions: first, that sensationalism is essentially a commercial product, built on the exploitation of modern mass media, and second, that it appeals almost entirely to a simple, basic emotion and thus has little history apart from the changing technological means of spreading it. An exploration of sensationalism's early history, however, challenges both assumptions and suggests that they have tended to obscure the complexity and historicity of the genre.

In the context in which it appears, "charged" most nearly means A. electrified

B. accused

C. attacked

D. fraught

E. admonished

The public has not reacted favorably to the majority of the policies adopted by the present government. If. however, the electoral landslide by which the government achieved power five years ago was. as is often claimed, a mandate for more conservative policies, then the public response to most of the government's policies would have been favorable.

If the statements in the passage are true, which of the following must also be true on the basis of them?

A. The public would have reacted more favorably to the policies adopted by the present government if those policies had been more conservative.

B. Most of the people who voted for the present government would have voted for an opposition party if they had not been misled about the policies that would be adopted.

C. None of the policies adopted by the present government to which the public has responded favorably are conservative policies.

D. The electoral landslide by which the present government achieved power was not a mandate for more conservative policies.

E. The present government will be voted out of office at the next election.

Female Australian Dunatothrips [small, sap-sucking insects] create tent-like structures on the surface of leaves to protect themselves and their eggs and larvae from desiccation in the arid Australian climate. Bono and Crespi compared survival and reproduction of thrips tliat founded structures alone with those in groups of two or more individuals. They found that although per capita egg production fell with increasing group size, foundresses were more likely to survive and lay eggs in groups than when alone. Several studies of other species of nest-building insects have concluded that foundress associations are beneficial to all parties. It is likely that the relative success of groups is at least in part accounted for by a reduction of energy use in the modification of a shared nest.

According to the passage. Bono and Crespi's findings showed that

A. structures built by foundresses working collectively tend to be larger than those built by solitary foundresses

B. the relationship between per capita egg production and group size in Australian Dunatothrips is different from that in other species

C. solitary thrips on average lay more eggs than thrips that founded structures in groups

D. foundresses in groups of two or three tended to survive longer than foundresses in larger groups of thrips

E. group size in Australian Dunatothrips can be expected to vary from year to year depending in part on the aridity of the climate

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 [200-900C.E.]. the institution of divine kingship and many of the well-known markers of elite culture such a-, caned 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 [900-1200C.E.] 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.. line 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. According to the passage, which of the following statements about the institution of divine kingship is true?

A. It remained strong through the end of the Classic period.

B. It was not a feature of the Poslclassic period.

C. Its demise led to the collapse of Maya civilization.

D. Its importance has been overestimated by many scholars.

E. Its spectacle became too onerous a burden for Maya society to support.

Which of die following is a reasoning error committed by the argument?

A. It contuses being the first to discover a method of achieving a certain goal with being the first to publish that method.

B. It treats a condition that is necessary* to achieve a certain goal as though it were sufficient to achieve that goal.

C. It supposes that if something is essential to one way of achieving a certain goal, then it is essential to any way of achieving that goal.

D. It fails to distinguish adequately between methods of achieving a certain goal available at one time and methods of achieving that goal available at another time.

E. It claims that a person who did not originate a method for achieving a certain goal would not understand that method.

As originally formulated, the selfish-herd theory of prey species aggregation assumed that predatory attacks were equally likely to be launched from any position within the environment. In some circumstances (e.g.. avian predators attacking prey from above), such an approach is appropriate. However, as James et at. argue, in many predator-prey associations, attacks are unlikely to occur from positions within the group. For example, it is likely that an ambushing predator waiting in the path of a group would be detected before the group moves over its position. Hence, in many ecological situations, predatory attacks on grouped prey will occur exclusively from outside the group. In such circumstances, there is a strong premium to a group member in being in the interior of the group.

The passage suggests that compared to members of the prey groups in "some circumstances." certain members of the prey groups in "many ecological situations" are likely to be less

A. skilled at detecting ambushing predators

B. vulnerable to predator attacks

C. able to reach escape routes to avoid predators

In each of the years after year A", the Alden family budgeted S200 more for savings than it budgeted for savings the previous year. What is the total amount that the Alden family budgeted for savings over the 10 years beginning with year A"?

A. $30,000

B. $32,000

C. $36,000

D. $39.000

E. $42,000

-5, -3, -1, 0, 10, 20

How many different sums can be obtained by adding two different numbers from the list shown?

A. 11

B. 12

C. 13

D. 14

A car service charges S5 for the first mile of a trip and S2 for each additional mile or part thereof. If the car service charges SI01 for an //-mile trip, where // is an integer, what is the value of n ?

A. 47

B. 48

C. 49

D. 50

E. 51