GRE GRE Certifications GRE-TEST Questions & Answers

• Question 101:

  The term "ragtime opera" was used frequently m the first years of the twentieth century, but more often than not its use was (i)_________. The very idea of "ragtime opera" was viewed as lii)_________: opera was regarded as the highest form of musical art; ragtime was at the opposite pole.

  A. unambiguous

  B. facetious

  C. cliche

  D. an exaggeration

  E. a self-contradiction

  F. an abstraction

  Correct Answer: B

• Question 102:

  The relevance of the literary personality--a writer's distinctive attitudes, concerns, and artistic choices--to the analysis of a literary work is being scrutinized by various schools of contemporary criticism. Deconstmctionists view the literary personality, like the writer's biographical personality, as irrelevant. The proper focus of literary analysis, they argue, is a work's intertextuality (interrelationship with other texts), subtexts (unspoken, concealed. or repressed discourses), and metatexts (self-referential aspects), not a perception of a writer's verbal and aesthetic "fingerprints." New historicists also devalue the literary personality, since, in their emphasis on a work's historical context, they credit a writer with only those insights and ideas that were generally available when the writer lived. However, to readers interested in literary detective work--say scholars of classical (Greek and Roman! literature who wish to reconstruct damaged texts or deduce a work's authorship-- the literary personality sometimes provides vital clues.

  It can be inferred from the passage that on the issue of how to analyze a literary work, the new historic its would most likely agree with the deconstructionists that

  A. the writer's insights and ideas should be understood in terms of the writer's historical context

  B. the writer's literary personality has little or no relevance

  C. the critic should primarily focus on intertextuality. subtexts, and metatexts

  Correct Answer: B

• Question 103:

  Robert Philip argues that the advent of recorded music has directed performance style into a search for greater precision and perfection, with a consequent loss of spontaneity and warmth. Various expressive devices once common in classical music have been almost outlawed, including portamento (sliding from one note to another on a stringed instrument), playing the piano with the hands not quite synchronized, and flexibility of tempo. Philip fully documents these changes. However, other forces independent of recording were also at work. For example, the freedom of tempo so valued by Philip was. in its time, both a necessary expedient and disastrously abused. Recording alone did not cause the reaction against it. although hearing a particularly unintelligent use of it on disc may have reinforced the prejudice.

  A criticism of Philip implied by the passage is that he

  A. exaggerates the extent of a change in performance style

  B. attributes a change in performance style to a single cause

  C. ignores unintelligent uses of certain performance techniques

  D. values performance techniques that have lost their effectiveness

  E. limits his discussion of performance style to classical music

  Correct Answer: C

• Question 104:

  Female Australian Dunaiothhps [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 that 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.

  The author mentions "desiccation" primarily to

  A. describe an environment suitable for one species* reproduction

  B. characterize a stage in an insect species' developmental cycle

  C. analyze an environmental challenge faced by some insect species

  D. exemplify a changing feature of a particular climate

  E. identify the purpose served by a particular behavior

  Correct Answer: C

• Question 105:

  The physical act of drinking may seem_________to humans since we can ftilly close our mouths to create suction, but species that cannot do so. including most adult carnivores, must resort to some other mechanism.

  A. necessary

  B. imiocuous

  C. uncom

  D. plicated

  E. tediou:

  F. ordinary

  Correct Answer: E

• Question 106:

  Unfortunately. most of the (i)_________suburbia comes from metropolitan critics who glimpse it only fleethigly. Accustomed to the more structured forms of the city, they see only visual (ii)_________. And failing to recognize the interactions customary in an urban setting in the social and community life of suburbanites, they see social (iii)_________and miss the real diversity and richness.

  A. appreciation of

  B. analysis of

  C. encroachment on

  D. chaos

  E. analogies

  F. enhancements

  G. development

  H. practices

  Correct Answer: BEF

• Question 107:

  What accounts for the low-lying. Hat surface of Mars's north? On Earth's surface, higher- and lower-lying areas have different types of crust: one. thin and dense, is pulled toward Earth's center more strongly by gravity, and the planet's water naturally comes to sit over it. creating oceans. The processes that generate this oceanic crust drive plate tectonics.

  Is Mars's north similarly characterized by a sort of crust different from other areas of the planet? Some researchers do see signs of tectonic activity surrounding the northern basin that suggest that it was created through the formation of new crust, like ocean basins on Earth. However. McGill points to northern bedrock structures that predate the features said to mark the start of the tectonic process. McGill instead believes that through some novel mechanism the ancient surface sank to its current depth as a single unit. This would explain why features around the basin's edge. which would have formed as the surface dropped, seem to be younger than structures at its floor.

  The third possibility is that the northern lowlands result from impacts. Some researchers suggest they formed as a series of big overlapping impact craters. Others, arguing that the odds against such a pattern of impacts are large, postulate a single event--the impact of an object bigger than any asteroid the solar system now contains.

  Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about geological features on Earth?

  A. The relative elevation of the lowest-lying regions of the crust arises in part from forces generated within the planet.

  B. The difference in elevation between the ocean basins and their surroundings is greater than the difference between Man's northern basin and its surroundings.

  C. The formation of low-lying areas proceeds by a different process than the one that created Mars's northern basin.

  D. The weight of the oceans does not affect the depth of the ocean basins.

  E. The proportion of the crust that is oceanic crust is increasing.

  Correct Answer: C

• Question 108:

  Female Australian Duiiatothrip.% (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 tlirips that 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. The author would most likely agree with which of the following claims about Australian Drmatolhrips ?

  A. Their offspring survival rates increase when larger groups cooperate to modify nests.

  B. Their effect on the leaves used to support their tent-like structures is not necessarily permanent

  C. They expend as much energy to create tent-like structures as they do to produce broods.

  D. They exhibit an effect from collective activity that is also found in certain other insect species.

  E. They modify nests in different ways depending on what other species are present in their vicinity.

  Correct Answer: D

• Question 109:

  When Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck moved to England in 1632 to become court painter to Charles The introduced an entirely new way of representing dress in portraiture. In women's portraits. he left off fashionable accessories, depicted subjects in unbuttoned sleeves and collars, and added lavish drapery and jewels. For the first time an artist actively participated in dressing his subjects, creating an amalgam of fantasy and reality. While Van Dyck was most innovative when representing women, he used similar elements in portraits of men.

  Van Dyck's Portrait of Thomas Killigrew and Willian. Lord Crofts (1638) demonstrates how the artist relaxed and unbuttoned men's dress to accord with an underlying theme. The double portrait may be seen as an essay in grief: Killigrew. a poet and playwright, had lost his wife Cecelia to the plague shortly before the sitting, and Crofts was her nephew. The painting contains clear references to the situation at hand. The background features a broken column, a traditional emblem of earthly transience. A drawing in Killigrew's right hand depicts two Itinerary monuments. Crofts holds a blank sheet of paper, seen by some scholars as an analog to the drawing Killigrew holds: a symbol of what is gone.

  At historians have interpreted the clothing depicted in this portrait, particularly Crofts' doublet which is worn unbuttoned in back, as an allusion to the subjects' grief-stricken distraction. It is true that Killigrew's dress includes references to his loss--he wears a cross inscribed with his wife's initials. There is an intimate nature to this painting, which seems underscored by the loose clothing worn by both subjects. However, diis reading of the costumes as signs of grief does not take account of seventeenth-century fashion conventions. Only Killigrew appears in noticeably disheveled attire; Crofts" dress would be quite appropriate for a formal portrait. Though black clothing, such as that won by Crofil, was common for mourning, it was also ordinary on other occasions. Furthermore, during the first stage of mounting no shiny surfaces, such as Crofts' satin doublet, would be permitted. The unbuttoned slit on Crofts" doublet was probably a matter of style: a French courtier in a 1635 fashion print by Bosse. who is gallivanting rather than grieving, wears a similarly undone doublet. Evidence suggests that by the late 1630s a certain calculated looseness was conventional in men's formal dress. Ribeiro. for example, cites the writings of moralists objecting to this style.

  Killigrew's attire, though even looser than Crofts", should not necessarily be associated with grief. Other seventeenth-century subjects depicted in melancholic states do not dress this way. Although Killigrew's "undress" lends this portrait a distinctive intimacy, it might also refer to Killigrew's literary career. Many of Van Dyck's other subjects who engaged in literary pursuits are depicted in loose clothing. The blank sheet held by Crofts may be a reminder not only of Killigrew's loss but also of his solace: he had but to express his grief in writing.

  The author's reference to the "cross" worn by Killigrew serves primarily as

  A. a concession of partial agreement with a point made by other art historians about the Portrait

  B. evidence supporting the author's main point about the significance of Killigrew's state of dress in the Portrait

  C. an example of the kind of detail overlooked by other art historians who have commented on the Portrait

  D. an example of the type of adornment that was rarely seen in portraiture before Van Dyck

  E. an illustration of the way in which Van Dyck used emblematic as well as realistic elements in his portraits

  Correct Answer: A

• Question 110:

  Exhibit.

  

  For selected minerals, the table shows the mineral content in an apple that weighs 100 grams and also shows the recommended daily allowance of the minerals. For which of the following minerals is the total amount of the mineral contained in 5 such apples greater than 4 percent of the recommended dietary allowance of the mineral?

  Indicate all such minerals.

  A. Calcium

  B. Magnesium

  C. Sodium

  D. Zinc

  Correct Answer: B