GRE GRE-TEST Online Practice Questions and Exam Preparation

GRE GRE-TEST Online Questions & Answers

• Question 151:

  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
  C. ignores unintelligent uses of certain performance techniques

• Question 152:

  Although technically their members were hunter-gatherers, many early Native California communities exhibited traits more typically associated with well-developed agrarian societies and. therefore, are often presented in the ethnographic literature as________.

  A. archaic
  B. pragmatic
  C. anomalous
  D. exemplary
  E. exceptional
  F. utilitarian
  C. anomalous
  E. exceptional

• Question 153:

  The danger often facing authors of satirical works is that if the audience is not (i)_________the joke, the piece may

  end up (ii)_________the behavior it was trying to (iii)_________.

  A. already frustrated by
  B. willing to laugh at
  C. discerning enough to get
  D. reinforcing
  E. depicting
  F. elucidating
  G. conceal
  H. support
  I. ridicule
  C. discerning enough to get
  D. reinforcing
  I. ridicule

• Question 154:

  Though humanitarian emergencies are frequent features of television news, such exposure seldom_________the public, which rather seems resigned to a sense of impotency.

  A. paralyzes
  B. demoralizes C. assuages
  D. galvanizes
  E. exasperates
  C

• Question 155:

  The complex topic of whether bilingualism enhances cognitive functions beyond language, the so-called "bilingual advantage." is an intensely debated subject. Research results can be influenced by many variables, including the definition of bilingualisni itself. The previous focus on what was perceived to be a classical case of bilingualism (early, simultaneous acquisition of more than one language) has been largely replaced by a more inclusive definition. based on the ability to communicate rather than a perfect command. Indeed, improvement in cognitive functions has been reported after only one week of an intensive language course. Conversely, inactive bilinguals. who were early balanced bilinguals in their childhood but moved to an exclusive use of one language in later life, perform differently from active bilinguals and more like monolinguals.

  Iii the context of the passage as a whole, the reference to "improvement in cognitive functions" primarily serves to

  A. reiterate one of the main benefits of being bilingual
  B. provide support for a particular research approach to bilingualism
  C. illustrate how language acquisition promotes learning in general
  D. emphasize the ease with which a person can learn a second language
  E. encourage an intensive approach to language acquisition
  A. reiterate one of the main benefits of being bilingual

• Question 156:

  In 1995 the United States National Park Service reintroduced wolves into Yellowstone National Park, from which they had been eliminated decades before by overhunting. Biologists hoped the reintroduction would return the park's mix of animals to a more natural state. After the wolves disappearance, the population of their onetime prey, the elk. had burgeoned. Subsequently, new tree growth declined as multiplying elk browsed young trees, denuding certain areas of the park. Following the wolves" return, the elk population declined and young trees rebounded. Most scientists attribute the vegetation changes to the wolves1 return. However. Ration observes that Yellowstone has not had a harsh winter since wolf numbers reached high levels and suggests that elk may not have needed to resort to trees for food.

  It can be inferred from the passage that the scientists would he most likely to cite which of the following in support of their view?

  A. The correlation between the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone and the decline of the elk population
  B. The correlation between wolves' disappearance from Yellowstone and the growth of the elk population
  C. The correlation between the rebounding of Yellowstone's trees and the pattern of its winters since 1995
  A. The correlation between the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone and the decline of the elk population

• Question 157:

  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
  A. placed less emphasis on public speaking

• Question 158:

  

  A. Quantity A is greater.
  B. Quantity B is greater.
  C. The two quantities are equal.
  D. The relationship cannot be determined from the information given.
  D. The relationship cannot be determined from the information given.

• Question 159:

  

  A. Quantity A is greater.
  B. Quantity B is greater.
  C. The two quantities are equal.
  D. The relationship cannot be determined from the information given.
  C. The two quantities are equal.

• Question 160:

  The essays in this collection, which explore the adaptation of literary texts to film, all (i)_________the view that the fidelity of film adaptations to their literary precursors is (ii)_________. In fact, the authors of these essays broadly concur that an emphasis on fidelity in film adaptations can be traced to an outmoded academic ideology that insistently prizes the literary in a way that (iii)_________the value of the cinematic.

  A. contest
  B. reinforce
  C. sidestep
  D. impossible to achieve
  E. a measure of success
  F. difficult to recognize
  G. echoes
  H. enhances
  I. subordinates
  D. impossible to achieve
  E. a measure of success