GRE GRE Certifications GRE-TEST Questions & Answers

• Question 161:

  The movie has a surfeit of inscrutable characters and tortuous subplots, so it is no surprise that viewers leaving the recent screening appeared_________

  A. complacent

  B. phlegmatic

  C. unsated

  D. beguiled

  Correct Answer: C

• Question 162:

  As decorated a nmntr as Shalane Flanagan is. perliaps her greater accomplishment lies in_________the rising talent around her: all of her training partners--11 women in total--have qualified for the Olympics.

  A. cherishing

  B. identifying

  C. maintaining

  D. nurturing

  E. fostering

  F. publicizing

  Correct Answer: DE

• Question 163:

  In the past, the region's literacy support programs had been_________distributed--abundant in places where literacy rates were relatively high, absent in places where rates were low.

  A. complexly

  B. cautiously

  C. sagaciously

  D. perversely

  E. uniformly

  Correct Answer: D

• Question 164:

  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.

  Correct Answer: C

  Explanation: In the margin of a manuscript, the seventeenth-century mathematician Pierre de Fermat stated a certain mathematical theorem and claimed to have a proof of that theorem, but did nol provide the proof. Now. after three hundred years, a proof of the theorem lias been given. But since this proof depends on mathematical ideas not developed until the twentieth century, it is not likely that Fermat himself had a successful proof of the theorem.

• Question 165:

  When applied !o 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-pertinent materials.

  In the context in which it appears, "obligation most nearly means

  A. prerequisite

  B. compulsion

  C. imposition

  D. liability

  E. responsibility

  Correct Answer: D

• Question 166:

  Even the most complex models used in fishery management are cartoons of reality. They reduce hundreds of links in food webs to a handful and inadequately represent processes operating over space. Many of their assumptions are as flawed today as those of the simplest models of the past. Fish stocks, for one. are still assumed to be populations of a species that are isolated from one another. Yet many populations mix at their edges and some even migrate through areas occupied by other populations. Furthermore, the more complex models suffer from a "crisis of complexity"--more is really less. Adding layers of detail, each carrying its own set of assumptions, produces instability. The model's behavior becomes erratic, and conclusions drawn from it can be downright misleading.

  Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about "models of the past"?

  A. They depended on more assumptions than do most of today's models.

  B. They often behaved less predictably than do today's more complex models.

  C. At least some of the assumptions they made are still used in models today.

  Correct Answer: B

• Question 167:

  Since scientific truths must be discovered, and since many, probably most, are far from (i)_________. Futile investigations are (ii)_________. Thus, the path to the truth is decidedly a (iii)_________one.

  A. intuitively obvious

  B. routinelv acelauned

  C. hie vi table

  D. sinuous

  E. potentially useful

  F. auspicious

  G. ne eligible

  H. clandestine

  I. progressive

  Correct Answer: ADG

• Question 168:

  Scientists have recently confirmed that Mercury possesses a lot of ice._________discovery for a place that ranks among the hottest in the solar system.

  A. a controversial

  B. a stunning

  C. a doubt fill

  D. a counterintuitive

  E. a dubious

  F. an unexpected

  Correct Answer: AF

• Question 169:

  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.

  A. encumbered

  B. reinforced

  C. belied

  D. biased

  E. distorted

  F. corroborated

  Correct Answer: AE

• Question 170:

  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.

  Hie author would most likely agree with which of the following statements about the "devices"?

  A. Increases in the technical proficiency of performers have made their use superfluous.

  B. They are not useful tools for musical expressivity.

  C. The advent of recorded music had little or no effect on their popularity.

  D. Their use cannot usually be detected in a recording, even when they were used in the recorded performance.

  E. At least some of them have been used inappropriately in the past.

  Correct Answer: E