GRE GRE Certifications GRE-TEST Questions & Answers

• Question 81:

  The landmasses that we see on Earth today have moved around the globe, smashing together and splitting apart several times over the past 3 billion years. These cycles of (i)_________and (ii)_________have affected Earth's crust and underlying mantle, its atmosphere and climate, and the life ii supports.

  A. stability

  B. collapse

  C. entropy

  D. dispersal

  E. amalgamation

  F. renewal

  Correct Answer: CE

• Question 82:

  Edited collections of scholarly essays generally lend to be somewhat uneven: they suffer from the_______ subject matter of the various essays, the lack of an overarching and consistent thesis, and the variable quality of the contributions.

  A. intriguing

  B. heterogeneous

  C. comprehensive

  D. disparate

  E. mediocre

  F. engaging

  Correct Answer: BD

• Question 83:

  The importance of the Bill of Rights in twentieth-century United States law and politics has led some historians to search for the "original meaning" of its most controversial clauses. This approach. known as "originalism." presumes that each right codified in the Bill of Rights had au independent history that can be studied in isolation from the histories of other rights, and its proponents ask how formulations of the Bill of Rights in 1791 reflected developments in specific areas of legal thinking at that time. Legal and constitutional historians, for example, have found originalism especially useful in the study of provisions of the Bill of Rights that were innovative by eighteenth-century standards, such as the Fourth Amendment's broadly termed protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures." Recent calls in the legal and political arena for a return to a "jurisprudence of original intention." however, have made it a matter of much more than purely scholarly interest when originalists insist that a clause's true meaning was fixed at the moment of its adoption, or maintain that only those rights explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution deserve constitutional recognition and protection. These two claims seemingly lend support to the notion that an interpreter must apply fixed definitions of a fixed number of rights to contemporary issues, for the claims imply that the central problem of rights in the Revolutionary era was to precisely identity, enumerate, and define those rights that Americans felt were crucial to protecting their liberty.

  Both claims, however, are questionable from the perspective of a strictly historical inquiry, however sensible they may seem from the vantage point of contemporary jurisprudence. Even though originalists are correct in claiming that the search for original meaning is inherently historical, historians would not normally seek.

  It can be inferred that the author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements about the Bill of Rights?

  A. The Bill of Rights' importance in twentieth-century United States law 3iid politics has been overemphasized by some scholars.

  B. The diversity of views among the Bill of Rights" framers and ratifiers makes the search for any right's original meaning inherently problematic.

  C. The omission of certain rights by the framers and ratifiers should limit the number of constitutionally recognized and protected rights today.

  D. Establishing the original meaning of each clause will enable controversial issues to be settled according to the intentions of its framers.

  E. Originalists have exaggerated the contributions of certain framers and ratifiers of the Bill of Rights while downplaying the contributions of others.

  Correct Answer: B

• Question 84:

  Laws protecting intellectual properly are intended to stimulate creativity, yet some tonus of creative work have never enjoyed legal protection--a situation that ought to be of great interest. If we see certain forms of creative endeavor (1) _________as a result of uncontrolled copying, we might decide tot (ii )_________intellectual property law. Conversely, if unprotected creative work (iii)_________in the absence of legal rules against copying, we would do well to know how such flourishing is sustained.

  A. languishing

  B. proliferating

  C. diversifying

  D. jettison

  E. declines in originality

  F. extend

  G. relax

  H. manages to thrive

  I. openly invites imitation

  Correct Answer: AEH

• Question 85:

  Although the claim that no one knows what dark matter is remains parallel assertion that dark matter has not been detected.

  A. contentious

  B. questionable

  C. sound

  D. prominent

  E. unassailable

  F. unverifiable

  G. some scientists dispute the

  Correct Answer: CE

• Question 86:

  The snow-covered surface of the lake presents a reassuring illusion of________. but beneath the snow the ice is riven with treacherous cracks.

  A. uniformity

  B. isolation

  C. seclusion

  D. protection

  E. substantially

  F. soundness

  Correct Answer: AC

• Question 87:

  Suburbanization arguably ushered in numerous changes in (he way many people in the United States lived: the suburbs_________a society based on unprecedented consumption and intense privacy.

  A. validated

  B. affirmed

  C. inaugurated

  D. engendered

  E. enlivened

  F. represented

  Correct Answer: AB

• Question 88:

  Larvae of many marine invertebrate species delay their metamorphosis into juveniles when cues signaling an appropriate juvenile environment are absent, thereby increasing their likelihood of thriving as juveniles and of ultimately reaching adulthood Nevertheless, delayed metamorphosis has potential costs for juveniles including reduced growth and increased mortality Nearly all evidence of such costs involves species whose larvae do not feed but rather subsist on stored nutrients, indicating that insufficient energy reserves may be an underlying cause of these costs. Supporting this hypothesis are laboratory studies showing that in a certain bryozoan. the prolonged larval swimming that results from delayed metamorphosis is associated with size reductions in the juvenile feeding organ (the lophophore) and that one factor influencing the size of juveniles of certain barnacle species is how long larvae delay metamorphosis However, other studies show that while significantly fewer juvenile Capitella worms survived to adulthood when metamorphosis had been delayed, prolonged larval swimming had no significant effect on juvenile size, suggesting, perhaps, that in some species,

  factors other than insufficient energy reserves account for the negative effects of the larval stresses that result from delayed metamorphosis.

  The passage suggests that the, "bryozoan." the "barnacle species.'" and 'Capitella worms" all share which of the following characteristics?

  A. The larvae of these species do not feed but rather subsist on stored nutrients.

  B. The larvae of these species are unable to undergo metamorphosis if larval swimming is significantly prolonged.

  C. The larvae of these species do not have enough energy to meet then needs when metamorphosis is delayed.

  D. The juveniles of these species manifest the negative effects of delayed metamorphosis as a decrease m size.

  E. The juveniles of these species are not significantly larger than their respective larvae.

  Correct Answer: C

• Question 89:

  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?

  A. It points out the most obvious implications of Johnson's letter to his patron.

  B. It suggests a motivation for Johnson's rejection of Chesterfield's patronage.

  C. It provides information that qualifies the assertion that Johnson's letter sharply defined the end of a publishing era.

  D. It provides a possible defense for Chesterfield's alleged neglect of Johnson.

  E. It refines the notion that patrons are found primarily among the nobility.

  Correct Answer: C

• Question 90:

  Recent research has questioned the long-standing view of pearly mussels as exclusively suspension feeders (animals that strain suspended particles from water) that subsist on phytoplankton (mostly algae). Early studies of mussel feeding were based on analyses of gut contents, a method that has three weaknesses. First, material in mucus-bound gut contents is difficult to identify and quantify. Second, material found in the gut may pass undigested out of the mussel, not contributing to its nutrition. Finally, examination of gut contents offers limited insight into the mechanisms and behaviors by which mussels acquire food. Modem studies suggest that pearly mussels feed on more than just algae and may use other means than suspension feeding. Pedal feeding (sweeping up edible material with a muscular structure called the foot) has been observed in juvenile pearly mussels.

  Besides the phytoplankton pearly mussels capture from the water column, their guts also contain small animals, protozoans, and detritus (nonliving particulate organic material). Recent studies show that mussels can capture and assimilate bacteria as well, a potentially important source of food in many fresh waters. Another potential source of food for mussels is dissolved organic matter. Early studies showing that pearly mussels could take up simple organic compounds were largely discounted because such labile (unstable) compounds are rarely abundant in nature. Nevertheless, recent work on other bivalves suggests that dissolved organic matter may be a significant source of nutrition.

  Of this complex mix of materials that pearly mussels acquire, what is actually required and assimilated? Stable-isotope analyses of mussels taken from nature and of captive-reared mussels are beginning to offer some insight into this question. Nichols and Garling showed that pearly mussels in a small river were omnivorous, subsisting mainly on particles less than 2S micrometers in diameter, including algae, detritus, and bacteria. Bacterially derived carbon was apparently the primary source of soft-tissue carbon. However, bacteria alone cannot support mussel growth, because they lack the necessary long-chain fatty acids and sterols and are deficient in some amino acids. Bacteria may supplement other food resources, provide growth factors, or be the primary food In habitats such as headwater streams, where phytoplankton is scarce. Juvenile mussels have been most successfully reared m the laboratory on diets containing algae high in polyunsaturated fatty acids. Thus, it appears that the pearly mussel diet in nature may consist of algae, bacteria, detritus, and small animals and that at least some algae and bacteria may be required as a source of essential biochemicals.

  The primary purpose of the passage is to

  A. summarize the present state of knowledge about what pearly mussels eat

  B. contrast two mechanisms by which pearly mussels have been shown lo feed

  C. explain why evidence used to support a long-standing view about pearly mussels is flawed

  D. suggest that a particular source of nutrients is more essential to pearly mussels than was previously thought

  E. question whether research findings about laboratory-reared pearly mussels can be extrapolated to pearly mussels in natural habitats

  Correct Answer: A