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Section 1. Verbal Reasoning.
25 questions.
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Question 1 has five answer choices, labeled A through E, and is based on the following text.
Centuries ago, the Maya of Central America produced elaborate, deeply cut carvings in stone. The carvings would have required a cutting tool of hard stone or metal. Iron-ore deposits exist throughout Central America, but apparently the Maya never developed the technology to use them and the metals the Maya are known to have used, copper and gold, would not have been hard enough. Therefore, the Maya must have used stone tools to make these carvings.
Question 1.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
A. In various parts of the world, civilizations that could not make iron from ore fashioned tools out of fragments of iron from meteorites.
B. All the metallic Mayan artifacts that have been found by archaeologists are made of metals that are too soft for carving stone.
C. The stone out of which these carvings were made is harder than the stone used by other Central American peoples.
D. The technique that the Maya used to smelt gold and some other metals could not have been easily applied to the task of extracting iron from iron ore.
E. Archaeologists disagree about how certain stone tools that have been found among Mayan ruins were used.
Select and indicate one answer choice from among the choices provided.
Questions 2 and 3 are based on the following reading passage.
In early-twentieth-century England, it was fashionable to claim that only a completely new style of writing could address a world undergoing unprecedented transformation — just as one literary critic recently claimed that only the new “aesthetic of exploratory excess” can address a world undergoing . . . well, you know. Yet in early-twentieth-century England, T. S. Eliot, a man fascinated by the “presence” of the past, wrote the most innovative poetry of his time. The lesson for today’s literary community seems obvious: a reorientation toward tradition would benefit writers no less than readers. But if our writers and critics indeed respect the novel’s rich tradition (as they claim to), then why do they disdain the urge to tell an exciting story?
Question 2.
This question has five answer choices, labeled A through E. Select and indicate the best answer from among these choices.
The author of the passage suggests that present-day readers would particularly benefit from which of the following changes on the part of present-day writers and critics?
A. An increased focus on the importance of engaging the audience in a narrative
B. Modernization of the traditional novelistic elements already familiar to readers
C. Embracing aspects of fiction that are generally peripheral to the interest of readers
D. A greater recognition of how the tradition of the novel has changed over time
E. A better understanding of how certain poets such as Eliot have influenced fiction of the present time
Select and indicate one answer choice from among the choices provided.
Question 3.
This question has five answer choices, labeled A through E. Select and indicate the best answer from among these choices.
The word “address” appears in the first sentence of the passage. Part of that sentence reads, “...a completely new style of writing could address a world undergoing unprecedented transformation...”. In the context of the passage as a whole, “address” is closest in meaning to
A. reveal
B. belie
C. speak to
D. direct attention toward
E. attempt to remediate
Select and indicate one answer choice from among the choices provided.
Question 4 has five answer choices, labeled A through E, and is based on the following text.
Electric washing machines, first introduced in the United States in 1925, significantly reduced the amount of time spent washing a given amount of clothes, yet the average amount of time households spent washing clothes increased after 1925. This increase is partially accounted for by the fact that many urban households had previously sent their clothes to professional laundries. But the average amount of time spent washing clothes also increased for rural households with no access to professional laundries.
Question 4.
Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain why the time spent washing clothes increased in rural areas?
A. People with access to an electric washing machine typically wore their clothes many fewer times before washing them than did people without access to electric washing machines.
B. Households that had sent their clothes to professional laundries before 1925 were more likely than other households to purchase an electric washing machine when they became available.
C. People living in urban households that had previously sent their clothes to professional laundries typically owned more clothes than did people living in rural households.
D. The earliest electric washing machines required the user to spend much more time beside the machine than do modern electric washing machines.
E. In the 1920’s and 1930’s the proportion of rural households with electricity was smaller than the proportion of urban households with electricity.
Select and indicate one answer choice from among the choices provided.
Directions for questions 5 through 7:
Each of the following questions includes a short text with a blank, indicating that something has been omitted. Select the entry that best completes the text.
For each question, first you will hear the text with the word “BLANK” in place of the blank. There are five answer choices, each consisting of a word or phrase, for filling in the blank. Next you will hear the five lettered options for filling in the blank. You may then indicate your answer, or go on to listen to the options in context.
Following the list of answer choices are five lettered readings of the text, one for each answer choice. The group of readings is separated from the main text using the “Begin skippable content” and “End skippable content” level-6 headings.
Question 5.
In the 1950’s, the country’s inhabitants were BLANK: most of them knew very little about foreign countries.
A. partisan
B. erudite
C. insular
D. cosmopolitan
E. imperturbable
Indicate one answer choice or go on to hear the choices in context.
Begin skippable content.
Answer Choices in Context:
A. partisan. In the 1950’s, the country’s inhabitants were partisan: most of them knew very little about foreign countries.
B. erudite. In the 1950’s, the country’s inhabitants were erudite: most of them knew very little about foreign countries.
C. insular. In the 1950’s, the country’s inhabitants were insular: most of them knew very little about foreign countries.
D. cosmopolitan. In the 1950’s, the country’s inhabitants were cosmopolitan: most of them knew very little about foreign countries.
E. imperturbable. In the 1950’s, the country’s inhabitants were imperturbable: most of them knew very little about foreign countries.
End skippable content.
Indicate one answer choice.
Question 6.
Since she believed him to be both candid and trustworthy, she refused to consider the possibility that his statement had been BLANK.
A. irrelevant
B. facetious
C. mistaken
D. critical
E. insincere
Indicate one answer choice or go on to hear the choices in context.
Begin skippable content.
Answer Choices in Context:
A. irrelevant. Since she believed him to be both candid and trustworthy, she refused to consider the possibility that his statement had been irrelevant.
B. facetious. Since she believed him to be both candid and trustworthy, she refused to consider the possibility that his statement had been facetious.
C. mistaken. Since she believed him to be both candid and trustworthy, she refused to consider the possibility that his statement had been mistaken.
D. critical. Since she believed him to be both candid and trustworthy, she refused to consider the possibility that his statement had been critical.
E. insincere. Since she believed him to be both candid and trustworthy, she refused to consider the possibility that his statement had been insincere.
End skippable content.
Indicate one answer choice.
Question 7.
It is his dubious distinction to have proved what nobody would think of denying, that Romero at the age of sixty-four writes with all the characteristics of BLANK.
A. maturity
B. fiction
C. inventiveness
D. art
E. brilliance
Indicate one answer choice or go on to hear the choices in context.
Begin skippable content.
Answer Choices in Context:
A. maturity. It is his dubious distinction to have proved what nobody would think of denying, that Romero at the age of sixty-four writes with all the characteristics of maturity.
B. fiction. It is his dubious distinction to have proved what nobody would think of denying, that Romero at the age of sixty-four writes with all the characteristics of fiction.
C. inventiveness. It is his dubious distinction to have proved what nobody would think of denying, that Romero at the age of sixty-four writes with all the characteristics of inventiveness.
D. art. It is his dubious distinction to have proved what nobody would think of denying, that Romero at the age of sixty-four writes with all the characteristics of art.
E. brilliance. It is his dubious distinction to have proved what nobody would think of denying, that Romero at the age of sixty-four writes with all the characteristics of brilliance.
End skippable content.
Indicate one answer choice.
Questions 8 through 11 are based on the following reading passage, which consists of four paragraphs.
In the 1970’s, two debates engaged many scholars of early United States history. One focused on the status of women, primarily White women. Turning on the so-called golden age theory, which posited that during the eighteenth-century colonial era, American women enjoyed a brief period of high status relative to their English contemporaries and to nineteenth-century American women, this debate pitted scholars who believed women’s lives deteriorated after 1800 against those who thought women’s lives had been no better before 1800. At issue were the causes of women’s subordination: were these causes already in place when the English first settled North America or did they emerge with the rise of nineteenth-century industrial capitalism? The second debate, the so-called origins debate, concerned the emergence of racial slavery in the southern colonies: was slavery the inevitable result of the deep-rooted racial prejudice of early British colonists or did racial prejudice arise only after these planters instituted slave labor?
Although these debates are parallel in some respects, key differences distinguished them. Whereas the debate over women’s status revolved around implicit comparisons of colonial women to their counterparts in the antebellum period (1800-1860), thus inviting comment from scholars of both historical periods, the origins debate was primarily confined to a discussion about slavery in colonial America. Second, in contrast to the newness of the debate over women’s status and its continued currency throughout the early 1980’s, the debate over race and slavery, begun in the 1950’s, had lost some of its urgency with the publication of Morgan’s American Slavery, American Freedom (1975), widely regarded as the last word on the subject.
Each debate also assumed a different relationship to the groups whose histories it concerned. In its heyday, the origins debate focused mainly on White attitudes toward Africans rather than on Africans themselves. With few exceptions, such as Wood’s Black Majority (1974) and Mullin’s Flight and Rebellion (1972), which were centrally concerned with enslaved African men, most works pertaining to the origins debate focused on the White architects, mostly male, of racial slavery. In contrast, although women’s historians were interested in the institutions and ideologies contributing to women’s subordination, they were equally concerned with documenting women’s experiences. As in the origins debate, however, early scholarship on colonial women defined its historical constituency narrowly, women’s historians focusing mainly on affluent White women.
Over time, however, some initial differences between the approaches taken by scholars in the two fields faded. In the 1980’s, historians of race and slavery in colonial America shifted their attention to enslaved people; interest in African American culture grew, thereby bringing enslaved women more prominently into view. Historians of early American women moved in similar directions during the decade and began to consider the effect of racial difference on women’s experience.
Question 8.
This question has five answer choices, labeled A through E. Select and indicate the best answer from among these choices.
The passage is primarily concerned with
A. showing how historians who were engaged in a particular debate influenced historians engaged in another debate
B. explaining why two initially parallel scholarly debates diverged in the 1980’s
C. comparing two scholarly debates and discussing their histories
D. contrasting the narrow focus of one scholarly debate with the somewhat broader focus of another
E. evaluating the relative merits of the approaches used by historians engaged in two overlapping scholarly debates
Select and indicate one answer choice from among the choices provided.
Question 9.
This question has five answer choices, labeled A through E. Select and indicate the best answer from among these choices.
It can be inferred that the author of the passage mentions American Slavery, American Freedom primarily in order to
A. substantiate a point about the methodology that came to be prevalent among scholars engaged in the origins debate
B. cite a major influence on those scholars who claimed that racial prejudice preceded the institution of slavery in colonial America
C. show that some scholars who were engaged in the origins debate prior to the 1980’s were interested in the experiences of enslaved people
D. identify a reason for a certain difference in the late 1970’s between the origins debate and the debate over American women’s status
E. contrast the kind of work produced by scholars engaged in the origins debate with the kind produced by scholars engaged in the debate over American women’s status
Select and indicate one answer choice from among the choices provided.
Question 10.
This question has five answer choices, labeled A through E. Select and indicate the best answer from among these choices.
The passage suggests which of the following about the women’s historians mentioned in the third paragraph?
A. They disputed certain claims regarding the status of eighteenth-century American women relative to women in England during the same period.
B. Their approach to the study of women’s subordination had been partly influenced by earlier studies published by some scholars engaged in the origins debate.
C. Their work focused on the experiences of both White and African American women.
D. Their approach resembled the approach taken in studies by Wood and by Mullin in that they were interested in the experiences of people subjected to a system of subordination.
E. To some extent, they concurred with Wood and with Mullin about the origins of racism in colonial America.
Select and indicate one answer choice from among the choices provided.
Question 11.
This question has five answer choices, labeled A through E. Select and indicate the best answer from among these choices.
According to the passage, historical studies of race and slavery in early America that were produced during the 1980’s differed from studies of that subject produced prior to the 1980’s in that the studies produced during the 1980’s
A. gave more attention to the experiences of enslaved women
B. gave less attention to the cultures of enslaved people
C. were read by more scholars in other fields
D. were more concerned with the institutions and ideologies that perpetuated racial prejudice in postcolonial America
E. made direct comparisons between the subordination of White women and the subordination of African American people
Select and indicate one answer choice from among the choices provided.
Directions for questions 12 through 17.
Each of the following questions includes a short text with two or three blanks, each blank indicating that something has been omitted. You will be asked to select one entry for each blank from the corresponding choices. Fill all blanks in the way that best completes the text.
For each question, first you will hear the text with the word “BLANK” in place of the omitted material. Next, you will hear the text again, but in place of each blank, you will hear three lettered options for filling that blank. The set of lettered options is formatted as bold and enclosed by parentheses. Each option consists of a word or phrase.
For questions containing two blanks, following the list of answer choices are nine readings of the text, one for each answer choice combination. The group of readings begins with a “Begin Skippable Content” level-6 heading and ends with an “End Skippable Content” level-6 heading. Each reading consists of two option letters, the two words or phrases being combined, and the text with the combination of the words or phrases inserted into the blanks.
For questions containing three blanks, the choices will not be read in context because it has been determined that replaying the question for all possible combinations of answer choices is not a useful way to present these questions.
Question 12.
This question has two blanks.
The narratives that vanquished peoples have created of their defeat have, according to Schivelbusch, fallen into several identifiable types. In one of these, the vanquished manage to BLANK the victor’s triumph as the result of some spurious advantage, the victors being truly inferior where it counts. Often the winners BLANK this interpretation, worrying about the cultural or moral costs of their triumph and so giving some credence to the losers’ story.

Now listen to the text with the three options inserted in place of each blank.
The narratives that vanquished peoples have created of their defeat have, according to Schivelbusch, fallen into several identifiable types. In one of these, the vanquished manage to (A. construe, B. anoint, C. acknowledge) the victor’s triumph as the result of some spurious advantage, the victors being truly inferior where it counts. Often the winners (D. take issue with, E. disregard, F. collude in) this interpretation, worrying about the cultural or moral costs of their triumph and so giving some credence to the losers’ story.

Indicate your two answer choices or go on to hear them in context. Fill all blanks in the way that best completes the text.
Begin skippable content.
Answer Choices in Context:
A, D. construe, take issue with. The narratives that vanquished peoples have created of their defeat have, according to Schivelbusch, fallen into several identifiable types. In one of these, the vanquished manage to construe the victor’s triumph as the result of some spurious advantage, the victors being truly inferior where it counts. Often the winners take issue with this interpretation, worrying about the cultural or moral costs of their triumph and so giving some credence to the losers’ story.
A, E. construe, disregard. The narratives that vanquished peoples have created of their defeat have, according to Schivelbusch, fallen into several identifiable types. In one of these, the vanquished manage to construe the victor’s triumph as the result of some spurious advantage, the victors being truly inferior where it counts. Often the winners disregard this interpretation, worrying about the cultural or moral costs of their triumph and so giving some credence to the losers’ story.
A, F. construe, collude in. The narratives that vanquished peoples have created of their defeat have, according to Schivelbusch, fallen into several identifiable types. In one of these, the vanquished manage to construe the victor’s triumph as the result of some spurious advantage, the victors being truly inferior where it counts. Often the winners collude in this interpretation, worrying about the cultural or moral costs of their triumph and so giving some credence to the losers’ story.
B, D. anoint, take issue with. The narratives that vanquished peoples have created of their defeat have, according to Schivelbusch, fallen into several identifiable types. In one of these, the vanquished manage to anoint the victor’s triumph as the result of some spurious advantage, the victors being truly inferior where it counts. Often the winners take issue with this interpretation, worrying about the cultural or moral costs of their triumph and so giving some credence to the losers’ story.
B, E. anoint, disregard. The narratives that vanquished peoples have created of their defeat have, according to Schivelbusch, fallen into several identifiable types. In one of these, the vanquished manage to anoint the victor’s triumph as the result of some spurious advantage, the victors being truly inferior where it counts. Often the winners disregard this interpretation, worrying about the cultural or moral costs of their triumph and so giving some credence to the losers’ story.
B, F. anoint, collude in. The narratives that vanquished peoples have created of their defeat have, according to Schivelbusch, fallen into several identifiable types. In one of these, the vanquished manage to anoint the victor’s triumph as the result of some spurious advantage, the victors being truly inferior where it counts. Often the winners collude in this interpretation, worrying about the cultural or moral costs of their triumph and so giving some credence to the losers’ story.
C, D. acknowledge, take issue with. The narratives that vanquished peoples have created of their defeat have, according to Schivelbusch, fallen into several identifiable types. In one of these, the vanquished manage to acknowledge the victor’s triumph as the result of some spurious advantage, the victors being truly inferior where it counts. Often the winners take issue with this interpretation, worrying about the cultural or moral costs of their triumph and so giving some credence to the losers’ story.
C, E. acknowledge, disregard. The narratives that vanquished peoples have created of their defeat have, according to Schivelbusch, fallen into several identifiable types. In one of these, the vanquished manage to acknowledge the victor’s triumph as the result of some spurious advantage, the victors being truly inferior where it counts. Often the winners disregard this interpretation, worrying about the cultural or moral costs of their triumph and so giving some credence to the losers’ story.
C, F. acknowledge, collude in. The narratives that vanquished peoples have created of their defeat have, according to Schivelbusch, fallen into several identifiable types. In one of these, the vanquished manage to acknowledge the victor’s triumph as the result of some spurious advantage, the victors being truly inferior where it counts. Often the winners collude in this interpretation, worrying about the cultural or moral costs of their triumph and so giving some credence to the losers’ story.
End skippable content.
Indicate your two answer choices. Fill all blanks in the way that best completes the text.
Question 13.
This question has three blanks.
I’ve long anticipated this retrospective of the artist’s work, hoping that it would make BLANK judgments about him possible, but greater familiarity with his paintings highlights their inherent BLANK and actually makes one’s assessment BLANK.
Now listen to the text with the three options inserted in place of each blank.
I’ve long anticipated this retrospective of the artist’s work, hoping that it would make (A. modish, B. settled, C. detached) judgments about him possible, but greater familiarity with his paintings highlights their inherent (D. gloom, E. ambiguity, F. delicacy) and actually makes one’s assessment (G. similarly equivocal, H. less sanguine, I. more cynical).
Indicate your three answer choices. Fill all blanks in the way that best completes the text.

Select and indicate one answer choice from among the choices provided.
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GRE English Practice questions

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