GRE Verbal Reasoning Sample Questions Set G

Categories: GRE (The Graduate Records Examination)

Directions for questions 11 and 12:

Each of the following questions includes a short text with two or three blanks, each blank indicating that something has been omitted. Select one entry for each blank from the corresponding column of choices. Fill all blanks in the way that best completes the text.

Question.11. The (i) ____ nature of classical tragedy in Athens belies the modern image of tragedy: in the modern view tragedy is austere and stripped down, its representations of ideological and emotional conflicts so superbly compressed that there’s nothing (ii)____ for time to erode.

Answer: (i) C, (ii) F

Question.12. Murray, whose show of recent paintings and drawings is her best in many years, has been eminent hereabouts for a quarter century, although often regarded with (i)______, but the most (ii)______ of these paintings (iii)______ all doubts.

Answer: (i) C, (ii) E, (iii) H

Questions 13 through 15 are based on the following reading passage.

In Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry does not reject integration or the economic and moral promise of the American dream; rather, she remains loyal to this dream while looking,

 Line: realistically, at its incomplete realization. Once we recognize this

    5: dual vision, we can accept the play’s ironic nuances as deliberate social commentaries by Hansberry rather than as the “unintentional” irony that Bigsby attributes to the work. Indeed, a curiously persistent refusal to credit Hansberry with a capacity for intentional irony has led some critics to interpret the play’s

 10: thematic conflicts as mere confusion, contradiction, or eclecticism. Isaacs, for example, cannot easily reconcile Hansberry’s intense concern for her race with her ideal of human reconciliation. But the play’s complex view of Black self-esteem and human solidarity as compatible is no more “contradictory” than

 15: Du Bois’s famous, well-considered ideal of ethnic self-awareness coexisting with human unity, or Fanon’s emphasis on an ideal internationalism that also accommodates national identities and roles.

Question.13. Select and indicate the best answer from among the five answer choices:

The author’s primary purpose in the passage is to

A. explain some critics’ refusal to consider Raisin in the Sun a deliberately ironic play

B. suggest that ironic nuances ally Raisin in the Sun with Du Bois’s and Fanon’s writings

C. analyze the fundamental dramatic conflicts in Raisin in the Sun

D. emphasize the inclusion of contradictory elements in Raisin in the Sun

E. affirm the thematic coherence underlying Raisin in the Sun

Answer: (e)

Question.14. Select and indicate the best answer from among the five answer choices:

The author of the passage would probably consider which of the following judgments to be most similar to the reasoning of the critics described in the underlined and boldfaced sentence (lines 7-11)?

A. The world is certainly flat; therefore, the person proposing to sail around it is unquestionably foolhardy.

B. Radioactivity cannot be directly perceived; therefore, a scientist could not possibly control it in a laboratory.

C. The painter of this picture could not intend it to be funny; therefore, its humor must result from a lack of skill.

D. Traditional social mores are beneficial to culture; therefore, anyone who deviates from them acts destructively.

E. Filmmakers who produce documentaries deal exclusively with facts; therefore, a filmmaker who reinterprets particular events is misleading us.

Answer: (c)

Question.15. The five sentences in the passage are repeated below, in their original order, with each one assigned a letter. Select and indicate a sentence in the passage in which the author provides examples that reinforce an argument against a critical response cited earlier in the passage.

A. In Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry does not reject integration or the economic and moral promise of the American dream; rather, she remains loyal to this dream while looking, realistically, at its incomplete realization.

B. Once we recognize this dual vision, we can accept the play’s ironic nuances as deliberate social commentaries by Hansberry rather than as the “unintentional” irony that Bigsby attributes to the work.

C. Indeed, a curiously persistent refusal to credit Hansberry with a capacity for intentional irony has led some critics to interpret the play’s thematic conflicts as mere confusion, contradiction, or eclecticism.

D. Isaacs, for example, cannot easily reconcile Hansberry’s intense concern for her race with her ideal of human reconciliation.

E. But the play’s complex view of Black self-esteem and human solidarity as compatible is no more “contradictory” than Du Bois’s famous, well-considered ideal of ethnic self-awareness coexisting with human unity, or Fanon’s emphasis on an ideal internationalism that also accommodates national identities and roles.

Answer: (e)