GRE Test: A Gateway to Study Abroad

GRE Questions

• 1.

  “Color photography has eliminated the need for realism in artistic painting, in the opinion of a number of art scholars and artists. At the same time, many members of the art community still feel that realistic artwork is still valuable and worthwhile.”

  • Agree, because color photography has eliminated the need for realistic art.
    
  • Disagree, as realism in art serves as an important expression of human creativity.
    
  • Agree, but only in some cases, color photography does not affect all artistic forms.
    
  • Disagree, as traditional forms of art hold inherent value independent of color photography.
    
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• 2.

  The following appeared as a letter to the editor from the owner of a skate shop in Central Plaza.
  "Two years ago the city council voted to prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. They claimed that skateboard users were responsible for litter and vandalism that were keeping other visitors from coming to the plaza. In the past two years, however, there has been only a small increase in the number of visitors to Central Plaza, and litter and vandalism are still problematic. Skateboarding is permitted in Monroe Park, however, and there is no problem with litter or vandalism there. In order to restore Central Plaza to its former glory, then, we recommend that the city lift its prohibition on skateboarding in the plaza."

  • What is the current level of litter and vandalism in Central Plaza?
    
  • How much foot traffic has increased in Monroe Park compared to Central Plaza?
    
  • Has the local economy in the plaza improved since the ban on skateboarding?
    
  • How successful has the Monroe Park skateboarding program been in other cities?
    
  View Solution

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• 3.

  Complete the paragraph from the given words. It is refreshing to read a book about our planet by an author who does not allow facts to be (i) _________ by politics: well aware of the political disputes about the effects of human activities on climate and biodiversity, this author does not permit them to (ii) _________ his comprehensive description of what we know about our biosphere. He emphasizes the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations, and the (iii) _________, calling attention to the many aspects of planetary evolution that must be better understood before we can accurately diagnose the condition of our planet. Fill in the blanks from the following:

  • overshadowed
    
  • invalidated
    
  • illuminated
    
  • enhance
    
  • obscure
    
  View Solution

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• 4.

  “Reviving the practice of using elements of popular music in classical composition, an approach that had been in hibernation in the United States during the 1960s, composer Philip Glass (born 1937) embraced the ethos of popular music in his compositions. Glass based two symphonies on music by rock musicians David Bowie and Brian Eno, but the symphonies' sound is distinctively his. Popular elements do not appear out of place in Glass's classical music, which from its early days has shared certain harmonies and rhythms with rock music. Yet this use of popular elements has not made Glass a composer of popular music. His music is not a version of popular music packaged to attract classical listeners; it is high art for listeners steeped in rock rather than the classics.

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• 5.

  Jean Valjean, the protagonist in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables, spends the bulk of his lengthy _______ plotting a very clever set of revenge schemes, which he executes upon his escape.

  • ruination
    
  • peregrination
    
  • immolation
    
  • rumination
    
  View Solution

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• 6.

  Should we really care for the greatest actors of the past could we have them before us? Should we find them too different from our accent of thought, of feeling, of speech, in a thousand minute particulars which are of the essence of all three? Dr. Doran's long and interesting records of the triumphs of Garrick, and other less familiar, but in their day hardly less astonishing, players, do not relieve one of the doubt. Garrick himself, as sometimes happens with people who have been the subject of much anecdote and other conversation, here as elsewhere, bears no very distinct figure. One hardly sees the wood for the trees. On the other hand, the account of Betterton, "perhaps the greatest of English actors," is delightfully fresh. That intimate friend of Dryden, Tillatson, Pope, who executed a copy of the actor's portrait by Kneller which is still extant, was worthy of their friendship; his career brings out the best elements in stage life. The stage in these volumes presents itself indeed not merely as a mirror of life, but as an illustration of the utmost intensity of life, in the fortunes and characters of the players. Ups and downs, generosity, dark fates, the most delicate goodness, have nowhere been more prominent than in the private existence of those devoted to the public mimicry of men and women. Contact with the stage, almost throughout its history, presents itself as a kind of touchstone, to bring out the bizarrerie, the theatrical tricks and contrasts, of the actual world.