Admission Test : GRE-Verbal Questions & Answers

Admission Test GRE-Verbal Exam Syllabus Topics:

Admission Test Section One : Verbal Sample Questions:

1. ARCHITECT : CREATIVE ::

A) soldier : obedient
B) partisan : impartial
C) traitor : disloyal
D) prisoner : rebellious
E) consumer : prosperous

2. The village of Vestmannaeyjar, in the far northern country of Iceland, is as bright and clean and up-to-date
as any American or Canadian suburb. It is located on the island of Heimaey, just off the mainland. One
January night in 1973, however, householders were shocked from their sleep. In some backyards red-hot
liquid was spurting from the ground.
Flaming "skyrockets" shot up and over the houses. The island's volcano, Helgafell, silent for seven
thousand years, was violently erupting! Luckily, the island's fishing fleet was in port, and within twenty-four
hours almost everyone was ferried to the mainland. But then the agony of the island began in earnest. As
in a nightmare, fountains of burning lava spurted three hundred feet high. Black, baseball-size cinders
rained down. An evilsmelling, eye-burning, throat-searing cloud of smoke and gas erupted into the air,
and a river of lava flowed down the mountain. The constant shriek of escaping steam was punctuated by
ear-splitting explosions. As time went on, the once pleasant village of Vestmannaeyjar took on a weird
aspect. Its street lamps still burning against the long Arctic night, the town lay under a thick blanket of
cinders. All that could be seen above the ten-foot black drifts were the tips of street signs. Some houses
had collapsed under the weight of cinders; others had burst into flames as the heat ignited their oil storage
tanks. Lighting the whole lurid scene, fire continued to shoot from the mouth of the looming volcano. The
eruption continued for six months. Scientists and reporters arrived from around the world to observe the
awesome natural event. But the town did not die that easily. In July, when the eruption ceased, the people
of Heimaey Island returned to assess the chances of rebuilding their homes and lives. They found tons of
ash covering the ground. The Icelanders are a tough people, however, accustomed to the strange and
violent nature of their Arctic land. They dug out their homes. They even used the cinders to build new
roads and airport runways. Now the new homes of Heimaey are warmed from water pipes heated by
molten lava.
Black cinders fell that were the size of__

A) footballs
B) pebbles
C) baseballs
D) golf balls
E) hail-stones

3. The heart of the restorationist critique of environmental preservationism is the claim that it rests on an
unhealthy dualism that conceives nature and humankind as radically distinct and opposed to each other.
The crucial question about the restorationist outlook has to do with the degree to which the restorationist
program is itself faithful to its first principle- that nature and humanity are fundamentally united rather than
separate. Rejecting the old domination model, which sees humans as over nature, restoration theory
champions a model of community participation. Yet some of the descriptions of what restorationists are
actually up to-for example, Turner's description of humans as "the lords of creation," or Jordan's
statement that "the fate and well being of the biosphere depend ultimately on us and our relationship with
it"-do not cohere well with the community-participation model. Another holistic model-namely, that of
nature as an organism-might be more serviceable to the restorationists. As with the community model,
the "organic" model pictures nature as a system of interconnected parts. A fundamental difference,
however, is that in an organism the parts are wholly subservient to the life of the organism.
In asserting that the organic model"might be more serviceable to the restorationists" (lines 28-30), the
author implies that

A) the organic model is more consistent than the community participation model with the principle of
restoration
B) the organic model is more consistent with the restorationists' agenda than with the preservationists'
program
C) holistic models are more useful than the dualist model to the restorationists
D) the organic model, unlike the community participation model, represents nature as a system of
interconnected parts
E) the descriptions by Turner and Jordan of the restorationists' program conform more closely to the
organic model than to the community participation model

4. ROBUST : VIGOR ::

A) starving : appetite
B) nervous : worry
C) farsighted : glasses
D) sanguine : hope
E) massive : strength

5. CORNUCOPIA:

A) darkness
B) modicum
C) solitude
D) serenity
E) sparseness

Solutions: