Practice Test 6 - GRE Verbal Reasoning

20 questions. Answer them in any order, then submit to see your score and every explanation.

For each blank, choose the word or phrase that best contributes to a clear, logical sentence. Choose one answer for each blank: the choices for the first blank are labeled A–C; the choices for the second blank are labeled D–F. The professor's feedback on the thesis was far from (i)______; rather than merely pointing out typos, she offered (ii)______ critiques that forced the student to rethink his entire argument.
Select the answer choice that best completes the sentence. The auditor found no evidence of fraud, but noted several _____ practices—such as missing receipts—that could create confusion during future reviews.
An ecologist claims that reintroducing wolves to a national park will likely increase riparian (riverbank) vegetation over time. As evidence, the ecologist cites (1) a 10-year dataset from Park X showing that after wolves returned, elk counts in river valleys declined by 25% and the proportion of time elk spent browsing in open riverbank areas decreased; (2) photographs from Park X showing taller willow stands at three monitored river sites five years after wolf reintroduction; (3) a study from Park Y in which wolf presence did not change elk population size but did change elk movement patterns; and (4) an analysis indicating that in Park X, average spring rainfall increased over the same decade. Which statement best evaluates how the author uses evidence?
A regional electric utility claims that offering customers a rebate for installing smart thermostats will reduce peak electricity demand enough to avoid building a new substation. The utility bases this conclusion on a small pilot program in which participating households used 10% less electricity during peak hours than they had the previous summer. The utility argues that because peak demand is driven largely by residential air-conditioning use, expanding the rebate program will produce similar reductions at scale. Which of the following, if true, most weakens the argument?
Passage: In organizational psychology, "psychological safety" refers to a shared belief that interpersonal risk-taking—such as admitting mistakes or proposing unconventional ideas—will not lead to punishment or humiliation. Studies often link psychological safety to team learning. Yet researchers note that psychological safety is not identical to comfort or consensus. Some teams report high safety while also engaging in frequent task-related conflict, because members feel able to challenge one another's ideas without personal hostility. In contrast, teams that avoid disagreement can appear harmonious but may suppress dissent. A separate literature on performance management finds that when evaluation systems emphasize individual rankings, employees may withhold information that could help peers, especially if rewards are zero-sum. Some firms have attempted to counteract this by incorporating team-based metrics, though critics argue that such metrics can obscure individual contributions. Finally, case studies of high-reliability organizations (such as aviation maintenance units) suggest that structured reporting systems—checklists, incident logs, and routine debriefs—can institutionalize speaking up, but only when leaders respond to reports by fixing processes rather than blaming individuals. Question: Based on the passage, which conclusion can be drawn by combining information from multiple paragraphs?
A research institute compared two grant-application formats: a long narrative and a shorter structured form. Reviewers spent 20% less time evaluating applications using the structured form, yet their final funding decisions closely matched those made under the narrative format in prior years. Because faster review allows the institute to process more applications without hiring additional staff, it should switch to the structured form for next year's grants. Which of the following best states the conclusion of the argument?
The philosopher's dense prose, often derided by students as ______, requires readers to parse sentences that wind through multiple subordinate clauses before arriving at any discernible point.
During the televised debate, the senator's closing speech was widely criticized as ______, offering vague promises and empty platitudes rather than any concrete policy proposals for voters to evaluate.
Passage: In corporate governance, stakeholder capitalism is sometimes introduced as a corrective to shareholder primacy, promising that firms can simultaneously pursue profits and broader social goals. The aspiration is not incoherent, but its operational content is often left vague. Appeals to "all stakeholders" can function as a flexible mandate that justifies almost any managerial choice, including choices that would previously have required clearer accountability. Metrics meant to track social performance are proliferating, yet they are frequently incomparable across firms and susceptible to selective disclosure. Without enforceable standards, stakeholder rhetoric may do less to constrain corporate behavior than to provide a more polished vocabulary for it. Question: The author's attitude toward stakeholder capitalism is best described as…
An archaeologist proposes that a coastal settlement relied heavily on marine resources. As evidence, the archaeologist notes: (1) 62% of animal bone fragments recovered from household middens are fish vertebrae and shellfish remains; (2) isotopic analysis of human teeth from the site indicates elevated nitrogen-15 levels consistent with diets high in marine protein; and (3) a nearby inland site from the same period contains more deer bones than fish bones. Which of the following best characterizes the support for the author's claim?
Read the passage and answer the question. In public health, wastewater surveillance has been promoted as a low-cost way to track infectious disease trends, since viral fragments can be detected before clinical testing captures an outbreak. The approach has clear advantages: it can reveal community-level signals even when individuals avoid clinics or home-test results go unreported. Still, claims that wastewater data provide a straightforward "early warning system" often neglect practical complications. Sampling sites may not correspond neatly to neighborhoods, industrial discharge can distort readings, and interpreting concentration changes requires assumptions about flow rates and population size that are not always defensible. Wastewater surveillance is therefore best understood as a valuable complement to, not a replacement for, more direct epidemiological measures. The author's attitude toward wastewater surveillance can best be described as…
Passage: In public health, "nudge" interventions—such as changing default options or rearranging cafeteria layouts—are sometimes promoted as a way to improve behavior without coercion. Advocates emphasize that nudges preserve freedom of choice while counteracting predictable cognitive biases. Because nudges are often inexpensive, they can appear to offer a rare policy tool that is both effective and politically palatable. Yet critics argue that the apparent gentleness of nudges can obscure important ethical and practical questions. If citizens are steered without knowing it, transparency may be compromised; if nudges substitute for structural reforms, they may merely tinker at the margins while leaving underlying constraints intact. Furthermore, evidence for nudge effectiveness is mixed, with some effects shrinking outside controlled settings. Proponents respond that these objections conflate poor implementation with the concept itself. They propose standards for disclosure, rigorous field evaluation, and a division of labor in which nudges complement rather than replace more comprehensive policies. On this account, the debate should not be whether to use nudges, but under what conditions their use is legitimate and empirically justified. Question: Which of the following best describes the role of the third paragraph in the passage?
Passage: In linguistics, a long-standing question is whether children acquire grammar primarily by extracting patterns from input or by relying on innate constraints that narrow the hypothesis space. Pattern-learning accounts point to children's sensitivity to distributional regularities and to the success of statistical models in approximating certain acquisition trajectories. Nativist accounts reply that statistical learning, by itself, may be underdetermined: many grammars can generate the same surface strings, so a learner needs biases to choose among them. They also note that children converge on grammatical rules despite receiving limited explicit correction, suggesting that learning is guided by more than reinforcement. More recent work has complicated the debate by showing that the two positions need not be framed as rivals over a single mechanism. Researchers increasingly ask which biases are necessary for statistical learning to be efficient and which aspects of input are most informative given those biases. The emphasis shifts from declaring a winner to specifying how constraints and data interact during development. Question: The third paragraph primarily serves to
Despite repeated setbacks and mounting skepticism from investors, the young inventor remained admirably ______, refining her prototype again and again until it finally worked as intended.
The critic said the film was not merely disappointing but ______, given how much anticipation had built beforehand.
Read the passage and answer the question. Some commentators claim that the spread of digital reading inevitably diminishes comprehension because screens encourage skimming. The evidence, however, is more mixed than the claim suggests. Studies that compare print and screen often find small average differences, but those averages conceal substantial variation depending on task and design. When digital texts are presented with frequent notifications, hyperlinks, or infinite scrolling, readers are more likely to fragment attention and retain less. Yet when distractions are minimized and the interface supports navigation—through stable page numbers, clear headings, and easy annotation—screen reading can yield comprehension comparable to print. Moreover, the medium itself does not determine reading goals: people often choose screens for quick reference and print for sustained study, and then attribute the resulting differences to the medium rather than to their intentions. The more defensible conclusion is that comprehension depends less on "screen versus paper" than on how the reading environment shapes attention and how well the format supports the reader's purpose. The primary purpose of the passage is to:
Although the archival records and the oral histories seemed _____ at first, closer study showed they described the same events from different vantage points.
Passage: In discussions of urban heat, policymakers often treat tree planting as an unalloyed good: more canopy, the reasoning goes, must always lower temperatures. Yet this assumption overlooks how cooling is produced. Shade reduces incoming solar radiation, but evapotranspiration—the release of water vapor from leaves—can be equally important, and it depends on adequate soil moisture. In drought-prone cities, trees with high water demand may provide substantial shade while simultaneously intensifying competition for limited water, prompting restrictions that reduce irrigation for all vegetation. A recent modeling study compared two greening strategies across neighborhoods with similar building density. The first emphasized fast-growing, high-canopy species; the second used smaller, drought-tolerant species paired with reflective pavement. Under typical summer conditions, both strategies reduced daytime surface temperatures. During simulated multiweek droughts, however, the high-canopy strategy lost much of its cooling benefit as stomata closed and evapotranspiration declined, whereas the mixed strategy retained more stable cooling. These results do not imply that large-canopy trees are a mistake. Rather, they suggest that planting programs should be evaluated as water-and-heat interventions together, not as a single-variable canopy target. The primary function of the final paragraph is to:
Select the answer choice that best completes the sentence. Because the scientist refused to draw conclusions from a single experiment, she remained _____ until the results were replicated by independent labs.
A nutrition researcher reports that, in a study of 300 adults, participants who ate a serving of nuts at least five days per week had lower average LDL cholesterol than participants who ate nuts less frequently. The researcher concludes that increasing nut consumption lowers LDL cholesterol and recommends that adults add nuts to their diets to improve heart health. Which of the following best bolsters the author's reasoning?

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