Practice Test 8 - 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. Because the newly developed alloy proved remarkably (i), resisting even repeated hammer blows without cracking or deforming, engineers at the firm deemed it (ii) for use in heavy machinery subjected to constant mechanical impact.
Passage: In literary studies, some critics argue that the rise of the novel in the eighteenth century reflected a growing emphasis on individual interiority. They point to first-person narration and detailed psychological description as evidence that readers increasingly valued private experience. Other scholars caution that formal features alone do not determine how texts were read. Archival work on lending libraries suggests that many novels circulated in social settings: families read aloud together, and readers discussed installments in coffeehouses. In these contexts, novels could function as prompts for collective debate rather than as vehicles for solitary introspection. A third perspective comes from book history. Printers and publishers often marketed novels by emphasizing moral instruction or social satire, framing them as guides to conduct. Such marketing may have shaped readers' expectations, encouraging them to treat fictional characters as exemplars or warnings. Finally, recent digital humanities projects analyze marginalia and readers' letters. These sources reveal that some readers indeed identified strongly with protagonists' inner conflicts, while others focused on plot mechanics or on parallels to local political disputes. Question: Which statement is best supported by synthesizing information throughout the passage?
Select the answer choice that best completes the sentence. The trial was small and unblinded; _____, its authors' sweeping claim of a cure seems premature.
In the sentence "Her studied indifference to the award fooled no one," the word "studied" most nearly means
The diplomat's public remarks were carefully ______: every phrase had reportedly been vetted in advance by aides to avoid offending either delegation during the sensitive negotiations.
Passage: In discussions of language change, prescriptive commentators often portray new usages as signs of decline, implying that a language has a correct, stable form that is being corrupted. The passage evaluates this view by contrasting it with a descriptive perspective, which treats variation and change as normal features of living languages. The author notes that standards can be socially useful: shared conventions facilitate communication in formal settings and can reduce ambiguity. Yet the passage argues that elevating one variety as inherently superior often reflects historical power relations rather than linguistic necessity, and it can stigmatize speakers whose dialects differ from the standard. The author concludes that a balanced approach recognizes the practical role of standards while rejecting the notion that change itself is evidence of decay. Question: The author's main objective is to…
A study of workplace communication found that teams using an internal chat platform sent more messages per employee after the company encouraged "transparent communication." Yet, in those same teams, the number of documented decisions recorded in project-management software declined. The study also noted that many teams began using chat threads to make quick decisions and that fewer employees updated the project-management tool unless a manager requested it. Which of the following, if true, best resolves the apparent discrepancy?
Read the passage and answer the question. Economists often defend congestion pricing—charging drivers a fee to enter crowded urban zones—by emphasizing efficiency. When roads are free at the point of use, each driver ignores the delay imposed on others; a price, the argument goes, forces drivers to account for that social cost and reallocates scarce road space to trips that are most valued. Opponents counter that the policy is regressive: wealthier drivers can pay the fee while lower-income commuters may be priced out. They also argue that public transit alternatives are frequently inadequate, so the "choice" to avoid the fee is illusory. In this view, congestion pricing looks less like a corrective tool and more like a penalty on those with the fewest options. A third position reframes the dispute by focusing on revenue use. If proceeds are returned as targeted rebates, or invested in transit improvements that specifically serve affected commuters, the regressive burden can be reduced or even reversed. Thus the central question becomes not whether pricing is inherently fair, but whether the surrounding fiscal design aligns efficiency gains with distributive goals. The primary function of the second paragraph is to:
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 archivist's initial catalog, though widely praised for its (i)_____ detail, proved on later use to be strangely (ii)_____, since its meticulous entries on minor correspondence left almost no trace of the collection's most historically significant manuscripts.
Read the passage and answer the question. A marine biologist claims that artificial reef structures increase local fish biodiversity. The biologist cites a two-year monitoring project in which divers conducted monthly visual counts at 12 artificial reef sites and 12 nearby sandy-bottom control sites. Across the project, the artificial reef sites averaged 22 species per survey, while the sandy controls averaged 14. The biologist also notes that several species observed at the artificial reefs were juvenile stages of commercially important fish. However, the monitoring report states that the artificial reefs were placed closer to existing natural rock outcrops than the control sites were, because of permitting constraints. The evidence in the passage primarily serves to
Read the passage and answer the question. A linguistics dissertation reports an eye-tracking study on sentence processing conducted with 72 native speakers of German. Participants read 48 experimental sentences and 96 filler sentences presented in a randomized order. The passage states that each sentence was displayed in a single line of black 14-point font on a gray background, and that participants were seated 60 centimeters from the monitor. Eye movements were recorded at 1000 Hz using a desktop-mounted tracker, and calibration was repeated whenever average error exceeded 0.5 degrees of visual angle. The dissertation also notes that comprehension questions followed exactly one-third of the trials and that participants responded using a two-button response box. For analysis, the author excluded fixations shorter than 80 milliseconds and removed trials in which track loss occurred for more than 25% of the sentence. Finally, the passage specifies that the study was approved by the university's ethics committee in March 2022. Which of the following is mentioned in the passage?
A town council states: "We should ban food trucks in the downtown area because downtown restaurants have reported lower revenue since food trucks became more common. Since protecting restaurant revenue is essential to a vibrant downtown, banning food trucks will restore downtown vitality." Which of the following identifies a flaw in the argument's reasoning?
Complete the sentence: The documentary's tone was _____; it showed the factory's collapse without blame or sentiment, letting the footage speak for itself.
A publishing house compared two approaches to editing: a traditional process and a new workflow that uses software to flag consistency issues before human review. In a six-month trial, books edited under the new workflow had 25% fewer post-publication corrections, and overall editing time per manuscript fell by 10%. Since the software license costs less than the labor savings from reduced editing time, the house should adopt the new workflow for all nonfiction titles. Which of the following best states the conclusion of the argument?
A coastal town is considering whether to restore a nearby wetland. Environmental scientists report that the wetland historically absorbed storm surge and that towns with similar restorations experienced lower flood-repair costs over the following decade. Although restoration has a high upfront price, the town's finance office estimates that avoided repairs would exceed the project cost within twelve years. Therefore, the town should proceed with wetland restoration as a fiscally prudent flood-mitigation strategy. The main point of the argument is that…
Although the young lawyer's closing argument was undeniably ______, seasoned colleagues worried that its polished phrasing concealed a troubling lack of substantive evidence to support her client's claims.
The archivist's ______ approach to cataloging—she insisted on cross-referencing every document three separate times—ultimately slowed the project considerably.
In a longitudinal study of sleep, researchers found that participants who reported drinking coffee in the afternoon had, on average, shorter total sleep time. Yet the same participants also scored higher on next-day attention tests than participants who avoided afternoon coffee. The study noted that coffee drinkers were more likely to report a brief nap earlier in the day and were more likely to have flexible work schedules. Which of the following, if true, best resolves the apparent discrepancy?
Select the answer choice that best completes the sentence. The article states its thesis at once, then spends every later paragraph _____ it with case after case.
Read the passage and answer the question. A political science article analyzes archival records from a 1974 parliamentary committee in order to track how amendments were negotiated. The author examined 312 pages of meeting minutes stored in a national archive and cross-referenced them with 46 newspaper articles published during the same month. The passage specifies that the committee met on five dates—March 4, March 7, March 11, March 18, and March 25—and that the March 11 session lasted 6 hours, longer than any other session. The author notes that only two members spoke in every meeting and that the chair formally called for a vote on three amendments, all of which passed. In describing limitations, the passage states that audio recordings were not available and that the minutes occasionally omitted the names of speakers when multiple people interrupted each other. Which of the following is mentioned in the passage?

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