Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Carolyn Wheater teaches math at The Nightingale-Bamford School in New York,New York.

Jane R. Burstein is a private test-prep tutor.

Catherine McMenamin teaches English at The Nightingale-Bamford School.

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CliffsNotes GRE General Test Cram Plan

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

Directions (1–6): For each blank, select the word or phrase that best completes the text. (Your answer will consist of one, two, or three letters, depending on the number of blanks in each question.)

1. With a __________ common among those to whom short-term fixes are expedient, Senator Noah Julian refused to consider a complete overhaul of the election funding issue.

A. aestheticism

B. myopia

C. skepticism

D. inventiveness

E. paranoia

2. Settling into what he thought would be cosmopolitan suburban community, Seth was confounded by the __________ of his neighbors.

A. erudition

B. urbanity

C. insularity

D. gentility

E. affluence

3. In his interesting preface, Mr. Shorthouse alludes to William Smith's philosophical novel, Thorndale. As a picture of thought developments in the early Victorian period, the work has special historical interest for the (1) __________ and theological student; in this respect, it may be (2) __________ to Pater's Marius the Epicurean, which also vividly reproduces the intellectual ferment of an earlier age.

Blank 1 Blank 2

philosophical abstracted secular adapted antithetical likened

4. Indeed, it is a source of common (1) __________ among engineers, who smirk that the average layman cannot differentiate between the man who runs a locomotive and the man who designs a locomotive. In ordinary (2) __________, both are called engineers.

Blank 1 Blank 2

irritation parlance wrath colloquialism amusement hyperbole

5. The Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields is certainly the most imperfect of Toru Dutt's writings, but it is not the least interesting. It is a wonderful mixture of strength and weakness, of genius (1) __________ great obstacles and of talent succumbing to ignorance and inexperience. That it should have been performed at all is so extraordinary that we forget to be surprised at its (2) __________. The English verse is sometimes (3) __________; at other times the rules of our prosody are absolutely ignored, and it is obvious that the Hindu poetess was chanting to herself a music that is discord in an English ear.

Blank 1 Blank 2 Blank 3

performing constancy exquisite overriding propinquity gauche recapitulating unevenness unintelligible

Directions (7–12): Questions follow each of the passages. Using only the stated or implied information in each passage, answer the questions.

Questions 7–9 are based on the following passage.

The Vietnam War began in 1956 and ended in 1975. It had dire consequences for millions of Americans. The American military pushed forward to South Vietnam to assist its government against the communist regime, who were supported by North Vietnam. By the late 1960s, the United States entered this war in which almost 60,000 Americans would die. Two million Vietnamese lives may have been lost, including those of many thousands of civilians, due to intensive bombing by the opponents. Also, a highly toxic chemical caused defoliation, the elimination of vegetation. The Vietnam War is estimated to have cost approximately $200 billion.

Returning Vietnam veterans, approximately 2.7 million in all, did not receive a positive welcome from American civilians. Instead, they returned to widespread public opposition. Their moral opposition to the war made it difficult for many Americans to show support for these veterans.

6. One step in social order leads to another, and thus is furnished a means of utilizing without waste all of the individual and social forces. Yet how irregular and (1) __________ are the first steps of human progress. A step forward, followed by a long period of readjustment of the conditions of life; a movement forward here and a (2) __________ force there. Within this irregular movement we discover the true course of human progress. One tribe, on account of peculiar advantages, makes a special discovery, which places it in the (3) __________ and gives it power over others.

Blank 1 Blank 2 Blank 3

catastrophic retarding echelon dramatic dominating nadir faltering impulsive ascendancy

A few years after the Vietnam War, veterans started a fund for construction of a memorial to those who had died; they raised nearly $9 million. A competition was held for the proper design, with the proviso that the memorial should not express any political view of the war.

In a funerary design course at Yale University, 21-year-old architecture student Maya Lin submitted a proposal for the design competition for the memorial. The popular conception of a war memorial recalled the heroic equestrian statues of Civil War generals, but in Lin's opinion, such representations were too simplified. Her design consisted of two walls of polished black granite built into the earth, set in the shape of a shallow V. Carved into the stone are the names of all the men and women killed in the war or still missing, in chronological order by the date of their death or disappearance. Rising up 10 feet high, the names begin and continue to that wall's end, resuming at the point of the opposite wall and ending at the place where the names began. Visitors can easily access the wall and touch the names, an integral part of Lin's design.

After the judges evaluated thousands of entries for this competition in the spring of 1981, Maya Lin won. The public's reaction to this particular design was sharply divided, reflecting their opposing feelings about this war. Yet more than one million visitors view the memorial each year.

7. What is the author's primary purpose of the passage?

A. To propose ideas about Maya Lin's submission from Yale University

B. To dissect the Vietnam Memorial's proposition

C. To discuss the history of the design of the Vietnam Memorial and the response to it

D. To critique the judges reviewing Lin's sculptural proposal

E. To discuss the history of the Vietnam War and its aftermath

8. Select the sentence that presents Lin's reasons for not creating a conventional war memorial.

9. What details in the narrative suggest that it was possible to fulfill the requirement that the monument express no political view of the war?

A. Those opposing it said it degraded the memory of those who had given their lives to this cause.

B. The United States government wanted a memorial that would honor the dead.

C. Carved into the stone are the names of all the men and women killed in the war or still missing, in chronological order by the date of their death or disappearance.

D. One wall points toward the Washington Monument and the other wall points toward the Lincoln Memorial, bringing the Vietnam Memorial into proper historical reference.

E. Many Americans were unwilling to confront the...