GRE Verbal Sample Question

TEXT COMPLETION SET 1

1.)    Although it appeared to be __________ after its stagnation and eventual cancellation in 1989, Doctor Who Returned to BBC in 2005 to become the longest –running science-fiction show in history.

a.)    Moribund

b.)    Ascendant

c.)    Unflagging

d.)    Defunct

e.)    Sated

2.)    The capacity of embryonic stem cells to develop into most types of human tissue makes them of ____________ value for a myriad of medical applications, but the genetic program that underlies this quality is not yet known.

a.)    Immediate

b.)    Negligible

c.)    Monetary

d.)   Intrinsic

e.)    Potential

3.)    Social Critic Neil Postman identified what he saw as a sort of intellectual __________ when he wrote, “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

a.)    Pondering

b.)    Malingering

c.)    Entropy

d.)    Cerebration

e.)    Banishment

4.)    As the effect of foreign competition and a sense of threatened _________ reached each canton, talk of independence grew more common.

a.)    Immunity

b.)    Apotheosis

c.)    Belligerence

d.)    Recidivism

e.)    Autonomy

5.)    By the mid-1700s, when it began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, the French government had fully realized that the success of its state building projects ____________ the welfare of its people, particularly the labor-providing lower class.

a.)    Threatened

b.)    Depended on

c.)    Promoted

d.)   Should supercede

e.)    Prevented

6.)    Traditional upper class _________ such as fox hunting and cricket have largely given way to more egalitarian amusements over the course of the last century.

a.)    Stereotypes

b.)    Disportments

c.)    Vocations

d.)    Canards

e.)    Professions

7.)    One particular __________ of many grammarians is the serial comma: whether to use one or not is an issue about which they will quibble at great length and not without some pedantic pleasure.

a.)    Crotchet

b.)    Awl

c.)    Apogee

d.)    Nadir

e.)    Opus

The Answers to the above questions are:

1.)    D.) Defunct

2.)    E.) Potential

3.)    C.) Entropy

4.)    E.) Autonomy

5.)    B.) Depended on

6.)    B.) Disportments

7.)    A.) Crotchet