GRE GMAT TESTs AND SOLUTIONs

Friedrich Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols expanded on the problem of the preponderance of reason in ancient Greek society. an issue he first broached in The Birth of Tragedy. The radical idea that Socrates was symptomatic of a decline Greek society based on the deification of ratio- nality was almost unique among Enlightenment thinkers. Reaction to the idea in The Birth of Tragedy, in fact, was so negative among German academics that Nietzsche himself vacillated in his support, referring to the work as "impos- sible" and "embarrassing" in a preface to the second edition before returning to the notion in his later works. The antipathy of his peers is not surprising given that he took aim at such pillars of Western thinking as Plato, Socrates, even Christianity. Though originally widely refuted at the time of writing, themes related to the con- flict between the rationality on one hand and the power of the senses on the other, were revisited ...

One of the most noxious wind-borne allergens is ragweed (Ambrosia). ss evidenced by an esti- mated 3O million sufferers in the U.S. alone and a societal cost of over $3 billion. Each plant is able to produce more than a billion grains of pol- len over the course of a season, and the plant is the prime cause of most cases of hay fever in North America. Although the plant produces more pollen in wet years. humidity rates above seventy percent tend to depress the spread of pollen by causing the grains to clump. Ragweed spreads rapidly by colonizing re- cently disturbed soil. such as that engendered by roads, subdivisions. and cultivation and has adapted to a multitude of climatic conditions, including desert and high mountain areas. Com- plete elimination is virtually impossible. Physi- cal removal is undone by even one seed or one bit of root left behind. Ragweed regenerates in about two weeks from only a half-inch of stem, usually with additional branching and flowering, so mowing can ...

Critics of Mark Twain's novel, Huckleberry Finn, view the protagonist's proclamation "All right, then, I'll go to hell" in chapter 31 as the story's climax. Twain's novel lent itself to such radical interpretations because it was the first major American work to depart from traditional European novelistic structures. thus providing critics with an unfamiliar framework. The re- maining twelve chapters act as a counterpoint, commenting on, if not reversing, the first part in which a morality play receives greater confirma- tion. Huck’s journey down the Mississippi repre- sents a rite of passage, in which the character's personal notions of right and wrong come into constant conflict with his socially constructed conscience by the various people and situations the protagonist encounters. The novel's cyclical structure encourages crit- ics to see the novel's disparate parts as inter- linked; the novel begins and ends with the b...

Comparative historian Marc Ferro claims that the largest discrepancy in knowledge between what academic historians and what the aver- age citizen knows about history is found in the United States. How has this situation come about? Certainly the problem does not lie with the secondary literature. Whereas in the past. American historians were handicapped by sec- ondary literature that was clearly biased towards a European viewpoint, since the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. the secondary literature in American history has become far more comprehensive. And it cannot be simply a matter of space constraints; the average high school history textbook is well over a thousand pages in length. One theory holds that American history text- books are simply the socializing instruments of a controlling elite. The stratification of American society is preserved. according to this theory. by the creation of what Marx termed “false consciousness." The theory ho...

Question 7 Over the last several decades, the demand for Country Y’s auto-mobiles increased in Country X but demand for Country X’s auto-mobiles in Country Y has remained stagnant. Initially, this disparity was plausibly due to Y’s manufacturers having superior technology, which has yielded more fuel efficient cars with cheaper maintenance. However, now Country X’s cars are comparable—if not slightly superior—in these respects. What Country X’s manufacturers fail to acknowledge is that Country Y’s drivers drive on the left side of the road. Clearly, to help lessen this trade imbalance, Country X manufacturers should produce more cars with right-side steering wheels. Which of the following is an assumption made by the argument? Reversing the trade imbalance requires making right-side steering wheels. If Country X makes auto-mobiles with right-side steering wheels, most consumers from Country Y will chose to purchase a car from Country X. If consumers from Country Y drive on the l...

The journalist was ____(i)____ in his pursuit of the scandal he suspected: despite a lack of support from his editors, he was determined to investigate day and night, follow every lead, and write until dawn to get the story first and finally ____(ii)____ the big news agencies. Decorous         scoop Digressive        forestall Indefatigable    deprecate

To ____(i)____ people accurately, census workers must be ____(ii)____: because there are often residents of a household with the same name, or people whose names have unusual spellings, workers who are anything less than ____(iii)____ in following correct procedures and reviewing cases may result in the same resident getting counted multiple times, or even not at all. Blank 1   Blank 2   Blank 3 Rectify    derivatives   meticulous tally       fastidious   perfunctory impute  industrious   inexact

One of the rarest of celestial events, the total solar eclipse only happens when the Moon, in its orbit around the Earth, fully ____(i)____ the view of the sun from a particular location on Earth. Because the Moon is relatively small, in celestial terms, and its umbra, the central part of the Moon’s shadow caused by its blocking the sun, only traces a narrow path on the Earth, a total eclipse is such a ____(ii)____ occurrence that it typically draws hundreds of thousands of onlookers. First Blank    Second Blank Secularizes    Atypical Epitomizes    Desultory Occludes      mementos