Free Test Prep GRE-Verbal-Reasoning Exam Questions

The Andean cordillera is made up of many inten/voven mountain ranges, which include high intermontane plateaus, basins, and valleys. The Northern Andes contain several broad ecosystems falling into four altitudinal belts. Its northern subregion is distinguished by higher humidity and by greater climatic symmetry between eastern and western flanks. The Central Andes are characterized by a succession of agricultural zones with varied climatic conditions along the mountains’ flanks and by large, highaltitude plateaus, variously called puna or altiplano, which do not occur in the Northern Andes. The soil fertility of the northern altiplano is generally good. The western Central Andean ranges are relatively arid with desert-like soils, whereas the eastern ranges are more humid and have more diverse soils. The eastern slopes of the Central Andes in many ways are similar to the wet forests of the Northern Andes. Unlike the Northern Andes, however, these slopes have a dry season. In regions of gentle topography, such as the Amazon basin, regional climatic variation can be determined from a few widely spaced measurements. Regional projections in the Andean cordillera are quite difficult by comparison. For example, while air temperature generally decreases with increasing altitude, variability of mountain topography can produce much lower than expected air temperatures. Nevertheless, some general climatic patterns are discernible. For example, with increasing distance south of the equator the seasonality of precipitation increases, whereas the total annual amount generally decreases. Humidity commonly increases with increasing altitude, but only to some intermediate altitude, above which it declines. The variability of mountain terrain also affects precipitation, such that conditions of extreme wetness and aridity may exist in close proximity. Related to this temperature gradient is a pattern of ater rainfall at the valley heads, and less rain at lower altitudes, resulting in part from mountain rainshadow effect. The weather patterns of the Andean cordillera and Amazon basin in general refilect movements of highand low-pressure cells associated with the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a low-pressure trough that moves further north and south on a seasonal basis. Precipitation is high throughout the year in the highlands and on the coast in the Northern Andes. Coastal aridity increases south of central Ecuador, culminating in the Atacama desert of northern Chile. In the Central Andes, highland precipitation is seasonal, and amounts are approximately half those measured in the Northern Andes. The aridity of the Central Andean coastal zone is the result of the drying effect of the cold Pacific Humboldt current and the southern Pacific high-pressure cell. lV|uch of the southern portion of the Central Andes in BolMa is also arid. The dry season causes soil moisture deficits and diminished stream flow part of each year. According to the passage, the northern part of the high-altitude plateaus is characterized by which of the following?

In 1892 the Sierra Club was formed. In 1908 an area of coastal redwood trees north of San Francisco was established as Muir Woods National Monument. In the Sierra Nevada mountains, a walking trail from Yosemite Valley to Mount Whitney was dedicated in 1938. It is called John Muir Trail. John Muir was born in 1838 in Scotland. His family name means "moor," which is a meadow full of flowers and animals. John loved nature from the time he was small. He also liked to climb rocky cliffs and walls. When John was eleven, his family moved to the United States and settled in Wisconsin. John was good with tools and soon became an inventor. He first invented a model of a sawmill. Later he invented an alarm clock that would cause the sleeping person to be tipped out of bed when the timer sounded. Muir left home at an early age. He took a thousand-mile walk south to the Gulf of Mexico in 1867and 1868. Then he sailed for San Francisco. The city was too noisy and crowded for Muir, so he headed inland for the Sierra Nevadas. When Muir discovered the Yosemite Valley in the Sierra Nevadas, it was as if he had come home. He loved the mountains, the wildlife, and the trees. He climbed the mountains and even climbed trees during thunderstorms in order to get closer to the wind. He put forth the theory in the late 1860's that the Yosemite Valley had been formed through the action of glaciers. People ridiculed him. Not until 1930 was Muir's theory proven correct. Muir began to write articles about the Yosemite Valley to tell readers about its beauty. His writing also warned people that Yosemite was in danger from timber mining and sheep ranching interests. In 1901 Theodore Roosevelt became president of the United States. He was interested in conservation. Muir took the president through Yosemite, and Roosevelt helped get legislation passed to create Yosemite National Park in 1906. Although Muir won many conservation battles, he lost a major one. He fought to save the Hetch Valley, which people wanted to dam in order to provide water for San Francisco. In the late 1913 a bill was signed to dam the valley. Muir died in 1914. Some people say losing the fight to protect the valley killed Muir. What happened first?

SCIENTIAL:

The origin of the attempt to distinguish early from modern music and to establish the canons of performance practice for each lies in the eighteenth century. In the first half of that century, when Telemann and Bach ran the collegium musicum in Leipzig, Germany, they performed their own and other modern music. In the German universities of the early twentieth century, however, the reconstituted collegium musicum devoted itself to performing music from the centuries before the beginning of the "standard repertory," by which was understood music from before the time of Bach and Handel. Alongside this modern collegium musicum, German musicologists developed the historical sub-discipline known as "performance practice," which included the deciphering of obsolete musical notation and its transcription into modern notation, the study of obsolete instruments, and the re-establishment of lost oral traditions associated with those forgotten repertories. The cutoff date for this study was understood to be around 1750, the year of Bach’s death, since the music of Bach, Handel, Telemann and their contemporaries did call for obsolete instruments and voices and unannotated performing traditions—for instance, the spontaneous realization of vocal and instrumental melodic ornamentation. Furthermore, with a few exceptions, late baroque music had ceased to be performed for nearly a century, and the orally transmitted performing traditions associated with it were forgotten as a result. In contrast, the notation in the music of Haydn and IV|ozart from the second half of the eighteenth century was more complete than in the earlier styles, and the instruments seemed familiar, so no "speciaI" knowledge appeared necessary. Also, the music of Haydn and Mozart, having never ceased to be performed, had maintained some kind of oral tradition of performance practice. Beginning around 1960, however, early-music performers began to encroach upon the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Why? Scholars studying performance practice had discovered that the lMng oral traditions associated with the Viennese classics frequently could not be traced to the eighteenth century and that there were nearly as many performance mysteries to solve for music after 1750 as for earlier repertories. Furthermore, more and more young singers and instrumentalists became attracted to early music, and as many of them graduated from student- amateur to professional status, the technical level of early-music performances took a giant leap forward. As professional early-music groups, building on these developments, expanded their repertories to include later music, the mainstream protested vehemently. The differences between the two camps extended beyond the question of which instruments to use to the more critical matter of style and delivery. At the heart of their disagreement is whether historical knowledge about performing traditions is a prerequisite for proper interpretation of music or whether it merely creates an obstacle to inspired musical tradition. It can be inferred from the passage that the "standard repertory" mentioned in line 15 might have included music that was written

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