Free Test Prep GRE-Verbal-Reasoning Exam Questions

The victory of the small Greek democracy of Athens over the mighty Persian empire in 490 B. C. is one of the most famous events in history. Darius, king of the Persian empire, was furious because Athens had interceded for the other Greek city-states in revolt against Persian domination. In anger the king sent an enormous army to defeat Athens. He thought it would take drastic steps to pacify the rebellious part of the empire. Persia was ruled by one man. In Athens, however, all citizens helped to rule. Ennobled by this participation, Athenians were prepared to die for their city-state. Perhaps this was the secret of the remarkable victory at Marathon, which freed them from Persian rule. On their way to Marathon, the Persians tried to fool some Greek city-states by claiming to have come in peace. The frightened citizens of Delos refused to believe this. Not wanting to abet the conquest of Greece, they filed from their city and did not return until the Persians had left. They were wise, for the Persians next conquered the city of Etria and captured its people. Tiny Athens stood alone against Persi deliverance. They asked their gods to expedite their victory. The Athenians refurbished their weapons and moved to the plain of Marathon, where their little band would meet the Persians. At the last moment, soldiers from Plataea reinforced the Athenian troops. The Athenian army attacked, and Greek citizens fought bravely. The power of the mighty Persians was offset by the love that the Athenians had for their city. Athenians defeated the Persians in archery and hand combat. Greek soldiers seized Persian ships and burned them, and the Persians filed in terror. Herodotus, a famous historian, reports that 6400 Persians died, compared with only 192 Athenians. The Athenians were _by some soldiers who arrived from Plataea.

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The Galapagos Islands are in the Pacific Ocean, off the western coast of South America. They are a rocky, lonely spot, but they are also one of the most unusual places in the world. One reason is that they are the home of some of the last giant tortoises left on earth. Weighing hundreds of pounds, these tortoises, or land turtles, wander slowly around the rocks and sand of the islands. Strangely, each of these islands has its own particular kinds of tortoises. There are seven different kinds of tortoises on the eight islands, each kind being slightly different from the other. Hundreds of years ago, thousands of tortoises wandered around these islands. However, all that changed when people started landing there. When people first arrived in 1535, their ships had no refrigerators. This meant that fresh food was always a problem for the sailors on board. The giant tortoises provided a solution to this problem. Ships would anchor off the islands, and crews would row ashore and seize as many tortoises as they could. Once the animals were aboard the ship, the sailors would roll the tortoises onto their backs. The tortoises were completely helpless once on their backs, so they could only lie there until used for soups and stews. Almost 100,000 tortoises were carried off in this way. The tortoises faced other problems, too. Soon after the first ships, settlers arrived bringing pigs, goats, donkeys, dogs and cats. All of these animals ruined life for the tortoises. Donkey and goats ate all the plants that the tortoises usually fed on, while the pigs. Dogs and cats consumed thousands of baby tortoises each year. Within a few years, it was hard to find any tortoise eggs-or even any baby tortoises. By the early 1900s, people began to worry that the last of the tortoises would soon die out. No one, however, seemed to care enough to do anything about the problem. More and more tortoises disappeared, even though sailors no longer needed them for food. For another fifty years, this situation continued. Finally, in the 1950s, scientist decided that something must be done. The first part of their plan was to get rid of as many cats, dogs and other animals as they could. Next, they tried to make sure that more baby tortoises would be born. To do this, they started looking for wild tortoise eggs. They gathered the eggs and put them in safe containers. When the eggs hatched, the scientists raised the tortoises in special pens. Both the eggs and tortoises were numbered so that the scientists knew exactly which kinds of tortoises they had-and which island they came from. Once the tortoises were old enough and big enough to take care of themselves, the scientists took them back to their islands and set them loose. This slow, hard work continues today, and, thanks to it, the number of tortoises is now increasing every year. When did people start to do something to save the tortoises?

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