Free Test Prep GRE-Verbal-Reasoning Exam Questions

In the United States, the extent of adult illiteracy at the workplace has been obscured by adequate employment for adults with few or no literacy skills, too-simple definitions of literacy, faulty survey methods, and a stigma associated with illiteracy that keeps many people from admitting illiteracy or seeking help in overcoming it. With today’s increasingly rapid technological advances and increased foreign competition, however, U.S. businesses are growing more and more aware of the extent and the costs of illiteracy in the work force. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics warns that the U.S. labor-force entrants in the years ahead may not have the skills that employers need-that new jobs in the service industries, where most job growth is projected to occur, will demand much higher literacy skill levels than today’s service jobs, and few new jobs will be created for those who cannot read and follow directions, fill out forms and communicate by e-mail with coworkers, and perform simple arithmetical computations applying the basic rules of mathematics. It can be inferred from the passage that

TOPAZ : YELLOW

King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette ruled France from 1774 to 1789, a time when the country was fighting bankruptcy. The royal couple did not let France's insecure financial situation limit their immoderate spending, however. Even though the minister of finance repeatedly warned the king and queen against wasting money, they continued to spend great fortunes on their personal pleasure. This lavish spending greatly enraged the people of France. They felt that the royal couple bought its luxurious lifestyle at the poor peopIe's expense. Marie Antoinette, the beautiful but exceedingly impractical queen, seemed uncaring about her subjects; misery. While French citizens begged for lower taxes, the queen embellished her palace with extravagant works of art. She also surrounded herself with artists, writers, and musicians, who encouraged the queen to spend money even more profusely. While the queen's favorites glutted themselves on huge feasts at the royal table, many people in France were starving. The French government taxed the citizens outrageously. These high taxes paid for the entertainments the queen and her court so enjoyed. When the minister of finance tried to stop these royal spendthrifts, the queen replaced him. The intense hatred that the people felt for Louis XVI and Nlarie Antoinette kept building until it led to the French Revolution. During this time of struggle and violence (1789-1799), thousands of aristocrats, as well as the king and queen themselves, lost their lives at the guillotine. Perhaps if Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had reined in their extravagant spending, the events that rocked France would not have occurred. The minister of finance tried to curb these royal _.

While there will always be a need for social programs geared toward alleviating the poverty of indMduals, the community is perhaps the more relevant level for public policy intervention, especially in rural areas. It has been recognized that social isolation within urban ghettos is a structural characteristic of urban poverty, but rural poverty is marked by physical isolation as well. This uniqueness makes rural community poverty particularly intractable, requiring policies that account for the cost of isolation. It is possible to provide vocational training for indMduals anywhere, but if there are no jobs within the community for those indMduals, the training is largely wasted. The current transition to a service-based economy and deregulation in transportation (resulting in disproportionately higher transportation costs for relatively isolated areas) have only exacerbated the growing social and economic distress in rural America, underscoring the need to redefine poverty and redirect the focus of our funding agencies and policy-makers in accordance with the new definition. What’s needed is a more holistic view on an aggregate level, where poverty is properly seen as a condition of the local social structure, with income only one of the salient parameters. The author seeks to draw which of the following distinctions between urban ghettos and impoverished rural communities?

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?