Admission Tests GRE General Test - GRE Exam Questions

QUESTION NO: 1
The relevance of the literary personality-a writer's distinctive attitudes, concerns, and artistic choices-to the analysis of a literarys work is being scrutinized by various schools of contemporary criticism.
Deconstructionisls view the literary personality, like the writer's biographical personality, as irrelevant. The proper focus of literary analysis, they argue, is a work's intertextuality (interrelationship with other texts), subtexts (unspoken, concealed. or repressed discourses), and metatexts (self-referential aspects), not a perception of a writer's verbal and aesthetic "fingerprints." New historicists also devalue the literary personality, since, in their emphasis on a work's historical context, they credit a writer with only those insights and ideas that were generally available when the writer lived. However, to readers interested in literary detective work-say scholars of classical (Greek and Roman) literature who wish to reconstruct damaged texts or deduce a work's authorship- the literary personality sometimes provides vital clues.
The passage is primarily concerned with

QUESTION NO: 2
Discussions of the collapse of the lowland Maya are not new. However, it might be better to say that Maya civilization as a whole did not collapse, although many zones did experience profound change. Because societies are not bounded, unitary entities. collapses are rarely total, and continuity is a normal pan of collapse At the end of the Classic period [200-900 C.E.]. the institution of divine kingship and many of the well-known markers of elite culture such a-, caned stelae [slabs erected for funerals or commemorative purposes] and hieroglyphic polychromes [multicolored artistic pottery] ended, but Maya civilization continued in modified form with many important features intact (e.g.. literacy, war. art. the production of fine ceramics). In some cases large buildings were constructed in the Postclassic period [900-1512 C.E.], but the transition to the Early Postclassic [900-1200 C.E.] era is distinctive for a decrease in elite goods and contexts. The variability in artifact changes during the Terminal Classic [800-900 C.E.] and into the Postclassic. even within artifact classes (e.g.. line versus unslipped ceramics), suggests weaker centralized control than during the Classic period. Site abandonments in the Terminal Classic indicate the collapse of the functional ability of Maya states, but sites that survived show that Maya civilization continued albeit without divine kingship and much of the spectacle around it.
According to the passage, which of the following statements about the institution of divine kingship is true?

QUESTION NO: 3
When Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck moved to England in 1632 to become court painter to Charles The introduced an entirely new way of representing dress in portraiture. In women's portraits. he left off fashionable accessories, depicted subjects in unbuttoned sleeves and collars, and added lavish drapery and jewels. For the first time an artist actively participated in dressing his subjects, creating an amalgam of fantasy and reality. While Van Dyck was most innovative when representing women, he used similar elements in portraits of men.
Van Dyck's Portrait of Thomas Killigrew and Willian. Lord Crofts (1638) demonstrates how the artist relaxed and unbuttoned men's dress to accord with an underlying theme. The double portrait may be seen as an essay in grief: Killigrew. a poet and playwright, had lost his wife Cecelia to the plague shortly before the sitting, and Crofts was her nephew. The painting contains clear references to the situation at hand. The background features a broken column, a traditional emblem of earthly transience. A drawing in Killigrew's right hand depicts two Itinerary monuments. Crofts holds a blank sheet of paper, seen by some scholars as an analog to the drawing Killigrew holds: a symbol of what is gone.
At historians have interpreted the clothing depicted in this portrait, particularly Crofts' doublet which is worn unbuttoned in back, as an allusion to the subjects' grief-stricken distraction. It is true that Killigrew's dress includes references to his loss-he wears a cross inscribed with his wife's initials. There is an intimate nature to this painting, which seems underscored by the loose clothing worn by both subjects. However, diis reading of the costumes as signs of grief does not take account of seventeenth-century fashion conventions. Only Killigrew appears in noticeably disheveled attire; Crofts" dress would be quite appropriate for a formal portrait. Though black clothing, such as that won by Crofil, was common for mourning, it was also ordinary on other occasions. Furthermore, during the first stage of mounting no shiny surfaces, such as Crofts' satin doublet, would be permitted. The unbuttoned slit on Crofts" doublet was probably a matter of style: a French courtier in a 1635 fashion print by Bosse. who is gallivanting rather than grieving, wears a similarly undone doublet. Evidence suggests that by the late 1630s a certain calculated looseness was conventional in men's formal dress. Ribeiro. for example, cites the writings of moralists objecting to this style.
Killigrew's attire, though even looser than Crofts", should not necessarily be associated with grief. Other seventeenth-century subjects depicted in melancholic states do not dress this way. Although Killigrew's
"undress" lends this portrait a distinctive intimacy, it might also refer to Killigrew's literary career. Many of Van Dyck's other subjects who engaged in literary pursuits are depicted in loose clothing. The blank sheet held by Crofts may be a reminder not only of Killigrew's loss but also of his solace: he had but to express his grief in writing.
The author of the passage suggests that if the cited "art historians" had taken account of seventeenth-century fashion, they would have been more likely to

QUESTION NO: 4

QUESTION NO: 5
The perimeter of rectangle ABCD is 20. and the length of each side is an integer. Which of the following values could be the length of diagonal AC?
Indicate all such values.
A)

B)

C)

D)

QUESTION NO: 6
Exhibit.

QUESTION NO: 7
Not only do the brains of people with great memories appear anatomically_________those of control subjects, but in terms of general cognitive ability, great memorizers appear to be well within the normal range.

QUESTION NO: 8
Scientists have recently confirmed that Mercury possesses a lot of ice._________discovery for a place that ranks among the hottest in the solar system.

QUESTION NO: 9

QUESTION NO: 10

QUESTION NO: 11

In the circle with center O, if the length of minor arc MP is 3, what is the area of square region MOPQ ?

QUESTION NO: 12
In the xy-plane. what is the slope of the line that passes through the points (2,-3) and (5. -4)? Give your answer as a fraction.