Admission Tests GRE : GRE General Test

Through a steady stream of books, articles, and speeches, he sought to provide (i)_________analysis of political and economic issues, thus (ii)_________, rather than merely touting, the social utility of the scientific method.

• A. demonstrating
• B. a jaundiced
• C. a dispassionate
• D. undermining
• E. an intuitive
• F. praising

In 1755 British writer Samuel Johnson published .in acerbic letter to Lord Chesterfield rebuking his patron for neglect and declining further support. Johnson's rejection of his patron's belated assistance has often been identified as a key moment in the history of publishing, marking the end of the culture of patronage. However, patronage had been in decline for 50 years, yet would survive, in attenuated form, for another 50. Indeed.
Johnson was in 1762 awarded a pension by the Crown-a subtle form of sponsorship, tantamount to state patronage. The importance of Johnson's letter is not so much historical as emotional: it would become a touchstone for all who repudiated patrons and for all who embraced the laws of the marketplace.
Which of the following best describes the function of the highlighted phrase in the context of the passage as a whole?

• A. It provides information that qualifies the assertion that Johnson's letter sharply defined the end of a publishing era.
• B. It points out the most obvious implications of Johnson's letter to his patron.
• C. It refines the notion that patrons are found primarily among the nobility.
• D. It provides a possible defense for Chesterfield's alleged neglect of Johnson.
• E. It suggests a motivation for Johnson's rejection of Chesterfield's patronage.

Like paleontologists who interpret timescales from fossil evidence, we infer the history of star formation in the Milks' Way galaxy from the heavy-element composition of its stars. According to the big bang theory of the origin of the universe, the first gas clouds-and the first generation of stars formed from them-were composed of pure hydrogen and helium; most heavier elements- iron and calcium, for example-came later, created by explosions of supernovas, massive stars in their death thaws. Loaded with heavy elements, material ejected from supernovas enriched the interstellar gas clouds from which the next generation of stars formed, the level of heavy elements increasing with succeeding generations. Because most stars live for many billions of years and because the Milky Way is thus composed of multiple stellar generations, comparing the number of stars of low heavy-element abundance with those of high heavy-element abundance enables astronomers to untangle the history of star formation in the Milky Way.
Replacement of the word "enriched" with which of the following words results in the least change in meaning for the passage?

• A. heightened
• B. altered
• C. improved
• D. refined
• E. briehtened

Which of the following most logically completes the explanation provided?

• A. individual sage grouse do all their foraging in relatively small areas
• B. birds that start out sitting on power lines cannot dive to the ground as quickly as birds that have been circling in the air before their dive
• C. sage grouse are less likely to come out in the open when they sense something moving in the air than when they do not
• D. the birds that prey on sage grouse can spot sage grouse that are out in the open from a considerable distance
• E. sage grouse, when disturbed, do not move very swiftly on the ground

In 1755 British writer Samuel Johnson published an acerbic letter to Lord Chesterfield rebuking his patron for neglect and declining further support. Johnson's rejection of his patron's belated assistance has often been identified as a key moment in the history of publishing, marking the end of the culture of patronage. However, patronage had been in decline for 50 years, yet would survive, in attenuated form, for another 50. Indeed.
Johnson was in 1762 awarded a pension by the Crown-a subtle form of sponsorship, tantamount to state patronage. The importance of Johnson's letter is not so much historical as emotional: it would become a touchstone for all who repudiated patrons and for all who embraced the laws of the marketplace.
The author of the passage mentions Johnson's 1762 pension award in order to

• A. emphasize that patronage still helped support Johnson's writing after his letter to Chesterfield
• B. provide evidence for a general trend in the later half of the
• C. eighteenth century of private patronage's being replaced by state sponsorship
• D. provide a specific example of patronage's surviving into the second half of (he eighteenth century