GRE Sample Test

Option A coerce, to force, is wrong as it is opposite to the context.

Option B assuage, to make less worse, is wrong as it is irrelevant to the context.

Option C lionize, to praise, is wrong as it is irrelevant to the context.

Option D: CORRECT. preclude, to stop/prevent, is correct as it fits the context.

Option E expedite, to accelerate, is wrong as it is irrelevant to the context.

Q2: Select the two answer choices that, when used to complete the sentence, fit the meaning of the sentence as a whole and produce completed sentences that are alike in meaning.

Without one overt act of hostility, one _________ word, Mathew persuaded his wife to believe that none of her actions was acceptable either to him or to the clerics.

1. castigating
2. mollifying
3. fulminating
4. leering
5. captivating
6. ogling

Explanation:

The meaning of the sentence:

Without one overt act of hostility, one word, Mathew persuaded his wife to believe that none of her actions was acceptable either to him or to the clerics.

So, we need a word that is similar to “hostile”. Without being hostile or “hostile-like” word, Matthew persuaded his wife to accept that her actions were unacceptable.

Let's analyze the options one by one.

1. Correct. Castigating: “extremely criticizing” fits the context perfectly.
2. Incorrect. Mollifying: “placating/soothing” is the opposite of what is needed in the context.
3. Correct. Fulminating: “explosive/critical” fits the context perfectly.
4. Incorrect. Leering: “looking with malicious intent” is out of context.
5. Incorrect. Captivating: “interesting/attractive” is out of context.
6. Incorrect. Ogling: “staring rudely” is out of context.

Q3 & 4

Perhaps the most persistent myth about British poetry of the Great War is that it became progressively more realistic as soldier-poets learned more about the horrors of modern trench warfare. According to this orthodoxy, the pastoral patriotism of Brooke soon gave way, in the mud and blood of Flanders, to the angry realism of Sassoon and Owen. Thus when we think of World War One poetry today, the poems that instantly come to the minds of most readers are those angry and satirical anti-war poems, such as Sassoon's "Base Details" and "'Blighters'" and Owen's "Dulce et decorum est," the last being probably the most famous, certainly the most widely anthologized, poem of the War. The problem with this view is that it is based on a relatively small group of poems that, despite their indisputable excellence, are in many ways atypical of the bulk of poetry, including much of the good poetry, written during the War. That poetry was deeply indebted to the nineteenth-century poetic tradition running from Wordsworth and the Romantics through the major Victorian poets to Hardy and beyond. The majority of the war poets worked within this tradition to produce, as has been recently argued, the trench lyric. But it is not just much of the poetry of the Great War that belongs to this tradition. The last two paragraphs of what many regard as one of the best memoirs to come out of the War, Siegfried Sassoon's "Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man" (1928), emerge from the same tradition and constitute a prose version of the trench lyric composed by the solider-poets. At first glance, a work by the author of some of the bitterest and most angry anti-war poems of the Great War may seem an unlikely place to observe the conventions of Romantic poetry, but the ending of Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man reveals just how insistently the Romantic lyric imposed its form and structure on the imaginations of the writers of the Great War.

Sassoon, like Rosenberg, does not abandon a set of worn-out poetic conventions so he can write directly and realistically, and hence originally, about it. Rather he translates a pre-existing model into local terms. Even literary memoirists, who are expected to respect the facts, can only be as realistic as the artificial literary conventions available to them will allow them to be. Writers write realistically not by directly "telling it like it is," but by telling it like it's told in literature. They must, as Northrop Frye told us half a century ago, find, or adapt, a set of literary conventions, and out of this old paradigm create a new literary form.

Q3. Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

With which of the following options, is the author most likely to agree?

1. That the most famous poem of the War is atypical of the bulk of the War poetry
2. That prose written during the War is influenced by the nineteenth century poetic tradition
3. That poetry did not grow more and more realistic new style as soldiers got into modern warfare

Explanation:

The question asks us to choose options with which the author will agree.

Let’s look at the options one by one.

1. This is the correct option because the author mentions that Owen's "Dulce et decorum est” is the most famous poem of the War and as an example of poetry that is not characteristic or representative of the bulk of war poetry.
2. This is the correct option because the bulk poetry (referred to as “That poetry”) is influenced by nineteenth-century poetic tradition, which is defined by Wordsworth and the Romantics and also the major Victorian poets to Hardy and more. The majority of the war poets worked within this nineteenth-century tradition to produce the trench lyric.
3. This is the correct option because this is the main point of the author. The author implies that new styles are created by adapting existing styles and not by themselves, and specifically that the famous war poetry is derived from the nineteenth-century tradition.

So, correct answer: Options A, B, C.

Q4. The primary purpose of the passage is to

1. Refute a historical misconception
2. Explore the different aspects of the great British poets of the war era
3. Explain how Sassoon influenced most of the poets and writers of the British war era
4. Underline the importance of nineteenth century Romantics and Victorian poets
5. Demonstrate that new paradigms in literature are not created through existing conventions

Explanation:

Let’s look at the options one by one.

1. CORRECT. This can be accurately described as the primary purpose.
2. This option is incorrect because the author’s intention isn’t just to explore the British war poetry but to negate a particular myth about it.
3. This option is incorrect because the author does not discuss Sassoon as a main point. Sassoon is mentioned as an example.
4. This option is incorrect because the author discusses nineteenth century Romantics and Victorian poets only as a basis for war poetry and not as a point in itself.
5. This option is incorrect because the author implies the opposite of this option. The author suggests that new styles are created by adapting existing styles and not by themselves.

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