List of top Verbal Reasoning Questions on Reading Comprehension

Should we really care for the greatest actors of the past could we have them before us? Should we find them too different from our accent of thought, of feeling, of speech, in a thousand minute particulars which are of the essence of all three? Dr. Doran's long and interesting records of the triumphs of Garrick, and other less familiar, but in their day hardly less astonishing, players, do not relieve one of the doubt. Garrick himself, as sometimes happens with people who have been the subject of much anecdote and other conversation, here as elsewhere, bears no very distinct figure. One hardly sees the wood for the trees. On the other hand, the account of Betterton, "perhaps the greatest of English actors," is delightfully fresh. That intimate friend of Dryden, Tillatson, Pope, who executed a copy of the actor's portrait by Kneller which is still extant, was worthy of their friendship; his career brings out the best elements in stage life. The stage in these volumes presents itself indeed not merely as a mirror of life, but as an illustration of the utmost intensity of life, in the fortunes and characters of the players. Ups and downs, generosity, dark fates, the most delicate goodness, have nowhere been more prominent than in the private existence of those devoted to the public mimicry of men and women. Contact with the stage, almost throughout its history, presents itself as a kind of touchstone, to bring out the bizarrerie, the theatrical tricks and contrasts, of the actual world.
“Reviving the practice of using elements of popular music in classical composition, an approach that had been in hibernation in the United States during the 1960s, composer Philip Glass (born 1937) embraced the ethos of popular music in his compositions. Glass based two symphonies on music by rock musicians David Bowie and Brian Eno, but the symphonies' sound is distinctively his. Popular elements do not appear out of place in Glass's classical music, which from its early days has shared certain harmonies and rhythms with rock music. Yet this use of popular elements has not made Glass a composer of popular music. His music is not a version of popular music packaged to attract classical listeners; it is high art for listeners steeped in rock rather than the classics.
Called by some the “island that time forgot,” Madagascar is home to a vast array of unique, exotic creatures. One such animal is the aye-aye. First described by western science in 1782, it was initially categorized as a member of the order Rodentia. Further research then revealed that it was more closely related to the lemur, a member of the primate order. Since the aye-aye is so different from its fellow primates, however, it was given its own family: Daubentoniidae. The aye-aye has been listed as an endangered species and, as a result, the government of Madagascar has designated an island off the northeastern coast of Madagascar as a protected reserve for aye-ayes and other wildlife.
Long before Western science became enthralled with this nocturnal denizen of Madagascar’s jungles, the aye-aye had its own reputation with the local people. The aye aye is perhaps best known for its large, round eyes and long, extremely thin middle finger. These adaptations are quite sensible, allowing the aye-aye to see well at night and retrieve grubs, which are one of its primary food sources, from deep within hollow branches. However, the aye-aye’s striking appearance may end up causing its extinction. The people of Madagascar believe that the aye-aye is a type of spirit animal, and that its appearance is an omen of death. Whenever one is sighted, it is immediately killed. When combined with the loss of large swaths of jungle habitat, this practice may result in the loss of a superb .

For the past two years at FasCorp, there has been a policy to advertise any job opening to current employees and to give no job to an applicant from outside the company if a FasCorp employee applies who is qualified for the job. This policy has been strictly followed, yet even though numerous employees of FasCorp have been qualified for any given entry-level position, some entry-level jobs have been filled with people from outside the company. 
If the information provided is true, which of the following must on the basis of it also be true about FasCorp during the past two years?

As an example of the devastation wrought on music publishers by the photocopier, one executive noted that for a recent choral festival with 1,200 singers, the festival’s organizing committee purchased only 12 copies of the music published by her company that was 5 performed as part of the festival.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the support the example lends to the executive’s contention that music publishers have been devastated by the photocopier? 

In the 1970s, two debates engaged many scholars of early United States history. One focused on the status of women, primarily White women. Turning on the so-called golden age theory, which posited that during the eighteenth-century colonial era, American women enjoyed a brief period of high status relative to their English contemporaries and to nineteenth-century American women, this debate pitted scholars who believed women’s lives deteriorated after 1800 against those who thought women’s lives had been no better before 1800. At issue were the causes of women’s subordination: were these causes already in place when the English first settled North America or did they emerge with the rise of nineteenth-century industrial capitalism?

The second debate, the so-called origins debate, concerned the emergence of racial slavery in the southern colonies: was slavery the inevitable result of the deep-rooted racial prejudice of early British colonists or did racial prejudice arise only after these planters instituted slave labor?

Although these debates are parallel in some respects, key differences distinguished them. Whereas the debate over women’s status revolved around implicit comparisons of colonial women to their counterparts in the antebellum period (1800--1860), thus inviting comment from scholars of both historical periods, the origins debate was primarily confined to a discussion about slavery in colonial America. Second, in contrast to the newness of the debate over women’s status and its continued currency throughout the early 1980s, the debate over race and slavery, begun in the 1950s, had lost some of its urgency with the publication of Morgan’s American Slavery, American Freedom (1975), widely regarded as the last word on the subject.

Each debate also assumed a different relationship to the groups whose histories it concerned. In its heyday, the origins debate focused mainly on White attitudes toward Africans rather than on Africans themselves. With few exceptions, such as Wood’s Black Majority (1974) and Mullin’s Flight and Rebellion (1972), which were centrally concerned with enslaved African men, most works pertaining to the origins debate focused on the White architects, mostly male, of racial slavery. In contrast, although women’s historians were interested in the institutions and ideologies contributing to women’s subordination, they were equally concerned with documenting women’s experiences. As in the origins debate, however, early scholarship on colonial women defined its historical constituency narrowly, women’s historians focusing mainly on affluent White women.

Over time, however, some initial differences between the approaches taken by scholars in the two fields faded. In the 1980s, historians of race and slavery in colonial America shifted their attention to enslaved people; interest in African American culture grew, thereby bringing enslaved women more prominently into view. Historians of early American women moved in similar directions during the decade and began to consider the effect of racial difference on women’s experience.
The most plausible justification for higher taxes on automobile fuel is that fuel consumption harms the environment and thus adds to the costs of traffic congestion. But the fact that burning fuel creates these “negative externalities” does not imply that no tax on fuel could ever be too high. Economics is precise about the tax that should, in principle, be levied to deal with negative externalities:
the tax on a liter of fuel should be equal to the harm caused by using a liter of fuel.
If the tax is more than that, its costs (including the inconvenience to those who would rather have used their cars) will exceed its benefits (including any reduction in congestion and pollution).
Objectively, of course, the various ecosystems that sustain life on the planet proceed independently of human agency, just as they operated before the hectic ascendancy of Homo sapiens. But it is also true that it is difficult to think of a single such system that has not, for better or worse, been substantially modified by human culture. Nor is this simply the work of the industrial centuries. It has been happening since the days of ancient Mesopotamia. It is coeval with the origins of writing, and has occurred throughout our social existence. And it is this irreversibly modified world, from the polar caps to the equatorial forests, that is all the nature we have.
Music critics have consistently defined James P. Johnson as a great early jazz pianist, originator of the 1920s Harlem ``stride'' style, and an important blues and jazz composer. In addition, however, Johnson was an innovator in classical music, composing symphonic music that incorporated American, and especially African American, traditions.
Such a blend of musical elements was not entirely new: by 1924 both Milhaud and Gershwin had composed classical works that incorporated elements of jazz. Johnson, a serious musician more experienced than most classical composers with jazz, blues, spirituals, and popular music, was particularly suited to expand Milhaud's and Gershwin's experiments. In 1927 he completed his first large-scale work, the blues- and jazz-inspired Yamekraw, which included borrowings from spirituals and Johnson's own popular songs. Yamekraw, premiered successfully in Carnegie Hall, was a major achievement for Johnson, becoming his most frequently performed extended work. It demonstrated vividly the possibility of assimilating contemporary popular music into the symphonic tradition.
Scholarship on political newspapers and their editors is dominated by the view that as the United States grew, the increasing influence of the press led, ultimately, to the neutral reporting from which we benefit today. Pasley considers this view oversimplified, because neutrality was not a goal of early national newspaper editing, even when editors disingenuously stated that they aimed to tell all sides of a story. Rather, the intensely partisan ideologies represented in newspapers of the early republic led to a clear demarcation between traditional and republican values. The editors responsible for the papers’ content—especially those with republican agendas—began to see themselves as central figures in the development of political consciousness in the United States.
Each of the following questions includes a short text with two or three blanks, each blank indicating that something has been omitted. Select one entry for each blank from the corresponding column of choices. Fill all blanks in the way that best completes the text.
In Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry does not reject integration or the economic and moral promise of the American dream; rather, she remains loyal to this dream while looking, realistically, at its incomplete realization. Once we recognize this dual vision, we can accept the play’s ironic nuances as deliberate social commentaries by Hansberry rather than as the “unintentional” irony that Bigsby attributes to the work.

Indeed, a curiously persistent refusal to credit Hansberry with a capacity for intentional irony has led some critics to interpret the play’s thematic conflicts as mere confusion, contradiction, or eclecticism. Isaacs, for example, cannot easily reconcile Hansberry’s intense concern for her race with her ideal of human reconciliation. But the play’s complex view of Black self-esteem and human solidarity as compatible is no more “contradictory” than 15 Du Bois’s famous, well-considered ideal of ethnic self-awareness coexisting with human unity, or Fanon’s emphasis on an ideal internationalism that also accommodates national identities and roles.
Each of the following questions includes a short text with two or three blanks, each blank indicating that something has been omitted. Select one entry for each blank from the corresponding column of choices. Fill all blanks in the way that best completes the text.
A tall tree can transport a hundred gallons of water a day from its roots deep underground to the treetop. Is this movement propelled by pulling the water from above or pushing it from below? The pull mechanism has long been favored by most scientists. First proposed 5 in the late 1800s, the theory relies on a property of water not commonly associated with fluids: its tensile strength. Instead of making a clean break, water evaporating from treetops tugs on the remaining water molecules, with that tug extending from molecule to molecule all the way down to the roots. The tree itself does not 10 actually push or pull; all the energy for lifting water comes from the sun’s evaporative power.
Centuries ago, the Maya of Central America produced elaborate, deeply cut carvings in stone. The carvings would have required a cutting tool of hard stone or metal. Iron-ore deposits exist throughout Central America, but apparently the Maya never developed the technology to use them and the metals the Maya are known to have used, copper and gold, would not have been hard enough. Therefore, the Maya must have used stone tools to make these carvings.
``Economic recessions are often seen as negative events that disrupt national economies. However, some economists argue that recessions can be beneficial in the long term. They can encourage businesses to become more efficient and help reduce inflation." Which of the following is the main idea of the passage?
This passage was written in 1984.
It is now possible to hear a recording of Caruso’s singing that is far superior to any made during his lifetime. A decades-old wax-cylinder recording of this great operatic tenor has been digitized, and the digitized signal has been processed by computer to remove the extraneous sound, or ”noise,” introduced by the now ”ancient” wax-cylinder recording process. Although this digital technique needs improvement, it represents a new and superior way of recording and processing sound which overcomes many of the limitations of analog recording. In analog recording systems, the original sound is represented as a continuous waveform created by variations in the sound’s amplitude over time. When analog playback systems reproduce this waveform, however, they invariably introduce distortions. First, the waveform produced during playback differs somewhat from the original waveform. Second, the medium that stores the analog recording creates noise during playback which gets added to the recorded sounds. ... as long as the numbers remain recognizable, the original waveform will be reconstructed with little loss in quality. However, because the waveform is continuous, while its digital representation is composed of discrete numbers, it is impossible for digital systems to avoid some distortion. One kind of distortion, called ”sampling error,” occurs if the sound is sampled (i.e., its amplitude is measured) too infrequently, so that the amplitude changes more than one quantum (the smallest change in amplitude measured by the digital system) between samplings. In effect, the sound is changing too quickly for the system to record it accurately. A second form of distortion is ”quantizing error,” which arises when the amplitude being measured is not a whole number of quanta, forcing the digital recorder to round off. Over the long term, these errors are random, and the noise produced (a background buzzing) is similar to analog noise except that it only occurs when recorded sounds are being reproduced.
Although the hormone adrenaline is known to regulate memory storage, its effects on retrieval are debated. Adrenaline’s modulation of retrieval is difficult to interpret because retrieval pro- tocols usually involve new learning, which is known to be affected by adrenaline. Say, for example, that researchers test the effect of adrenaline on participants’ ability to remember a story. If participants are injected with adrenaline before being asked to recall the story, the adrenaline might enhance or impair their recall performance not by affecting retrieval directly, but rather by affecting their ability to learn the information presented in the retrieval protocol (i.e., the researcher’s questions). To evaluate the hormone’s effect on retrieval without the confounding effects of new learning, McGaugh and colleagues tested the effects of adrenaline on memory for intentionally forgotten information. Research has shown that when participants are asked to memorize two lists (list 1 and list 2) and are then instructed to forget list 1, they exhibit poorer recall of list 1 than do participants who are not instructed to forget it-a phenomenon known as intentional forgetting. This phenomenon is attributed to retrieval inhi- bition, a mechanism that makes the unwanted information less likely to be retrieved, whether intentionally or unintentionally. McGaugh and colleagues reasoned that if adrenaline enhances retrieval, it should reduce intentional forgetting. They hypothesized that participants given adrenaline after being instructed to forget list 1 would recall more words from that list than participants given a placebo. After participants memorized list 1, they were told to forget it and memorize list 2. Immediately afterwards, they received an injection of either adrenaline or a placebo and then completed a distractor task. Finally, they were asked to recall as many words as possible from list 1. Adrenaline-treated participants did indeed recall significantly more words from list 1 than placebo-treated participants, suggesting that adrenaline enhances the retrieval of intentionally forgotten memories.
Archaeological discoveries of Pacific Islander settlements on the historically uninhabited islands of the Gal´apagos Archipelago have led researchers to speculate about the nature and extent of pre-Columbian travel in the Pacific. When Thor Heyerdahl wrongly claimed that the Gal´apagos had been colonized by South Americans before the arrival of the Spanish, he revived the more general question of the technical feasibility and extent of pre-Columbian transoceanic travel. Could Pacific Islanders have traveled to the Gal´apagos, which lie 600 miles off the coast of South America? Could they, furthermore, have traveled between the Gal´apagos and South America? One factor against such travel is the wind pattern in this region of the Pacific. Because the prevailing winds generally blow from the east, Gal´apagos-bound vessels sailing from the Pacific Islands would have had to beat windward. Only the most sophisticated vessels with triangular sails are capable of this, and there is no evidence of such sails in the Pacific Islands during the period in question. A second, related point is that the winds would have consistently blown Gal´apagos-bound vessels from South America off course. A third point is the lack of archaeological evidence that Pacific Islanders reached South America. While the sweet potato, a crop of South American origin, was grown in the Pacific Islands in pre-Columbian times, the evidence suggests that it arrived via drifting plant matter rather than human transport.
What causes a helix in nature to appear with either a dextral (”right-handed,” or clockwise) twist or a sinistral (”left-handed,” or counterclockwise) twist is one of the most intriguing ques- tions in the science of form. Most scientists have maintained that the preferential handedness of objects such as DNA molecules, protein amino acids, and the shells of snails is due to chance. For example, Jacques Monod, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, attributed the twist (or ”chirality”) in molecules to the chance selection between two structurally equal molecules, one dextral and one sinistral. He proposed that the choice of twist occurred when the first molecule was formed and that this initial choice set the precedent for all subsequent molecules of that type. However, a new theory challenges the notion that chance is responsible for the predominance of one type of twist. According to this theory, the chirality found in molecules, crystals, and shells has its origins in the fundamental chirality of elementary par- ticles of matter. This theory holds that the universe is fundamentally asymmetric, or chiral, in that the weak force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature, has a handedness of its own. The effects of this force are normally observable only at the subatomic level, but they can be amplified in molecules, crystals, and shells. While the connection between the chirality of elementary particles and that of macroscopic structures, such as snail shells, is not yet fully understood, the new theory provides a potential explanation for the prevalence of specific twists in nature.
In recent years, scholars have begun to use social science tools to analyze court opinions. These scholars have justifiably criticized traditional legal research for its focus on a few cases chosen for their perceived doctrinal importance, arguing that such research may distort our understanding of the law. Social scientists endeavor to study court opinions systematically, analyzing samples of cases that are selected randomly or that constitute the entire universe of cases within certain bounds. However, social science approaches themselves have limitations. By focusing primarily on the influence of factors such as the identity of the judge or the ideological orientation of the court, social scientists may overlook the influence of legal doctrine itself. Their research designs, which usually involve analyzing the quantitative relationship between characteristics of cases and their outcomes, are good at detecting the influence of factors that can be easily quantified but not as good at assessing the influence of factors such as the reasoning of the judge. Social science approaches have also been criticized for ignoring the distinction between the holding of a case (the part of the opinion that is legally binding) and the dicta (nonbinding statements). Finally, these approaches are better suited to analyzing the decisions of appellate courts, which generally issue written opinions, than the decisions of trial courts, which often do not.
In the field of Native American history, scholars have increasingly recognized the need to un- derstand indigenous cultures and perspectives. However, achieving this goal is difficult, partly because Native American oral traditions are rarely accorded the same legitimacy as written accounts. Historian Joanne Rappaport observes that written sources are privileged in histori- cal scholarship, and she argues that this privileging reflects a view that literacy is superior to orality. Rappaport suggests that the link between writing and truth is historically contingent, arising from the encounter between Native Americans and Spanish colonizers. She points out that while the Spanish privileged written documents as records of events, the Native Americans of the Andes regarded oral traditions and ritual performances as the principal means of record- ing the past. When Andean societies were forced to adopt alphabetic writing, they adapted it to meet their needs. For example, indigenous authors used alphabetic writing not only to record events but also to express Andean understandings of the cosmos. Moreover, Andean communities continued to rely on oral traditions and ritual performances to transmit historical knowledge. Rappaport argues that scholars should recognize the parity of oral and written modes of transmitting knowledge and strive to incorporate both into their historical accounts.
Although economic analysis of collective bargaining has traditionally focused on wages, recent studies have increasingly focused on the effects of unionization on fringe benefits such as pen- sions and health insurance. Because the costs of providing fringe benefits are tax deductible for employers, fringe benefits are effectively subsidized by the government. This tax treatment creates an incentive for employers to increase the proportion of employee compensation that is paid in the form of fringe benefits. However, not all workers value fringe benefits equally. Since the value that workers place on fringe benefits is likely to rise with their income (because the tax savings associated with fringe benefits increase with income), higher-income workers are likely to prefer a greater proportion of their compensation in the form of fringe benefits than are lower-income workers. Unions, which typically represent lower-income workers, should therefore be expected to oppose the substitution of fringe benefits for wages. However, unions often support such substitutions. One explanation for this puzzling behavior is that unions take into account the preferences not just of current members but also of potential members, who are typically younger and higher-income than current members. Another explanation is that unions are willing to accept lower wages in exchange for fringe benefits because fringe benefits help to retain workers and reduce labor turnover, thereby increasing the union’s bargaining power.
Recent studies of the gender gap in entrepreneurship have produced somewhat conflicting re- sults. Some studies suggest that the gender gap is narrowing, while others suggest that it is widening. One difficulty in interpreting these results is that the studies often measure en- trepreneurship in different ways. Some studies define entrepreneurs as those who start their own businesses, while others define them as those who own or manage businesses. Moreover, studies vary in their focus, with some examining the proportion of entrepreneurs who are women and others examining the proportion of women who are entrepreneurs. Despite these differ- ences, however, the studies generally agree that women are less likely than men to become entrepreneurs. Several factors have been proposed to explain this gender gap. Some scholars point to differences in access to financial capital, arguing that women are less likely than men to be able to obtain the funding needed to start or grow a business. Others point to differences in human capital, suggesting that women are less likely than men to have the education, expe- rience, and skills needed for entrepreneurship. Still others point to differences in social capital, arguing that women are less likely than men to have access to the networks and connections that can facilitate entrepreneurial success.
In studying the evolution of vertebrae, biologists have often focused on the notochord, a flexible rod found in the embryos of all vertebrates. The notochord appears early in development and is later replaced by the vertebral column, or spine. Because the notochord is essential for the formation of the spine, it has been argued that the evolution of the spine must have followed the evolution of the notochord. However, recent research on the lancelet, a small invertebrate chordate, challenges this view. Lancelets are thought to resemble the ancestors of vertebrates, and they possess a notochord but lack vertebrae. This suggests that the notochord evolved before the spine. Moreover, studies of lancelet development have shown that the notochord is not required for the formation of the tissues that give rise to the spine in vertebrates. Instead, the notochord appears to play a role in organizing the development of other structures, such as the nerve cord and the muscles. These findings suggest that the notochord and the spine evolved independently, with the notochord arising first to serve functions other than spinal development. The spine may have evolved later as a means of providing support and protection for the body.