GRE Practice - Text Completion from Big Book

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Gre Prep Text Completion & Sentence Completion from Big Book

37. Business forecasts usually prove reasonably accurate when the assumption that the future will be much like the past is ------; in times of major ------ in the business environment, however, forecasts can be dangerously wrong.

   (A) specified..discontinuities

   (B) questioned..surges

   (C) contradicted..improvements

   (D) entertained..risks

   (E) satisfied..shifts @

• Usually forecasts are made by speculating the past. Thus, if the future is like the past, the forecasts based on the past may be accurate. If forecasts are wrong, that means the future is not like the past. So I think the word meaning "change" should be put in the second blank.

40. Nurturing the Royal Ballet's artistic growth while preserving its institutional stability has been difficult, because the claims of the latter seem inescapably to ------ development; apparently, attaining artistic success is simpler than ------ it.

   (A) ensure..promoting

   (B) inhibit..perpetuating @

   (C) undermine..resurrecting,

   (D) modify..appreciating

   (E) supplement..confining

• "Nurturing the Royal Ballet's artistic growth while preserving its institutional stability has been difficult" means that both - nurturing and preserving - can not be satisfied simultaneously. That is, the two are incompatible. Therefore, focusing on the latter(preserving stability) can lead to the decrease of artistic growth. 
• In text completion, " more ~ than " means the two objects being compared are opposite. Thus, The opposite of "attaining artstic success" is "preserving stability". perpetuate is perfect choice.

41. Inspired interim responses to hitherto unknown problems, New Deal economic stratagems became ------ as a result of bureaucratization, their flexibility and adaptability destroyed by their transformation into rigid policies.

   (A) politicized

   (B) consolidated

   (C) ossified @

   (D) ungovernable

   (E) streamlined

• Bureaucratization is the characteristics of inflexible and inefficient group;thus, the economic stratagems could become inflexible. Also, because flexibility was destroyed, their policy would be rigid. So correct answer is "ossified"

43. The startling finding that variations in the rate of the Earth's rotation depend to an ------ degree on the weather has necessitated a complete ------ of the world's time-keeping methods.

   (A) unexpected..overhaul @

   (B) anticipated..recalibration

   (C) indeterminate..rejection

   (D) unobservable..review

   (E) estimated..acceptance

• The clue of the first blank is "startlign finding", which means this finding exceeds the norm of many people. So "unexpected" should be put in the first blank, not "anticipated". And if the finding that could be breakthrough is discovered, the previous methods have to be "overhaul", because the previous methods were based on the norm of the past.

44. It was a war the queen and her more prudent counselors wished to ------ if they could and were determined in any event to ------ as long as possible.

   (A) provoke..delay

   (B) denounce..deny

   (C) instigate..conceal

   (D) curtail..promote

   (E) avoid..postpone @

• The key word is "prudent". Prudent people dislike radical action such as war. Therefore, they may avoid and postpone the war.

45. Despite many decades of research on the gasification of coal, the data accumulated are not directly ------ to environmental questions; thus a new program of research specifically addressing such questions is ------.

   (A) analogous..promising

   (B) transferable..contradictory

   (C) antithetical..unremarkable

   (D) applicable..warranted @

   (E) pertinent..unnecessary

• Usually, the data accumulated for many decades may be useful. But "despite" means the opposite situation. Therefore, the data is not useful. Old research is not helful, and thus new research is necessary to address environmental questions.