GRE Questions

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In the following question, out of the four alternatives, select the alternative which best expresses the meaning of the idiom/phrase.

Back to the drawing board

In the following question, a passage is given which describes a situation. From the given options, mark the correct inference that can be drawn from the passage. If none of the inferences follow, mark option 5, “None of these” as the answer.
In nearly all human populations a majority of individuals can taste the artificially synthesized chemical phenylthiocarbonide (PTC). However, the percentage varies dramatically-- from as low as 60% in India to as high as 95% in Africa. That this polymorphism is observed in non- human primates as well indicates a long evolutionary history which, although obviously not acting on PTC, might reflect evolutionary selection for taste discrimination of other, more significant bitter substances, such as certain toxic plants.

In the following question, out of the four alternatives, select the alternative which will improve the bracketed part of the sentence. In case no improvement is needed, select "no improvement".

New townships (has coming) up with claims of providing several amenities to the people.

In the following question, out of the given four alternatives, select the one which is opposite in meaning of the given word.

Chaste

In the following question, out of the four alternatives, select the alternative which is the best substitute of the words/sentence.

Farmland ploughed and harrowed but left for a period without being sown in order to restore its fertility

In the following question, out of the given four alternatives, select the one which best expresses the meaning of the given word.

Conflagration

Read the following passage carefully and choose the most appropriate answer to the question out of the four alternatives.

In short, to write a good letter you must approach the job in the lightest and most casual way. You must be personal, not abstract. You must not say, 'This is too small a thing to put down'. You must say, 'This is just the sort of small thing we talk about at home. If I tell them this they will see me, as it were they'll hear my voice, they'll know what I'm talking about'. That is the purpose of a letter. Carlyle had the trick to perfection. He is writing from Scotsbrig to his brother Alec in Canada and he begins talking about his mother. Good old Mother, he says, 'she is even now sitting at my back, trying at another table to write you a small word with her own hand; the first time she has tried such a thing for a year past. It is Saturday night, after dark; we are in the east room in a hard, dry evening with a bright fire to our two selves; Jenny and her Barns are 'scouring up things' in the other end of the house; and below stairs the winter operations of the farm go on, in a subdued tone; you can conceive the scene! How simple it is and yet how perfect. Can not you see Alec reading it in his far-off home and his eyes moistening at the picture of his old mother sitting and writing her last message to him on earth?

'Scouring up things' means ________.

A sentence has been given in Direct/Indirect Speech. Out of the four given alternatives, select the one which best expresses the same sentence in Indirect/Direct Speech.

“Run away, children,” said their uncle.