Free GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Test 2 – Improve Accuracy & Critical Thinking

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

‘We have some big trouble,’ president John F Kennedy told his brother, the attorney general Bobby Kennedy, early in the morning of 16 October 1962. A few hours later, the younger Kennedy was staring at pictures of Cuba taken by the U-2 surveillance aircraft. Watching the photographs he cursed the Russians, sitting in the White House with a group of officials dedicated to overthrowing Fidel Castro.

The pictures showed the telltale signs of Soviet missile launchers. The CIA had used a massive computer – which took the better part of a room to house – to calculate the precise measurements and capabilities of the missiles installed. Their dismal conclusion was that these missiles had a range of more than 1,000 miles, making them capable of reaching Washington, DC in just 13 minutes. This revelation sparked off a crisis that lasted almost two weeks. As the standoff over Cuba intensified, US military forces reached DEFCON 2, just one alert level before the start of a nuclear war.

As military and civilian commanders clamoured for information on a minute-by-minute basis, computers such as the IBM 473L of the United States Air Force were being used for the first time in the midst of a conflict to process real-time information on how, for example, to allocate military forces. Yet even with the growing availability of computers, sharing that information among military commanders involved a time lag. The idea of having the information travel between connected computers did not yet exist.

After 13 days of scrambling forces to carry out a potential attack, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba. Nuclear war was averted, but the standoff also demonstrated the limits of command and control. With the complexities of modern warfare, how can you effectively control your nuclear forces if you cannot share information in real time? Unbeknown to most of the military’s senior leadership, a relatively low-level scientist had just arrived at the Pentagon to address that very problem. The solution he would come up with became the agency’s most famous project, revolutionising not just military command and control but modern computing too.

Joseph Carl RobnettLicklider – JCR, or simply Lick to his friends – spent much of his time at the Pentagon hiding. In a building where most bureaucrats measured their importance by proximity to the secretary of defence, Licklider was relieved when the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, assigned him an office in the D‑Ring, one of the Pentagon’s windowless inner circles. There, he could work in peace.

One time, Licklider invited ARPA employees to a meeting at the Marriott hotel between the Pentagon and the Potomac River, to demonstrate how someone in the future would use a computer to access information. As the chief proselytiser for interactive computing, Licklider first wanted people to understand the concept. He was trying to demonstrate how, in the future, everyone would have a computer, people would interact directly with those computers, and the computers would all be connected together. He was demonstrating personal computing and the modern internet, years before they existed.

There is little debate that Licklider’s reserved but forceful presence in ARPA laid the foundations for computer networking – work that would eventually lead to the modern internet. The real question is: why? The truth is complicated, and it is impossible to divorce the internet’s origins from the Pentagon’s interest in the problems of war, both limited and nuclear. ARPA was established in 1958 to help the United States catch up with the Soviets in the space race, but by the early 1960s, it had branched off into new research areas, including command and control. The internet would likely not have been born without the military’s need to wage war, or at least it would not have been born at ARPA. Tracing the origins of computer networking at ARPA requires understanding what motivated the Pentagon to hire someone like Licklider in the first place.

Q. Which of the following is NOT TRUE with reference to the passage?

A) A crisis lasting almost two weeks was sparked when military generals couldn't find out how the soviet launchers ended up in Cuba.

B) Computer networking and ultimately the Internet owes its origin to the need of military to wage war.

C) Licklider preferred being in proximity to the secretary of defence, to ensure he was not interrupted while working.

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

‘We have some big trouble,’ president John F Kennedy told his brother, the attorney general Bobby Kennedy, early in the morning of 16 October 1962. A few hours later, the younger Kennedy was staring at pictures of Cuba taken by the U-2 surveillance aircraft. Watching the photographs he cursed the Russians, sitting in the White House with a group of officials dedicated to overthrowing Fidel Castro.

The pictures showed the telltale signs of Soviet missile launchers. The CIA had used a massive computer – which took the better part of a room to house – to calculate the precise measurements and capabilities of the missiles installed. Their dismal conclusion was that these missiles had a range of more than 1,000 miles, making them capable of reaching Washington, DC in just 13 minutes. This revelation sparked off a crisis that lasted almost two weeks. As the standoff over Cuba intensified, US military forces reached DEFCON 2, just one alert level before the start of a nuclear war.

As military and civilian commanders clamoured for information on a minute-by-minute basis, computers such as the IBM 473L of the United States Air Force were being used for the first time in the midst of a conflict to process real-time information on how, for example, to allocate military forces. Yet even with the growing availability of computers, sharing that information among military commanders involved a time lag. The idea of having the information travel between connected computers did not yet exist.

After 13 days of scrambling forces to carry out a potential attack, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba. Nuclear war was averted, but the standoff also demonstrated the limits of command and control. With the complexities of modern warfare, how can you effectively control your nuclear forces if you cannot share information in real time? Unbeknown to most of the military’s senior leadership, a relatively low-level scientist had just arrived at the Pentagon to address that very problem. The solution he would come up with became the agency’s most famous project, revolutionising not just military command and control but modern computing too.

Joseph Carl RobnettLicklider – JCR, or simply Lick to his friends – spent much of his time at the Pentagon hiding. In a building where most bureaucrats measured their importance by proximity to the secretary of defence, Licklider was relieved when the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, assigned him an office in the D‑Ring, one of the Pentagon’s windowless inner circles. There, he could work in peace.

One time, Licklider invited ARPA employees to a meeting at the Marriott hotel between the Pentagon and the Potomac River, to demonstrate how someone in the future would use a computer to access information. As the chief proselytiser for interactive computing, Licklider first wanted people to understand the concept. He was trying to demonstrate how, in the future, everyone would have a computer, people would interact directly with those computers, and the computers would all be connected together. He was demonstrating personal computing and the modern internet, years before they existed.

There is little debate that Licklider’s reserved but forceful presence in ARPA laid the foundations for computer networking – work that would eventually lead to the modern internet. The real question is: why? The truth is complicated, and it is impossible to divorce the internet’s origins from the Pentagon’s interest in the problems of war, both limited and nuclear. ARPA was established in 1958 to help the United States catch up with the Soviets in the space race, but by the early 1960s, it had branched off into new research areas, including command and control. The internet would likely not have been born without the military’s need to wage war, or at least it would not have been born at ARPA. Tracing the origins of computer networking at ARPA requires understanding what motivated the Pentagon to hire someone like Licklider in the first place.

Q.  According to the passage even after the availability of computers, why couldn't the information be shared?

Directions: In each of the questions given below, a sentence is given with two blanks in each. Following the sentence, several options are given which suggest the possible pair of words to be filled in the given blanks in the similar sequence. Identify the most appropriate pair of words to fill in the given blanks.

Q. V.K. Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, _________ that India was the only country _________ vaccines to healthy adults over 45.

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

‘We have some big trouble,’ president John F Kennedy told his brother, the attorney general Bobby Kennedy, early in the morning of 16 October 1962. A few hours later, the younger Kennedy was staring at pictures of Cuba taken by the U-2 surveillance aircraft. Watching the photographs he cursed the Russians, sitting in the White House with a group of officials dedicated to overthrowing Fidel Castro.

The pictures showed the telltale signs of Soviet missile launchers. The CIA had used a massive computer – which took the better part of a room to house – to calculate the precise measurements and capabilities of the missiles installed. Their dismal conclusion was that these missiles had a range of more than 1,000 miles, making them capable of reaching Washington, DC in just 13 minutes. This revelation sparked off a crisis that lasted almost two weeks. As the standoff over Cuba intensified, US military forces reached DEFCON 2, just one alert level before the start of a nuclear war.

As military and civilian commanders clamoured for information on a minute-by-minute basis, computers such as the IBM 473L of the United States Air Force were being used for the first time in the midst of a conflict to process real-time information on how, for example, to allocate military forces. Yet even with the growing availability of computers, sharing that information among military commanders involved a time lag. The idea of having the information travel between connected computers did not yet exist.

After 13 days of scrambling forces to carry out a potential attack, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba. Nuclear war was averted, but the standoff also demonstrated the limits of command and control. With the complexities of modern warfare, how can you effectively control your nuclear forces if you cannot share information in real time? Unbeknown to most of the military’s senior leadership, a relatively low-level scientist had just arrived at the Pentagon to address that very problem. The solution he would come up with became the agency’s most famous project, revolutionising not just military command and control but modern computing too.

Joseph Carl RobnettLicklider – JCR, or simply Lick to his friends – spent much of his time at the Pentagon hiding. In a building where most bureaucrats measured their importance by proximity to the secretary of defence, Licklider was relieved when the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, assigned him an office in the D‑Ring, one of the Pentagon’s windowless inner circles. There, he could work in peace.

One time, Licklider invited ARPA employees to a meeting at the Marriott hotel between the Pentagon and the Potomac River, to demonstrate how someone in the future would use a computer to access information. As the chief proselytiser for interactive computing, Licklider first wanted people to understand the concept. He was trying to demonstrate how, in the future, everyone would have a computer, people would interact directly with those computers, and the computers would all be connected together. He was demonstrating personal computing and the modern internet, years before they existed.

There is little debate that Licklider’s reserved but forceful presence in ARPA laid the foundations for computer networking – work that would eventually lead to the modern internet. The real question is: why? The truth is complicated, and it is impossible to divorce the internet’s origins from the Pentagon’s interest in the problems of war, both limited and nuclear. ARPA was established in 1958 to help the United States catch up with the Soviets in the space race, but by the early 1960s, it had branched off into new research areas, including command and control. The internet would likely not have been born without the military’s need to wage war, or at least it would not have been born at ARPA. Tracing the origins of computer networking at ARPA requires understanding what motivated the Pentagon to hire someone like Licklider in the first place.

Q.  According to the passage which of following conclusions about the missiles made the CIA dismal?

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

‘We have some big trouble,’ president John F Kennedy told his brother, the attorney general Bobby Kennedy, early in the morning of 16 October 1962. A few hours later, the younger Kennedy was staring at pictures of Cuba taken by the U-2 surveillance aircraft. Watching the photographs he cursed the Russians, sitting in the White House with a group of officials dedicated to overthrowing Fidel Castro.

The pictures showed the telltale signs of Soviet missile launchers. The CIA had used a massive computer – which took the better part of a room to house – to calculate the precise measurements and capabilities of the missiles installed. Their dismal conclusion was that these missiles had a range of more than 1,000 miles, making them capable of reaching Washington, DC in just 13 minutes. This revelation sparked off a crisis that lasted almost two weeks. As the standoff over Cuba intensified, US military forces reached DEFCON 2, just one alert level before the start of a nuclear war.

As military and civilian commanders clamoured for information on a minute-by-minute basis, computers such as the IBM 473L of the United States Air Force were being used for the first time in the midst of a conflict to process real-time information on how, for example, to allocate military forces. Yet even with the growing availability of computers, sharing that information among military commanders involved a time lag. The idea of having the information travel between connected computers did not yet exist.

After 13 days of scrambling forces to carry out a potential attack, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba. Nuclear war was averted, but the standoff also demonstrated the limits of command and control. With the complexities of modern warfare, how can you effectively control your nuclear forces if you cannot share information in real time? Unbeknown to most of the military’s senior leadership, a relatively low-level scientist had just arrived at the Pentagon to address that very problem. The solution he would come up with became the agency’s most famous project, revolutionising not just military command and control but modern computing too.

Joseph Carl RobnettLicklider – JCR, or simply Lick to his friends – spent much of his time at the Pentagon hiding. In a building where most bureaucrats measured their importance by proximity to the secretary of defence, Licklider was relieved when the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, assigned him an office in the D‑Ring, one of the Pentagon’s windowless inner circles. There, he could work in peace.

One time, Licklider invited ARPA employees to a meeting at the Marriott hotel between the Pentagon and the Potomac River, to demonstrate how someone in the future would use a computer to access information. As the chief proselytiser for interactive computing, Licklider first wanted people to understand the concept. He was trying to demonstrate how, in the future, everyone would have a computer, people would interact directly with those computers, and the computers would all be connected together. He was demonstrating personal computing and the modern internet, years before they existed.

There is little debate that Licklider’s reserved but forceful presence in ARPA laid the foundations for computer networking – work that would eventually lead to the modern internet. The real question is: why? The truth is complicated, and it is impossible to divorce the internet’s origins from the Pentagon’s interest in the problems of war, both limited and nuclear. ARPA was established in 1958 to help the United States catch up with the Soviets in the space race, but by the early 1960s, it had branched off into new research areas, including command and control. The internet would likely not have been born without the military’s need to wage war, or at least it would not have been born at ARPA. Tracing the origins of computer networking at ARPA requires understanding what motivated the Pentagon to hire someone like Licklider in the first place.

Q.  Which of the following is the MOST OPPOSITE in meaning to the given word as used in the passage?

Divorce

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

‘We have some big trouble,’ president John F Kennedy told his brother, the attorney general Bobby Kennedy, early in the morning of 16 October 1962. A few hours later, the younger Kennedy was staring at pictures of Cuba taken by the U-2 surveillance aircraft. Watching the photographs he cursed the Russians, sitting in the White House with a group of officials dedicated to overthrowing Fidel Castro.

The pictures showed the telltale signs of Soviet missile launchers. The CIA had used a massive computer – which took the better part of a room to house – to calculate the precise measurements and capabilities of the missiles installed. Their dismal conclusion was that these missiles had a range of more than 1,000 miles, making them capable of reaching Washington, DC in just 13 minutes. This revelation sparked off a crisis that lasted almost two weeks. As the standoff over Cuba intensified, US military forces reached DEFCON 2, just one alert level before the start of a nuclear war.

As military and civilian commanders clamoured for information on a minute-by-minute basis, computers such as the IBM 473L of the United States Air Force were being used for the first time in the midst of a conflict to process real-time information on how, for example, to allocate military forces. Yet even with the growing availability of computers, sharing that information among military commanders involved a time lag. The idea of having the information travel between connected computers did not yet exist.

After 13 days of scrambling forces to carry out a potential attack, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba. Nuclear war was averted, but the standoff also demonstrated the limits of command and control. With the complexities of modern warfare, how can you effectively control your nuclear forces if you cannot share information in real time? Unbeknown to most of the military’s senior leadership, a relatively low-level scientist had just arrived at the Pentagon to address that very problem. The solution he would come up with became the agency’s most famous project, revolutionising not just military command and control but modern computing too.

Joseph Carl RobnettLicklider – JCR, or simply Lick to his friends – spent much of his time at the Pentagon hiding. In a building where most bureaucrats measured their importance by proximity to the secretary of defence, Licklider was relieved when the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, assigned him an office in the D‑Ring, one of the Pentagon’s windowless inner circles. There, he could work in peace.

One time, Licklider invited ARPA employees to a meeting at the Marriott hotel between the Pentagon and the Potomac River, to demonstrate how someone in the future would use a computer to access information. As the chief proselytiser for interactive computing, Licklider first wanted people to understand the concept. He was trying to demonstrate how, in the future, everyone would have a computer, people would interact directly with those computers, and the computers would all be connected together. He was demonstrating personal computing and the modern internet, years before they existed.

There is little debate that Licklider’s reserved but forceful presence in ARPA laid the foundations for computer networking – work that would eventually lead to the modern internet. The real question is: why? The truth is complicated, and it is impossible to divorce the internet’s origins from the Pentagon’s interest in the problems of war, both limited and nuclear. ARPA was established in 1958 to help the United States catch up with the Soviets in the space race, but by the early 1960s, it had branched off into new research areas, including command and control. The internet would likely not have been born without the military’s need to wage war, or at least it would not have been born at ARPA. Tracing the origins of computer networking at ARPA requires understanding what motivated the Pentagon to hire someone like Licklider in the first place.

Q.  According to the passage why did Licklider invite ARPA employees?

I. He wanted to discuss the repercussions of the relevations, he was going to make public later on.

II. He wanted to demonstrate how a computer would be used to access information in future.

III. He was considerate towards the ARPA for allowing him to work with them.

IV. He wanted to demonstrate, clarify the concepts and lay foundations of personal computing and internet, way before time.

V. He wanted to gain the attention of the US government so as to persuade them to allow and fund his further reasearch.

Q. Choose the most appropriate option to change the voice (active/passive) form of the given sentence.

Shaan sings a melodious song.

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

‘We have some big trouble,’ president John F Kennedy told his brother, the attorney general Bobby Kennedy, early in the morning of 16 October 1962. A few hours later, the younger Kennedy was staring at pictures of Cuba taken by the U-2 surveillance aircraft. Watching the photographs he cursed the Russians, sitting in the White House with a group of officials dedicated to overthrowing Fidel Castro.

The pictures showed the telltale signs of Soviet missile launchers. The CIA had used a massive computer – which took the better part of a room to house – to calculate the precise measurements and capabilities of the missiles installed. Their dismal conclusion was that these missiles had a range of more than 1,000 miles, making them capable of reaching Washington, DC in just 13 minutes. This revelation sparked off a crisis that lasted almost two weeks. As the standoff over Cuba intensified, US military forces reached DEFCON 2, just one alert level before the start of a nuclear war.

As military and civilian commanders clamoured for information on a minute-by-minute basis, computers such as the IBM 473L of the United States Air Force were being used for the first time in the midst of a conflict to process real-time information on how, for example, to allocate military forces. Yet even with the growing availability of computers, sharing that information among military commanders involved a time lag. The idea of having the information travel between connected computers did not yet exist.

After 13 days of scrambling forces to carry out a potential attack, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba. Nuclear war was averted, but the standoff also demonstrated the limits of command and control. With the complexities of modern warfare, how can you effectively control your nuclear forces if you cannot share information in real time? Unbeknown to most of the military’s senior leadership, a relatively low-level scientist had just arrived at the Pentagon to address that very problem. The solution he would come up with became the agency’s most famous project, revolutionising not just military command and control but modern computing too.

Joseph Carl RobnettLicklider – JCR, or simply Lick to his friends – spent much of his time at the Pentagon hiding. In a building where most bureaucrats measured their importance by proximity to the secretary of defence, Licklider was relieved when the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, assigned him an office in the D‑Ring, one of the Pentagon’s windowless inner circles. There, he could work in peace.

One time, Licklider invited ARPA employees to a meeting at the Marriott hotel between the Pentagon and the Potomac River, to demonstrate how someone in the future would use a computer to access information. As the chief proselytiser for interactive computing, Licklider first wanted people to understand the concept. He was trying to demonstrate how, in the future, everyone would have a computer, people would interact directly with those computers, and the computers would all be connected together. He was demonstrating personal computing and the modern internet, years before they existed.

There is little debate that Licklider’s reserved but forceful presence in ARPA laid the foundations for computer networking – work that would eventually lead to the modern internet. The real question is: why? The truth is complicated, and it is impossible to divorce the internet’s origins from the Pentagon’s interest in the problems of war, both limited and nuclear. ARPA was established in 1958 to help the United States catch up with the Soviets in the space race, but by the early 1960s, it had branched off into new research areas, including command and control. The internet would likely not have been born without the military’s need to wage war, or at least it would not have been born at ARPA. Tracing the origins of computer networking at ARPA requires understanding what motivated the Pentagon to hire someone like Licklider in the first place.

Q.  According to the passage how would you describe Licklider as a scientist?

I. A very professional scientist surrounded by his colleagues and involved in his discoveries.

II. A very strict person who didn't allow any person to interfere in his work.

III. A very helpful scientist who was very keen to know about how things happen.

IV. A person who loved his work very much and preferred to be alone while working so that he doesn't get disturbed.

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.
‘We have some big trouble,’ president John F Kennedy told his brother, the attorney general Bobby Kennedy, early in the morning of 16 October 1962. A few hours later, the younger Kennedy was staring at pictures of Cuba taken by the U-2 surveillance aircraft. Watching the photographs he cursed the Russians, sitting in the White House with a group of officials dedicated to overthrowing Fidel Castro.
The pictures showed the telltale signs of Soviet missile launchers. The CIA had used a massive computer – which took the better part of a room to house – to calculate the precise measurements and capabilities of the missiles installed. Their dismal conclusion was that these missiles had a range of more than 1,000 miles, making them capable of reaching Washington, DC in just 13 minutes. This revelation sparked off a crisis that lasted almost two weeks. As the standoff over Cuba intensified, US military forces reached DEFCON 2, just one alert level before the start of a nuclear war.
As military and civilian commanders clamoured for information on a minute-by-minute basis, computers such as the IBM 473L of the United States Air Force were being used for the first time in the midst of a conflict to process real-time information on how, for example, to allocate military forces. Yet even with the growing availability of computers, sharing that information among military commanders involved a time lag. The idea of having the information travel between connected computers did not yet exist.
After 13 days of scrambling forces to carry out a potential attack, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba. Nuclear war was averted, but the standoff also demonstrated the limits of command and control. With the complexities of modern warfare, how can you effectively control your nuclear forces if you cannot share information in real time? Unbeknown to most of the military’s senior leadership, a relatively low-level scientist had just arrived at the Pentagon to address that very problem. The solution he would come up with became the agency’s most famous project, revolutionising not just military command and control but modern computing too.
Joseph Carl RobnettLicklider – JCR, or simply Lick to his friends – spent much of his time at the Pentagon hiding. In a building where most bureaucrats measured their importance by proximity to the secretary of defence, Licklider was relieved when the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, assigned him an office in the D Ring, one of the Pentagon’s windowless inner circles. There, he could work in peace.
One time, Licklider invited ARPA employees to a meeting at the Marriott hotel between the Pentagon and the Potomac River, to demonstrate how someone in the future would use a computer to access information. As the chief proselytiser for interactive computing, Licklider first wanted people to understand the concept. He was trying to demonstrate how, in the future, everyone would have a computer, people would interact directly with those computers, and the computers would all be connected together. He was demonstrating personal computing and the modern internet, years before they existed.
There is little debate that Licklider’s reserved but forceful presence in ARPA laid the foundations for computer networking – work that would eventually lead to the modern internet. The real question is: why? The truth is complicated, and it is impossible to divorce the internet’s origins from the Pentagon’s interest in the problems of war, both limited and nuclear. ARPA was established in 1958 to help the United States catch up with the Soviets in the space race, but by the early 1960s, it had branched off into new research areas, including command and control. The internet would likely not have been born without the military’s need to wage war, or at least it would not have been born at ARPA. Tracing the origins of computer networking at ARPA requires understanding what motivated the Pentagon to hire someone like Licklider in the first place.

Q. Which of the following is the MOST SIMILAR in meaning to the given word as used in the passage?

Clamoured

Q. Choose the most appropriate option to change the voice (active/passive) form of the given sentence.

Onions aren’t eaten by some people.