Verbal practice set 1
Twelve official questions in three batches of four, each batch one reading passage with its three questions plus one Critical Reasoning. Every question hides behind its own button: click to reveal it and start its clock; click an answer and the clock stops.
How to run this set
When a batch opens, its passage is on the screen: read it on your own clock (2:00 the first, 2:15 the second). Then press a question's button: the question appears and its clock starts. One click on an answer stops the clock and wakes the next button. One question at a time mirrors the real test: linear, no moving on without answering, a fast guess on a monster is legitimate. When four are done, the gate opens.
First, the vocabulary verdict
The GMAT tests zero vocabulary in the GRE sense: no sentence completion, no word pairs, nothing you could drill on flashcards. The Focus edition's Verbal section is exactly two question types, Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. The Official Guide itself says it plainly:
Because the exam assesses reasoning rather than knowledge, memorizing facts probably won't help you. ... Likewise, you don't need to study advanced vocabulary words, but you should know English well enough to understand writing at an undergraduate level.
So: no drilling program. The words that matter are structural, and you already know them; what pays is noticing them fast. The GMAT's favourite pivot words, worth reading like road signs:
Ideal times, item by item
| Item | Type | Difficulty | Ideal now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passage A read | Passage A (225 words) | Easy | 2:00 |
| Q1 | RC primary purpose | Easy | 1:00 |
| Q2 | RC detail | Easy | 1:00 |
| Q3 | RC inference | Easy | 1:30 |
| Q4 | CR weaken | Easy | 1:30 |
| Passage B read | Passage B (230 words) | Easy | 2:15 |
| Q5 | RC apply the theory | Medium | 1:30 |
| Q6 | RC the author's view | Medium | 1:45 |
| Q7 | RC primary purpose | Medium | 1:00 |
| Q8 | CR complete the argument | Easy | 1:30 |
| Q9 | CR assumption | Medium | 2:00 |
| Q10 | CR evaluate | Medium | 2:00 |
| Q11 | CR boldface roles | Hard | 2:15 |
| Q12 | CR explain the discrepancy | Hard | 2:00 |
| Total | 23:15 |
Batch 1 of 3: Passage A plus a weaken question
Passage A (Easy). Read it on your own clock, target 2:00, then reveal question 1. Questions 1 to 3 refer to this passage.
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
Show answer
Answer: (C).
The passage's arc grants that ecoefficiency is delivering real cost savings and then spends its weight on Senge and Carstedt's warning that pursuing it exclusively could actually worsen environmental stresses, so C matches. B is the trap: an alternative is proposed in the last sentence, but the passage says the strategy might cause damage in the future, not that it already has; the concern dominates, not the proposal.
2. The passage mentions which of the following as a possible consequence of a company’s realization of greater profits through ecoefficiency?
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Answer: (D).
A detail retrieval question: the passage says nearly word for word that greater profits from ecoefficiency may be turned into investment capital that could be reinvested in traditionally eco-inefficient industries, which is D. The tempting trap is C, which inverts the passage's actual point that there is no guarantee the growth will come in similarly ecoefficient ways.
3. The passage implies that which of the following is a possible consequence of a company’s adoption of innovations that increase its ecoefficiency?
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Answer: (B).
This inference requires stapling two stated facts together: the innovations do not alter the number of products manufactured nor the waste from their use and discard, and companies adopt them precisely to increase profits and growth. Growth thus means more products made, used and discarded, the exact mechanism behind the warning, which is B. A is the trap: it echoes the reinvestment and no-guarantee language but shifts it to reinvestment within the same company and to future improvements, a combination the passage never asserts.
4. Companies O and P each have the same number of employees who work the same number of hours per week. According to records maintained by each company, the employees of Company O had fewer job-related accidents last year than did the employees of Company P. Therefore, employees of Company O are less likely to have job-related accidents than are employees of Company P. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion?
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Answer: (B).
A weaken question built on company-kept records: with equal headcount and hours, O recorded fewer accidents, and the argument leaps to a likelihood claim. B attacks the comparability of the data directly: if P counted more types of accidents as job-related, P's higher total may just reflect a broader definition rather than more danger. The trap is D: several O employees with multiple accidents sounds bad for O, but the premise already totals all of O's accidents and that total is the lower one; A would actually strengthen the conclusion.
Batch 1 done when all four are answered. The next four are waiting.
Batch 2 of 3: Passage B plus a complete-the-argument question
Passage B (Easy). Read it on your own clock, target 2:15, then reveal question 5. Questions 5 to 7 refer to this passage.
5. The passage suggests that the economists mentioned in line 1 would have expected which of the following to occur during the 1960s in the United States?
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Answer: (B).
You must project the economists' postulate onto the 1960s case. Their rule is that real interest rates will be low when national savings exceed investment, and the 1960s had a large savings surplus, so by their own theory they would have expected low real rates, the opposite of what happened. E tempts because the author later argues rates influence savings, but that reversed causation is the author's view, not the economists'.
6. The author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding the economists mentioned in line 1?
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Answer: (A).
The author cites the 1960s and 1980 to 82 and concludes flatly that rates respond to influences other than the savings/investment nexus, a direct contradiction of the economists' belief by phenomena from exactly those two periods. E tempts by echoing the author's reversal in the third paragraph, but the economists never claimed rates drive savings, so they cannot have overestimated that impact.
7. The passage is primarily concerned with
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Answer: (B).
Paragraph one lays out the economists' belief, paragraph two marshals the evidence against it, paragraph three gestures at an alternative: the passage presents evidence that calls into question certain beliefs, which is B. D is the nearest trap: the author attacks the belief itself with counter-evidence of his own, rather than criticizing the quality of the evidence offered in support of it.
8. Which of the following most logically completes the passage? A business analysis of the Appenian railroad system divided its long-distance passenger routes into two categories: rural routes and interurban routes. The analysis found that, unlike the interurban routes, few rural routes carried a high enough passenger volume to be profitable. Closing unprofitable rural routes, however, will not necessarily enhance the profitability of the whole system, since __________.
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Answer: (A).
A complete-the-argument item: you must finish the reason the expected profit boost from closing money-losing rural routes might not materialise. A supplies the missing linkage: if much of the interurban volume comes from riders who begin or end on rural routes, shutting those routes drains traffic from the profitable routes as well. The trap is E, which sounds economic but never ties closing rural routes to any consequence for system profitability.
Batch 2 done when all four are answered. The last four are waiting.
Batch 3 of 3: Critical Reasoning, ramping to hard
9. A newly discovered painting seems to be the work of one of two 17th-century artists, either the northern German Johannes Drechen or the Frenchman Louis Birelle, who sometimes painted in the same style as Drechen. Analysis of the carved picture frame, which has been identified as the painting’s original 17th-century frame, showed that it is made of wood found widely in northern Germany at the time, but rare in the part of France where Birelle lived. This shows that the painting is most likely the work of Drechen. Which of the following is an assumption that the argument requires?
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Answer: (A).
An assumption question, best handled with the negation test. The argument jumps from the frame being wood common in northern Germany but rare in Birelle's France to Drechen painting it, so it must assume the frame was made from wood local to where the painting itself was painted; negate that and the conclusion collapses. The trap is D: the argument never requires the painter himself to have chosen the frame.
10. Economist: Paying extra for fair-trade coffee, coffee labeled with the Fairtrade logo, is intended to help poor farmers, because they receive a higher price for the fair-trade coffee they grow. But this practice may hurt more farmers in developing nations than it helps. By raising average prices for coffee, it encourages more coffee to be produced than consumers want to buy. This lowers prices for non-fair-trade coffee and thus lowers profits for non-fair-trade coffee farmers. To evaluate the strength of the economist’s argument, it would be most helpful to know which of the following?
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Answer: (B).
An evaluate-the-argument question, and the conclusion is a head count: the practice may hurt more farmers than it helps, so its strength hinges on the relative sizes of those two groups. B supplies exactly that ratio: if only a tiny fraction grow fair-trade coffee the argument is strong; if most grow it, the conclusion collapses. Those opposite verdicts are what the variance test demands. A and E merely hunt for remedies, and D asks what consumers should do rather than whether the accounting is right.
11. Consultant: A significant number of complex repair jobs carried out by Ace Repairs have to be redone under the company’s warranty, but when those repairs are redone they are invariably successful. Since we have definitely established that there is no systematic difference between the mechanics who are assigned to do the initial repairs and those who are assigned to redo unsatisfactory jobs, it is clear that inadequacies in the initial repairs cannot be attributed to the mechanics’ lack of competence. Rather, it is likely that complex repairs require a level of focused attention that the company’s mechanics apply consistently only to repair jobs that have been inadequately done on the first try. In the consultant’s reasoning, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
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Answer: (C).
A boldface role question. The first portion is the accepted pattern the whole argument works to explain; the second portion, the finding of no systematic difference between the mechanics, is evidence that eliminates one candidate explanation, mechanic incompetence, clearing the path for the consultant's focused-attention conclusion. C states exactly these two roles. The trap D gets the first half right but calls the second evidence used to challenge the consultant, when it actually supports the consultant by knocking out a rival account.
12. When new laws imposing strict penalties for misleading corporate disclosures were passed, they were hailed as initiating an era of corporate openness. As an additional benefit, given the increased amount and accuracy of information disclosed under the new laws, it was assumed that analysts’ predictions of corporate performance would become more accurate. Since the passage of the laws, however, the number of inaccurate analysts’ predictions has not in fact decreased. Which of the following would, if true, best explain the discrepancy outlined above?
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Answer: (E).
An explain-the-discrepancy question: the laws gave analysts more and more accurate disclosures, yet inaccurate predictions did not fall, and you need a fact that reconciles better inputs with no better outputs. E reconciles it by working on the volume premise: the more information corporations release, the harder it becomes to organise it into manageable form, so the accuracy gain is swallowed by the processing burden. The trap D limits the role of disclosures but supplies no reason better information would produce no improvement at all.
Pacing post-mortem
Press the button whenever you like: it scores everything you have answered so far, on each question's own clock. The passage reads stay on your honour.