GRE Text Completions 1

In Europe, football, otherwise known as soccer, is the most popular sport by several orders of magnitude, whereas in the United States of America, fandom is fairly evenly [blank_start]________[blank_end] among a few different sports.

The astrophysicist argues that our books and films about interstellar space travel are a form of mass [blank_start]________[blank_end], and that only a miracle on a scale heretofore unseen could allow a human being to voyage to even the closest star in another solar system.

Peculiarly enough, Shakespeare has been often (i) [blank_start]________[blank_end] as the best English language playwright, and often (ii) [blank_start]________[blank_end] as a man lacking the education to write those plays.

While far from the bane that some scholars have declared them to be, (i) [blank_start]________[blank_end] versions of novels and essays do indeed excise essential elements; students would have to supplement their reading with (ii) [blank_start]________[blank_end] sources to fully understand the intent of the original.

Even the [blank_start]________[blank_end] and alluring charms of Paris were not sufficient to cure the young expatriate of his yearning for the simple and quaint charms of his rural American home.

The fact that the average life expectancy ten thousand years ago was so much shorter than it is now is often (i) [blank_start]________[blank_end] as evidence supporting the notion that the world always improves with time. However, if you (ii) [blank_start]________[blank_end] for the fact that most children in that epoch died in childbirth, life expectancy for those who survived birth was nearly the same then as it is now.

On an aptitude test in 1986, an argument posited that the possibility of conducting banking transactions from home was as likely as flying cars, an argument that sounds [blank_start]________[blank_end] today, when such transactions are commonplace.

The widespread tendency to [blank_start]________[blank_end] retired political leaders who were successful stems from an arguably primal human need to venerate both men and gods.

Academic work can be as taxing as manual labor. The misconception that (i) [blank_start]________[blank_end] work strains the mind less than physical work strains the body has been proven wrong by scientific investigation as well as by anecdotal evidence. It is simply not true that the (ii) [blank_start]________[blank_end] musings of a mathematician are necessarily easier than the physical labor of, say, a carpenter.

Known for her humorous but acerbic wit, the fashion doyenne commented, in her usual, simultaneously (i) [blank_start]________[blank_end] and (ii) [blank_start]________[blank_end] manner, that in Los Angeles, "the women dressed like men and the men dressed like boys."

Every generation is accused of slacking by the preceding ones, before in turn calling its own progeny lackadaisical; such is the [blank_start]________[blank_end] of life.

Although retired, the professor takes pains to remain [blank_start]________[blank_end] the latest developments in her field.

She was not the only (i) [blank_start]________[blank_end] of the long-proposed legislation, but she was the (ii) [blank_start]________[blank_end] who finally got the bill onto the legislative agenda.

Jeremy was not one to (i) [blank_start]________[blank_end] his success, let alone talk much at all, so his family was shocked when they finally discovered that their (ii) [blank_start]________[blank_end] son was a Rhodes Scholar.

In his youth, Oscar Wilde catapulted to sudden fame both because of and despite his (i) [blank_start]________[blank_end] witticisms; however, the cutting remarks that won him renown also led to his financial and physical ruin, and he died (ii) [blank_start]________[blank_end] and sickly in a shabby Parisian hotel.

Hursthouse, (i) [blank_start]________[blank_end] virtue ethicists in general, argues that ethics is properly neither situational nor utilitarian and that one ought to seek out virtue and emulate it rather than base one's judgment on subjective concerns or a (ii) [blank_start]________[blank_end] weighing of pain and pleasure likely to result from a given action; critics, of course, tend to (iii) [blank_start]________[blank_end] that Hursthouse and other virtue ethicists who seek to define virtue merely seek to enshrine their own prejudices under the guise of theory.

The film was (i) [blank_start]________[blank_end] (ii) [blank_start]________[blank_end] by critics; rightfully, not a single reviewer had any positive thing to say about it.

The distinction between architecture and the engineering professions that it resembles is that the former must consider [blank_start]________[blank_end] as well as functionality, as clients often base their decisions more on the beauty of the project than its practicality.

Once considered able to only [blank_start]________[blank_end] emulate actions without understanding the action's deeper significance, bearded dragons have recently been observed copying non-instinctive actions of other bearded dragons, prompting scientists to question whether other reptiles might also be capable of genuine imitation.

December's earthquake was but a [blank_start]________[blank_end] to a terrible year for a small island nation recently wracked by civil strife and devastating tropical storms.