Such a blend of musical elements was not entirely new: by 1924 both Milhaud and Gershwin had composed classical works that incorporated elements of jazz. Johnson, a serious musician more experienced than most classical composers with jazz, blues, spirituals, and popular music, was particularly suited to expand Milhaud's and Gershwin's experiments. In 1927 he completed his first large-scale work, the blues- and jazz-inspired Yamekraw, which included borrowings from spirituals and Johnson's own popular songs. Yamekraw, premiered successfully in Carnegie Hall, was a major achievement for Johnson, becoming his most frequently performed extended work. It demonstrated vividly the possibility of assimilating contemporary popular music into the symphonic tradition.
The passage states that Johnson composed all of the following EXCEPT
The passage states that Johnson composed all of the following EXCEPT
Show Hint
- jazz works
- popular songs
- symphonic music
- spirituals
blues pieces
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Context interpretation.
The passage likely outlines the types of music that Johnson composed, with symphonic music being the exception.
Step 2: Analyze the options.
- (A): “Jazz works” are mentioned as part of his compositions.
- (B): “Popular songs” also align with his style of composition.
- (C): “Symphonic music” is not explicitly listed among the types of music Johnson composed. Thus, this is the exception.
- (D): “Spirituals” are likely part of his musical range, considering his era and influences.
- (E): “Blues pieces” fit within his known musical scope.
Step 3: Conclusion.
The correct answer is (C), as symphonic music is not mentioned among his compositions.
The author suggests which of the following about most classical composers of the early 1920s?
The author suggests which of the following about most classical composers of the early 1920s?
Show Hint
- They were strongly influenced by the musical experiments of Milhaud and Gershwin.
- They had little working familiarity with such forms of American music as jazz, blues, and popular songs.
They made few attempts to introduce innovations into the classical symphonic tradition.
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Context analysis.
The passage contrasts classical composers of the 1920s with emerging American music forms, such as jazz and blues.
Step 2: Analyze the options.
- (A): “Strongly influenced by Milhaud and Gershwin” isn’t fully supported by the passage; the focus is more on lack of familiarity.
- (B): This aligns with the passage, which suggests classical composers of that time had limited exposure to American music like jazz, blues, and popular songs.
- (C): The passage does not suggest that classical composers avoided innovation in the classical tradition.
Step 3: Conclusion.
Thus, the correct answer is (B), as the author highlights the limited familiarity of classical composers with American music.
The author suggests that most critics have
The author suggests that most critics have
Show Hint
- underrated the popularity of Yamekraw
- undervalued Johnson’s musical abilities
- had little interest in Johnson’s influence on jazz
- had little regard for classical works that incorporate popular music
neglected Johnson’s contribution to classical symphonic music
The Correct Option is
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Context analysis.
The passage points out that Johnson’s contributions to symphonic music are underappreciated.
Step 2: Analyze the options.
- (A): “Underrated the popularity of Yamekraw” isn’t a major theme discussed in the passage.
- (B): “Undervalued Johnson’s musical abilities” is somewhat accurate but not the primary focus.
- (C): “Had little interest in Johnson’s influence on jazz” is not the author’s main criticism.
- (D): “Had little regard for classical works that incorporate popular music” is not directly mentioned.
- (E): “Neglected Johnson’s contribution to classical symphonic music” aligns with the central critique in the passage about his underappreciation.
Step 3: Conclusion.
The correct answer is (E), as the author focuses on critics neglecting Johnson’s contributions to symphonic music.
Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
For the past two years at FasCorp, there has been a policy to advertise any job opening to current employees and to give no job to an applicant from outside the company if a FasCorp employee applies who is qualified for the job. This policy has been strictly followed, yet even though numerous employees of FasCorp have been qualified for any given entry-level position, some entry-level jobs have been filled with people from outside the company.
If the information provided is true, which of the following must on the basis of it also be true about FasCorp during the past two years?- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
As an example of the devastation wrought on music publishers by the photocopier, one executive noted that for a recent choral festival with 1,200 singers, the festival’s organizing committee purchased only 12 copies of the music published by her company that was 5 performed as part of the festival.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the support the example lends to the executive’s contention that music publishers have been devastated by the photocopier?- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
- In the 1970s, two debates engaged many scholars of early United States history. One focused on the status of women, primarily White women. Turning on the so-called golden age theory, which posited that during the eighteenth-century colonial era, American women enjoyed a brief period of high status relative to their English contemporaries and to nineteenth-century American women, this debate pitted scholars who believed women’s lives deteriorated after 1800 against those who thought women’s lives had been no better before 1800. At issue were the causes of women’s subordination: were these causes already in place when the English first settled North America or did they emerge with the rise of nineteenth-century industrial capitalism?
The second debate, the so-called origins debate, concerned the emergence of racial slavery in the southern colonies: was slavery the inevitable result of the deep-rooted racial prejudice of early British colonists or did racial prejudice arise only after these planters instituted slave labor?
Although these debates are parallel in some respects, key differences distinguished them. Whereas the debate over women’s status revolved around implicit comparisons of colonial women to their counterparts in the antebellum period (1800--1860), thus inviting comment from scholars of both historical periods, the origins debate was primarily confined to a discussion about slavery in colonial America. Second, in contrast to the newness of the debate over women’s status and its continued currency throughout the early 1980s, the debate over race and slavery, begun in the 1950s, had lost some of its urgency with the publication of Morgan’s American Slavery, American Freedom (1975), widely regarded as the last word on the subject.
Each debate also assumed a different relationship to the groups whose histories it concerned. In its heyday, the origins debate focused mainly on White attitudes toward Africans rather than on Africans themselves. With few exceptions, such as Wood’s Black Majority (1974) and Mullin’s Flight and Rebellion (1972), which were centrally concerned with enslaved African men, most works pertaining to the origins debate focused on the White architects, mostly male, of racial slavery. In contrast, although women’s historians were interested in the institutions and ideologies contributing to women’s subordination, they were equally concerned with documenting women’s experiences. As in the origins debate, however, early scholarship on colonial women defined its historical constituency narrowly, women’s historians focusing mainly on affluent White women.
Over time, however, some initial differences between the approaches taken by scholars in the two fields faded. In the 1980s, historians of race and slavery in colonial America shifted their attention to enslaved people; interest in African American culture grew, thereby bringing enslaved women more prominently into view. Historians of early American women moved in similar directions during the decade and began to consider the effect of racial difference on women’s experience.- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
- The most plausible justification for higher taxes on automobile fuel is that fuel consumption harms the environment and thus adds to the costs of traffic congestion. But the fact that burning fuel creates these “negative externalities” does not imply that no tax on fuel could ever be too high. Economics is precise about the tax that should, in principle, be levied to deal with negative externalities:
the tax on a liter of fuel should be equal to the harm caused by using a liter of fuel.
If the tax is more than that, its costs (including the inconvenience to those who would rather have used their cars) will exceed its benefits (including any reduction in congestion and pollution).- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
- Objectively, of course, the various ecosystems that sustain life on the planet proceed independently of human agency, just as they operated before the hectic ascendancy of Homo sapiens. But it is also true that it is difficult to think of a single such system that has not, for better or worse, been substantially modified by human culture. Nor is this simply the work of the industrial centuries. It has been happening since the days of ancient Mesopotamia. It is coeval with the origins of writing, and has occurred throughout our social existence. And it is this irreversibly modified world, from the polar caps to the equatorial forests, that is all the nature we have.
- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
Questions Asked in GRE exam
Early critics of Emily Dickinson’s poetry mistook for simplemindedness the surface of artlessness that in fact she constructed with ...............
- GRE - 2025
- Sentence Completion
The macromolecule RNA is common to all living beings, and DNA, which is found in all organisms except some bacteria, is almost as ...............
- GRE - 2025
- Sentence Completion
Linguistic science confirms what experienced users of ASL—American Sign Language—have always implicitly known: ASL is a grammatically .............. language, as capable of expressing a full range of syntactic relations as any natural spoken language.
- GRE - 2025
- Sentence Completion
Dreams are .............. in and of themselves, but, when combined with other data, they can tell us much about the dreamer.
- GRE - 2025
- Sentence Completion
- Each of the following questions includes a short text with two or three blanks, each blank indicating that something has been omitted. Select one entry for each blank from the corresponding column of choices. Fill all blanks in the way that best completes the text.
- GRE - 2025
- Sentence Completion