40 Sentence Equivalence questions collected

from real GRE exams

1. Although the parents do not think highly of the educational system
as a whole, they fail to treat teachers with ______ equally.
[A] Consideration
[B] veneration
[C] lucubration
[D] opprobrium ()
[E] reverence
[F] disdain
2. It is surprising to see such a child that is at his sixteenth manifest
a great measure of ______, for he delivers too cogent, brilliant a
speech among adults.
[A] maturity
[B] precociousness
[C] convolution
[D] nefariousness
[E] navet
[F] ingenuousness
3. My grandmother is a ______ person; she says that the house when
she lived as a child was always haunted.
[A] Clamorous
[B] invidious
[C] numinous ()

[D] empirical
[E] sonorous
[F] occult

4. Despite the good news, people are surprised that he found the news
______.
[A] Alarm
[B] hostility
[C] dismay ()
[D] interesting
[E] confusing
[F] exciting

5. Philosophy is a/an ______ study.

[A] Challenging
[B] exacting
[C] esoteric ()
[D] convoluted
[E] boring
[F] scientific

6. The ______ parts of the book threaten to disappear beneath

repetitive and familiar depictions of the city as a busy world.
[A] innovative
[B] original
[C] inspiring

[D] challenging
[E] demanding
[F] complex

7. A demagogue should never exude _____ near the surface in a

campaign, but this politician gives enthusiastic ovation when his
opponent triumphs in a landslide.
[A] hauteur
[B] arrogance
[C] ecstasy ()
[D] euphoria

[E] deprecation
[F] denigration
8. The apparent flaws in the sculptors work didnt ______ the respect
critics gave him.
[A] undermine
[B] preclude
[C] prevent
[D] create
[E] deserve
[F] increase

9. The composition of a poem is neither intellectually nor _____, it

reflects the setting of the society and the background of the age.
[A] emotional
[B] intuitive
[C] solitary ()
[D] private

[E] inspiring
[F] simple

10. Advertising, formerly called the last resort to create or distribute

music, has transformed itself to ______ of music that would otherwise
be unheard.
[A] a camouflage
[B] a derivative
[C] a champion
[D] an impediment/ foe
[E] an advocate
[F] an impetus
11. The movie was very quiet, the music ______ and ______, drawing
attention to the aural nuance as it does to visual details.
[A] creatively
[B] liberally ()
[C] sparingly

[D] judiciously
[E] negatively
[F] generously
12. Although she is usually the first to spot data that were
inconsistent with other findings, in this particular experiment she let
a number of _____ result slip by.
[A] anomalous
[B] redundant
[C] incongruous ()
[D] salient
[E] divergent
[F] verifiable

13. A record company recently started to sell ______ of repackaged old

Cds; this seems to tell us its not releasing good records any more.
[A] dearth
[B] glut ( )
[C] deficiency
[D] surfeit
[E] little
[F] some

14. Some British music critics are not sure about how to tell the
difference between authentic African music and the ______, but they
are sure theres a distinction.
[A] derivative
[B] spurious ()
[C] specious
[D] real
[E] rest
[F] classics
15. Even the man was reserved in his speech, he thoroughly
understood his mother, which made him far from ______ as people
usually thought.
[A] comprehensive
[B] ingenuous ()
[C] sophisticated
[D] foolish
[E] simple
[F] sententious

16. It is perplexing that a man so prominent in the public eye, so

highly praised and imitated, could exude a persona of ______ and
reticence.
[A] decorum
[B] bravado

[C] diffidence ()
[D] dogmatism
[E] resignation
[F] indifference
17. Most people who read Teds correspondence are surprised that
there is more stuff of professional than personal, but the distinction is
______: every letter reveals stamps of his personality.
[A] unique
[B] clear-cut
[C] unanimous
[D] significant
[E] artificial
[F] non-existent
18. My grandmother is a ______ person; she says that the house when
she lived as a child was always haunted.
[A] clamorous
[B] invidious
[C] numinous
[D] empirical
[E] sonorous
[F] occult

19. There must be someone who was not ______. Since before the
performance, the plot has been widespread.
[A] prudent
[B] circumspect ()
[C] tedious
[D] reluctant
[E] pretentious
[F] intelligent
20. A writer in a development country needs to have ______ in order
to be success. Due to limited choices of publishing platform and poor
infrastructure, the only viable option is publishing in newspaper
[A] prescience
[B] resolve ()
[C] foresightedness
[D] determination
[E] energy
[F] intelligence
21. The ladys role in public is ______: she is an outstanding actress,
wife of a diplomat, and a journalist.
[A] protean
[B] versatile
[C] pedestrian
[D] consistent
[E] complex
[F] respected

22. Mark Messinas book The Simple Soybean and Your Health
exudes recognition much less unrestrained in the description of the
soys medical efficiency than its versatility, but the author s cautions
arrest soy to be a ______.
[A] cure-all
[B] solitude
[C] efficacy
[D] effectuality
[E] panacea
[F] placebo
23. People from one community always take each other as ______
since they automatically classify the others as their family line.
[A] Acquaintance
[B] consort
[C] neighborhood
[D] kinfolks
[E] relative
[F] patron
24. Although an author repeats that he is a ______ uncle in his book,
he makes a persuasive case to prove the safety of mutating genes to
create new foods in his book.

[A] reticent
[B] verbose
[C] garrulous
[D] reserved
[E] conservative
[F] shy

25. Her apparent ______ her background and ancestry seems

unconceivable in an age when people tend to think of themselves as
exhaustion.
[A] rejection to
[B] duplicity to
[C] unfamiliarity with
[D] dishonesty with
[E] ignorance of
[F] understanding of

26. The ship crashed into an iceberg because it was ______ to getting
close to the iceberg.
[A] negligible
[B] gradual
[C] imperceptible

[D] insignificant
[E] significant
[F] trivial
27. Scientist worries if the connection between global warming and
the rising of sea level continues, then this simultaneity ______ bigger
changes in the underlying dynamics of our climate.
[A] obscures
[B] forestalls
[C] presages
[D] averts
[E] exacerbates
[F] portends
28. The spacecrafts considerable heft made an unusual ______ way
for a meander through the solar system, under the influence of
gravitational of three large bodies.
[A] indirect
[B] truncated
[C] shortened
[D] circuitous
[E] direct
[F] traditional

29. Although she usually is the first to spot data that were
inconsistent with other findings, in this particular experiment she let
a number of ______ results slip by.
[A] inaccurate/ anomalous
[B] redundant
[C] incongruous
[D] salient
[E] divergent
[F] verifiable
30. Although the progress of chemistry is not the greatest, it ______
the dullness that most progress of science is associated with.
[A] belies
[B] belittles
[C] conceals
[D] contradicts
[E] leads to
[F] affirms
31. Its dangerous for any researcher to make a definite conclusion
because their observation is based on data that is ______.
[A] meager
[B] uncertain
[C] paltry
[D] scientific
[E] new
[F] inspiring

32. There are, as yet, no vegetation types or ecosystems whose study

has been ______ to the extent that they no longer interest ecologists.
[A] exhausted
[B] fully understood
[C] published
[D] taught
[E] communicated
[F] examined
33. Tigers have idiosyncratic features which include a wide arrange of
features that it s hard to ______ them.
[A] pigeonhole
[B] understand
[C] analyze
[D] categorize
[E] make sense of
[F] investigate
34. Deserts are ______ in the large distances, but they give a variety
of micro-climate.
[A] homogeneous
[B] expandable

[C] unvaried
[D] diverse
[E] dry
[F] mysterious

35. Not only it is threaten-life diseases ______; even if they have been
detected earlier, theres still no medicine treatment for it.
[A] overlooked
[B] misguided
[C] missed
[D] detected
[E] diagnose
[F] misunderstood
36. A demagogue should never exude ______ near the surface in a
campaign, but this politician gives enthusiastic ovation when his
opponent triumphs in a landslide.
[A] hauteur
[B] arrogance
[C] ecstasy
[D] euphoria
[E] deprecation

[F] denigration
37. The mid-20th century is sometimes remembered as an era of cozy
political ______, but in fact the corridors of power echoed then with
starkly disparate voices.
[A] arcade
[B] accord
[C] tranquility
[D] chaos
[E] variant
[F] consensus

38. Economic growth has been identified as a ______ for poor

countries to eradicate poverty, but this prescription also triggers
great environmental concerns.
[A] panacea
[B] refuge
[C] remedy
[D] heaven
[E] culprit
[F] recipe
39. Economic growth has been identified as a _____ for poor countries
to eradicate poverty, but this prescription also triggers great
environmental concerns.

[A] panacea
[B] refuge
[C] remedy
[D] heaven
[E] culprit
[F] recipe
40. In the mid-twentieth century, politics were thought to be ______;
however, corridors of the politics contain strikingly disparate voices.
[A] consensus
[B] accord
[C] diverse
[D] misunderstood
[E] democratic
[F] eccentric

Answers:
01 10: D F A B C F A C C D A B C D B C A C C E
11 20: B F C E B D B C B E C E B C C F A B B D
21 30: A B A E D E A D C E B C C F A D C E A D
31 40: A C A B A D A C A C C D B F C F C F A B