An original GRE Verbal practice test on evolutionary biology — 5 Text Completion, 5 Sentence Equivalence, and 10 Reading Comprehension questions, 20 questions in 30 minutes.

বিবর্তনীয় জীববিজ্ঞান বিষয়ক একটি মৌলিক GRE ভার্বাল প্র্যাকটিস টেস্ট।

30min
Timeসময়
20
Questionsপ্রশ্ন
130–170
Scaled Scoreস্কোর

How to use it: Start the timer, complete all sections, then check your answers.

ব্যবহারের নিয়ম: টাইমার শুরু করে সব সেকশন শেষ করুন।

30:00
Text Completion

Questions 1–5.

1 The peacock's elaborate tail, though costly to grow and a when evading predators, persists because it strongly attracts mates.

2 Far from being an evolutionary , the whale's tiny pelvic bones are in fact meaningful evidence of history: they once anchored functioning hind limbs in its land-dwelling ancestors.

3 The fossil record for this transition is (i) , forcing researchers to (ii) from a handful of well-preserved specimens.

4 Traits that appear in isolation, such as sickle-cell trait, can nonetheless persist if they confer an advantage under specific conditions, such as malaria resistance.

5 The two species, though outwardly similar, are genetically , having separated more than ten million years ago.

Sentence Equivalence

Questions 6–10. Select the TWO correct answer choices.

6 The species' population, once ______, has rebounded significantly since hunting was banned in the region.

7 The two populations remained genetically ______ despite living only a few kilometers apart, separated by an unbroken mountain ridge.

8 The trait's function remained ______ for decades, until researchers finally linked it to temperature regulation.

9 The new specimen was so ______ preserved that researchers could examine individual cell structures under the microscope.

10 The professor's theory, once considered ______, is now supported by a growing body of genetic evidence.

Reading Comprehension — Passage 1

Questions 11–15 are based on the passage below.

Peer review of the fossil record has repeatedly confirmed that whales descend from land-dwelling, four-legged mammals, a conclusion that seemed almost absurd when first proposed but is now supported by an unusually complete transitional sequence. Pakicetus, one of the earliest known whale ancestors, resembled a wolf-sized land mammal with functional legs, yet its inner ear already showed specialized structures found only in whales, hinting at an aquatic lifestyle despite its terrestrial build. Later forms such as Ambulocetus retained limbs capable of walking but show clear adaptations for swimming, including a flexible spine suited to an otter-like undulating stroke. By the time of Dorudon, some ten million years after Pakicetus, the hind limbs had shrunk to tiny, functionally useless nubs, fully external evidence of an internal skeleton no longer needed for locomotion but not yet eliminated by natural selection. Modern whales retain these vestigial pelvic bones as a genetic echo of that transition, floating disconnected within their body wall, evolution's incomplete erasure of a body plan its owners no longer require.

📚 Glossary · কঠিন শব্দের অর্থ
Wordবাংলা অর্থEnglish meaning
transitionalরূপান্তরকালীনrepresenting a stage of change between two forms
undulatingতরঙ্গায়িতmoving in a wave-like pattern
vestigialঅবশিষ্ট/অকার্যকর অঙ্গa reduced structure with no remaining function
locomotionচলাচলmovement from one place to another

11 The primary purpose of the passage is to

12 According to the passage, Pakicetus's inner ear

13 The vestigial pelvic bones in modern whales are described as

14 Select all statements the passage would support. (Select all that apply.)

15 The word "erasure" in the final sentence is best interpreted as referring to

Reading Comprehension — Passage 2

Questions 16–20 are based on the passage below.

The peppered moth, long a textbook illustration of natural selection in action, tells a more complicated story than most introductory accounts suggest. During Britain's Industrial Revolution, soot-darkened tree bark is said to have favored a rare dark-colored ("melanic") variant of the moth over the common pale form, since the dark moths were better camouflaged against predatory birds; as pollution controls later cleaned the air, pale moths regained their advantage and the population reverted. This account, while broadly correct, drew renewed scrutiny in the 1990s and 2000s after critics noted that the classic photographs supporting it had been staged, with dead moths pinned to tree trunks rather than photographed in natural resting positions. Skeptics seized on this methodological lapse to question the entire phenomenon, and some popular accounts wrongly concluded that natural selection itself had been undermined. Careful field studies conducted since then, using live moths and rigorous protocols, have in fact reaffirmed the core finding: bird predation does vary with camouflage against different bark colors, and moth populations did shift in the predicted direction as pollution levels changed. The lesson is not that the peppered moth story was false, but that even well-supported findings deserve the same scrutiny of their evidentiary basis as more contested ones — a lapse in illustration does not invalidate an underlying mechanism confirmed by independent methods.

📚 Glossary · কঠিন শব্দের অর্থ
Wordবাংলা অর্থEnglish meaning
melanicগাঢ়-বর্ণ প্রকরণhaving a dark pigmented form
camouflageছদ্মবেশcoloring that helps blend into surroundings
reaffirmপুনঃনিশ্চিত করাto confirm again
evidentiaryপ্রমাণ-সংক্রান্তrelating to evidence

16 The primary purpose of the passage is to

17 According to the passage, the staged photographs

18 The passage suggests that some popular accounts, after the photograph controversy, mistakenly concluded that

19 Later field studies, as described in the passage, used live moths primarily to

20 The passage's concluding "lesson" is best summarized as