The exhibit is not so much a retrospective as a __________ ; the artist’s weaker early work is glossed over and any evidence of his ultimate dissolution is absent entirely.

Select two correct answers.

paean
philippic
tirade
panacea
eulogy
crescendo

(Note: When you see six answer choices and square checkboxes, that’s a clue that this is a GRE Sentence Equivalence problem, to which there will always be two correct answers.)

Make your selections before reading any further!

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Mnemonics or mnemonic devices are memory tricks to help us remember things like vocabulary words. However, many mnemonics are pretty cheesy — often involving the kind of jokes some people call “groaners.” For instance…

Tantamount means, “equivalent, as in value, force, effect, or signification.”

The word is often used to say that something is 99.9% as bad as something really bad, as in, “The dictator’s call to action is tantamount to a declaration of war.”

Here’s the mnemonic:

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While problems with charts and tables can look intimidating, it is often the case that the questions simply require you to be able to 1) read carefully, 2) do arithmetic, and 3) convert fractions to percents, and calculate percent change. That’s it.

Try this Data Interpretation problem set with five questions.

Ninth-Grade Students at Millbrook High School

1. What fraction of the girls are enrolled in Spanish?
2. What fraction of the students are boys who are enrolled in Spanish?
3. What is the ratio of 9^th grade girls not enrolled in Spanish to all 9^th grade students at Millbrook Middle School?
4. If x% more students are not enrolled in Spanish than are enrolled in Spanish, what is x?
5. If 2 of the boys not enrolled in Spanish decided to enroll in Spanish, and then 8 new girls and 7 new boys enrolled in the 9^th grade at Millbrook Middle School and also in Spanish, what percent of 9^th grade students at Millbrook would then be taking Spanish?

Record your answers on paper before continuing!

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Here are two hilarious — but mathematically GRE-like — problems written by Manhattan GRE instructor Tommy Wallach.

As on the real GRE, both questions use the same set of two charts. The first question is multiple choice; the second requires you to enter your own answer. You may use a calculator.

1. If the five categories of irony were placed in the slice appropriate to them in the first chart, approximately what would be the internal angle of the slice labeled nostalgia, in degrees?

1. 7
2. 21
3. 25
4. 57
5. 70

2. If a hipster’s priorities were expressed as a percentage of 500 priority points, what would be the point difference between knowledge of craft beers and ironic attitude, rounded to the nearest tenth?

Give these problems a shot before reading further.

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Mnemonics or mnemonic devices are memory tricks to help us remember things like vocabulary words. However, many mnemonics are pretty cheesy — often involving the kind of jokes some people call “groaners.” For instance…

To abase is “to reduce or lower, as in rank, office, reputation, or estimation; humble; degrade.”

Here’s the mnemonic:

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This hilarious graphic has been making the rounds on Facebook:

The Credible Hulk! This, of course, is a play on the Incredible Hulk. But what does incredible really mean?

Today, we often use incredible to mean “amazing, awesome!” However, the actual meaning of incredible is not believable. For instance:

No one would have questioned the employee’s sick day if he hadn’t told such _________ story about an exotic illness that sent him to the hospital near-death at 8:30 a.m., and yet was cured completely by evening.

Select two answers.

an incredible a fabulous an incredulous a verisimilar a gullible a chintzy

(Note: When you see six answer choices and square checkboxes, that’s a clue that this is a GRE Sentence Equivalence problem, to which there will always be two correct answers.)

Of course, one of the answers to this question is incredible. But what about the other one?

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Take a sneak peek into Manhattan Prep’s 500 Essential Words and 500 Advanced Words GRE flashcard sets!

Why does propitiate mean conciliate, appease, but propitious means lucky? You’ll have to ask some superstitious Romans (or just read our flashcards). Check it out:

Want to adopt 1,000 new flashcards? Visit our store here.

Mnemonics or mnemonic devices are memory tricks to help us remember things like vocabulary words. However, many mnemonics are pretty cheesy — often involving the kind of jokes some people call “groaners.” For instance…

Georgic means agricultural, or can be a noun referring to a poem on rural life. (As such, the word has a positive connotation.)

Here’s the mnemonic:

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Take a sneak peek into Manhattan Prep’s 500 Essential Words and 500 Advanced Words GRE flashcard sets!

When writing these cards, we wanted to make sure that everyone could get something out of every card — even if you already know the word on the front. Virtual is a pretty simple word, but how about nomimal or de facto? Check it out:

Want to adopt 1,000 new flashcards? Visit our store here.

This Valentine’s Day, Drake Martinet proposed to Stacy Green, Mashable’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications, via an infographic on Mashable.

Here’s the part of it that reminded me of a GRE problem:
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