Free Practice Test Prep GMAT-Test Exam Questions 2025

Today, children whose parents are deemed incapable of caring for them are put into foster care. These children are moved into strangers’ homes, where they are cared for until their own parents can regain custody, which may not happen for years, if it happens at all. Although it means well, the current foster care program is so poorly funded, staffed, and managed that it cannot ensure the safety and wellbeing of the children in the system. The laudable idea behind foster care is that children will fare best if placed in a family setting until they can be reunited with their parents, even if it is a family of strangers. However, while in foster care, children typically get shuffled between many different foster homes, preventing them from developing long-term, supportive relationships with their foster families. Foster care placements can also force siblings to be separated, further isolating these vulnerable children. When a child is moved to a new foster home, he or she may also have to enroll in a new school, a disruptive process that has a negative impact on the child’s education. The bureaucracy that oversees this system is overwhelmed to the point that social workers are unable to adequately screen potential foster parents and keep accurate track of the children placed in foster care. There must be a better means of caring for these children. Perhaps it is time to consider creating special group homes as a means of providing these children with stable and safe environments. A child could live in one group home for the duration of his or her time in foster care and be supervised by a team of social workers and other lay people. Children would receive proper meals and healthcare, attend the same school, and develop relationships with others experiencing the trauma of being separated from their parents. In addition, social workers and staff would have daily access to these children, enabling them to better determine if a child has a special physical or psychological need and arrange for the necessary services. Would this approach be perfect? No, but it would solve many of the problems that plague the current system. For some, the idea of a government agency housing, clothing, and feeding needy children may sound extreme, but it only suggests that we provide these children with the same basic necessities that we give to prison inmates. 

Using art to condemn the moral shortcomings of society is nothing new. English artist William Hogarth (1697 – 1764) was renowned for prints that revealed the moral lapses of eighteenth-century England. Despite the fact that Hogarth enjoyed the patronage of England’s wealthier citizens, he did not shrink away from producing scathing depictions of all levels of English society. In the ten-print series Industry and Idleness, Hogarth presents two apprentices who begin working side by side only to arrive at vastly different ends. The first apprentice is portrayed as a morally incorruptible, diligent worker. He is promoted, marries his boss’s daughter, and achieves great distinction and financial success. The other apprentice does little work and engages in many unsavory activities. He is fired from his apprenticeship and continues down a path of illicit behavior and corruption. The series comes to a climax when the two former coworkers are reunited with the industrious apprentice – now elevated to alderman – standing in judgment of the idle coworker brought before him for murder. The idle apprentice is sentenced to death and executed, whereas the industrious apprentice goes on to become Lord Mayor of London. Among Hogarth’s most popular series was The Rake’s Progress, which tells the story of wealthy Tom Rakewell. In the first of eight prints, Tom inherits a large sum of money that he foolishly spends on enhancing his image and prestige in superficial ways. His prodigal ways lead to his rapid decline as he is arrested for debt and in return marries an old maid for her money. He begins gambling, is imprisoned, and eventually goes insane in Bedlam. Tom’s descent and desperate outcome, like many of Hogarth’s subjects, is tied directly to moral corruption and poor self-discipline. It is interesting that Hogarth’s prints were extremely popular in his day. Whatever the moral shortcomings of eighteenth-century England, its citizens welcomed Hogarth’s social critiques and harsh judgments. The passage suggests that Hogarth’s work is important because

A milepost on the towpath read “21” on the side facing the hiker as she approached it and “23” on its back. She reasoned that the next milepost forward on the path would indicate that she was halfway between one end of the path and the other. However, the milepost one mile further on read “20” facing her and “24” behind. Which of the following, if true, would explain the discrepancy described above?

People can debate the aesthetic merits of these overwrought, disquieting, sometimes gruesome works of art, but no one can dispute their creators' mastery of the paintbrush as a blunt instrument.

Unlike the United States with its generalissimo politicians - Washington, Jackson, Grant, and Eisenhower- the ‘martial arts’ have been conspicuously absent from Canadian politics. The exception to the rule is former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who became the first Canadian leader to bring a gunslinger ethos to Canadian politics. Trudeau introduced Canada to the refined art of single combat; it was the politics of “doing it my way”. Single-combat confrontation implied much more than the renegade in power did, and far less than the tricks of William Lyon Mackenzie King, prime minister intermittently between 1921 and 1948. Trudeau’s unique background prepared him for the role of authoritarian leader he would assume later in life. Born on October 18, 1919, Trudeau lived in French-speaking Montreal, but heard English at home from his mother, making it easy for the young politician to appeal to all sectors of Canada, a bilingual country. As a young man, he walked and cycled through Europe, finding himself on occasion on the wrong side of the bars in foreign jails. By 1940, Trudeau entered the law faculty at the University of Montreal. As a student he enlisted in the Canadian Officers Training Corps, where he was given a commission as a lieutenant, a rank he held until his retirement in 1947. Trudeau, a renowned sportsman, held a brown belt in karate, knew how to skin dive and could descend 150 feet off a cliff with ease. He continued performing flamboyant physical feats even in later life as Canada’s fifteenth prime minister, astounding Canadians with his prowess. The public’s adoration made it possible for him to practice his personal brand of ‘do it my way’ politics, initiating profound and long-lasting changes to his country. Other leaders would never have undertaken to deal with such taboo issues as divorce, abortion and homosexuality – matters likely to infuriate conservative Canada from coast to coast. Even the powerful Mackenzie King dared not touch any of the three, though Trudeau tackled them together in an omnibus bill as Minister of Justice under Lester B. Pearson. His reason for loosening legislation on these issues was, as he put poetically put it, "The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation." The myths-makers have it that this was Trudeau's first deliberate ‘gun slinging’ move, performed with the ultimate goal of attaining national leadership. Contrary to popular belief, Trudeau had no leadership aspirations at the time; all he had was a passion for combat that eclipsed other religious considerations. Trudeau instigated far-reaching changes in legislation governing divorce, abortion and homosexuality that have had a major impact on Canada, shaping the country into what it is today.