GRE Verbal Reasoning: Reading Comprehension

The bakery lit its ovens at three in the morning so the first loaves would be bagged before the depot opened. The baker pulled the seeded rolls before the plain loaves. Customers who arrived with the first bus could buy rolls, but the plain loaves were still on the peel.

When an understudy performed, the community theater printed a one-night program with that person's name on the cover. On other nights a single stack of programs lasted the month. The house manager claimed that people in the lobby took a program mainly to learn who was on stage that evening.

Bricks left on the sunny wall cracked along their faces. The same clay, dried on racks inside the shed, kept a straight edge. After the mason saw the cracked row, she moved the week's bricks into the shed.

The night clerk sold ferry tickets until the last boat left. She then locked the cash drawer and walked the pier to count the life rings. The number of rings, not the ticket total, was what she entered in the log.

The mural lead asked the painter to temper the reds on the station wall. Passengers had said the coats looked harsh under the new lamps. The painter added a gray wash, and the reds sat back instead of glaring.

On dry afternoons the sparrows bathed in the dust under the eaves, flicking grit through their feathers. After a rain they ignored that dust and crowded the shallow birdbath. Their choice followed whatever water the day had actually left them.

The barber booked haircuts from Monday through Thursday. Friday afternoon was left open for people without appointments, and the door sign said so. Friday morning remained the last booked hour before those open hours began.

Text 1: The town band opened every summer concert with the same march. Listeners on the lawn stood up at the first beat, before the announcer said a word.

Text 2: The band still plays that march, but it now ends the night. People stay on their blankets through the opening and stand only when the familiar beat returns as the encore.

Ice on the mill pond melted first in a ring around the dark rocks. Those rocks sat in full sun, while ice over the pale sand stayed firm until afternoon. The caretaker claimed the dark color of the rocks, not a hidden seep, was what warmed the nearby ice.

Text 1: Pickers walked the warehouse aisles in number order so two people would not reach the same shelf together. The floor lead said the order cut down on waiting.

Text 2: Pickers still meet at the busiest shelves, because those numbers sit in one corner. The meetings are shorter, though, since nobody stops to argue about who arrived first.

The puppeteer kept the villain in its own bag after black paint rubbed onto the hero's cloth face. She tied a red cord around that bag so she would not grab it in the dark wings. The hero's bag stayed unmarked and within reach of her right hand.

Gulls trailed the fishing boat whenever the crew tossed scraps over the side. On the afternoon the crew kept the scraps aboard, the birds turned away before the boat cleared the jetty. The gulls were following the food, not the hull.

The shift lead spoke in a grave voice when she told the night crew the receipts were missing. Nobody laughed or treated the news as a small mix-up. They stayed after the whistle and counted the drawer again.

The museum stored its quilts flat in wide drawers and hung only one at a time. A quilt that had been folded showed a pale line across the middle even after it was aired. The curator said the line came from the fold, not from a flaw in the dye.

Dandelions in the mowed path bloomed on short stems, the flowers sitting almost in the grass. Plants against the uncut fence grew tall before they opened. Mowing, not a different seed, kept the path flowers low.

The market manager gave the shady stalls to the people selling greens. Bread vendors stood at the sunny end, away from the damp corner. Berry tables lined the west aisle, which fell into shade only late in the day.

The archive's folder of pier-theater playbills is unsigned. The same actress is listed in the lead each summer for six years, and then her name leaves the cast. A later bill lists her as director and does not list her among the players.

Blankets stored in the cedar chest came out without moth holes. The same kind of blankets, kept that winter in the pine chest next door, showed small chewed spots. The household began putting the winter wool only in the cedar chest.

The hardware store cut keys until fifteen minutes before closing. After that, the clerk sent people to the next morning rather than start a new blank. Copies already in the machine were finished and handed across the counter.

For years the troupe came on through the side curtain, and the audience barely looked up. The director then tried a novel entrance, sending the players up through the trapdoor at the center of the stage. That opening startled the first crowd, who had been watching the wings.

On cold mornings a film of frost covered the inside of the shed window. The gardener wiped one pane and watched the film return as her breath drifted against the glass. She left a dry rag on the sill and used it before she could see the beds.

Ushers seated latecomers only at a scene break. During songs the doors stayed shut, even if someone knocked. A patron who arrived in the middle of a number waited in the lobby until the applause.

Audience members had complained that one singer took every solo. The four leads then made a compact to rotate the solo, one singer each week. A card in the lobby named the week's soloist so nobody had to guess.

The tin roof ticked and popped as it cooled after the hot afternoon. By the time the porch boards felt comfortable under bare feet, the noise had stopped. The popping belonged to the cooling metal, and it ended once the roof had given up the day's heat.

Flaggers stopped traffic in both directions whenever the crane swung over the lane. After the load was set down, they waved one side through and then the other. Neither line moved while the boom was above the pavement.

Text 1: The studio fired bowls on Tuesday and left the kiln shut until Thursday morning. Opening it sooner, the teacher said, had cracked a whole shelf last spring.

Text 2: This month the teacher opened the kiln on Wednesday because a thin crack of light at the door showed the bricks were already cool. The bowls came out whole.

Fog filled the valley road at dawn and hid the mailboxes. The hilltop above the same road was already clear, with sun on the upper fence. The fog thinned from the high ground downward, not from the valley floor up.

Text 1: Dock workers agreed to split the holiday shifts evenly, and the board by the scale listed every name once. No one was written in for two holidays in a row.

Text 2: When a storm closed the pier on one of those holidays, the skipped worker was given the next open holiday. That person then appeared twice in the new list, and a coworker lost a turn.

The parade drummer practiced the cadence on a pillow at home so the sticks would not rattle the neighbors. On the street he used the same pattern on a tight drum. Only the surface changed; the count of the cadence did not.

Puddles on the dirt road froze from the edges inward overnight. By dawn the center of each puddle was a darker, thinner pane. The driver tested that center with a boot before she stepped.

Members wanted the night route added before winter. The board tabled the proposal until the spring budget meeting and would not take a vote that night. A note on the agenda said the item would return in April.

Dancers rehearsed the harvest dance in shoes on the wooden floor. On the grass they performed it barefoot, and several missed the turn they had hit indoors. The teacher said the shoes, not the music, had been marking the step.

Crows dropped walnuts onto the crosswalk and waited while cars passed over them. Between lights they hopped down and carried off the cracked pieces. The birds used the traffic as a tool and did not drop nuts on the empty lane beside the curb.

Housekeepers skipped any hotel room with a sign on the knob. They cleaned the open rooms first and came back after those guests left for breakfast. A sign that stayed up until noon moved that room to the next shift.

A volunteer suggested recycling the faded playbills to free a shelf. The archivist championed those bills, pointing to pencil notes in the margins that named the pit musicians. The stack stayed, and the empty box beside it was what went downstairs.

Windows facing the ocean clouded with a white film after every windy week. The inland windows on the same cottage stayed clear, even when those storms bent the grass. Wiping the ocean side with fresh water lifted the film, and the cloth came away salty.

The machine shop listed the day's jobs on a chalkboard by the door. A line was erased only after the part passed inspection at the bench. Jobs that failed stayed on the board and were marked with a circle.

The printmaker inked the block lightly for the first proof and held it beside the window. Lines that looked broken there got more ink on the next pass. She kept the light proof pinned above the bench until the heavier print matched it.

A kingfisher returned to the same dead branch after every dive in the creek. It shook itself there, then flew out again over the shallow water. By late morning the bark under its toes was dark, and the rest of the branch was dry.

Carriers sorted the morning route inside the truck before they left the lot. Bundles were stacked in the order of the stops, with the first porch on top. A carrier who mixed that stack had to pull over and rebuild it before the next block.

The glass studio had always opened its show with a finished vase sitting on a stand. This year it offered a novel opening and blew a glowing bubble while the crowd watched. Visitors who had expected a silent display leaned toward the furnace.

Earthworms lay on the lawn after the soaking night rain and slipped back into the soil as the grass dried. By the time the path was pale again, the lawn showed only faint holes. They had come up with the wet and left with the drying.

The diner's cook made the soup before the doors opened. She would not add it to the board until it had cooled enough for her to taste. Customers who arrived at the unlock saw the soup go up on the board a little later, not at the first minute.

Text 1: The historical society stored the original street signs in the basement and put painted copies on the corners. A label under each copy named the year the original had been taken down.

Text 2: On Oak Street the copy was hung, but the original never reached the basement. It was found still bolted to the alley wall behind the new sign.

Peas along the sunny fence set pods a week before peas under the maple. The shaded row had the same seed and the same watering can. The gardener blamed the shade, saying the maple, not the seed, held that row back.

Text 1: The community kitchen served lunch on weekdays and locked the door on Saturday. Volunteers said the school cafeteria could cover families until Monday.

Text 2: During the spring break the cafeteria was dark, and the kitchen opened on Saturday after all. The weekday rule bent for that week only.

An old diary in the archive describes the ice harvest on the town pond and lists the thickness cut each morning. It never names the buyers. The handwriting stays steady through the cold weeks and stops at the thaw.

At low water the heron stood in the shallows well out from the bank. As the tide returned it walked upslope, one long step at a time, and fished the new edge. It kept to the moving line between wet mud and deeper water.

The clinic had trouble filling Saturday hours. It courted weekend volunteers by setting out a hot breakfast after the shift, and the signup sheet filled for the first time in months. Weekday volunteers, who already had a full roster, were not offered that meal.

The earlier town map draws a racetrack where the high school field is now. A later map drops the oval and puts a street along that edge. The archivist laid the two maps together so visitors could see the track disappear under the new line.

Geese circled the reservoir twice before they landed on the far side, away from the walking path. When a dog ran the near bank, the flock would not settle there even if that water was calmer. They chose the quieter distance over the easier shore.

Finishers worked in the room with the open windows. Sawyers stayed beside the dust collector at the back wall. The shop lead did not let a sander cross into the finishing room until the machines had been off for an hour.

The storyteller used a short ending at the children's hour and stopped when the small listeners started to fidget. At the evening circle she kept the longer ending, including the walk home in the dark. Adults stayed for that last part, which the children never heard.

A linen shirt stuffed into a travel bag came out creased across the back. The same shirt, hung on a line overnight, dried with only a soft ripple. The traveler started hanging the linen whenever the inn had a line, and used the bag only on the last morning.

The snow crew salted the bridge before any side street. Side streets got salt only if some remained in the truck. On the morning the hopper ran out at the bridge, the side streets stayed bare.

The printed cast list stayed the same all month. An understudy's name was added on a slip only on the night that person went on, and the slip was taped inside the program. Regular nights had no slip at all.

After sunset the stone path through the garden felt cool underfoot. The wooden deck beside it still held the afternoon's warmth. People leaving the party stepped onto the stones and stopped short at the change.

Archive volunteers labeled boxes only after they were lifted onto the table. A box still on the floor got no label, even if someone knew what was inside. The rule kept half-sorted cartons from looking finished.

The violin maker set the spruce top on a rack to season before she bent it. Green wood, she told the apprentice, would spring back as soon as her hands left it. The piece she finally bent had waited a month and held the curve.

Swallows built mud nests under the bridge and fed their young there through early summer. Once the young could fly, the nests sat empty, and the birds lined the wire above the road instead. The bridge kept the old nests, but the flock had moved its evenings to the wire.

The courier collective split the downtown runs as evenly as it could. For the first week, the newest rider was given the flat route along the river. After that week the new rider joined the rotation and took the hill like everyone else.

Text 1: The founder scratched the year inside the town bell, and the numbers can be read when the bell is tipped for repair. From the square below, the year is hidden.

Text 2: During the last repair the bell was tipped, and the scratched year did not match the date on the tower plaque. The plaque was later given a small second line with the year from inside the bell.

A light frost blackened the annuals in the front bed overnight. The ivy on the brick wall behind them stayed green through the same morning. The gardener said it was the ivy, not heat stored in the bricks, that had come through the frost.

Text 1: The dance teacher clapped the phrase once, then asked the class to walk it with no clap at all. She wanted the accent to come from their steps.

Text 2: A substitute kept clapping through the whole phrase and praised students who matched the hands, not the feet. Several dancers lost the step when that clap finally stopped.

The children's theater built its forest from painted cardboard and stored the trees flat behind the stage. Those same trees appeared in three plays, with only the flowers pinned on differently. The crew was glad the first forest still fit through the door, and nobody built a second one.

Wet clay on the gardener's shoes left dark prints across the porch boards. By evening those prints had dried to a pale dust that brushed away with a hand. The boards underneath showed no stain once the dust was gone.

The supply-cage latch had frozen shut in the cold hallway. It would not yield until the night janitor warmed the metal with her hands. Once it gave, the door opened on the first pull.

One windy rehearsal on the pier sent sheet music sliding into the water, and the winter concert was moved to the church hall. The next practice stayed indoors even though the evening was calm. The move outlasted the wind that had caused it.

On the same street the maples dropped their leaves in a week, while the oaks still held a brown crown. Sidewalks under the maples needed raking first. The oaks shed later, and their leaves came down a few at a time.

Rangers locked the canyon gate at dusk through the summer. After the clocks changed, they locked it an hour earlier, while the upper trail was still light. A sign at the trailhead gave the new time.

The choir's oldest folder holds parts written in pencil, with fingerings crowded into the margins. Newer folders copy those same parts in ink and leave the margins blank. Singers who want the old fingerings still have to ask for the pencil folder.

Bees worked the blue sage while the morning flowers were open. By noon those blossoms had wilted, and the bees moved to the thyme at the path's edge. They did not return to the sage until the next morning's flowers opened.

The tailor hemmed trousers while the customer waited in the shop. Coats that needed a new lining were left on a hook, with a pickup day written on the ticket. No one was asked to wait in the chair for a lining.

The bookbinder sewed the folded sections before she glued on the cover. Any section with a missing page was set on a side table and left out of the book. She said a gap in the sewing, not a smear of glue, was what made her stop.

A dark band of seaweed clung to the harbor pilings at one height. The harbormaster told walkers that the band marked the ordinary afternoon high water. Below it the wood stayed wet and green; above it the piles were pale and dry.

The night dispatcher trusted the radio log until a storm knocked out the recorder. That night she wrote each call on paper, with the time in the margin. In the morning the paper, not the blank tape, was what the day shift read.

The cup looked smooth on the shelf. Minute chips along the rim showed only when the potter held it up to the window. She set that cup with the seconds and kept the unchipped one for the front table.

The copper gutter on the north side of the house turned green by its second winter. The south gutter, in the sun most of the day, stayed brown for years longer. Shade and damp, the roofer said, had sped the green on the side that rarely dried.

Library pages shelved the returned books before the doors opened. A cart still full at opening was rolled behind the desk so browsers would not grab unshelved copies. Yesterday's returns were in place by the time the first reader arrived.

Text 1: The clockmaker wound the tower clock every Sunday and left a note on the door if he had to skip a week. Without that note, the town assumed the clock had been wound.

Text 2: One Sunday the note was missing, yet the clock stopped on Wednesday. The weight had been only half raised, and the skip had gone unannounced.

The compost pile steamed on cold mornings while it sat in one deep heap. After the gardener turned it and spread it thin, the steam stopped, even though the morning was just as cold. She said the depth of the heap, not the cold air, had been making the vapor.

Text 1: Drivers on the hill route swapped at the turnaround so nobody drove the steep stretch twice in one shift. The second driver took the bus back down.

Text 2: When the second driver was out sick, the first driver kept the bus and drove the hill both ways. The swap returned the next day, when two drivers were on the board again.

Students signed their sketchbooks on the last page. The instructor asked them not to tear out a drawing that had gone wrong, because the next try often started from that mistake. Smudged pages stayed in the book between cleaner ones.

Tomato leaves on the open side of the garden curled during the windy week. Plants of the same variety behind the fence kept flat leaves and kept flowering. The fence row was the one the gardener picked from that week.

Carts rolled easily on the wet planks of the loading dock. A rope stretched across the dock checked them before they could reach the ramp. Once the rope was unhooked, the same carts moved again.

The hall's stained-glass panels were lifted out before the storm season and laid in labeled crates. In spring the panels went back into the same openings. The registrar said the labels, not anyone's memory, did that matching, and a smeared label had to be held to the frame.

After the hard rain on the hillside, the river ran muddy for two days. The water cleared first upstream, and the brown reached the bridge only after the upper bends had already turned green. People at the bridge were seeing the tail of a stain that had started up the valley.

The morning host read the school closures at the top of each early hour. The evening host did not repeat them, even if a listener called. By afternoon the list was already posted on the station door.

Letters from a traveling actor in the 1930s ask the boarding house to save a quiet room off the street. Each time he stayed, the ledger added an extra charge with the note 'back room.' Other guests that season were listed at the ordinary rate, with no note beside the figure.

In spring the woodpecker drummed on the metal cap of the chimney every morning. The rest of the year it used the dead oak at the fence and left the cap alone. Neighbors could tell the season had turned when the chimney started to ring.

A substitute teacher picked up the room key at the front desk each morning. The key went back on its hook before the late bus, even if papers still needed grading. The desk would not release a second key while the first one was out.

The photographer developed portraits in the evening and hung them to dry before locking up. Prints that were still damp at opening were left on the line, and customers were asked to come back. She said a damp print would spot if it were stacked.

A wool sweater washed in hot water came out thick and small, the stitches locked together. The same pattern, washed cool and laid flat, kept its size. After that, the household washed wool only in cool water and kept it off the hot line.

Apprentice masons carried bricks for the first month and were not handed a trowel. A trowel came only after an apprentice could keep a chalk line level for a full course. The lead checked that line before anyone spread mortar.

The costume shop was short on fasteners before the spring show. For the stitchers, the attic trunk was a mine of buttons and faded ribbon. They carried down a bowl of each and left the rest under the eaves.

Bean plants kept putting out flowers as long as the gardener picked the young pods. On the row she left alone, the pods fattened and the flowers stopped. Picking, she concluded, was what kept that first row producing.

Dock clerks weighed each crab crate on the pier scale before it went into the cooler. The weight was written on a tag and wired to the crate. A crate without a tag was turned back at the cooler door.

Text 1: The mural crew painted the station sky on Saturday and left the figures for Sunday, so the blue could dry. Wet blue, they said, would streak if a sleeve brushed it.

Text 2: Sunday's figures went on without streaks, but a child had leaned on the still-soft clouds Saturday night. Those spots were repainted before the people were added.

The seed tube emptied faster on cold mornings than on mild ones. The neighbor claimed more birds came when the air was cold, not that the seed had clumped and stuck. On mild days the same tube still held seed at noon.

Text 1: The cannery added a Saturday shift in August, when peach trucks lined the yard. The shift ended as soon as those deliveries stopped.

Text 2: In September the peach trucks were gone, but a Saturday shift ran for one more week to can tomatoes that had arrived late. After that week the Saturdays stopped.

Wind off the water lifted the choir's music off the stands during the pier rehearsal. Pages were chased down the dock, and two parts were fished out wet. The director's account of that afternoon is impatient with the choice of an open pier, not with the singers.

Smoke from the cottage chimney rose straight up on the clear morning. The next day it flattened and drifted along the roof, and rain began before lunch. The gardener had learned to read that low drift as a sign to cover the seed trays.

Three neighbors shared a stall at the Saturday market. Each partner had a stake in the stall, and they divided the cash box before they took the tent down. No one left the square with the whole box.

A cracked beam closed the opera house balcony, and audiences sat only on the ground floor. Rehearsals continued downstairs while a carpenter waited for a replacement beam. The house manager said the crack, not a drop in ticket sales, had shut the upper seats.

Below the high-tide line the beach was firm enough to walk without sinking. Above that line the dry sand slid away underfoot and filled every footprint. People who wanted a solid path stayed on the dark, damp band the tide had just left.

When the cashier stepped out, members of the co-op wrote their names and what they took in a book by the scale. The book was read aloud at the weekly meeting and checked against the shelves. A line that did not match a missing item was questioned before the meeting ended.

The town pamphlet describes the 1913 flood by a faint line on the post office wall. Newer paint stops just below that line, and the plaster above it is a different color. Nothing in the pamphlet gives the depth in numbers.