This page is part of my unofficial solutions manual to the GRE Paper Practice Book (2e), a free resource available on the ETS website. They publish the questions; I explain the answers. If you haven’t worked through the Practice Book, give Section 3 a shot before reading this!

3.16: “By about age eight …”

Here we want to know what kind of ability allows a child to pick up a new language so accurately. Note, though, that we’re also told that the child’s phonetic capabilities are “fully developed,” so any word that means “undeveloped” or “underdeveloped” won’t work here. Some options we might come up with (before looking at the answers!) include flexible, adaptable, changeable.

Now, to the answers: does plastic (A) mean flexible or changeable? You bet it does. Sometimes my students reject this word out of hand because they are unfamiliar with the original sense of the word plastic, which meant “capable of being shaped or molded” long before it denoted credit cards or grocery bags. (See Vocab Note below.) If this one tripped you up, just be aware that this is a classic GRE trick: using an unfamiliar sense of a familiar word. Something vestigial (B) is a small or non-functional trace of a previous thing, especially of an earlier stage in evolution or development. (The wings of the kiwi are vestigial.) Since the abilities here are “fully developed” and quite powerful, it doesn’t make sense to call them vestigial.

The next three answers — (C), (D), and (E) — are a kind of attention check, since all three mean “undeveloped” in one way or another. Inarticulate (C) means “unable to speak clearly,” and nascent (E) means “just beginning to exist.” But all three are contradicted by the information that the traits in question are “fully developed.” That leaves malleable (F) as the only remaining choice. The word means “easy to shape or influence” and thus matches up closely with plastic as it is used here.

Vocab Notes

Before the widespread use of polymers like PVC and polystyrene, plastic had the meaning given above: “capable of being shaped or molded.” In fact, the materials we know as plastics got their name because they have just that property: they can be molded, pressed, or extruded into a given shape. To help you associate this original meaning of plastic with its more recent sense, you might think of The Plastics, the popular clique in Mean Girls. The scriptwriters may have chosen the word plastic because the three girls behave in a fake and superficial way, like a plastic imitation of real friends. But remember that The Plastics — Gretchen, Karen, and eventually protagonist Cady — also “mold and shape” their behavior in order to stay on Regina’s good side and remain in the clique.