Vocab
This word means full of, abounding
what is rife
Which statement from “500 Miles in a Self-Driving Car” best develops the central idea that making preparations to drive the autonomous A7 was much more difficult than actually driving the car?
The way Audi sees it, anyone given the responsibility of piloting this device on public roads had damned well be up to the task of taking over, because if you need to grab the wheel, the odds are something’s gone terribly amiss.
Why is President Thomas Jefferson’s “Letter to John C. Breckinridge” considered a seminal document?
It is correspondence that was from a US president to his attorney general and that had a historical impact on legalizing the Louisiana Purchase.
Which option about the roots of the word concoct is correct?
One of the roots in the word concoct is coquere, which means “to cook.”
Read the dictionary entries.
continual adj. occurring at intervals; recurring regularly or frequently
continuous adj. occurring without interruption in time or sequence
Which sentence demonstrates the best use of a form of continuous?
The warning siren blew continuously for three long minutes.
This word means truthfulness or accuracy
What is veracity
In the Building the Central Brain section of “500 Miles in a Self-Driving Car,” which statement best cites textual evidence to analyze the central idea that there are challenges to packaging the sensors and computers in the autonomous A7?
The author states, “Each of the eight PCs in the back of our A7 serves a different function. They control data logging, planning a path, controlling steering, braking, and acceleration, operating the near field cameras, and fusing sensor data.”
Read the excerpt from “George W. Harkins to the American People.”
Taking an example from the American government, and knowing the happiness which its citizens enjoy under the influence of mild republican institutions, it is the intention of our countrymen to form a government assimilated to that of our white brethren in the United States, as nearly as their condition will permit.
Which statement best explains Harkins’s use of a constitutional principle in the excerpt?
Harkins uses popular sovereignty to show that the native tribes should be able to govern themselves rather than submit to the control of the United States.
Read the opening paragraph from “Primates, Empathy, and Making Connections.”
What intrigues me most about laughter is how it spreads. It’s almost impossible not to laugh when everybody else is. There have been laughing epidemics, in which no one could stop and some even died in a prolonged fit. There are laughing churches and laugh therapies based on the healing power of laughter. The must-have toy of 1996—Tickle Me Elmo—laughed hysterically after being squeezed three times in a row. All of this because we love to laugh and can’t resist joining laughing around us. This is why comedy shows on television have laugh tracks and why theater audiences are sometimes sprinkled with “laugh plants”: people paid to produce raucous laughing at any joke that comes along.
How does the information in the excerpt help contribute to the meaning and power of the word infectiousness later in the text?
It provides examples of how laughter is contagious, causing individuals to mimic others’ actions.
Reread the final section, The Future of Electric Cars, in “The History of the Electric Car.”
Which option most accurately reflects the main point the author makes in this section?
Electric vehicles are a viable option for a greener future.
in a way that shows a lack of mercy or disregard of risk
What is wantonly
Read the excerpt from “Household Robots Are Here, but Where Are They Going?”
But fairly soon it will be routine for homeowners to bark out “turn the lights down 20 percent” and have it happen. Eventually, a robot-controlled smart home will “understand where a person is in the home and know what they want” without even being asked, says Michael Wolf, the founder of NextMarket Insights. He estimates that the market for owner-installed smart homes will rise from about $1.3 billion today to about $7.8 billion by 2019.
Which option describes how the central idea is developed in the excerpt?
The excerpt explains how the current functions of social robots are best applied to basic tasks within the home.
Which excerpt best exemplifies the connection that the speaker attempts to make between the ideas of safety and privacy in “Going Dark”?
And with that comes a desire to protect our privacy and our data—you want to share your lives with the people you choose. I sure do. But the FBI has a sworn duty to keep every American safe from crime and terrorism, and technology has become the tool of choice for some very dangerous people.
In “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant,” how does the author’s depiction of his immigration problems contribute to the power of the article?
The author shows how the numerous issues he encountered while going to school, applying for jobs, and trying to live as an undocumented immigrant affected almost every aspect of his life.
Read the passage, which explains the value of honeybees and the scientific concern over their survival.
(1) Since the 1980s, honeybee health has been rapidly declining. (2) Honeybees pollinate about a third of the crops in the United States, and most flowering plants depend on honeybees to survive. (3) Scientists are struggling to learn the cause of the problem, which has led to the loss of many commercial beehives. (4) Since the 1980s, the number of commercial colonies has dropped from five billion to 2.5 million, and many of the surviving colonies have diseased hives. (5) Commercial beekeepers typically stay in business year-round, hauling their colonies to warm areas of the country during the winter so they can meet demands for out-of-season crops.
Which sentence could be eliminated because it fails to support the main idea of the passage?
sentence 5
This word means extremely difficult to achieve
What is arduous
In which excerpt from “How Not to Raise a Bully: The Early Roots of Empathy” does the author use an appeal to emotion to persuade her audience that empathy training should start in early childhood?
Institutionalized infants do not experience being the center of a loving family’s attention; instead, they are cared for by a rotating staff of workers, which is inherently neglectful.
Which option correctly identifies a key idea in “Going Dark”?
There is not a conflict between liberty and security; security enhances liberty.
Which option best explains how the author’s use of his native language, Tagalog, contributes to the power of the text?
It shows that even though the author is trying to become a US citizen, he is still proud of his heritage.
Read the excerpt from “16 Things I’ve Learned from 16 Years of Dealing with Depression.”
This isn’t just my anecdotal perspective—they’ve done lots of research that demonstrates Facebook makes us unhappy. It stunts our real-life social interaction, it makes us envious of others (instead of grateful for what we’ve got), and so on.
How does the use of the word anecdotal increase the effectiveness of this excerpt?
Anecdotal draws attention to the personal perspective in the article.
This word means a single large stone, such as a column or upright monument
What is monolith
Read the sentence from “How Not to Raise a Bully: The Early Roots of Empathy.”
Spartans, who were celebrated almost exclusively as warriors, raised their ruling-class boys in an environment of uncompromising brutality—enlisting them in boot camp at age 7 and starving them to encourage enough deviousness and cunning to steal food, which skillfully bred yet more generations of ruthless killers.
Why did the author use cunning in the sentence instead of a synonym like ingenuity or shrewdness?
Cunning has a more negative connotation that implies expert or crafty use of criminal skills.
Reread the Where Do We Go from Here? section of the article “Going Dark,” which discusses the problem with law enforcement tools used to investigate criminals.
Which options correctly explain the speaker’s solution to this problem?
(Select all that apply.)
The speaker discusses the need for assistance from communications companies, the private sector, the government, and the public.
Which sentence demonstrates writing in a style and tone that are most appropriate for an audience of professional scientists?
The results of the experiment showed a quantifiable decrease in oxygen levels.
Read the excerpt from “Confessions of a Depressed Comic.”
Well, it won’t. It hasn’t, and it’s not going to, because that’s wishful thinking, and wishful thinking isn’t a game plan, it’s procrastination, and we can’t procrastinate on something this important.
Why does Kevin Breel use the words procrastination and procrastinate on in the excerpt instead of postponement and postpone?
Procrastination and procrastinate on have more negative connotations and highlight the importance of dealing with depression and not disregarding its existence.