Command of Evidence (Textual & Quantitative)
Jan Gimsa, Robert Sleigh, and Ulrike Gimsa have hypothesized that the sail-like structure running down the back of the dinosaur Spinosaurus aegyptiacus improved the animal’s success in underwater pursuits of prey species capable of making quick, evasive movements. To evaluate their hypothesis, a second team of researchers constructed two battery-powered mechanical models of S. aegyptiacus, one with a sail and one without, and subjected the models to a series of identical tests in a water-filled tank.
Which finding from the model tests, if true, would most strongly support Gimsa and colleagues’ hypothesis?
The model with a sail took significantly less time to complete a sharp turn while submerged than the model without a sail did.
US traffic signals didn’t always contain the familiar three lights (red, yellow, and green). Traffic lights only ______ red and green lights until the three-light traffic signal was developed in 1923.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Featured
In a study on the effects of stress on the brain, neuroscientists Sunita Kumar, Ethan Wilson, and others examined the brains of rats exposed to stressful situations. The researchers found that stress caused inflammation in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory and learning. They also discovered that this inflammation reduced the rats' ability to form new memories. They concluded that stress is likely to ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Decrease an individual's ability to form new memories.
While one requires oxygen and one does ______ and anaerobic respiration are both forms of cellular respiration—that is, they are processes by which cells break down glucose to use as energy.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
not, aerobic
In 1891, dancer and choreographer Loie Fuller first performed her celebrated Serpentine Dance, artfully twirling her long, flowing skirt to create striking visual effects. ______ in 1896, cinema pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière made a groundbreaking short film of Fuller’s dance.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Later,
Hip-hop pedagogy is a form of teaching that’s gaining popularity across school subjects. It involves incorporating hip-hop and rap music into lessons as well as using hip-hop elements when teaching other subject matters. For example, Quan Neloms’s students look for college-level vocabulary and historical events in rap songs. Researchers claim that in addition to developing students’ social justice awareness, hip-hop pedagogy encourages student success by raising students’ interest and engagement.
Which finding, if true, would most strongly support the italicized claim?
Courses that incorporate hip-hop and rap music are among the courses with the highest enrollment and attendance rates.
Osage Nation citizen Randy Tinker-Smith produced and directed the ballet Wahzhazhe, which vividly chronicles Osage history and culture. Telling Osage stories through ballet is ______ choice because two of the foremost ballet dancers of the twentieth century were Osage: sisters Maria and Marjorie Tallchief.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A suitable
The Haitian Declaration of Independence was issued in 1804, bringing to an end the revolution against colonial France that began in 1791. Written in French, which was not the first language of most Haitians but which was used throughout Europe as the language of international diplomacy, the declaration notes that Haiti will not bring rebellion to other Caribbean nations, promises to respect the sovereignty of its neighbors—widely understood as a reassurance to the United States—and sets up Haiti as an example for future struggles against colonizers (an implicit reference to the many colonies then found in the Americas). So even though the declaration is explicitly addressed to the Haitian people, it’s reasonable to conclude that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
The declaration actually had several intended audiences
The song "Tightrope" by Janelle Monáe—a funky, danceable tune with lyrics about finding balance and persevering through ______ become one of her most well-known songs.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
adversity--has
In the 1850s, William Still was instrumental in helping nearly 1,000 people escape from slavery, earning him the moniker “the Father of the Underground Railroad.” ______ despite the fame of his contributions during his lifetime, Still is discussed far less today than other prominent Black abolitionists from his era, such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
However,
Gabrielle Adams and colleagues reviewed suggestions for improving a university that had been submitted to the university’s president. They coded each suggestion as additive (the idea suggested adding something new to the university), subtractive (the idea suggested removing something from the university), neither additive nor subtractive, or invalid (the idea was not comprehensible). The data illustrated people’s tendency to overlook the possibility of removing things to achieve improvements: ______
Which choice most effectively uses data in the graph to complete the statement?
Fewer than 100 suggestions were coded as subtractive, whereas more than 550 suggestions were coded as additive.
A journalist and well-respected art critic of nineteenth-century Britain, Lady Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake did not hesitate to publish reviews that went against popular opinion. One of her most divisive works was an essay questioning the idea of photography as an emerging medium for fine art: in the essay, Eastlake ______ that the value of photographs was informational rather than creative.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Asserted
Dutch painters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often showed tables filled with large wheels of cheese or carved shards of butter. Some art historians, noting that dairy products were a major component of the Dutch diet, interpret these depictions as reflections of everyday Dutch eating habits. However, a group of researchers recently reviewed hundreds of food-related paintings and found that lemons—which could only be acquired in the Netherlands at great cost, since they had to be imported from warmer climates—feature in Dutch paintings of the period more than three times as frequently as dairy products do, thereby casting doubt on the idea that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Dairy products were a more significant components of the Dutch diet of the period than lemons were.
Honeybees are known to be able to recognize shapes and figures, and recent studies have shown that honeybees can understand quantities by counting and doing basic arithmetic. By combining these cognitive feats, ______ Research conducted by biologist Scarlett Howard suggests the answer is yes.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Can bees be trained to understand written numbers?
Jhumpa Lahiri’s story collection Interpreter of Maladies features multiple stories about romantic relationships. In “This Blessed House,” newlyweds argue over whether to replace items left by the previous owners of their new home. ______ in “A Temporary Matter,” a husband and wife attempt to rekindle their relationship during a four-night blackout.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Likewise,
Electra is a circa 420–410 BCE play by Sophocles, translated in 1870 by R.C. Jebb. Electra, who is in mourning for her dead father and her long-absent brother, is aware of the intensity of her grief but believes it to be justified: ______
Which quotation from Electra most effectively illustrates the claim?
"But never will I cease from dirge and sore lament, while I look on the trembling rays of the bright stars, or on this light of day"
The following text is adapted from George Eliot’s 1871–72 novel Middlemarch.
[Mr. Brooke] had travelled in his younger years, and was held in this part of the country to have contracted a too rambling habit of mind. Mr. Brooke’s conclusions were as difficult to predict as the weather.
As used in the text, what does the word “contracted” most nearly mean?
Developed
A heliograph is a semaphore device used for sending optical communications—usually in the form of Morse code—by reflecting flashes of sunlight off a mirror. Heliographs were used for rapid communication across expansive distances for military, surveying, and forestry purposes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but they were largely effective only during the daytime, and the range of the device depended on factors such as the opacity of the air and line of sight. Therefore, heliographs were eventually replaced by technology that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Was not so constrained by environmental circumstances
In a 2016 study, Eastern Washington University psychologist Amani El-Alayli found that, among the study participants who experienced frisson (a physiological response akin to goosebumps or getting the chills) while listening to music, there was one personality trait that they scored particularly ______ openness to experience.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
high on:
Plato believed material objects to be crude representations of unseen ideal forms. In his view, such abstract, nonmaterial forms are the ultimate source of knowledge. Aristotle disagreed, positing that knowledge is best obtained through direct engagement with the material world; ______ sensory experience of the material is the ultimate source of knowledge.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
in other words,
Copper had been mined in the US for thousands of years, but large-scale commercial mining of copper took off starting in the late 1800s. This was due to several factors. Technological advancements in the mining industry led to improvements in the production of copper. This helped the country keep up with the growing number of people wanting to buy copper starting in the 1890s. At the same time, the growth of the railroad system made the transportation of copper in large batches much easier. Several states saw rapid growth in the production of this resource, for example: ______
Which choice most effectively uses the data in the graph to complete the example?
Montana and Arizona produced more copper than Michigan in 1909.
As a poet, essayist, and novelist, Ocean Vuong often explores ______ themes in his work, including memory and trauma. His debut novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, is presented as a series of deeply personal letters written by a son to his mother and was described by The New Yorker as "[brimming] with longing and tenderness."
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Intimate
Laura Mulvey has theorized that in narrative film, shots issuing from a protagonist’s point of view compel viewers to identify with the character. Such identification is heightened by “invisible editing,” or editing so inconspicuous that it renders cuts between shots almost unnoticeable. Conversely, Mulvey proposes that conspicuous editing or an absence of point-of-view shots would induce a more critical stance toward a protagonist. Consider, for example, the attic scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, a conspicuously edited sequence of tens of shots, few of which correspond to the protagonist’s point of view. According to Mulvey’s logic, this scene should affect viewers by ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Lessening their identification with the protagonist, if not alienating them from the character.
The field of geological oceanography owes much to American ______ Marie Tharp, a pioneering oceanographic cartographer whose detailed topographical maps of the ocean floor and its multiple rift valleys helped garner acceptance for the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
geologist,
“Tulip mania”—the rapid rise and sudden fall of the price of tulip bulbs in seventeenth-century Amsterdam —is often cited as an example of the perils of rampant market speculation. However, recent research has demonstrated that the episode was neither as frenzied nor as disastrous as has been thought. The popular myth surrounding it, ______ should be regarded with some skepticism.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition
therefore,