English Conventions (Medium)
The committee members was divided in their opinions about the proposal.
Which choice best corrects the underlined portion?
a. NO CHANGE
b. were
c. is
d. have been
b. were
The scientist published her findings, however the results were immediately challenged by her peers.
Which choice best corrects the underlined portion?
a. NO CHANGE
b. however, the results were immediately challenged by her peers.
c. however; the results were immediately challenged by her peers.
d. however the results, were immediately challenged by her peers.
c. however; the results were immediately challenged by her peers.
According to Duverger’s law, countries with single-ballot majoritarian elections for single-member districts tend to polarize into two-party systems, wherein dueling political parties consistently dominate the political system. _______ countries with proportional-representation electoral systems tend to support multi-partyism, under which power gets distributed among many political parties.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A) Subsequently,
B) Conversely,
C) For instance,
D) In other words,
B) Conversely,
A team of paleontologists has found a rich fossil deposit near Gulgong, Australia. The fossils are so well preserved that the team has been able to _______ detailed information about the life forms that left them behind, such as color patterns and how they interacted with other species.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A) occupy
B) hoard
C) reserve
D) obtain
D) obtain
Since its completion in 2014, Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest)—a pair of residential towers in Milan, Italy, covered by vegetation—has become a striking symbol of environmental sustainability in architecture. Stefano Boeri intended his design, which features balconies that are home to hundreds of trees, to serve as a model for promoting urban biodiversity. However, the concept has faced skepticism: critics note that although the trees used in Bosco Verticale were specifically cultivated for the project, it’s too early to tell if they can thrive in this unusual setting.
According to the text, why are some critics skeptical of the concept behind Bosco Verticale?
A) Some essential aspects of Bosco Verticale’s design are difficult to adapt to locations other than Milan.
B) The plant life on Bosco Verticale ended up being less varied than Boeri had envisioned it would be.
C) The construction of Bosco Verticale was no less environmentally damaging than the construction of more conventional buildings is.
D) It is unclear whether Bosco Verticale can support the plant life included in its design.
D) It is unclear whether Bosco Verticale can support the plant life included in its design.
Long attributed to Jacques-Louis David, the preeminent Neoclassical painter of his day, the 1801 painting Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes gained fresh attention in the 1990s when art historians discovered that the painting—which depicts a solitary young woman sketching—was actually the work of little-known French portrait _______ Marie-Denise Villers (1774–1821).
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A) artist—
B) artist
C) artist:
D) artist,
B) artist
An online content creator who uses copyrighted songs without permission risks being demonetized (prohibited from including paid advertisements in content). The best way to avoid demonetization is to choose music from the public domain. Using one of these noncopyrighted songs _______ a creator won’t lose advertising revenue.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A) are ensuring
B) have ensured
C) ensure
D) ensures
D) ensures
Celebrated Tewa potter Maria Martinez (1887–1980) made her signature all-black ceramic vessels using a heating technique called reduction firing. This technique involves smothering the flame surrounding the clay vessel. _______ the vessel takes on a shiny, black hue.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A) On the contrary,
B) For example,
C) Previously,
D) As a result,
D) As a result,
According to a team of neuroeconomists from the University of Zurich, ease of decision making may be linked to communication between two brain regions, the prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex. Individuals tend to be more decisive if the information flow between the regions is intensified, whereas they make choices more slowly when information flow is _______.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A) reduced
B) evaluated
C) determined
D) acquired
A) reduced
The following text is adapted from Ann Petry’s 1946 novel The Street. Lutie lives in an apartment in Harlem, New York. The glow from the sunset was making the street radiant. The street is nice in this light, [Lutie] thought. It was swarming with children who were playing ball and darting back and forth across the sidewalk in complicated games of tag. Girls were skipping double dutch rope, going tirelessly through the exact center of a pair of ropes, jumping first on one foot and then the other.
Which choice best describes what is happening in the text?
A) Lutie is observing the appearance of the street at a particular time of day and the events occurring on it.
B) Lutie is annoyed by the noise of children playing games on her street.
C) Lutie is puzzled by the rules of certain children’s games.
D) Lutie is spending time alone in her apartment because she doesn’t want to interact with her neighbors.
A) Lutie is observing the appearance of the street at a particular time of day and the events occurring on it.
The dog barked loudly, it scared the neighbors.
Which choice best corrects the sentence?
a. NO CHANGE
b. loudly; it
c. loudly because it
d. loudly, and it
d. loudly, and it
After reviewing the data, it was concluded that the experiment had failed.
Which choice best corrects the sentence?
a. NO CHANGE
b. the conclusion was that the experiment had failed
c. the researchers concluded that the experiment had failed
d. concluding that the experiment had failed
c. the researchers concluded that the experiment had failed
Historians agree that the jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton was exaggerating when he claimed to have invented jazz music. No one can deny, _______ that Morton’s innovative compositions and remarkable improvisational skills helped shape jazz as a genre during its early years.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A) therefore,
B) in the second place,
C) in other words,
D) though,
D) though,
Claims about the original significance of Minoan bull-leaping rituals—depicted in paintings and sculptures from the second millennium BCE—are difficult to successfully _______. We know so little about the people archaeologists call the Minoans that assertions about what bull-leaping meant to them will almost inevitably rely on significant speculation and guesswork.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A) imagine
B) summarize
C) defend
D) adjust
C) defend
“Poetry” is a 1919 poem by Marianne Moore. The poem highlights an ambivalence toward poetry as the speaker acknowledges its merits while also expressing a sense of displeasure, writing _______
Which quotation from “Poetry” most effectively illustrates the claim?
A) “nor is it valid / to discriminate against ‘business documents and / school-books’; all these phenomena are important.”
B) “One must make a distinction / however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not / poetry”
C) “when [poems] become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the / same thing may be said for all of us—that we / do not admire what / we cannot understand.”
D) “Reading [poetry], however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in / it after all, a place for the genuine.”
D) “Reading [poetry], however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in / it after all, a place for the genuine.”
What makes the theremin a unique musical instrument? You play it without touching it. When you place your _______ the pitch will shift as your hands move through the air.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A) hand’s between the two antenna’s,
B) hands between the two antennas,
C) hands’ between the two antennas’,
D) hands’ between the two antennas,
B) hands between the two antennas,
Lê Lương Minh became the thirteenth secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in January 2013, making _______ the first time the organization would appoint a Vietnamese leader.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A) these
B) those
C) this
D) some
C) this
A turtle shell appears external to the animal, protecting its body like armor. _______ the shell is often incorrectly assumed to be an exoskeleton, a rigid outer casing like that of a crustacean or an insect, when in fact it is an endoskeleton, a part of the turtle’s internal bone structure, more akin to a spine or a pair of ribs.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A) That being said,
B) However,
C) For instance,
D) Hence,
D) Hence,
The War of 1812 has _______ place in historical memory in Britain, partly because it is overshadowed by the much larger concurrent conflict against Napoleonic France and partly because it essentially maintained the geopolitical status quo for Britain: the country neither gained nor lost significant territory or position as a result of its participation in the war.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A) a tenuous
B) an enduring
C) a contentious
D) a conspicuous
A) a tenuous
The following text is adapted from Jerome K. Jerome’s 1889 novel Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog). The narrator is traveling by boat with Harris and another friend. [Harris] told us anecdotes of how he had gone across the [English] Channel when it was so rough that the passengers had to be tied into their [beds], and he and the captain were the only two living souls on board who were not ill. Sometimes it was he and the second mate who were not ill; but it was generally he and one other man. If not he and another man, then it was he by himself.
Which choice best describes the function of the bolded sentence in the text as a whole?
A) It indicates the reason for Harris’s eagerness to resume traveling.
B) It hints at Harris’s feeling that during an earlier boat trip, others didn’t include him in activities.
C) It emphasizes that Harris always boasts about his own constitution when speaking of a previous boat trip.
D) It reveals that although Harris claims to prefer solitary activities when traveling, he actually enjoys having company
C) It emphasizes that Harris always boasts about his own constitution when speaking of a previous boat trip.