Words in Context
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault currently stores over one million frozen seed samples from almost every country on Earth, serving as a backup for the world’s crop diversity. Its location was chosen as _____ against potential natural or human-made disasters, with Svalbard’s permafrost and thick rock ensuring that the samples would remain frozen even without power.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A) an enticement
B) a catalyst
C) a safeguard
D) an homage
C) a safeguard
In the late 19th century, the city of Paris underwent a significant transformation under the direction of Georges-Eugène Haussmann, known as Baron Haussmann. His renovation of Paris included the creation of wide avenues, the construction of new parks, and the improvement of the city's sanitation system. This massive urban renewal project, often referred to as Haussmannization, aimed to modernize Paris and improve public health, but it also led to the displacement of many residents from the city center.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
A) The text outlines the benefits of Haussmann's renovations before discussing a negative consequence.
Iraqi artist Nazik Al-Malaika, celebrated as the first Arabic poet to write in free verse, didn’t reject traditional forms entirely; her poem “Elegy for a Woman of No Importance” consists of two ten-line stanzas and a standard number of syllables. Even in this superficially traditional work, ______ Al-Malaika was breaking new ground by memorializing an anonymous woman rather than a famous man.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
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?
A) The model with a sail took significantly longer to travel a specified distance while submerged than the model without a sail did.
B) The model with a sail displaced significantly more water while submerged than the model without a sail did.
C) The model with a sail had significantly less battery power remaining after completing the tests than the model without a sail did.
Many intellectual histories of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s rely heavily on essays and other explicitly ideological works as primary sources, a tendency that can overrepresent the perspectives of a small number of thinkers, most of whom were male. Historian Ashley D. Farmer has shown that expanding the array of primary sources to encompass more types of print material—including political cartoons, advertisements, and artwork—leads to a much better understanding of the movement and the crucial and diverse roles that Black women played in shaping it.
Which choice best describes the main idea of the text?
A) Before Farmer’s research, historians had largely ignored the intellectual dimensions of the Black Power movement.
B) Farmer’s methods and research have enriched the historical understanding of the Black Power movement and Black women’s contributions to it.
C) Other historians of the Black Power movement have criticized Farmer’s use of unconventional primary sources.
D) The figures in the Black Power movement whom historians tend to cite would have agreed with Farmer’s conclusions about women’s roles in the movement.
B) Farmer’s methods and research have enriched the historical understanding of the Black Power movement and Black women’s contributions to it.
Charles “Teenie” Harris was a photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier from 1936 to 1975. During his career he took over 70,000 photographs documenting everyday life in Pittsburgh’s Black communities. The Carnegie Museum of Art maintains thousands of his photographs, carefully ______ them so that audiences can continue to view them well into the future.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A) inventing
B) counting
C) replacing
D) preserving
D) preserving
Jackie Ormes’s Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem (1937–38) was the first comic strip by a Black woman to appear in a widely read newspaper. The strip tells the story of Torchy, a young woman who leaves Mississippi to become a performer in New York City. Torchy’s story reflects the experience of the Great Migration (1910–1970), when millions of Black Americans left the South in search of opportunities in other parts of the United States. Torchy Brown thus shows how Ormes used comics to comment humorously on issues affecting Black Americans, which she continued to do throughout her career.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
A) To give an example of how Ormes presented the experiences of Black Americans in her comic strips
B) To show how Ormes’s Torchy Brown inspired other Black women to write comic strips in the 1930s
C) To claim that several characters in Torchy Brown were based on people that Ormes knew personally
A) To give an example of how Ormes presented the experiences of Black Americans in her comic strips
The ancient city of Petra, located in modern-day Jordan, is best known for its rock-cut tomb façades, monuments carved into the landscape’s rose-colored sandstone. ______, it is recognized for its complex water management system, which included dams, cisterns, and water conduits to collect and store rainwater for the city’s inhabitants.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A) Unfortunately,
B) Additionally,
C) Earlier,
D) Thus,
B) Additionally,
“The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published in 1948. The story begins with the narrator describing the gathering of villagers for an annual event. While the description portrays a seemingly idyllic summer day, the narrator also includes details about the villagers’ behavior that suggest an underlying unease: ______
Which quotation from the beginning of “The Lottery” most effectively illustrates the claim?
A) “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.”
B) “They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed.”
C) “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest ones.”
B) “They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed.”
In general, galaxies are moving away from one another at an increasing rate, carried by the constant expansion of the universe. On smaller scales, however, the gravitational forces between galaxies can be strong enough to overcome this expansion and pull them closer together. Astronomers often use redshift, the phenomenon where light stretches to longer, redder wavelengths as its source moves farther from the observer, to determine the distance between another galaxy and our own. The greater the redshift, the farther the galaxy. For instance, the galaxy GN-z11 has a redshift value of 11.1, making it one of the most distant and ancient galaxies observed. In contrast, galaxy M31, which is moving toward our Milky Way galaxy, has a negative redshift value, also known as a blueshift.
What does the text indicate about GN-z11?
A) It is moving away from the Milky Way.
B) Its blueshift value is larger than that of M31.
C) It is moving closer to M31.
D) It is one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way.
A) It is moving away from the Milky Way.
In the late 19th century, the movement known as Aestheticism advocated for a strict ______ artistic and functional objects, promoting instead the idea that art should serve no other purpose than to be beautiful.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A) division between
B) integration of
C) manipulation of
D) correspondence with
A) division between
The discovery of the Antikythera mechanism in 1900 revolutionized our understanding of ancient Greek technology. Found in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, this complex device, consisting of at least 30 bronze gears, dates back to the 2nd century BCE. Research suggests it was used to calculate astronomical positions and predict eclipses. The Antikythera mechanism’s sophistication challenges long-held assumptions about the limitations of ancient science and engineering, demonstrating that the ancient Greeks possessed advanced mechanical knowledge and skill.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
A) It provides evidence to support the claim that the Antikythera mechanism was used for astronomical calculations.
B) It highlights the significance of the discovery of the Antikythera mechanism.
C) It introduces a counterargument to the prevailing theory about the purpose of the Antikythera mechanism.
D) It suggests that the complexity of the Antikythera mechanism was unique among ancient Greek mechanical devices.
B) It highlights the significance of the discovery of the Antikythera mechanism.
Arkansas aviator Louise Thaden was already a record breaker when she won the inaugural National Women’s Air Derby, a race from California to Ohio, in August of 1929. ______ in December of 1928, Thaden had set an aviation record when she reached an altitude of 20,269 feet in a Travel Air biplane.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Matthew D. Rocklage and team examined whether consumer ratings of movies can predict box office success. The team considered both numeric star ratings and written reviews in their research. To analyze the written reviews, the team measured the emotionality—the degree to which a written review expresses an emotional reaction—of user reviews on a movie rating website, assigning each review an emotionality score. After reviewing this research, a student argues that the emotionality of movie reviews is unrelated to a movie’s success at the box office.
Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the student’s conclusion?
A) The average emotionality score of a movie’s reviews was a positive predictor of that movie’s box office earnings.
B) More than half of the movies that the team examined received an average star rating of 3 out of 5 stars.
C) The movies that were most successful at the box office tended to have high average star ratings.
D) Movies that had the highest average emotionality scores received the lowest average star ratings on the movie rating website.
A) The average emotionality score of a movie’s reviews was a positive predictor of that movie’s box office earnings.
Scrapbooks of saved fabric pieces were commonly kept by women in the nineteenth-century United States, but few are as meticulously detailed as Hannah Ditzler Alspaugh’s work. Alongside each piece of fabric, Alspaugh recorded intimate memories, such as dressmaking with her sister. Additionally, she listed the prices and how she used the fabric. Historians note that by representing fifty years of changing textures, patterns, and dress styles, the scrapbook is a record of nineteenth-century textiles and dressmaking as well as Alspaugh’s life.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
A) Fabric scrapbooks were a popular hobby for many women in the nineteenth-century United States.
B) Alspaugh’s scrapbook provides a detailed account of her life and historical record of fashion trends in the nineteenth-century United States.
C) Historians rely on fabric scrapbooks to understand how fashions changed throughout the nineteenth century United States.
D) Alspaugh inspired other women to save pieces of fabric in scrapbooks and provide historical records of nineteenth-century fashions in the United States.
B) Alspaugh’s scrapbook provides a detailed account of her life and historical record of fashion trends in the nineteenth-century United States.
The following text is from Yann Martel’s 2001 novel Life of Pi. The narrator’s family owned a zoo when he was a child.
It was a huge zoo, spread over numberless acres, big enough to require a train to explore it, though it seemed to get smaller as I grew older, train included.
As used in the text, what does the word “spread” most nearly mean?
A) Extended
B) Coated
C) Discussed
D) Hidden
A) Extended
The following text is from Holly Goldberg Sloan’s 2017 novel Short.
More than two years ago my parents bought a piano from some people who were moving to Utah. Mom and Dad gave it to my brothers and me for Christmas. I had to act really happy because it was such a big present, but I pretty much hated the thing from the second it was carried into the hallway upstairs, which is right next to my bedroom. The piano glared at me. It was like a songbird in a cage. It wanted to be set free.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
A) It suggests that the narrator’s brothers are talented piano players.
B) It describes the event that led the narrator’s parents to buy a piano.
C) It explains why the narrator always wanted a piano close to her bedroom.
D) It establishes how the narrator feels about the piano.
D) It establishes how the narrator feels about the piano.
Honeybees play a crucial role in pollination, supporting both wild ecosystems and human agricultural systems. ______ their activities affect 70% of the top human food crops, which supply about 90% of the world’s nutrition. Hence, their decline could have catastrophic consequences on global food security.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A) However,
B) Therefore,
C) In fact,
D) Meanwhile,
C) In fact,
In the 1970s, a roughly 60,000-year-old piece of hyena bone marked with nine notches was discovered at a site in western France once inhabited by Neanderthals. Although many believe that only modern humans developed systems for notating numbers, one archaeologist asserts that this artifact may be a sign that Neanderthals also recorded numerical information. The notches on the bone are unevenly spaced but approximately parallel, and microscopic analysis reveals that they were made with a single stone tool; according to the archaeologist, this suggests that the notches were all made at one time by one individual as a means of counting something.
Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the underlined claim?
A) Parallel lines are a common feature in modern humans’ early systems for recording numerical information.
B) More than nine approximately parallel notches made with a different stone tool are present on another artifact found at a site in western France.
C) It would have taken careful effort to make evenly spaced lines on bone with the stone tools typically used by Neanderthals.
D) Decorative art discovered at another Neanderthal site in western France primarily features patterns of unevenly spaced parallel lines.
D) Decorative art discovered at another Neanderthal site in western France primarily features patterns of unevenly spaced parallel lines.
The ice melted on a Norwegian mountain during a particularly warm summer in 2019, revealing a 1,700-year-old sandal to a mountaineer looking for artifacts. The sandal would normally have degraded quickly, but it was instead well preserved for centuries by the surrounding ice. According to archaeologist Espen Finstad and his team, the sandal, like those worn by imperial Romans, wouldn’t have offered any protection from the cold in the mountains, so some kind of insulation, like fabric or animal skin, would have needed to be worn on the feet with the sandal.
What does the text indicate about the discovery of the sandal?
A) The discovery revealed that the Roman Empire had more influence on Norway than archaeologists previously assumed.
B) The sandal would have degraded if it hadn’t been removed from the ice.
C) Temperatures contributed to both protecting and revealing the sandal.
D) Archaeologists would have found the sandal eventually without help from the general public.
C) Temperatures contributed to both protecting and revealing the sandal.
In recommending Bao Phi’s collection Sông I Sing, a librarian noted that pieces by the spoken-word poet don’t lose their ______ nature when printed: the language has the same pleasant musical quality on the page as it does when performed by Phi.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A) jarring
B) scholarly
C) melodic
D) personal
C) melodic
The following text is from Herman Melville’s 1854 novel The Lightning-rod Man.
The stranger still stood in the exact middle of the cottage, where he had first planted himself. His singularity impelled a closer scrutiny. A lean, gloomy figure. Hair dark and lank, mattedly streaked over his brow. His sunken pitfalls of eyes were ringed by indigo halos, and played with an innocuous sort of lightning: the gleam without the bolt. The whole man was dripping. He stood in a puddle on the bare oak floor: his strange walking-stick vertically resting at his side.
Which choice best states the function of the underlined sentence in the overall structure of the text?
A) It sets up the character description presented in the sentences that follow.
B) It establishes a contrast with the description in the previous sentence.
C) It elaborates on the previous sentence’s description of the character.
D) It introduces the setting that is described in the sentences that follow.
A) It sets up the character description presented in the sentences that follow.
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?
A) Later,
B) However,
C) In conclusion,
D) In other words,
A) Later,
Although many transposons, DNA sequences that move within an organism’s genome through shuffling or duplication, have become corrupted and inactive over time, those from the long interspersed nuclear elements (LINE) family appear to remain active in the genomes of some species. In humans, they are functionally important within the hippocampus, a brain structure that supports complex cognitive processes. When the results of molecular analysis of two species of octopus—an animal known for its intelligence—were announced in 2022, the confirmation of a LINE transposon in Octopus vulgaris and Octopus bimaculoides genomes prompted researchers to hypothesize that that transposon family is tied to a species’ capacity for advanced cognition.
Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researchers’ hypothesis?
A) The LINE transposon in O. vulgaris and O. bimaculoides genomes is active in an octopus brain structure that functions similarly to the human hippocampus.
B) The human genome contains multiple transposons from the LINE family that are all primarily active in the hippocampus.
C) A consistent number of copies of LINE transposons is present across the genomes of most octopus species, with few known corruptions.
D) O. vulgaris and O. bimaculoides have smaller brains than humans do relative to body size, but their genomes contain sequences from a wider variety of transposon families.
A) The LINE transposon in O. vulgaris and O. bimaculoides genomes is active in an octopus brain structure that functions similarly to the human hippocampus.
To protect themselves when being attacked, hagfish—jawless marine animals that resemble eels—will release large quantities of slimy, mucus-like threads. Because these threads are unusually strong and elastic, scientist Atsuko Negishi and her colleagues have been trying to recreate them in a lab as an eco-friendly alternative to petroleum-based fibers that are often used in fabrics. The researchers want to reproduce the threads in the lab because farming hagfish for their slime would be expensive and potentially harmful to the hagfish.
Which choice best states the text’s main idea?
A) Hagfish are not well suited to being raised in captivity.
B) The ability of hagfish to slime their attackers compensates for their being jawless.
C) Hagfish have inspired researchers to develop a new petroleum-based fabric.
D) The slimy threads that hagfish release might help researchers create a new kind of fabric.
D) The slimy threads that hagfish release might help researchers create a new kind of fabric.