Central Ideas and Details
Punctuation and Supplements
Rhetorical Synthesis
Command of Evidence
Words in Context
100
Artist Justin Favela explained that he wanted to reclaim the importance of the piñata as a symbol in Latinx culture. To do so, he created numerous sculptures from strips of tissue paper, which is similar to the material used to create piñatas. In 2017, Favela created an impressive life-size piñata-like sculpture of the Gypsy Rose lowrider car, which was displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California. The Gypsy Rose lowrider was famously driven by Jesse Valadez, an early president of the Los Angeles Imperials Car Club.
According to the text, which piece of Favela’s art was on display in the Petersen Automotive Museum in 2017?
A. A painting of Los Angeles
B. A sculpture of a lowrider car
C. A painting of a piñata
D. A sculpture of Jesse Valadez
B. A sculpture of a lowrider car
100
Generations of mystery and horror ______ have been influenced by the dark, gothic stories of celebrated American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849).
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. writers
B. writers,
C. writers—
D. writers;
A. writers
100
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
- Novelist Willa Cather grew up in Nebraska and attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
- Some of Cather’s best-known novels are set in Nebraska.
- Two such novels are O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918).
- Cather’s novels describe the experiences of immigrants who settled in the Great Plains.
The student wants to identify the setting of Cather’s novel My Ántonia. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
A. My Ántonia is set in Nebraska, where Cather grew up.
B. Cather, author of My Ántonia, described the experiences of immigrants in her novels.
C. Among Cather’s best-known novels are O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918).
D. Cather attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and set some of her novels in Nebraska
A. My Ántonia is set in Nebraska, where Cather grew up.
100
Nan Gao and her team conducted multiple surveys to determine participants’ levels of comfort in a room where the temperature was regulated by a commercial climate control system. Participants filled out surveys several times a day to indicate their level of comfort on a scale from −3 (very cold) to +3 (very hot), with 0 indicating neutral (neither warm nor cool), and to indicate how they would prefer the temperature to be adjusted. The table shows three participants’ responses in one of the surveys. According to the table, all three participants wanted the room to be cooler, ______
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?
A. and they each reported the same level of comfort.
B. even though each participant’s ratings varied throughout the day.
C. but participant 20 reported feeling significantly colder than the other two participants did.
D. but participant 1 reported feeling warmer than the other two participants did.
C. but participant 20 reported feeling significantly colder than the other two participants did.
100
According to statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the best way to predict the amount of time a nonperishable entity (such as a building or a technology) will continue to exist is to examine how long it has survived so far. In this view, an item’s age is the strongest ______ how much longer it will last.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. uncertainty about
B. indicator of
C. motivation for
D. criticism of
B. indicator of
200
In 2022, researchers rediscovered ancient indigenous glyphs, or drawings, on the walls of a cave in Alabama. The cave’s ceiling was only a few feet high, affording no position from which the glyphs, being as wide as ten feet, could be viewed or photographed in their entirety. However, the researchers used a technique called photogrammetry to assemble numerous photos of the walls into a 3D model. They then worked with representatives of tribes originally from the region, including the Chickasaw Nation, to understand the significance of the animal and humanoid figures adorning the cave.
According to the text, what challenge did the researchers have to overcome to examine the glyphs?
A. The cave was so remote that the researchers couldn’t easily reach it.
B. Some of the glyphs were so faint that they couldn’t be photographed.
C. The researchers were unable to create a 3D model of the cave.
D. The cave’s dimensions prevented the researchers from fully viewing the glyphs.
D. The cave’s dimensions prevented the researchers from fully viewing the glyphs.
200
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?
A. not aerobic
B. not. Aerobic
C. not, aerobic
D. not; aerobic
C. not, aerobic
200
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
- In 2013, paleontology professor Hesham Sallam and his students from Mansoura University in Egypt made a discovery.
- The team found a partial dinosaur skeleton at a site in Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis.
- The skeleton belonged to a dinosaur species that lived approximately 80 million years ago. The new species was named Mansourasaurus to recognize the team that discovered it.
The student wants to explain the origin of the species’ name. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
A. Mansourasaurus, a new species discovered in Egypt in 2013, lived approximately 80 million years ago.
B. A partial dinosaur skeleton found in Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis belonged to a species named Mansourasaurus.
C. Mansourasaurus, a species that lived approximately 80 million years ago, was discovered in 2013 by Egyptian paleontologist Hesham Sallam and a team of university students.
D. The new species was named Mansourasaurus to recognize the team that discovered it, a professor and students from Mansoura University.
D. The new species was named Mansourasaurus to recognize the team that discovered it, a professor and students from Mansoura University.
200
Many scientists have believed that giraffes are solitary creatures, preferring to spend their time alone instead of with others. But observations of giraffes and their behavior in recent years has suggested that these animals may be more social than we once thought. For example, scientists Zoe Muller and Stephen Harris claim that giraffes may even help each other care for one another’s newborns.
Which finding, if true, would most directly support Muller and Harris’s conclusion?
A. Female giraffes have been observed feeding young giraffes that aren’t their direct offspring.
B. Confrontations between a younger and an older male giraffe are frequently observed.
C. Some female giraffes have been observed sniffing and licking their newborn offspring.
D. Giraffes are able to make sounds but are rarely observed communicating with others.
A. Female giraffes have been observed feeding young giraffes that aren’t their direct offspring.
200
Bioluminescent beetles called fireflies may seem to create flashes of light randomly, but each species of firefly actually has its own special series of repeated flashes and pauses. These unique ______ allow fireflies of the same species to find each other.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. quantities
B. decorations
C. patterns
D. agreements
C. patterns
300
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. Farmer's methods and research have enriched the historical understanding of the Black Power movement and Black women’s contributions to it.
B. Before Farmer’s research, historians had largely ignored the intellectual dimensions of the Black Power movement.
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.
A. Farmer's methods and research have enriched the historical understanding of the Black Power movement and Black women’s contributions to it.
300
Photosynthesis, the mechanism by which plants use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into ______ is fueled in part by an enzyme called Photosystem II that harvests energy-giving electrons from water molecules.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. nutrients
B. nutrients and
C. nutrients,
D. nutrients—
C. nutrients,
300
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
- In 2020, theater students at Radford and Virginia Tech chose an interactive, online format to present a play about women suffrage activists.
- Their “Women and the Vote” website featured an interactive digital drawing of a Victorian-style house.
- Audiences were asked to focus on a room of their choice and select from that room an artifact related to the suffrage movement.
- One click took them to video clips, songs, artwork, and texts associated with the artifact.
- The play was popular with audiences because the format allowed them to control the experience.
The student wants to explain an advantage of the “Women and the Vote” format. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
A.“Women and the Vote” featured a drawing of a Victorian-style house with several rooms, each containing suffrage artifacts.
B. To access video clips, songs, artwork, and texts, audiences had to first click on an artifact.
C. The “Women and the Vote” format appealed to audiences because it allowed them to control the experience.
D. Using an interactive format, theater students at Radford and Virginia Tech created “Women and the Vote,” a play about woman suffrage activists.
C. The “Women and the Vote” format appealed to audiences because it allowed them to control the experience.
300
The share of the world’s population living in cities has increased dramatically since 1970, but this change has not been uniform. France and Japan, for example, were already heavily urbanized in 1970, with 70% or more of the population living in cities. The main contributors to the world’s urbanization since 1970 have been countries like Algeria, whose population went from ______
Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the assertion?
A. around 50% urban in 1970 to around 90% urban in 2020.
B. less than 40% urban in 1970 to around 90% urban in 2020.
C. less than 20% urban in 1970 to more than 50% urban in 2020.
D. around 40% urban in 1970 to more than 70% urban in 2020.
D. around 40% urban in 1970 to more than 70% urban in 2020.
300
In 1929 the Atlantic Monthly published several articles based on newly discovered letters allegedly exchanged between President Abraham Lincoln and a woman named Ann Rutledge. Historians were unable to ______ the authenticity of the letters, however, and quickly dismissed them as a hoax.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. validate
B. interpret
C. relate
D. accommodate
A. validate
400
2.”
I wish I could remember that first day, First hour, first moment of your meeting me, If bright or dim the season, it might be Summer or Winter for [all] I can say; So unrecorded did it slip away, So blind was I to see and to foresee, So dull to mark the budding of my tree That would not blossom yet for many a May.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
A. The speaker celebrates how the passage of time has strengthened a relationship that once seemed unimportant.
B.Because the speaker did not anticipate how important a relationship would become, she cannot recall how the relationship began, which she regrets.
C. As the anniversary of the beginning of an important relationship approaches, the speaker feels conflicted about how best to commemorate it.
D.After years of neglecting a once valuable relationship, the speaker worries it may be too late for her to salvage the relationship.
B.Because the speaker did not anticipate how important a relationship would become, she cannot recall how the relationship began, which she regrets.
400
Eli Eisenberg, a genetics expert at Tel Aviv University in Israel, recently discovered that ______ have a special genetic ability called RNA editing that confers evolutionary advantages.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. cephalopods, ocean dwellers that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish
B. cephalopods—ocean dwellers—that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish,
C. cephalopods, ocean dwellers that include: the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish,
D. cephalopods—ocean dwellers that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish—
D. cephalopods—ocean dwellers that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish—
400
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
- Soo Sunny Park is a Korean American artist who uses light as her primary medium of expression.
- She created her work Unwoven Light in 2013.
- Unwoven Light featured a chain-link fence fitted with iridescent plexiglass tiles.
- When light passed through the fence, colorful prisms formed.
The student wants to describe Unwoven Light to an audience unfamiliar with Soo Sunny Park. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
A.Park’s 2013 installation Unwoven Light, which included a chain-link fence and iridescent tiles made from plexiglass, featured light as its primary medium of expression.
B. Korean American light artist Soo Sunny Park created Unwoven Light in 2013.
C. The chain-link fence in Soo Sunny Park’s Unwoven Light was fitted with tiles made from iridescent plexiglass.
D. In Unwoven Light, a 2013 work by Korean American artist Soo Sunny Park, light formed colorful prisms as it passed through a fence Park had fitted with iridescent tiles.
D. In Unwoven Light, a 2013 work by Korean American artist Soo Sunny Park, light formed colorful prisms as it passed through a fence Park had fitted with iridescent tiles.
400
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.Movies that had the highest average emotionality scores received the lowest average star ratings on the movie rating website.
B. The average emotionality score of a movie’s reviews was a positive predictor of that movie’s box office earnings.
C. More than half of the movies that the team examined received an average star rating of 3 out of 5 stars.
D. The movies that were most successful at the box office tended to have high average star ratings.
B. The average emotionality score of a movie’s reviews was a positive predictor of that movie’s box office earnings.
400
The work of molecular biophysicist Enrique M. De La Cruz is known for ______ traditional boundaries between academic disciplines. The university laboratory that De La Cruz runs includes engineers, biologists, chemists, and physicists, and the research the lab produces makes use of insights and techniques from all those fields.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. epitomizing
B. transcending
C. anticipating
D. reinforcing
B. transcending
500
Optical tweezers are specialized scientific tools—particularly useful in biology and medicine—that use high-powered beams of light to trap and manipulate minuscule particles for study. Use of the tool has led to several scientific and medical breakthroughs over the last few decades, but the particles are often under prolonged exposure to the intense heat of the light beams. To overcome the risk of overheating, and thereby damage, researchers sometimes attach nano-sized glass beads to particles, allowing the light to focus on the beads instead of the particles.
Based on the text, what is one advantage of attaching glass beads to particles when using optical tweezers?
A. It decreases the time it takes for the optical tweezers to locate and capture the particles.
B. It facilitates the maneuvering of particles without directly heating the particles themselves.
C. It allows researchers to use weaker light beams to manipulate particles.
D. It adds a material to which particles can transfer any heat absorbed from the optical tweezers’ light beam.
B. It facilitates the maneuvering of particles without directly heating the particles themselves.
500
Researcher Lin Zhi developed a process for increasing the tensile strength—measured in gigapascals, or GPa—of silkworm ______ dissolving and reweaving the silk in a solution of iron metal ions, zinc, and sugar, Zhi increased the amount of force required to stretch it from approximately 0.5 GPa to 2 GPa.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. silk, by
B. silk by
C. silk and by
D. silk. By
D. silk. By
500
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
- Ulaanbaatar is the capital of Mongolia. The city’s population is 907,802.
- Ulaanbaatar contains 31.98 percent of Mongolia’s population. Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam.
- The city’s population is 7,781,631. Hanoi contains 8.14 percent of Vietnam’s population.
The student wants to emphasize the relative sizes of the two capitals’ populations. Which choice most effectively uses information from the given sentences to emphasize the relative sizes of the two capitals’ populations?
A. Mongolia’s capital is Ulaanbaatar, which has 907,802 people, and Vietnam’s capital is Hanoi, which has 7,781,631 people.
B.Comparing Vietnam and Mongolia, 7,781,631 is 8.14 percent of Vietnam’s population, and 907,802 is 31.98 percent of Mongolia’s.
C. Even though Hanoi (population 7,781,631) is larger than Ulaanbaatar (population 907,802), Ulaanbaatar accounts for more of its country’s population.
D. The populations of the capitals of Mongolia and Vietnam are 907,802 (Ulaanbaatar) and 7,781,631 (Hanoi), respectively.
C. Even though Hanoi (population 7,781,631) is larger than Ulaanbaatar (population 907,802), Ulaanbaatar accounts for more of its country’s population.
500
A student performs an experiment testing her hypothesis that a slightly acidic soil environment is more beneficial for the growth of the plant Brassica rapa parachinensis (a vegetable commonly known as choy sum) than a neutral soil environment. She plants sixteen seeds of choy sum in a mixture of equal amounts of coffee grounds (which are highly acidic) and potting soil and another sixteen seeds in potting soil without coffee grounds as the control for the experiment. The two groups of seeds were exposed to the same growing conditions and monitored for three weeks.
Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the student’s hypothesis?
A. The choy sum planted in the soil without coffee grounds were significantly taller at the end of the experiment than the choy sum planted in the mixture of soil and coffee grounds.
B. The choy sum grown in the soil without coffee grounds weighed significantly less at the end of the experiment than the choy sum grown in the mixture of soil and coffee grounds.
C.The choy sum seeds planted in the soil without coffee grounds sprouted significantly later in the experiment than did the seeds planted in the mixture of soil and coffee grounds.
D. Significantly fewer of the choy sum seeds planted in the soil without coffee grounds sprouted plants than did the seeds planted in the mixture of soil and coffee grounds.
A. The choy sum planted in the soil without coffee grounds were significantly taller at the end of the experiment than the choy sum planted in the mixture of soil and coffee grounds.
500
The güiro, a musical instrument traditionally made from a dried and hollowed gourd, is thought to have originated with the Taíno people of Puerto Rico. Players use a wooden stick to scrape along ridges cut into the side of the gourd, creating sounds that are highly ______: the sounds produced by güiros can differ based on the distance between the ridges, the types of strokes the player uses, and the thickness of the gourd.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. overlooked
B. powerful
C. routine
D. variable
D. variable