Reading & Writing
The widespread use of social media enables linguists to study changes in language usage in real time. A notable recent example is the proliferation of the affix meng- among speakers of Bahasa Indonesia, the official language of Indonesia. Linguists observed meng- originate as an onomatopoetic tag that social-media users applied to images of cats they posted; over time, users increasingly applied it as a prefix to existing words (e.g., mengsedih affixes meng- to the word for sad) in text that they posted. From there, it has begun to move into spoken Bahasa Indonesia. Linguists have noted many similar examples of this phenomenon occurring in other languages, suggesting that social media ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. is more useful for studying informal language than for studying formal or official language.
B. appears to be exerting an exceptionally strong influence on the evolution of Bahasa Indonesia.
C. may give linguists a somewhat misleading sense of how languages are changing.
D. does not merely register changes in language usage but can facilitate such changes.
Jetties—long, narrow structures that extend from a landmass into the water—are often constructed to protect coastlines from erosion. Jetties can sometimes have the opposite _____ obstructing the natural flow of sand along the shore can lead to increased erosion in some areas.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. effect, though;
B. effect, though
C. effect; though
D. effect, though,
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
If a moon orbiting a planet comes close enough to that planet, tidal forces can cause the moon to break apart.
In a 2022 study, researchers proposed that Saturn was once orbited by a large moon they named Chrysalis.
Their simulations indicated that Chrysalis would likely have come very close to Saturn around 160 million years ago.
At that distance, Chrysalis would have been broken apart by tidal forces.
The researchers hypothesized that the resulting debris formed Saturn’s rings.
The student wants to recount the sequence of events proposed by the researchers. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
A. According to researchers’ simulations, two events likely occurred around 160 million years ago: first, Chrysalis came very close to Saturn, and second, debris from Saturn’s rings caused the moon to break apart.
B. If a moon orbiting a planet (like Saturn) comes close enough to that planet, tidal forces can cause the moon to break apart.
C. Around 160 million years ago, a large moon (Chrysalis) came close enough to Saturn that tidal forces broke the moon apart; its debris then formed the planet’s rings.
D. First, researchers proposed that Saturn was orbited by a large moon (Chrysalis); next, they conducted simulations; and, finally, they formed a hypothesis.
In 2016, Gabriela González and team announced that a chirping sound captured by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory antennas was direct evidence of gravitational waves, which skeptics had argued would be too faint for detection. Detailed statistical analysis helped preclude claims of the event’s ______, confirming the signal at a confidence level of over 99%.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. inconspicuousness
B. discretion
C. ambiguity
D. probability
Political blogs with conspicuous ideological alignments became an integral component of US media in the early 2000s. While some commentators lauded this development, asserting that such blogs had a welcome transparency missing from traditional news, less ______ observers countered that such blogs tended to ideological extremes that exacerbated political polarization to problematic levels.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. sanguine
B. recalcitrant
C. misanthropic
D. earnest
The following text is from Charlotte Forten Grimké’s 1888 poem “At Newport.”
Oh, deep delight to watch the gladsome waves
Exultant leap upon the rugged rocks;
Ever repulsed, yet ever rushing on—
Filled with a life that will not know defeat;
To see the glorious hues of sky and sea.
The distant snowy sails, glide spirit like,
Into an unknown world, to feel the sweet
Enchantment of the sea thrill all the soul,
Clearing the clouded brain, making the heart
Leap joyous as it own bright, singing waves!
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
A. It portrays the surroundings as an imposing and intimidating scene.
B. It characterizes the sea’s waves as a relentless and enduring force.
C. It conveys the speaker’s ambivalence about the natural world.
D. It draws a contrast between the sea’s waves and the speaker’s thoughts.
For many years, the only existing fossil evidence of mixopterid eurypterids—an extinct family of large aquatic arthropods known as sea scorpions and related to modern arachnids and horseshoe crabs—came from four species living on the paleocontinent of Laurussia. In a discovery that expands our understanding of the geographical distribution of mixopterids, paleontologist Bo Wang and others have identified fossilized remains of a new mixopterid species, Terropterus xiushanensis, that lived over 400 million years ago on the paleocontinent of Gondwana.
According to the text, why was Wang and his team’s discovery of the Terropterus xiushanensis fossil significant?
A. The fossil constitutes the first evidence found by scientists that mixopterids lived more than 400 million years ago.
B. The fossil helps establish that mixopterids are more closely related to modern arachnids and horseshoe crabs than previously thought.
C. The fossil helps establish a more accurate timeline of the evolution of mixopterids on the paleocontinents of Laurussia and Gondwana.
D. The fossil constitutes the first evidence found by scientists that mixopterids existed outside the paleocontinent of Laurussia.
Poetry in Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire, relies on difrasismo, or a parallel noun construction that conventionally operates as a single metaphor. For example, the common difrasismo in cuauhtli in ocelotl (literally, “the eagle, the jaguar”) signifies “warrior.” The device’s function is both formal—providing structure to lines of verse—and ritual: semantic relations among the two nouns and the concept they signify can be tenuous, as in the previous example, such that difrasismos are often only intelligible according to the conceptual associations observed in Aztec ceremonial culture.
Which statement about the difrasismo in cuauhtli in ocelotl is most strongly supported by the text?
A. Its metaphorical significance derives from the semantic equivalence of the two nouns constituting the difrasismo.
B. Its unintelligibility may cause its formal function within a line of verse to go unnoticed by present-day readers.
C. Its apparent obscurity can be resolved when considered in the proper cultural context.
D. Its frequency in Classical Nahuatl poetry confirms its intelligibility to the Aztec audience.
The population of the coral Lophelia pertusa declined significantly around 9,000 years ago in the Alboran Sea and around 11,000 years ago near the Mauritanian coast. Using the ratio of manganese to calcium, which inversely correlates with ocean oxygenation levels, marine scientist Rodrigo da Costa Portilho-Ramos and colleagues evaluated whether oxygenation played a role in the declines of L. pertusa. The researchers concluded that oxygenation may have been important in the Alboran Sea but not near the Mauritanian coast, since ______
Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the statement?
A. a substantial increase in oxygenation in the Alboran Sea corresponded with the local decline in L. pertusa, but the opposite relationship between oxygenation and L. pertusa was found near the Mauritanian coast.
B. L. pertusa declined in the Alboran Sea during a period of substantial local decline in oxygenation, but L. pertusa declined near the Mauritanian coast during a period of little local change in oxygenation.
C. oxygenation in the Alboran Sea was higher before the decline in L. pertusa than after the decline, whereas oxygenation near the Mauritanian coast was relatively low both before and after the decline in L. pertusa.
D. oxygenation in the Alboran Sea tended to be substantially higher than oxygenation near the Mauritanian coast during the period studied.
Psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt have argued that experiencing awe—a sensation of reverence and wonder typically brought on by perceiving something grand or powerful—can enable us to feel more connected to others and thereby inspire us to act more altruistically. Keltner, along with Paul K. Piff, Pia Dietze, and colleagues, claims to have found evidence for this effect in a recent study where participants were asked to either gaze up at exceptionally tall trees in a nearby grove (reported to be a universally awe-inspiring experience) or stare at the exterior of a nearby, nondescript building. After one minute, an experimenter deliberately spilled a box of pens nearby.
Which finding from the researchers’ study, if true, would most strongly support their claim?
A. Participants who had been looking at the trees helped the experimenter pick up significantly more pens than did participants who had been looking at the building.
B. Participants who helped the experimenter pick up the pens used a greater number of positive words to describe the trees and the building in a postexperiment survey than did participants who did not help the experimenter.
C. Participants who did not help the experimenter pick up the pens were significantly more likely to report having experienced a feeling of awe, regardless of whether they looked at the building or the trees.
D. Participants who had been looking at the building were significantly more likely to notice that the experimenter had dropped the pens than were participants who had been looking at the trees.
Political scientists who favor the traditional view of voter behavior claim that voting in an election does not change a voter’s attitude toward the candidates in that election. Focusing on each US presidential election from 1976 to 1996, Ebonya Washington and Sendhil Mullainathan tested this claim by distinguishing between subjects who had just become old enough to vote (around half of whom actually voted) and otherwise similar subjects who were slightly too young to vote (and thus none of whom voted). Washington and Mullainathan compared the attitudes of the groups of subjects toward the winning candidate two years after each election.
Which finding from Washington and Mullainathan’s study, if true, would most directly weaken the claim made by people who favor the traditional view of voter behavior?
A. Subjects’ attitudes toward the winning candidate two years after a given election were strongly predicted by subjects’ general political orientation, regardless of whether subjects were old enough to vote at the time of the election.
B. Subjects who were not old enough to vote in a given election held significantly more positive attitudes towards the winning candidate two years later than they held at the time of the election.
C. Subjects who voted in a given election held significantly more polarized attitudes toward the winning candidate two years later than did subjects who were not old enough to vote in that election.
D. Two years after a given election, subjects who voted and subjects who were not old enough to vote were significantly more likely to express negative attitudes than positive attitudes toward the winning candidate in that election.
Recent pollen analyses of the Aran Islands have led some researchers to propose that the now treeless islands were once wooded. This hypothesis ______ that certain trees, such as P. sylvestris, survived without interruption or human intervention throughout the Holocene cannot stand, researchers Michael O’Connell and Karen Molloy counter, unless other explanations can first be ruled out.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. suggesting
B. suggested
C. suggests
D. has suggested
Compared to that of alumina glass, ______ silica glass atoms are so far apart that they are unable to re-form bonds after being separated.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. silica glass is at a significant disadvantage due to its more dispersed atomic arrangement:
B. silica glass has a more dispersed atomic arrangement, resulting in a significant disadvantage:
C. a significant disadvantage of silica glass is that its atomic arrangement is more dispersed:
D. silica glass’s atomic arrangement is more dispersed, resulting in a significant disadvantage:
Economist Elinor Ostrom’s studies of communities around the world have empirically demonstrated that common pool resources, such as grazing lands, can be sustainably managed by the people who use them (rather than through private entities or centralized governments). ______ Ostrom’s work is a repudiation of the “tragedy of the commons,” the view that individuals will inevitably overexploit a finite shared resource if given unfettered access to it.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A. By contrast,
B. For example,
C. That said,
D. As such,