Reading & Writing

It is by no means ______ to recognize the influence of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch on Ali Banisadr’s paintings; indeed, Banisadr himself cites Bosch as an inspiration. However, some scholars have suggested that the ancient Mesopotamian poem Epic of Gilgamesh may have had a far greater impact on Banisadr’s work.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. substantial

B. satisfying

C. unimportant

D. appropriate

Astronomers are confident that the star Betelgeuse will eventually consume all the helium in its core and explode in a supernova. They are much less confident, however, about when this will happen, since that depends on internal characteristics of Betelgeuse that are largely unknown. Astrophysicist Sarafina El-Badry Nance and colleagues recently investigated whether acoustic waves in the star could be used to determine internal stellar states but concluded that this method could not sufficiently reveal Betelgeuse’s internal characteristics to allow its evolutionary state to be firmly fixed.

Which choice best describes the function of the second sentence in the overall structure of the text?
A. It describes a serious limitation of the method used by Nance and colleagues. 

B. It presents the central finding reported by Nance and colleagues. 

C. It identifies the problem that Nance and colleagues attempted to solve but did not.

D. It explains how the work of Nance and colleagues was received by others in the field. 

Text 1

When companies in the same industry propose merging with one another, they often claim that the merger will benefit consumers by increasing efficiency and therefore lowering prices. Economist Ying Fan investigated this notion in the context of the United States newspaper market. She modeled a hypothetical merger of Minneapolis-area newspapers and found that subscription prices would rise following a merger.

 Text 2

Economists Dario Focarelli and Fabio Panetta have argued that research on the effect of mergers on prices has focused excessively on short-term effects, which tend to be adverse for consumers. Using the case of consumer banking in Italy, they show that over the long term (several years, in their study), the efficiency gains realized by merged companies do result in economic benefits for consumers. 

Based on the texts, how would Focarelli and Panetta (Text 2) most likely respond to Fan’s findings (Text 1)?
A. They would recommend that Fan compare the near-term effect of a merger on subscription prices in the Minneapolis area with the effect of a merger in another newspaper market.

B. They would argue that over the long term the expenses incurred by the merged newspaper company will also increase.

C. They would encourage Fan to investigate whether the projected effect on subscription prices persists over an extended period.

D. They would claim that mergers have a different effect on consumer prices in the newspaper industry than in most other industries. 

The following text is adapted from Charles W. Chesnutt’s 1901 novel The Marrow of Tradition.

Mrs. Ochiltree was a woman of strong individuality, whose comments upon her acquaintance[s], present or absent, were marked by a frankness at times no less than startling. This characteristic caused her to be more or less avoided. Mrs. Ochiltree was aware of this sentiment on the part of her acquaintance[s], and rather exulted in it.

Based on the text, what is true about Mrs. Ochiltree’s acquaintances?
A. They try to refrain from discussing topics that would upset Mrs. Ochiltree. 

B. They are unable to spend as much time with Mrs. Ochiltree as she would like.

C. They are too preoccupied with their own concerns to speak with Mrs. Ochiltree.

D. They are likely offended by what Mrs. Ochiltree has said about them.

Average Number and Duration of Torpor Bouts and Arousal Episodes for Alaska Marmots and Arctic Ground Squirrels, 2008–2011

When hibernating, Alaska marmots and Arctic ground squirrels enter a state called torpor, which minimizes the energy their bodies need to function. Often a hibernating animal will temporarily come out of torpor (called an arousal episode) and its metabolic rate will rise, burning more of the precious energy the animal needs to survive the winter. Alaska marmots hibernate in groups and therefore burn less energy keeping warm during these episodes than they would if they were alone. A researcher hypothesized that because Arctic ground squirrels hibernate alone, they would likely exhibit longer bouts of torpor and shorter arousal episodes than Alaska marmots.

Which choice best describes data from the table that support the researcher’s hypothesis?
A. The Alaska marmots’ arousal episodes lasted for days, while the Arctic ground squirrels’ arousal episodes lasted less than a day.

B. The Alaska marmots and the Arctic ground squirrels both maintained torpor for several consecutive days per bout, on average.

C. The Alaska marmots had shorter torpor bouts and longer arousal episodes than the Arctic ground squirrels did.

D. The Alaska marmots had more torpor bouts than arousal episodes, but their arousal episodes were much shorter than their torpor bouts. 

Employment by Sector in France and the United States, 1800–2012 (% of total employment)

Rows in table may not add up to 100 due to rounding.

Over the past two hundred years, the percentage of the population employed in the agricultural sector has declined in both France and the United States, while employment in the service sector (which includes jobs in retail, consulting, real estate, etc.) has risen. However, this transition happened at very different rates in the two countries. This can be seen most clearly by comparing the employment by sector in both countries in ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?
A. 1900 with the employment by sector in 1950.

B. 1800 with the employment by sector in 2012.

C. 1900 with the employment by sector in 2012.

D. 1800 with the employment by sector in 1900.

Euphorbia esula (leafy spurge) is a Eurasian plant that has become invasive in North America, where it displaces native vegetation and sickens cattle. E. esula can be controlled with chemical herbicides, but that approach can also kill harmless plants nearby. Recent research on introducing engineered DNA into plant species to inhibit their reproduction may offer a path toward exclusively targeting E. esula, consequently ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. making individual E. esula plants more susceptible to existing chemical herbicides.

B. enhancing the ecological benefits of E. esula in North America.

C. enabling cattle to consume E. esula without becoming sick.

D. reducing invasive E. esula numbers without harming other organisms.

In 1966, Emmett Ashford became the first African American to umpire a Major League Baseball game. His energetic gestures announcing when a player had struck out and his habit of barreling after a hit ball to see if it would land out of ______ transform the traditionally solemn umpire role into a dynamic one.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. bounds helped

B. bounds, helping

C. bounds that helped

D. bounds to help

During the English neoclassical period (1660–1789), many writers imitated the epic poetry and satires of ancient Greece and Rome. They were not the first in England to adopt the literary modes of classical ______ some of the most prominent figures of the earlier Renaissance period were also influenced by ancient Greek and Roman literature.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. antiquity, however

B. antiquity, however,

C. antiquity, however;

D. antiquity; however,

One poll taken after the first 1960 presidential debate suggested that John Kennedy lost badly: only 21 percent of those who listened on the radio rated him the winner. ______ the debate was ultimately considered a victory for the telegenic young senator, who rated higher than his opponent, Vice President Richard Nixon, among those watching on the new medium of television.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A. In other words,

B. Therefore,

C. Likewise,

D. Nevertheless,

Former astronaut Ellen Ochoa says that although she doesn’t have a definite idea of when it might happen, she ______ that humans will someday need to be able to live in other environments than those found on Earth. This conjecture informs her interest in future research missions to the moon.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. demands

B. speculates

C. doubts

D. establishes

Ofelia Zepeda’s contributions to the field of linguistics are ______blank: her many accomplishments include working as a linguistics professor and bilingual poet, authoring the first Tohono O’odham grammar book, and co-founding the American Indian Language Development Institute.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. pragmatic

B. controversial

C. extensive

D. universal

“Often Rebuked, Yet Always Back Returning” is an 1846 poem by Emily Brontë. The poem conveys the speaker’s determination to experience the countryside around her: ______

Which quotation from the poem most effectively illustrates the claim?
A. “Often rebuked, yet always back returning / To those first feelings that were born with me, / And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning / For idle dreams of things which cannot be.”

B. “I’ll walk, but not in old heroic traces, / And not in paths of high morality, / And not among the half-distinguished faces, / The clouded forms of long-past history.”

C. “I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading: / It vexes me to choose another guide: / Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding; / Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.”

D. “To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region; / Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear; / And visions rising, legion after legion, / Bring the unreal world too strangely near.”

If some artifacts recovered from excavations of the settlement of Kuulo Kataa, in modern Ghana, date from the thirteenth century CE, that may lend credence to claims that the settlement was founded before or around that time. There is other evidence, however, strongly supporting a fourteenth century CE founding date for Kuulo Kataa. If both the artifact dates and the fourteenth century CE founding date are correct, that would imply that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. artifacts from the fourteenth century CE are more commonly recovered than are artifacts from the thirteenth century CE. 

B. the artifacts originated elsewhere and eventually reached Kuulo Kataa through trade or migration.

C. Kuulo Kataa was founded by people from a different region than had previously been assumed.

D. excavations at Kuulo Kataa may have inadvertently damaged some artifacts dating to the fourteenth century CE.

In a study of the cognitive abilities of white-faced capuchin monkeys (Cebus imitator), researchers neglected to control for the physical difficulty of the tasks they used to evaluate the monkeys. The cognitive abilities of monkeys given problems requiring little dexterity, such as sliding a panel to retrieve food, were judged by the same criteria as were those of monkeys given physically demanding problems, such as unscrewing a bottle and inserting a straw. The results of the study, therefore, ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. could suggest that there are differences in cognitive ability among the monkeys even though such differences may not actually exist.

B. are useful for identifying tasks that the monkeys lack the cognitive capacity to perform but not for identifying tasks that the monkeys can perform. 

C. should not be taken as indicative of the cognitive abilities of any monkey species other than C. imitator.

D. reveal more about the monkeys’ cognitive abilities when solving artificial problems than when solving problems encountered in the wild.