Reading & Writing

The following text is from William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, first performed in 1611. Miranda has lived on an island with her father, Prospero, since she was three years old. Prospero has stated that Miranda likely does not remember anything other than her life on the island.

MIRANDA: ’Tis far off,

And rather like a dream than an assurance

That my remembrance warrants. Had I not

Four or five women once that tended me?

PROSPERO: Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it

That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

If thou remember’st ought ere thou camest here,

How thou camest here thou mayst.

In the text, which point does Prospero most directly make about Miranda and her memories?

A. Miranda’s reminiscences about her early childhood have a melancholy quality that betrays her discontented view of her current circumstances.

B. Miranda’s doubts about the accuracy of one recollection of a place other than the island are clouding her judgment and seem to be making her reluctant to explore her recollection of traveling to the island.

C. Miranda’s ability to summon details of an experience she had before arriving on the island suggests that she may also be able to summon details of her arrival on the island.

D. Miranda’s impression of a scene is vague because she is remembering a scenario she had daydreamed about as a child rather than a scenario that had occurred in reality.

In a research paper, a student criticizes some historians of modern African politics, claiming that they have evaluated Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, primarily as a symbol rather than in terms of his actions.

Which quotation from a work by a historian would best illustrate the student’s claim?

A. “Lumumba is a difficult figure to evaluate due to the starkly conflicting opinions he inspired during his life and continues to inspire today.”

B. “The available information makes it clear that Lumumba’s political beliefs and values were largely consistent throughout his career.”

C. “Lumumba’s practical accomplishments can be passed over quickly; it is mainly as the personification of Congolese independence that he warrants scholarly attention.”

D. “Many questions remain about Lumumba’s ultimate vision for an independent Congo; without new evidence coming to light, these questions are likely to remain unanswered.”

Researchers hypothesized that a decline in the population of dusky sharks near the mid-Atlantic coast of North America led to a decline in the population of eastern oysters in the region. Dusky sharks do not typically consume eastern oysters but do consume cownose rays, which are the main predators of the oysters.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researchers’ hypothesis?

A. Declines in the regional abundance of dusky sharks’ prey other than cownose rays are associated with regional declines in dusky shark abundance.

B. Eastern oyster abundance tends to be greater in areas with both dusky sharks and cownose rays than in areas with only dusky sharks.

C. Consumption of eastern oysters by cownose rays in the region substantially increased before the regional decline in dusky shark abundance began.

D. Cownose rays have increased in regional abundance as dusky sharks have decreased in regional abundance.

Birds of many species ingest foods containing carotenoids, pigmented molecules that are converted into feather coloration. Coloration tends to be especially saturated in male birds’ feathers, and because carotenoids also confer health benefits, the deeply saturated colors generally serve to communicate what is known as an honest signal of a bird’s overall fitness to potential mates. However, ornithologist Allison J. Shultz and others have found that males in several species of the tanager genus Ramphocelus use microstructures in their feathers to manipulate light, creating the appearance of deeper saturation without the birds necessarily having to maintain a carotenoid-rich diet. These findings suggest that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. individual male tanagers can engage in honest signaling without relying on carotenoid consumption.

B. feather microstructures may be less effective than deeply saturated feathers for signaling overall fitness.

C. scientists have yet to determine why tanagers have a preference for mates with colorful appearances.

D. a male tanager’s appearance may function as a dishonest signal of the individual’s overall fitness.

Journalists have dubbed Gil Scott-Heron the “godfather of rap,” a title that has appeared in hundreds of articles about him since the 1990s. Scott-Heron himself resisted the godfather ______ feeling that it didn’t encapsulate his devotion to the broader African American blues music tradition as well as “bluesologist,” the moniker he preferred.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. nickname, however

B. nickname, however;

C. nickname, however,

D. nickname; however,

Over twenty years ago, in a landmark experiment in the psychology of choice, professor Sheena Iyengar set up a jam-tasting booth at a grocery store. The number of jams available for tasting ______ some shoppers had twenty-four different options, others only six. Interestingly, the shoppers with fewer jams to choose from purchased more jam.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. varied:

B. varied,

C. varied, while

D. varied while

Sociologist Todd Gitlin co-opted the term “recombinant,” normally used in reference to genetic engineering, to describe serialized television shows of the 1980s. Gitlin’s use of the term referenced TV studios’ practice of repackaging successful narrative formulas as new ______ even shows that varied only slightly from other shows still attracted sizeable audiences.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. content, in that era

B. content; in that era,

C. content in that era,

D. content, in that era,

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Las sergas de Esplandián was a novel popular in sixteenth-century Spain.

• The novel featured a fictional island inhabited solely by Black women and known as California.

• That same century, Spanish explorers learned of an “island” off the west coast of Mexico.

• They called it California after the island in the novel.

• The “island” was actually the peninsula now known as Baja California (“Lower California”), which lies to the south of the US state of California.

The student wants to emphasize the role a misconception played in the naming of a place. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

A. The novel Las sergas de Esplandián featured a fictional island known as California.

B. To the south of the US state of California lies Baja California (“Lower California”), originally called California after a fictional place.

C. In the sixteenth century, Spanish explorers learned of a peninsula off the west coast of Mexico and called it California.

D. Thinking it was an island, Spanish explorers called a peninsula California after an island in a popular novel.

In the Indigenous intercropping system known as the Three Sisters, maize, squash, and beans form an ______ web of relations: maize provides the structure on which the bean vines grow; the squash vines cover the soil, discouraging competition from weeds; and the beans aid their two “sisters” by enriching the soil with essential nitrogen.

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

A. indecipherable

B. ornamental

C. obscure

D. intricate

The author’s claim about the relationship between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens is ______, as it fails to account for several recent archaeological discoveries. To be convincing, his argument would need to address recent finds of additional hominid fossils, such as the latest Denisovan specimens and Homo longi.

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

A. disorienting

B. tenuous

C. nuanced

D. unoriginal

The following text is adapted from Lewis Carroll’s 1889 satirical novel Sylvie and Bruno. A crowd has gathered outside a room belonging to the Warden, an official who reports to the Lord Chancellor.

One man, who was more excited than the rest, flung his hat high into the air, and shouted (as well as I could make out) “Who roar for the Sub-Warden?” Everybody roared, but whether it was for the Sub-Warden, or not, did not clearly appear: some were shouting “Bread!” and some “Taxes!”, but no one seemed to know what it was they really wanted.

All this I saw from the open window of the Warden’s breakfast-saloon, looking across the shoulder of the Lord Chancellor.

“What can it all mean?” he kept repeating to himself. “I never heard such shouting before—and at this time of the morning, too! And with such unanimity!”
Based on the text, how does the Lord Chancellor respond to the crowd?

A. He asks about the meaning of the crowd’s shouting, even though he claims to know what the crowd wants.

B. He indicates a desire to speak to the crowd, even though the crowd has asked to speak to the Sub-Warden.

C. He expresses sympathy for the crowd’s demands, even though the crowd’s shouting annoys him.

D. He describes the crowd as being united, even though the crowd clearly appears otherwise.

Estimate of Tyrannosaurid Bite Force

The largest tyrannosaurids—the family of carnivorous dinosaurs that includes Tarbosaurus, Albertosaurus, and, most famously, Tyrannosaurus rex—are thought to have had the strongest bites of any land animals in Earth’s history. Determining the bite force of extinct animals can be difficult, however, and paleontologists Paul Barrett and Emily Rayfield have suggested that an estimate of dinosaur bite force may be significantly influenced by the methodology used in generating that estimate.

Which choice best describes data from the table that support Barrett and Rayfield’s suggestion?

A. The study by Meers used body-mass scaling and produced the lowest estimated maximum bite force, while the study by Cost et al. used muscular and skeletal modeling and produced the highest estimated maximum.

B. In their study, Gignac and Erickson used tooth-bone interaction analysis to produce an estimated bite force range with a minimum of 8,000 newtons and a maximum of 34,000 newtons.

C. The bite force estimates produced by Bates and Falkingham and by Cost et al. were similar to each other, while the estimates produced by Meers and by Gignac and Erickson each differed substantially from any other estimate.

D. The estimated maximum bite force produced by Cost et al. exceeded the estimated maximum produced by Bates and Falkingham, even though both groups of researchers used the same method to generate their estimates.

When digging for clams, their primary food, sea otters damage the roots of eelgrass plants growing on the seafloor. Near Vancouver Island in Canada, the otter population is large and well established, yet the eelgrass meadows are healthier than those found elsewhere off Canada’s coast. To explain this, conservation scientist Erin Foster and colleagues compared the Vancouver Island meadows to meadows where otters are absent or were reintroduced only recently. Finding that the Vancouver Island meadows have a more diverse gene pool than the others do, Foster hypothesized that damage to eelgrass roots increases the plant’s rate of sexual reproduction; this, in turn, boosts genetic diversity, which benefits the meadows’ health overall.

Which finding, if true, would most directly undermine Foster’s hypothesis?

A. At some sites in the study, eelgrass meadows are found near otter populations that are small and have only recently been reintroduced.

B. At several sites not included in the study, there are large, well-established sea otter populations but no eelgrass meadows.

C. At several sites not included in the study, eelgrass meadows’ health correlates negatively with the length of residence and size of otter populations.

D. At some sites in the study, the health of plants unrelated to eelgrass correlates negatively with the length of residence and size of otter populations.

In a study of the evolution of DptA and DptB—Diptericin genes encoding antimicrobial peptides that combat pathogens and foster beneficial microbes in fruit flies (Drosophila)—researchers assessed Drosophila melanogaster resistance to pathogenic infections by Providencia rettgeri and Acetobacter sicerae, bacteria common in the flies’ environments. Subjects included flies identified by mutations silencing DptA, DptB, or both DptA and DptB (termed types A, B, and AB, respectively). In conjunction with the observation that resistance to P. rettgeri correlates with DptA activity but is not significantly affected by DptB activity, data in the graph of survival rates post–A. sicerae infection suggest that ______

Which completion of the text is best supported by data in the graph?

A. DptA confers defense against A. sicerae regardless of the presence of DptB.

B. DptB protects against only one bacteria species, whereas DptA protects against multiple species.

C. DptB may have developed as a specific defense against A. sicerae.

D. defense against A. sicerae is strongest when both DptA and DptB are present.

As cheesemaking practices spread throughout Europe and Asia during and after the Neolithic, divergent strategies for preserving milk ______ whereas rennet-coagulated cheesemaking became key to milk preservation in Europe and Southwest Asia, acid-heat coagulation methods became common among nomadic herding populations of the northeastern Eurasian steppe.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. emerged

B. emerged and

C. emerged:

D. emerged,

Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass first appeared in 1855 as a slim collection of twelve poems, but Whitman would revise and expand it substantially over the next four decades. These extensive ______ the addition of hundreds of new poems, the removal of some existing ones, and the insertion of prefatory material, reflected the poet’s evolving literary perspective and experience of the US Civil War.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. changes, including

B. changes would include

C. changes included

D. changes, include

English poet and Shakespeare contemporary John Donne’s ______ much admired during his lifetime (1572–1631) and in the decades that followed, had, at the time of their enthusiastic rediscovery by the early twentieth-century modernists, been essentially gathering dust for the intervening 250 years.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. works were

B. works, were

C. works, 

D. works had been

A firefly uses specialized muscles to draw oxygen into its lower abdomen through narrow tubes, triggering a chemical reaction whereby the oxygen combines with chemicals in the firefly’s abdomen to produce a glow. ______ when the firefly stops drawing in oxygen, the reaction—and the glow—cease.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. For instance,

B. By contrast,

C. Specifically,

D. In conclusion,

Upon first approaching artist Kurt Wenner’s Dies Irae, a colorful scene painted on the surface of a cobblestone street in Mantua, Italy, one might assume a deep hole filled with life-sized, classically styled sculptures had opened up in the street. ______ by expertly applying the principles of perspective, Wenner created merely the illusion of depth.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Additionally,

B. On the contrary,

C. As a result,

D. Next,

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Malapportionment is the over- or underrepresentation (relative to population size) of electoral districts in a governing body.

• It is a common feature of representative governments.

• There are 169 seats in Norway’s supreme legislature (the Storting).

• Seats are distributed by a formula that awards 1 point per resident and 1.8 points per unit of land.

• Less populated rural districts with large tracts of land receive a disproportionate number of seats compared to smaller but more populated urban districts.

The student wants to refute a claim that malapportionment in the Storting favors small urban districts. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

A. Less populated rural districts are disproportionally underrepresented in the Storting, creating an unfair advantage for smaller but more populated urban districts.

B. It’s untrue that malapportionment in the 169-seat Storting favors small urban districts; rather, the formula for distributing seats overrepresents more populated districts.

C. A common feature of representative governments, malapportionment occurs when electoral districts are over- or underrepresented.

D. Awarding more points per unit of land than points per resident, the formula for distributing Storting seats overrepresents less populated rural districts with large tracts of land.