ShowPer Page

The province of Xoconochco was situated on the Pacific coast, hundreds of kilometers southeast of Tenochtitan, the capital of the Aztec Empire. Because Xoconochco's location within the empire was so _______, cacao and other trade goods produced there could reach the capital only after a long overland journey.

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

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

Within baleen whale species, some individuals develop an accessory spleen--a seemingly functionless formation of splenic tissue outside the normal spleen. Given the formation's greater prevalence among whales known to make deeper dives, some researchers hypothesize that its role isn't ________, rather, the accessory spleen may actively support diving mechanisms.

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

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

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?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

In the 1960s, Sam Gilliam, a Black painter from the southern United States, became the first artist to drape painted canvases into flowing shapes. He later explored a different style, ________ quilt-like paintings inspired by the patchwork, quilting tradition of Black communities in the South.

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

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

Many archaeologists assume that large-scale engineering projects in ancient societies required an elite class to plan and direct the necessary labor. However, recent discoveries, such as the excavation of an ancient canal near the Gulf Coast of Alabama, have complicated this picture. Using radiocarbon dating, a team of researchers concluded that the 1.39-kilometer-long canal was most likely constructed between 576 and 650 CE by an Indigenous society that was relatively free of social classes.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

Michelene Pesantubbee, a historian and citizen of the Choctaw Nation, has identified a dilemma inherent to research on the status of women in her tribe during the 1600s and 1700s: the primary sources from that era, travel narratives and other accounts by male European colonizers, underestimate the degree of power conferred on Choctaw women by their traditional roles in political, civic, and ceremonial life. Pesantubbee argues that the Choctaw oral tradition and findings from archaeological sites in the tribe's homeland supplement the written record by providing crucial insights into those roles.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

The mimosa tree evolved in East Asia, where the beetle Bruchidius terrenus preys on its seeds. In 1785, mimosa trees were introduced to North America, far from any B. terrenus. But evolutionary links between predators and their prey can persist across centuries and continents. Around 2001, B. terrenus was introduced in southeastern North America near where botanist Shu-Mei Chang and colleagues had been monitoring mimosa trees. Within a year, 93 percent of the trees had been attacked by the beetles.

Which choice best describes the function of the third sentence in the overall structure of the text?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

The following text is adapted from Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

"The second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan." It sounded like an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that Alice had not the smallest idea how to set about it.

As used in the text, what does the word "simply" most nearly mean?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

Text 1

Ecologists have long wondered how thousands of microscopic phytoplankton species can live together near ocean surfaces competing for the same resources. According to conventional wisdom, one species should emerge after outcompeting the rest. So why do so many species remain? Ecologists' many efforts to explain this phenomenon still haven't uncovered a satisfactory explanation.

Text 2

Ecologist Michael Behrenfeld and colleagues have connected phytoplankton's diversity to their microscopic size. Because these organisms are so tiny, they are spaced relatively far apart from each other in ocean water and, moreover, experience that water as a relatively dense substance. This in turn makes it hard for them to move around and interact with one another. Therefore, says Behrenfeld's team, direct competition among phytoplankton probably happens much less than previously thought.

Based on the texts, how would Behrenfeld and colleagues (Text 2) most likely respond to the "conventional wisdom" discussed in Text 1?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

Text 1

American sculptor Edmonia Lewis is best known for her sculptures that represent figures from history and mythology, such as The Death of Cleopatra and Hagar. Although Lewis sculpted other subjects, her career as a sculptor is best represented by the works in which she depicted these historical and mythical themes.

Text 2

Art historians have typically ignored the many portrait busts Edmonia Lewis created. Lewis likely carved these busts (sculptures of a person's head) frequently throughout her long career. She is known for her sculptures that represent historical figures, but Lewis likely supported herself financially by carving portrait busts for acquaintances who paid her to represent their features. Thus, Lewis's portrait busts are a central aspect of her career as a sculptor.

Based on the texts, both authors would most likely agree with which statement?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

Part of the Atacama Desert in Peru has surprisingly rich plant life despite receiving almost no rainfall. Moisture from winter fog sustains plants once they're growing, but the soil's tough crust makes it hard for seeds to germinate in the first place. Local birds that dig nests in the ground seem to be of help: they churn the soil, exposing buried seeds to moisture and nutrients. Indeed, in 2016 Cristina Rengifio Fairfer found that mounds of soil dug up by birds were far more fertile and supported more seedlings than soil in undisturbed areas.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

Text 1

Some animal species, like the leopard, can be found in many kinds of areas. On the other hand, tropical mountain bird species tend to be limited in the types of spaces they can call home. This is because many mountain bird species are only able to survive at very specific elevations. Over time, these species have likely become used to living at a specific temperature. Therefore, these species struggle to survive at elevations that are warmer or colder than they are used to.

Text 2

A new study reviewed observations of nearly 3,000 bird species to understand why tropical mountain bird species live at specific elevations. They noted that when a mountain bird species was found in an area with many other bird species, it tended to inhabit much smaller geographic areas. It is thus likely that competition for resources with other species, not temperature, limits where these birds can live.

Based on the texts, both authors would most likely agree with which statement?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

For a 2020 exhibition, photographer and neurobiologist Okunola Jeyifous ________ a series of new images based on a series of alphabet posters from the 1970s known as the "Black ABCs," which featured Black children from Chicago.

Jeyifous photographed the now-adult models and layered the photos over magnified images of the models' cells, resulting in what he called "micro and macro portraiture."

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

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

Archaeologists studying an ancient amphitheater in Switzerland believe that it dates back to the fourth century CE. Their discoveries of a coin made between 337 and 341 CE and era-appropriate building materials ________ evidence for this theory.

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

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

By combining Indigenous and classical music, Cree composer and cellist Cris Derksen creates works that reflect the diverse cultural landscape of Canada. For her album Orchestral Powow, Derksen composed new songs in the style of traditional powwow music that were accompanied by classical arrangements played by an orchestra. But where an orchestra would normally follow the directions of a conductor, the musicians on Orchestral Powow are led by the beat of a powwow drum.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

Horizontal gene transfer occurs when an organism of one species acquires genetic material from an organism of another species through nonreproductive means. The genetic material can then be transferred "vertically" in the second species--that is, through reproductive inheritance. Scientist Atma lvancevic and her team have hypothesized infection by invertebrate parasites as a mechanism of horizontal gene transfer between vertebrate species: while feeding, a parasite could acquire a gene from one host, then relocate to a host from a different vertebrate species and transfer the gene to it in turn.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

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?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

As a young photographer in the 1950s, William Klein ________ the conventions of photography by creating images that were high contrast and included blurred and distorted elements--features generally seen as flaws. So unorthodox was Klein's work that he had difficulty finding a publisher for his now-iconic 1956 photo book Life is Good & Good for You in New York.

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

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

The following text is adapted from Susan Glaspell's 1912 short story "Out There." An elderly shop owner is looking at a picture that he recently acquired and hopes to sell.

It did seem that the picture failed to fit in with the rest of the shop. A persuasive young fellow who claimed he was closing out his stock let the old man have it for what he called a song. It was only a little out-of-the-way store which subsisted chiefly on the framing of pictures. The old man looked around at his views of the city, his pictures of cats and dogs, his flaming bits of landscape. "Don't belong in here," he fumed.
And yet the old man was secretly proud of his acquisition. There was a hidden dignity in his scowling as he shuffled about pondering the least ridiculous place for the picture.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

According to a US tax policy expert, state taxes are ________ other factors when considering an interstate move. Even significant differences in state taxation have almost no effect on most people's decisions, while differences in employment opportunities, housing availability, and climate are strong influences.

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

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

Rydra Wong, the protagonist of Samuel R. Delany's 1966 novel Babel-17, is a poet, an occupation which, in Delany's work, is not ________: nearly a dozen of the characters that populate his novels are poets or writers.

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

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

Novelist N. K. Jemisin declines to _______ the conventions of the science fiction genre in which she writes, and she has suggested that her readers appreciate her work precisely because of this willingness to thwart expectations and avoid formulaic plots and themes.

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

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

The following text is adapted from Gwendolyn Bennett's 1926 poem "Street Lamps in Early Spring."

Night wears a garment
All velvet soft, all violet blue...
And over her face she draws a veil
As shimmering fine as floating dew...
And here and there
In the black of her hair
The subtle hands of Night
Move slowly with their gem-starred light.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

The following text is adapted from Amy Lowell's 1912 poem "Summer."

It is summer, glorious, deep-toned summer,
The very crown of nature's changing year
When all her surging life is at its full.
To me alone it is a time of pause,
A void and silent space between two worlds,
When inspiration lags, and feeling sleeps,
Gathering strength for efforts yet to come.

As used in the text, what does the phrase "a void" most nearly mean?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure

The following text is from Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1911 novel The Secret Garden. Mary, a young girl, is outside trying her new jump rope.

The sun was shining and a little wind was blowing--not a rough wind, but one which came in delightful little gusts and brought a fresh scent of newly turned earth with it. She skipped round the fountain garden, and up one walk and down another.

As used in the text, what does the word "rough" most nearly mean?

Reading and WritingCraft and Structure