Text 1

Literary scholars have struggled with the vastness of Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka's collective works of drama (spanning over 20 plays in total). It is best, however, to understand Soyinka's body of work as a dramatist chronologically. Soyinka's progression as a playwright can be considered to fall into three periods, with each one representing a particular thematic and stylistic cohesion: the 1960s, the two decades between 1970 and 1990, and lastly, from roughly 1990 onwards.

Text 2

It is tempting to impose a linear sense of order on the expanse of Wole Soyinka's body of work as a dramatist. However, critics who have considered Soyinka's plays to fit neatly into three phases overlook potential commonalities in Soyinka's work that span across these phases. Additionally, this view may discount significant differences in the styles and content of plays written around the same time.

Which choice best describes a difference in how the author of Text 1 and the author of Text 2 view the study of Soyinka's works of drama?

When ancient oak planks were unearthed during subway construction in Rome, Mauro Bernabei and his team examined the growth rings in the wood to determine where these planks came from. By comparing the growth rings on the planks to records of similar rings in oaks from Europe, the team could trace the wood to the Jura region of France, hundreds of kilometers from Rome. Because timber could only have been transported from distant Jura to Rome by boat, the team's findings suggest the complexity of Roman trade routes.

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

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)?

Arturo A. Schomburg was dedicated to preserving books, art, and other materials from peoples of African descent around the world. To get these items, Schomburg ________ friends and colleagues, whom he asked to bring back rare and valuable objects from their international travels. Now, Schomburg’s collection is a valuable resource for scholars of black history and culture.

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

Some researchers believe that the genes that enable groundhogs and certain other mammals to hibernate through the winter by slowing their breathing and heart rates and lowering their body temperature may be ________ in humans: present yet having essentially no effect on our bodily processes.

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

Studying how workload affects productivity, Maryam Kouchaki and colleagues found that people who chose to do relatively easy tasks first were less ________ compared to those who did hard tasks first. Finishing easy tasks gave participants a sense of accomplishment, but those who tackled hard tasks first actually became more skilled and productive workers over time.

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

Scientists previously thought that all electric eels belong to a single species, but a team of researchers led by zoologists. C. David de Santana proved this idea wrong by ________ that there are in fact three distinct species of electric eels.

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

While most animals are incapable of passing somatic mutations--genetic alterations that arise in an organism's nonreproductive cells--on to their offspring, elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) presents an intriguing ________: in a 2022 study, researchers found that elkhorn coral produced offspring that inherited somatic mutations from a parent.

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

Text 1

Because literacy in Nahuatl script, the writing system of the Aztec Empire, was lost after Spain invaded central Mexico in the 1500s, it is unclear exactly how meaning was encoded in the script's symbols. Although many scholars had assumed that the symbols signified entire words, linguist Alfonso Lacadena theorized in 2008 that they signified units of language smaller than words: individual syllables.

Text 2

The growing consensus among scholars of Nahuatl script is that many of its symbols could signify either words or syllables, depending on syntax and content at any given site within a text. For example, the symbol signifying the word huipil (louse) in some contexts could signify the syllable "pil" in others, as in the place name "Chiplitepec." Thus, for the Aztecs, reading required a determination of how such symbols functioned each time they appeared in a text.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely characterize Lacadena's theory, as described in Text 1?

Text 1

Most animals can regenerate some parts of their bodies, such as skin. But when a three-banded panther worm is cut into three pieces, each piece grows into a new worm. Researchers are investigating this feat partly to learn more about humans' comparatively limited abilities to regenerate, and they're making exciting progress. An especially promising discovery is that both humans and panther worms have a gene for early growth response (EGR) linked to regeneration.

Text 2

When Mansi Srivastava and her team reported that panther worms, like humans, possess a gene for EGR, it caused excitement. However, as the team pointed out, the gene likely functions very differently in humans than it does in panther worms. Srivastava has likened EGR to a switch that activates other genes involved in regeneration in panther worms, but how this switch operates in humans remains unclear.

Based on the texts, what would the author of Text 2 most likely say about Text 1's characterization of the discovery involving EGR?

For her 2021 art installation Anthem, Wu Tsang joined forces with singer and composer Beverly Glenn-Copeland to produce a piece that critics found truly ________: they praised Tsang for creatively transforming a museum rotunda into a dynamic exhibit by projecting filmed images of Glenn-Copeland onto a massive 84-foot curtain and filling the space with the sounds of his and other voices singing.

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

Given that the conditions in binary star systems should make planetary formation nearly impossible, it's not surprising that the existence of planets in such systems has lacked ________ explanation. Roman Rafikov and Kedron Silsbee shed light on the subject when they used modeling to determine a complex set of factors that could support planets' development.

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

Text 1

Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando is an oddity within her body of work. Her other major novels consist mainly of scenes of everyday life and describe their characters' interior states in great detail, whereas Orlando propels itself through a series of fantastical events and considers its characters' psychology more superficially. Woolf herself sometimes regarded the novel as a minor work, even admitting once that she "began it as a joke."

Text 2

Like Woolf's other great novels, Orlando portrays how people's memories inform their experience of the present. Like those works, it examines how people navigate social interactions shaped by gender and social class. Though it is lighter in tone--more entertaining, even--this literary "joke" nonetheless engages seriously with the themes that motivated the four or five other novels by Woolf that have achieved the status of literary classics.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the assessment of Orlando presented in Text 1?

The following text is adapted from Charles Chesnutt's 1899 short story "Mars Jeems's Nightmare." The narrator and his wife have recently moved to the southern United States, and Julius is their carriage driver.

Julius [was] very useful when we moved to our new residence. He had a thorough knowledge of the neighborhood, was familiar with the roads and the watercourses, knew the qualities of the various soils and what they would produce, and where the best hunting and fishing were to be had. He was a marvelous hand in the management of horses and dogs.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

US traffic signals didn't always contain the familiar three lights (red, yellow, and green). Traffic lights only ______ red and green lights until the three-light traffic signal was developed in the 1920s.

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

Text 1

Like the work of Ralph Ellison before her, Toni Morrison's novels feature scenes in which characters deliver sermons of such length and verbal dexterity that for a time, the text exchanges the formal parameters of fiction for those of oral literature. Given the many other echoes of Ellison in Morrison's novels, both in structure and prose style, these scenes suggest Ellison's direct influence on Morrison.

Text 2

In their destabilizing effect on literary form, the sermons in Morrison's works recall those in Ellison's. Yet literature by Black Americans abounds in moments where interpolated speech erodes the division between oral and written forms that literature in English has traditionally observed. Morrison's use of the sermon is attributable not only to the influence of Ellison but also to a community-wide strategy of resistance to externally imposed literary conventions.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely characterize the underlined claim in Text 1?

In 2008 a complete set of ancient pessoi (glass game pieces) was uncovered from beneath a paving stone in modern-day Israel. Due to their small size, pessoi were easily misplaced, making a whole set a rare find. This has led some experts to suggest that the set may have been buried intentionally; however, without clear evidence, archaeologists are left to _______ what happened.

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

The following text is from Charlotte Forten Grimke'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?

Sueno de Familia is an exhibition of drawings, paintings, and ceramics that explores the artistic heritage of US-based artist Yolanda Gonzalez. The exhibition _______ five generations, featuring works by Gonzalez's great-grandfather, grandmother, mother, and niece as well as Gonzalez herself.

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

Text 1

Philosopher G.E. Moore's most influential work entails the concept of common sense. He asserts that there are certain beliefs that all people, including philosophers, know instinctively to be true, whether or not they profess otherwise: among them, that they have bodies, or that they exist in a world with other objects that have three dimensions. Moore's careful work on common sense may seem obvious but was in fact groundbreaking.

Text 2

External world skepticism is a philosophical stance supposing that we cannot be sure of the existence of anything outside our own minds. During a lecture, G.E. Moore once offered a proof refuting this stance by holding out his hands and saying, "Here is one hand, and here is another." Many philosophers reflexively reject this proof (Annalisa Coliva called it "an obviously annoying failure") but have found it a challenge to articulate exactly why the proof fails.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 1 most likely respond to proponents of the philosophical stance outlined in Text 2?

Scholarly discussions of gender in Shakespeare's comedies often celebrate the rebellion of the playwright's characters against the rigid expectations _______ by Elizabeth society. Most of the comedies end in marriage, with characters returning to their socially dictated gender roles after previously defying them, but there are some notable exceptions. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

Text 1

In 2021, a team led by Amir Siraj hypothesized that the Chicxulub impactor--the object that struck the Yucatan Peninsula sixty-six million years ago, precipitating the mass extinction of the dinosaurs--was likely a member of the class of long-period comets. As evidence, Siraj cited the carbonaceous chondritic composition of samples from the Chicxulub impact crater as well as of samples obtained from long-period comet Wild 2 in 2006.

Text 2

Although long-period comets contain carbonaceous chondrites, asteroids are similarly rich in these materials. Furthermore, some asteroids are rich in iridium, as Natalia Artemieva points out, whereas long-period comets are not. Given the prevalence of iridium at the crater and, more broadly, in geological layers deposited worldwide following the impact, Artemieva argues that an asteroid is a more plausible candidate for the Chicxulub impactor.

Based on the texts, how would Artemieva likely respond to Siraj's hypothesis, as presented in Text 1?

The following text is adapted from Indian Boyhood, a 1902 memoir by Ohiyesa (Charles A. Eastman), a Santee Dakotawriter. In the text, Ohiyesa recalls how the women in his tribe harvested maple syrup during his childhood.

Now the women began to test the trees—moving leisurely among them, axe in hand, and striking a single quick blow, to see if the sap would appear. The trees, like people, have their individual characters; some were ready to yield up their life-blood, while others were more reluctant. Now one of the birchen basins was set under each tree, and a hardwood chip driven deep into the cut which the axe had made. From the corners of this chip—at first drop by drop, then more freely—the sap trickled into the little dishes.

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

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?

As an architect in Los Angeles in the 1950s, Helen Liu Fong became known for avoiding ________ designs in her buildings. Instead of using standard shapes and colors, she typically explored innovative forms and daring hues.

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