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?

A) It questions how the team was able to conclude that the planks were used to build a boat.

B) It presents a conclusion about Roman trade routes based on the team’s findings.

C) It explains why the planks were made from oak rather than a different kind of wood.

D) It describes common methods used in Roman subway construction.

The following text is from Sarah Orne Jewett’s 1899 short story “Martha’s Lady.” Martha is employed by Miss Pyne as a maid. Miss Pyne sat by the window watching, in her best dress, looking stately and calm; she seldom went out now, and it was almost time for the carriage. Martha was just coming in from the garden with the strawberries, and with more flowers in her apron. It was a bright cool evening in June, the golden robins sang in the elms, and the sun was going down behind the apple-trees at the foot of the garden. The beautiful old house stood wide open to the long-expected guest.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) To convey the worries brought about by a new guest

B) To describe how the characters have changed over time

C) To contrast the activity indoors with the stillness outside

D) To depict the setting as the characters await a visitor’s arrival

The following text is from Walt Whitman’s 1860 poem “Calamus 24.”
I HEAR it is charged against me that I seek to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions
(What indeed have I in common with them?—Or what with the destruction of them?),
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta [Manhattan] and in every city of These States, inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel [ship] little or large, that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A) The speaker addresses a criticism leveled against him, then announces a grand ambition of his.

B) The speaker regrets his isolation from others, then predicts a profound change in society.

C) The speaker concedes his personal shortcomings, then boasts of his many achievements.

D) The speaker questions an increasingly prevalent attitude, then summarizes his worldview.

Works of moral philosophy, such as Plato’s Republic or Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, are partly concerned with how to live a morally good life. But philosopher Jonathan Barnes argues that works that present a method of living such a life without also supplying a motive are inherently useful only to those already wishing to be morally good—those with no desire for moral goodness will not choose to follow their rules. However, some works of moral philosophy attempt to describe what constitutes a morally good life while also proposing reasons for living one.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A) It summarizes the history of a field of thought by discussing two works and then proposes a topic of further research for specialists in that field.

B) It mentions two renowned works and then claims that despite their popularity it is impossible for these works to serve the purpose their authors intended.

C) It provides a characterization about a field of thought by noting two works in it and then details a way in which some works in that field are more comprehensive than others.

D) It describes two influential works and then explains why one is more widely read than the other.

Industrial activity is often assumed to be a threat to wildlife, but that isn’t always so. Consider the silver-studded blue butterfly (Plebejus argus): as forest growth has reduced grasslands in northern Germany, many of these butterflies have left meadow habitats and are now thriving in active limestone quarries. In a survey of multiple active quarries and patches of maintained grassland, an ecologist found silver-studded blue butterflies in 100% of the quarries but only 57% of the grassland patches. Moreover, butterfly populations in the quarries were four times larger than those in the meadows.

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

A) It challenges a common assumption about the species under investigation in the research referred to in the text.

B) It introduces discussion of a specific example that supports the general claim made in the previous sentence.

C) It suggests that a certain species should be included in additional studies like the one mentioned later in the text.

D) It provides a definition for an unfamiliar term that is central to the main argument in the text.

The following text is from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables. Anne, an eleven-year-old girl, has come to live on a farm with a woman named Marilla in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Anne reveled in the world of color about her.
“Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of gorgeous boughs, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t they give you a thrill—several thrills? I’m going to decorate my room with them.”
“Messy things,” said Marilla, whose aesthetic sense was not noticeably developed. “You clutter up your room entirely too much with out-of-doors stuff, Anne. Bedrooms were made to sleep in.”

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) To demonstrate that Anne has a newly developed appreciation of nature

B) To describe an argument that Anne and Marilla often have

C) To show that Anne and Marilla have very different personalities

D) To emphasize Marilla’s disapproval of how Anne has decorated her room

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?

A) It presents alternating descriptions of night in a rural area and in a city.

B) It sketches an image of nightfall, then an image of sunrise.

C) It portrays how night changes from one season of the year to the next.

D) It makes an extended comparison of night to a human being.

The following text is adapted from Aphra Behn’s 1689 novel The Lucky Mistake. Atlante and Rinaldo are neighbors who have been secretly exchanging letters through Charlot, Atlante’s sister.
[Atlante] gave this letter to Charlot; who immediately ran into the balcony with it, where she still found Rinaldo in a melancholy posture, leaning his head on his hand: She showed him the letter, but was afraid to toss it to him, for fear it might fall to the ground; so he ran and fetched a long cane, which he cleft at one end, and held it while she put the letter into the cleft, and stayed not to hear what he said to it. But never was man so transported with joy, as he was at the reading of this letter; it gives him new wounds; for to the generous, nothing obliges love so much as love.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A) It presents a character’s concerns about delivering a letter, and then details the contents of that letter.

B) It establishes that a character is desperate to receive a letter, and then explains why another character has not yet written that letter.

C) It describes the delivery of a letter, and then portrays a character’s happiness at reading that letter.

D) It reveals the inspiration behind a character’s letter, and then emphasizes the excitement that another character feels upon receiving that letter.

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?

A) To describe the items that the shop owner most highly prizes

B) To convey the shop owner’s resentment of the person he got the new picture from

C) To reveal the shop owner’s conflicted feelings about the new picture

D) To explain differences between the new picture and other pictures in the shop

Jackie Ormes’s Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem (1937–38) was the first comic strip by a Black woman to appear in a widely read newspaper. The strip tells the story of Torchy, a young woman who leaves Mississippi to become a performer in New York City. Torchy’s story reflects the experience of the Great Migration (1910–1970), when millions of Black Americans left the South in search of opportunities in other parts of the United States. Torchy Brown thus shows how Ormes used comics to comment humorously on issues affecting Black Americans, which she continued to do throughout her career.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) To give an example of how Ormes presented the experiences of Black Americans in her comic strips.

B) To illustrate how the subjects Ormes addressed in her comic strips changed over the course of her career.

C) To claim that several characters in Torchy Brown were based on people that Ormes knew personally.

D) To show how Ormes’s Torchy Brown inspired other Black women to write comic strips in the 1930s.