A number of Indigenous politicians have been elected to the United States Congress since 2000 as members of the country’s two established political parties. In Canada and several Latin American countries, on the other hand, Indigenous people have formed their own political parties to advance candidates who will advocate for the interests of their communities. This movement has been particularly successful in Ecuador, where Guadalupe Llori, a member of the Indigenous party known as Pachakutik, was elected president of the National Assembly in 2021.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) To trace the history of an Indigenous political movement and speculate about its future development

B) To argue that Indigenous politicians in the United States should form their own political party

C)To consider how Indigenous politicians in the United States have influenced Indigenous politicians in Canada and Latin America.

D) To highlight two approaches to achieving political representation for Indigenous people.

The field of study called affective neuroscience seeks instinctive, physiological causes for feelings such as pleasure or displeasure. Because these sensations are linked to a chemical component (for example, the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain when one receives or expects a reward), they can be said to have a partly physiological basis. These processes have been described in mammals, but Jingnan Huang and his colleagues have recently observed that some behaviors of honeybees (such as foraging) are also motivated by a dopamine-based signaling process.

What choice best describes the main purpose of the text?

A) It summarizes a finding suggesting that some mechanisms in the brains of certain insects resemble mechanisms in mammalian brains.

B) It describes an experimental method of measuring the strength of physiological responses in humans.

C) It illustrates processes by which certain insects can express how they are feeling.

D) It presents research showing that certain insects and mammals behave similarly when there is a possibility of a reward for their actions.

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

B) 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.

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.

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

C) It presents the central finding reported by Nance and colleagues. 

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

The following text is adapted from Herman Melville’s 1857 novel The Confidence-Man. Humphry Davy was a prominent British chemist and inventor. Years ago, a grave American savant, being in London, observed at an evening party there, a certain coxcombical fellow, as he thought, an absurd ribbon in his lapel, and full of smart [banter], whisking about to the admiration of as many as were disposed to admire. Great was the savant’s disdain; but, chancing ere long to find himself in a corner with the jackanapes, got into conversation with him, when he was somewhat ill-prepared for the good sense of the jackanapes,but was altogether thrown aback, upon subsequently being [informed that he was] no less a personage than Sir Humphry Davy.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) It portrays the thoughts of a character who is embarrassed about his own behavior.

B) It offers a short history of how a person came to be famous.

C) It explains why one character dislikes another.

D) It presents an account of a misunderstanding.

In Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park, an almost imperceptible smile from potential suitor Henry Crawford causes the protagonist Fanny Price to blush; her embarrassment grows when she suspects that he is aware of it. This moment—in which Fanny not only infers Henry’s mental state through his gestures, but also infers that he is drawing inferences about her mental state—illustrates what literary scholar George Butte calls “deep intersubjectivity,” a technique for representing interactions between consciousnesses through which Austen’s novels derive much of their social and psychological drama.

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

A) It states a claim about Austen’s skill at representing psychological complexity that is reinforced by an example presented in the following sentence. 

B) It provides a synopsis of an interaction in an Austen novel that illustrates a literary concept discussed in the following sentence.

C) It advances an interpretation of an Austen protagonist who is contrasted with protagonists from other Austen novels cited in the following sentence. 

D) It describes a recurring theme in Austen’s novels that is the focus of a literary scholar’s analysis summarized in the following sentence.

Mathematician Claude Shannon is widely regarded as a foundational figure in information theory. His most important paper,“A Mathematical Theory of Communication,” published in 1948 when he was employed at Bell Labs, utilized a concept called a “binary digit” (shortened to “bit”) to measure the amount of information in any signal and determine the fastest rate at which information could be transmitted while still being reliably decipherable. Robert Gallagher, one of Shannon’s colleagues,said that the bit was “[Shannon’s] discovery, and from it the whole communications revolution has sprung.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A) It presents a theoretical concept, illustrates how the name of the concept has changed, and shows how the name has entered common usage.

B) It names the company where an important mathematician worked, details the mathematician’s career at the company,and provides an example of the recognition he received there.

C) It mentions a paper, offers a summary of the paper’s findings, and presents a researcher’s commentary on the paper.

D) It introduces a respected researcher, describes an aspect of his work, and suggests why the work is historically significant.

Musician Joni Mitchell, who is also a painter, uses images she creates for her album covers to emphasize ideas expressed in her music. For the cover of her album Turbulent Indigo (1994), Mitchell painted a striking self-portrait that closely resembles Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889). The image calls attention to the album’s title song, in which Mitchell sings about the legacy of the postimpressionist painter. In that song, Mitchell also hints that she feels a strong artistic connection to Van Gogh—an idea that is reinforced by her imagery on the cover.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A)It presents a claim about Mitchell, then gives an example supporting that claim.

B) It discusses Van Gogh’s influence on Mitchell, then considers Mitchell’s influence on other artists.

C) It describes a similarity between two artists, then notes a difference between them.

D) It describes the songs on Turbulent Indigo, then explains how they relate to the album’s cover

The following text is from Edith Wharton’s 1905 novel The House of Mirth.

Lily Bart and a companion are walking through a park.Lily had no real intimacy with nature, but she had a passion for the appropriate and could be keenly sensitive to a scene which was the fitting background of her own sensations. The landscape outspread below her seemed an enlargement of her present mood, and she found something of herself in its calmness, its breadth, its long free reaches. On the nearer slopes the sugar-maples wavered like pyres of light; lower down was a massing of grey orchards, and here and there the lingering green of an oak-grove.

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

A) It creates a detailed image of the physical setting of the scene.

B) It establishes that a character is experiencing an internal conflict.

C) It illustrates an idea that is introduced in the previous sentence.

D) It makes an assertion that the next sentence then expands on.

Space scientists Anna-Lisa Paul, Stephen M. Elardo, and Robert Ferl planted seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana in samples of lunar regolith—the surface material of the Moon—and, serving as a control group, in terrestrial soil. They found that while all the seeds germinated, the roots of the regolith-grown plants were stunted compared with those in the control group.Moreover, unlike the plants in the control group, the regolith-grown plants exhibited red pigmentation, reduced leaf size, and inhibited growth rates—indicators of stress that were corroborated by postharvest molecular analysis.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) It describes an experiment that addressed an unresolved question about the extent to which lunar regolith resembles terrestrial soils.

B) It compares two distinct methods of assessing indicators of stress in plants grown in a simulated lunar environment.

C) It presents evidence in support of the hypothesis that seed germination in lunar habitats is an unattainable goal.

D) It discusses the findings of a study that evaluated the effects of exposing a plant species to lunar soil conditions