The following text is from Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novel The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale. Mr. Verloc is navigating the London streets on his way to a meeting.
Before reaching Knightsbridge, Mr. Verloc took a turn to the left out of the busy main thoroughfare, uproarious with the traffic of swaying omnibuses and trotting vans, in the almost silent, swift flow of hansoms [horse-drawn carriages]. Under his hat, worn with a slight backward tilt, his hair had been carefully brushed into respectful sleekness; for his business was with an Embassy. And Mr. Verloc, steady like a rock-a soft kind of rock-marched now along a street which could with every propriety be described as private.

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

A) It qualifies an earlier description of Mr. Verloc.

B) It emphasizes an internal struggle Mr. Verloc experiences.

C) It contrasts Mr. Verloc with his surroundings.

D) It reveals a private opinion Mr. Verloc holds

The following text is from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1910 poem “The Earth’s Entail.”
No matter how we cultivate the land,
Taming the forest and the prairie free;
No matter how we irrigate the sand,
Making the desert blossom at command,
We must always leave the borders of the sea;
The immeasurable reaches
Of the windy wave-wet beaches,
The million-mile-long margin of the sea.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A) The speaker argues against interfering with nature and then gives evidence supporting this interference.

B) The speaker presents an account of efforts to dominate nature and then cautions that such efforts are only temporary.

C) The speaker provides examples of an admirable way of approaching nature and then challenges that approach.

D) The speaker describes attempts to control nature and then offers a reminder that not all nature is controllable.

The following text is adapted from Jane Austen’s 1814 novel Mansfield Park. The speaker, Tom, is considering staging a play at home with a group of his friends and family.

We mean nothing but a little amusement among ourselves, just to vary the scene, and exercise our powers in something new. We want no audience, no publicity. We may be trusted, I think, in choosing some play most perfectly unexceptionable; and I can conceive no greater harm or danger to any of us in conversing in the elegant written language of some respectable author than in chattering in words of our own.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) responsiveness to

B) ambivalence toward

C) renunciation of

D) mastery over

A study by a team including finance professor Madhu Veeraraghavan suggests that exposure to sunshine during the workday can lead to overly optimistic behavior. Using data spanning from 1994 to 2010 for a set of US companies, the team compared over 29,000 annual earnings forecasts to the actual earnings later reported by those companies. The team found that the greater the exposure to sunshine at work in the two weeks before a manager submitted an earnings forecast, the more the manager’s forecast exceeded what the company actually earned that year.

Which choice best states the function of the underlined sentence in the overall structure of the text?

A) To summarize the results of the team’s analysis.

B) To present a specific example that illustrates the study’s findings.

C) To explain part of the methodology used in the team’s study.

D) To call out a challenge the team faced in conducting its analysis.

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 questions an increasingly prevalent attitude and then summarizes his worldview.

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

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

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