Text 1

Astronomer Mark Holland and colleagues examined four white dwarfs—small, dense remnants of past stars—in order to determine the composition of exoplanets that used to orbit those stars. Studying wavelengths of light in the white dwarf atmospheres, the team reported that traces of elements such as lithium and sodium support the presence of exoplanets with continental crusts similar to Earth’s.

Text 2

Past studies of white dwarf atmospheres have concluded that certain exoplanets had continental crusts. Geologist Keith Putirka and astronomer Siyi Xu argue that those studies unduly emphasize atmospheric traces of lithium and other individual elements as signifiers of the types of rock found on Earth. The studies don’t adequately account for different minerals made up of various ratios of those elements, and the possibility of rock types not found on Earth that contain those minerals.

Based on the texts, how would Putirka and Xu (Text 2) most likely characterize the conclusion presented in Text 1?

A)As unexpected, because it was widely believed at the time that white dwarf exoplanets lack continental crusts.

B) As questionable, because it rests on an incomplete consideration of potential sources of the elements detected in white dwarf atmospheres.

C) As premature, because researchers have only just begun trying to determine what kinds of crusts white dwarf exoplanets had.

D) As puzzling, because it’s unusual to successfully detect lithium and sodium when analyzing wavelengths of light in white dwarf atmospheres.

Text 1

Fossils of the hominin Australopithecus africanus have been found in the Sterkfontein Caves of South Africa, but assigning an age to the fossils is challenging because of the unreliability of dating methods in this context. The geology of Sterkfontein has caused soil layers from different periods to mix, impeding stratigraphic dating, and dates cannot be reliably imputed from those of nearby animal bones since the bones may have been relocated by flooding.

Text 2

Archaeologists used new cosmogenic nuclide dating techniques to reevaluate the ages of A. africanus fossils found in the Sterkfontein Caves. This technique involves analyzing the cosmogenic nucleotides in the breccia—the matrix of rock fragments immediately surrounding the fossils. The researchers assert that this approach avoids the potential for misdating associated with assigning ages based on Sterkfontein’s soil layers or animal bones.

Based on the texts, how would the researchers in Text 2 most likely respond to the underlined portion in Text 1?

A)They would emphasize the fact that the A. africanus fossils found in the Sterkfontein Caves may have been corrupted in some way over the years.

B) They would contend that if analyses of surrounding layers and bones in the Sterkfontein Caves were combined, then the dating of the fossils there would be more accurate.

C) They would claim that cosmogenic nuclide dating is reliable in the context of the Sterkfontein Caves because it is applied to the fossils directly.

D) It introduces discussion of a specific example that supports the general claim made in the previous sentence.They would argue that their techniques are better suited than other methods to the unique challenges posed by the Sterkfontein Caves.

Text 1

Films and television shows commonly include a long list of credits naming the people involved in a production. Credit sequences may not be exciting, but they generally ensure that everyone’s contributions are duly acknowledged. Because they are highly standardized, film and television credits are also valuable to anyone researching the careers of pioneering cast and crew members who have worked in the mediums.

Text 2

Video game scholars face a major challenge in the industry’s failure to consistently credit the artists, designers, and other contributors involved in making video games. Without a reliable record of which people worked on which games, questions about the medium’s development can be difficult to answer, and the accomplishments of all but its best-known innovators can be difficult to trace.

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

A) By pointing out that credits have a different intended purpose in film and television than in the medium addressed by the scholars mentioned in Text 2.

B) By recommending that the scholars mentioned in Text 2 consider employing the methods regularly used by film and television researchers.

C) By suggesting that the scholars mentioned in Text 2 rely more heavily on credits as a source of information than film and television researchers do.

D) By observing that a widespread practice in film and television largely prevents the kind of problem faced by the scholars mentioned in Text 2.

Text 1

The Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction event is usually attributed solely to an asteroid impact near Chicxulub, Mexico. Some scientists argue that volcanic activity was the true cause, as the K-Pg event occurred relatively early in a long period of eruption of the Deccan Traps range that initially produced huge amounts of climate-altering gases. These dissenters note that other mass extinctions have coincided with large volcanic eruptions, while only the K-Pg event lines up with an asteroid strike.

Text 2

In a 2020 study, Pincelli Hull and her colleagues analyzed ocean core samples and modeled climate changes around the K Pg event. The team concluded that Deccan Traps gases did affect global conditions prior to the event, but that the climate returned to normal well before the extinctions began—extinctions that instead closely align with the Chicxulub impact.

Based on the texts, how would Hull’s team (Text 2) most likely respond to the argument in the underlined portion of Text 1?

A)By agreeing that the Chicxulub impact changed the climate and that the Deccan Traps eruption caused the K-Pg event.

B) By questioning why those scientists assume that the Chicxulub impact caused the Deccan Traps eruption.

C) By declaring that the changes in climate caused by the Deccan Traps eruption weren’t the main cause of the K-Pg event.

D) By asserting that the Deccan Traps eruption had a more significant effect on global conditions than those scientists claim.

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?

A) B. As misunderstanding the function of sermons in novels by Black American writers other than Ellison and Morrison.

B) As failing to consider Ellison’s and Morrison’s equivalent uses of the sermon within the wider cultural context in which they wrote.

C) As disregarding points of structural and stylistic divergence between the works of Ellison and those of Morrison.

D) As being indebted to the tradition of resisting literary conventions that privilege written forms, such as novels, over sermons and other oral forms.

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?

A) By conceding that Woolf’s talents were best suited to serious novels but asserting that the humor in Orlando is often effective.

B) By agreeing that Orlando is less impressive than certain other novels by Woolf but arguing that it should still be regarded as a classic.

C) By acknowledging that Orlando clearly differs from Woolf’s other major novels but insisting on its centrality to her body of work nonetheless.

D) By concurring that the reputation of Orlando as a minor work has led readers to overlook this novel but maintaining that the reputation is unearned.

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?

A)It is reasonable given that Srivastava and her team have identified how EGR functions in both humans and panther worms.

B) It compares a character’s thoughts about an event at two different times of day.

C) It is unfairly dismissive given the progress that Srivastava and her team have reported.

D) It is overly optimistic given additional observations from Srivastava and her team.

Text 1

Despite its beautiful prose, The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman’s 1962 analysis of the start of World War I, has certain weaknesses as a work of history. It fails to address events in Eastern Europe just before the outbreak of hostilities, thereby giving the impression that Germany was the war’s principal instigator. Had Tuchman consulted secondary works available to her by scholars such as Luigi Albertini, she would not have neglected the influence of events in Eastern Europe on Germany’s actions.

Text 2

Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August is an engrossing if dated introduction to World War I. Tuchman’s analysis of primary documents is laudable, but her main thesis that European powers committed themselves to a catastrophic outcome by refusing to deviate from military plans developed prior to the conflict is implausibly reductive.

Which choice best describes a difference in how the authors of Text 1 and Text 2 view Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August?

A)The author of Text 1 argues that Tuchman should have relied more on the work of other historians, while the author of Text 2 implies that Tuchman’s most interesting claims result from her original research.

B) The author of Text 1 asserts that the writing style of The Guns of August makes it worthwhile to read despite any perceived deficiency in Tuchman’s research, while the author of Text 2 focuses exclusively on the weakness of Tuchman’sinterpretation of events.

C) The author of Text 1 believes that the scope of Tuchman’s research led her to an incorrect interpretation, while the author of Text 2 believes that Tuchman’s central argument is overly simplistic.

D) The author of Text 1 claims that Tuchman would agree that World War I was largely due to events in Eastern Europe,while the author of Text 2 maintains that Tuchman would say that Eastern European leaders were not committed to military plans in the same way that other leaders were.

Text 1

In 2007, a team led by Alice Storey analyzed a chicken bone found in El Arenal, Chile, dating it to 1321–1407 CE—over a century before Europeans invaded the region, bringing their own chickens. Storey also found that the El Arenal chicken shared a unique genetic mutation with the ancient chicken breeds of the Polynesian Islands in the Pacific. Thus, Polynesian peoples, not later Europeans, probably first introduced chickens to South America.

Text 2

An Australian research team weakened the case for a Polynesian origin for the El Arenal chicken by confirming that the mutation identified by Storey has occurred in breeds from around the world. More recently, though, a team led by Agusto Luzuriaga-Neira found that South American chicken breeds and Polynesian breeds share other genetic markers that European breeds lack. Thus, the preponderance of evidence now favors a Polynesian origin.

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

A)By broadly agreeing with the claim but objecting that the timeline it presupposes conflicts with the findings of the genetic analysis conducted by Storey’s team.

B) By faulting the claim for implying that domestic animals couldn’t have been transferred from South America to the Polynesian Islands as well

C) By noting that while the claim is persuasive, the findings of Luzuriaga-Neira’s team provide stronger evidence for it than the findings of the genetic analysis conducted by Storey do.

D) By critiquing the claim for being based on an assumption that before the European invasion of South America, the chickens of Europe were genetically uniform.

Text 1

Conventional wisdom long held that human social systems evolved in stages, beginning with hunter-gatherers forming small bands of members with roughly equal status. The shift to agriculture about 12,000 years ago sparked population growth that led to the emergence of groups with hierarchical structures: associations of clans first, then chiefdoms, and finally, bureaucratic states.

Text 2

In a 2021 book, anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow maintain that humans have always been socially flexible, alternately forming systems based on hierarchy and collective ones with decentralized leadership. The authors point to evidence that as far back as 50,000 years ago some hunter-gatherers adjusted their social structures seasonally, at times dispersing in small groups but also assembling into communities that included esteemed individuals.

Based on the texts, how would Graeber and Wengrow (Text 2) most likely respond to the “conventional wisdom” presented in Text 1?

A)By conceding the importance of hierarchical systems but asserting the greater significance of decentralized collective societies.

B) By disputing the idea that developments in social structures have followed a linear progression through distinct stages.

C) By acknowledging that hierarchical roles likely weren’t a part of social systems before the rise of agriculture.

D) By challenging the assumption that groupings of hunter-gatherers were among the earliest forms of social structure.