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) Researchers are just beginning to try to figure out what kind of crusts white dwarf exoplanets have.

B) White dwarf exoplanets were widely believed at the time to lack continental crusts.

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

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

Utah is home to Pando, a colony of about 47,000 quaking aspen trees that all share a single root system. Pando is one of the largest single organisms by mass on Earth, but ecologists are worried that its growth is declining in part because of grazing by animals. The ecologists say that strong fences could prevent deer from eating young trees and help Pando start thriving again.

According to the text, why are ecologists worried about Pando?

A) It isn’t growing at the same rate it used to.

B) It isn’t producing young trees anymore.

C) It can’t grow into new areas because it is blocked by fences.

D) Its root system can’t support many new trees.

For many years, the only existing fossil evidence of mixopterid eurypterids—an extinct family of large aquatic arthropods known as sea scorpions and related to modern arachnids and horseshoe crabs—came from four species living on the paleocontinent of Laurussia. In a discovery that expands our understanding of the geographical distribution of mixopterids, paleontologist Bo Wang and others have identified fossilized remains of a new mixopterid species, Terropterus Xiushanensis, that lived over 400 million years ago on the paleocontinent of Gondwana.

According to the text, why was Wang and his team’s discovery of the Terropterus xiushanensis fossil significant?

A) First evidence by scientists that mixopterids lived more than 400 million years ago.

B) Helps confirm that mixopterids were more previously related to modern arachnids and horseshoe crabs.

C) The fossil helps establish a more accurate timeline of the evolution of mixopterids on the paleocontinents of Laurussia and Gondwana.

D) The fossil constitutes the first evidence found by scientists that mixopterids existed outside the paleocontinent of Laurussia.

The novelist Toni Morrison was the first Black woman to work as an editor at the publishing company Random House from 1967 to 1983. A scholar asserts that one of Morrison’s likely aims during her time as an editor was to strengthen the presence of Black writers on the list of Random House’s published authors.

Which finding, if true, would most strongly support the scholar’s claim?

A) The percentage of authors published by Random House that were Black rose in the early 1970s and stabilized throughout the decade.

B) Author interviewed in the 1980s and more likely to 1990s Morrison’s novels were a major influence on their work.

C) Novels published after 1983 received significantly more critical acclaim than novels published before 1983

D) Works that were edited by Toni Morrison during her time at Random House displayed stylistic characteristics that distinguished them from works that were not edited by Morrison.

The Poet Walt Whitman” is an 1887 essay by José Martí, a Cuban author and political activist, originally written in Spanish. In the essay, Martí explores the value of literature, arguing that a society’s spiritual well-being depends on the character of its literary culture:____.

Which quotation from a translation of “The Poet Walt Whitman” most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) Poetry, which brings together or separates, which fortifies or brings anguish, which shores up or demolishes souls, which gives or robs men of faith and vigor is more necessary to a people than the industry itself, for the industry provides them with a means of subsistence, while literature gives them the desire and strength for life.

B) The best among them those who consecrate Nature with their sacred desire for the future will lose, in a sordid and painful annihilation, all stimulus to alleviate the ugliness of humanity.

C) Listen to the song of this hardworking and satisfied nation; listen to Walt Whitman. The exercise of himself exalts him to majesty, tolerance exalts him to justice, and order to joy.

D) Every society brings to literature its own form of expression, and the history of the nations can be told with greater truth by the stages of literature than by chronicles and decades.