Some bird species don’t raise their own chicks. Instead, adult females lay their eggs in other nests, next to another bird species’ own eggs. Female cuckoos have been seen quickly laying eggs in the nests of other bird species when those birds are out looking for food. After the eggs hatch, the noncuckoo parents will typically raise the cuckoo chicks as if they were their own offspring, even if the cuckoos look very different from the other chicks.

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

A) It introduces a physical feature of female cuckoos that is described later in the text.

B) It offers a detail about how female cuckoos carry out the behavior discussed in the text.

C) It describes the appearance of the cuckoo nests mentioned earlier in the text.

D) It explains how other birds react to the female cuckoo behavior discussed in the text.

Text 1

In a study of insect behavior, Samadi Galpayage and colleagues presented bumblebees with small wooden balls and observed many of the bees clinging to, rolling, and dragging the objects. The researchers provided no external rewards (such as food) to encourage these interactions. The bees simply appeared to be playing—and for no other reason than because they were having fun.

Text 2

Insects do not have cortexes or other brain areas associated with emotions in humans. Still, Galpayage and her team have shown that bumblebees may engage in play, possibly experiencing some kind of positive emotional state. Other studies have suggested that bees experience negative emotional states (for example, stress), but as Galpayage and her team have acknowledged, emotions in insects, if they do indeed exist, are likely very rudimentary.

How do you think the author of Text 2 would respond to the highlighted part of Text 1, based on the information provided?

A) By objecting that the bees were actually experiencing a negative feeling akin to stress rather than a positive feeling.

B) By arguing that some insects other than bumblebees may be capable of experiencing complex emotional states.

C) By noting that if the bees were truly playing, any positive feelings they may have experienced were probably quite basic.

D) By pointing out that even humans sometimes struggle to have fun while engaging in play.

The following text is adapted from Oscar Wilde’s 1897 nonfiction work De Profundis. People whose desire is solely for self-realisation never know where they are going. They can’t know. In one sense of the word it is of course necessary to know oneself: that is the first achievement of knowledge. But to recognise that the soul of a man is unknowable, is the ultimate achievement of wisdom. The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?

Which choice best describes the function of the highlighted part as a whole?

A) It reinforces the text’s skepticism about the possibility of truly achieving self-knowledge.

B)It speculates that some readers will share the doubts expressed in the text about the value of self-knowledge.

C) It cautions readers that the text’s directions for how to achieve self-knowledge are hard to follow.

D) It concedes that the definition of self-knowledge advanced in the text is unpopular

The following text is adapted from Louisa May Alcott’s 1869 novel An Old-Fashioned Girl. Polly, a teenager, is visiting her friend Fanny. Fanny’s friends did not interest Polly much; she was rather afraid of them [because] they seemed so much older and wiser than herself, even those younger in years. They talked about things of which she knew nothing and when Fanny tried to explain, she didn’t find them interesting; indeed, some of them rather shocked and puzzled her.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) To illustrate how Fanny’s friends feel about Polly

B) To identify the topics Polly talks about with Fanny’s friends

C) To explain how Fanny met some of her friends

D) To portray Polly’s reaction to Fanny’s friends

Text 1

For decades, bluegrass musicians have debated whether their genre should exclude influences from mainstream genres such as rock. Many insist that bluegrass is defined by its adherence to the folk music of the US South, out of which bluegrass emerged. Such “purists,” as they are known, regard the recordings of Bill Monroe, which established the bluegrass sound in the 1940s, as a standard against which the genre should still be measured.

Text 2

Bluegrass isn’t simply an extension of folk traditions into the era of recorded music. In reality, Bill Monroe created the bluegrass sound in the 1940s by combining Southern folk music with commercial genres that had arisen only a few decades before, such as jazz and the blues. Since bluegrass has always been a mixed genre, contemporary bluegrass musicians should not be forbidden from incorporating into it influences from rock and other mainstream genres.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely regard the perspective of bluegrass purists, as described in Text 1?

A) As inconsistent, since bluegrass purists themselves enjoy other musical genres

B) As unrealistic, since bluegrass purists have no way of enforcing their musical preferences

C) As illogical, because the purists overlook crucial aspects of how the bluegrass sound first originated.

D) As shortsighted, because bluegrass could enlarge its audience by including influences from mainstream genres

The following text is adapted from Louisa May Alcott’s 1869 novel An Old-Fashioned Girl. Polly, a teenager, is visiting her friend Fanny. Fanny’s friends did not interest Polly much; she was rather afraid of them [because] they seemed so much older and wiser than herself, even those younger in years. They talked about things of which she knew nothing and when Fanny tried to explain, she didn’t find them interesting; indeed, some of them rather shocked and puzzled her.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) To explain how Fanny met some of her friends

B) To identify the topics Polly talks about with Fanny’s friends

C) To illustrate how Fanny’s friends feel about Polly

D) To portray Polly’s reaction to Fanny’s friends.

Text 1

Literary scholars have struggled with the vastness of Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka’s collective works of drama (spanning over 20 plays in total). It is best, however, to understand Soyinka’s body of work as a dramatist chronologically. Soyinka’s progression as a playwright can be considered to fall into three periods, with each one representing a particular thematic and stylistic cohesion: the 1960s, the two decades between 1970 and 1990, and lastly, from roughly 1990 onwards.

Text 2

It is tempting to impose a linear sense of order on the expanse of Wole Soyinka’s body of work as a dramatist. However, critics who have considered Soyinka’s plays to fit neatly into three phases overlook potential commonalities in Soyinka’s work that span across these phases. Additionally, this view may discount significant differences in the styles and content of plays written around the same time.

Which choice best describes a difference in how the author of Text 1 and the author of Text 2 view the study of Soyinka’s works of drama?

A) The author of Text 1 considers Soyinka’s plays to showcase his strongest writing, whereas the author of Text 2 believes that Soyinka’s poetry is where he is most skilled.

B) While the author of Text 1 believes that thinking about Soyinka’s works of theater in phases is useful, the author of Text 2 views such an approach as limiting.

C) Although the author of Text 1 claims that Soyinka’s style as a dramatist has evolved over time, the author of Text 2 argues that Soyinka’s style has remained consistent throughout his career.

D) The author of Text 1 argues that Soyinka’s early plays were his most politically charged, whereas the author of Text 2 claims that Soyinka’s most recent plays are the most politicized.

The following text is adapted from Charles Dickens’s 1854 novel Hard Times. Coketown is a fictional town in England.[Coketown] contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another,inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next. 

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) To emphasize the uniformity of both the town and the people who live there.

B) To explain the limited work opportunities available to the town’s residents.

C) To reveal how the predictability of the town makes it easy for people lose track of time

D) To argue that the simplicity of life in the town makes it a pleasant place to live

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, then summarizes his worldview.

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 addresses a criticism leveled against him, then announces a grand ambition of his.

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

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

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

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