Literary agents estimate that more than half of all nonfiction books credited to a celebrity or other public figure are in fact written by ghostwriters, professional authors who are paid to write other____but whose names never appear on book covers.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A) peoples story’s

B) people’s stories

C) peoples stories

D) people’s story’s

While exploring Nevada’s Gypsum Cave in 1930, Seneca and Abenaki archaeologist Bertha Parker made her most famous discovery: the skull of a now-extinct ground sloth (Nothrotheriops shastensis) alongside human-made tools. Parker’s crucial finding was the first____humans in North America as far back as 10,000 years ago.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A) places

B) place

C) to place

D) placed

Led by Syrian American astronomer Shadia Habbal, the Solar Wind Sherpas are an intrepid team of scientists who travel the globe to study solar winds, the streams of particles emanating from the Sun that are only visible from certain locations during a total solar eclipse. When such an eclipse is imminent, the Sherpas pack up their telescopes and____ready.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A) get

B) had gotten

C) got

D) were getting

Objects ranging from the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle to the Yamaha VMAX motorcycle to the Komachi bullet train____designed by twentieth-century industrial designer Kenji Ekuan.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A) was

B) is

C) has been

D) were

Far from being modern inventions,____more than 5,000 years ago.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A)Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia used drinking straws

B) the use of drinking straws by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia happened

C) drinking straws were used by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia

D) ancient Mesopotamia was home to Sumerians who used drinking straws.

In the 1950s, a man named Joseph McVicker was struggling to keep his business afloat when his sister-in-law Kay Zufall advised him to repurpose the company’s product, a nontoxic, clay-like substance for removing soot from wallpaper, as a modeling putty for kids. In addition, Zufall____selling the product under a child-friendly name: Play-Doh.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A) suggests

B) had suggested

C) was suggesting

D) suggested

Professional American football player Fred Cox invented one of the world’s most popular toys. In the 1970s, he came up with the idea for the Nerf football, which____of the harder and heavier regulation football.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A) were a smaller, foam version

B) is a smaller, foam version

C) are smaller, foam versions

D) were smaller, foam versions

Because a cycle of lunar phases____29.5 days to complete, it’s possible to observe two full moons in a single month, one at the beginning and one at the end. 

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A) takes

B) have taken

C) take

D) are taking

Known for her massive photorealistic paintings of African American figures floating or swimming in pools, Calida Garcia____was the logical choice to design the book cover for Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, a novel about an AfricanAmerican man who can travel great distances through water.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A) Rawles-

B) Rawles:

C) Rawles,

D) Rawles

On April 5, 1977, Kitty Cone and 150 other disability rights activists entered a San Francisco federal building. After pleading for years—to no effect—for the passage of key antidiscrimination legislation,____until their demands were addressed.Finally, on April 28, the legislation was signed.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A) pressure on lawmakers increased when the activists staged a sit-in protest

B) lawmakers came under increased pressure when the activists staged a sit-in protest

C) the activists increased pressure on lawmakers by staging a sit-in protest.

D) a sit-in protest staged by the activists increased pressure on lawmakers