Text 1

San Francisco is known for the colorful murals painted on many of its buildings. The densest collection of murals is found on Balmy Alley in the Mission District neighborhood. In the 1970s, Latina artists painted vivid scenes of community life on walls along this block. As the original murals have faded, later generations of artists have painted new ones over them. As a result, Balmy Alley has become a living showcase of San Francisco’s artistic spirit, with its murals reflecting changes in the cultural life of the city.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) To compare the Balmy Alley murals to other murals in San Francisco.

B) To offer an overview of the history and importance of the Balmy Alley murals.

C) To urge people to protect the murals of San Francisco from decay.

D) To describe the rise of mural painting in San Francisco beginning in the 1970s.

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 shortsighted, because bluegrass could enlarge its audience by including influences from mainstream genres.

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

For his 1986 album Keyboard Fantasies, Beverly Glenn-Copeland wrote songs grounded in traditional soul and folk music, then accompanied them with futuristic synthesizer arrangements featuring ambient sounds and complex rhythms. The result was so strange, so unprecedented, that the album attracted little attention when first released. In recent years, however, a younger generation of musicians has embraced the stylistic experimentation of Keyboard Fantasies. Alternative R&B musicians Blood Orange and Moses Sumney, among other contemporary recording artists, cite the album as an influence.

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

A)It offers examples of younger musicians whose work has been impacted by Keyboard Fantasies.

B) It responds to criticism of Keyboard Fantasies by some younger musicians.

C) It urges contemporary musicians to adopt the unique sound of Keyboard Fantasies.

D) It contrasts Keyboard Fantasies with the recordings of two younger musicians.

Archeological excavation of Market Street Chinatown, a nineteenth-century Chinese American community in San Jose,California, provided the first evidence that Asian food products were imported to the United States in the 1800s: bones from a freshwater fish species native to Southeast Asia. Jinshanzhuang—Hong Kong–based import/export firms—likely coordinated the fish’s transport from Chinese-operated fisheries in Vietnam and Malaysia to North American markets. This route reveals the (often overlooked) multinational dimensions of the trade networks linking Chinese diaspora communities.

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

A) It explains why efforts to determine the country of origin of the items mentioned in the previous sentence remain inconclusive.

B) It traces the steps that were taken to locate and recover the objects that are described in the previous sentence.

C) It provides information that helps support a claim about a discovery’s significance that is presented in the following sentence.

D) It outlines a hypothesis that additional evidence discussed in the following sentence casts some doubt on.

Musician Joni Mitchell, who is also a painter, uses images she creates for her album covers to emphasize ideas expressed in her music. For the cover of her album Turbulent Indigo (1994), Mitchell painted a striking self-portrait that closely resembles Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889). The image calls attention to the album’s title song, in which Mitchell sings about the legacy of the postimpressionist painter. In that song, Mitchell also hints that she feels a strong artistic connection to Van Gogh—an idea that is reinforced by her imagery on the cover.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A) It describes a similarity between two artists, then notes a difference between them.

B) It presents a claim about Mitchell, then gives an example supporting that claim.

C) It discusses Van Gogh’s influence on Mitchell, then considers Mitchell’s influence on other artists.

D) It describes the songs on Turbulent Indigo, then explains how they relate to the album’s cover.

Text 1

Historians studying pre-Inca Peru have looked to ceramic vessels to understand daily life among the Moche people. These mold-made sculptures present plants, animals, and human faces in precise ways—vessels representing human faces are so detailed that scholars have interpreted facial markings to represent scars and other skin irregularities. Some historians have even used these objects to identify potential skin diseases that may have afflicted people at the time.

Text 2

Art historian and archaeologist Lisa Trever has argued that the interpretation of Moche “portrait” vessels as hyper-realistic portrayals of identifiable people may inadvertently disregard the creativity of the objects’ creators. Moche ceramic vessels,Trever argues, are artworks in which sculptors could free their imagination, using realistic objects and people around them as inspiration to explore more abstract concepts.

Based on the texts, what would Lisa Trever (Text 2) say about the interpretation presented in the highlighted portion of Text 1?

A) Depictions of human faces are significantly more realistic than depictions of plants and other animals are.

B) It is likely that some depictions of human faces with extensive markings are intended to portray the same historical individual.

C) Markings on depictions of human faces are not necessarily intended to portray particular details about the physical appearance of individuals.

D) Some vessels may have been damaged during their excavation and thus provide little insight into Moche culture.

The following text is from Georgia Douglas Johnson’s 1922 poem “Benediction.”

Go forth, my son,
Winged by my heart’s desire!
Great reaches, yet unknown,
Await
For your possession.
I may not, if I would,
Retrace the way with you,
My pilgrimage is through,
But life is calling you!

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) To express hope that a child will have the same accomplishments as his parent did.

B) To suggest that raising a child involves many struggles.

C) To warn a child that he will face many challenges throughout his life.

D) To encourage a child to embrace the experiences life will offer.

Using NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Mercedes López-Morales and colleagues measured the wavelengths of light traveling through the atmosphere of WASP-39b, an exoplanet, or planet outside our solar system. Different molecules absorb different wavelengths of light, and the wavelength measurements showed the presence of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in WASP-39b’s atmosphere. This finding not only offers the first decisive evidence of CO₂ in the atmosphere of an exoplanet but also illustrates the potential for future scientific breakthroughs held by the JWST.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A) It discusses a method used by some researchers, then states why an alternative method is superior to it.

B) It outlines the steps taken in a scientific study, then presents a hypothesis based on that study.

C) It describes how researchers made a scientific discovery, then explains the importance of that discovery.

D) It examines how a group of scientists reached a conclusion, then shows how other scientists have challenged that conclusion.

In 1973, poet Miguel Algarín started inviting other writers who, like him, were Nuyorican—a term for New Yorkers of Puerto Rican heritage—to gather in his apartment to present their work. The gatherings were so well attended that Algarín soon had to rent space in a cafe to accommodate them. Thus, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe was born. Moving to a permanent location in 1981, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe expanded its original scope beyond the written word, hosting art exhibitions and musical performances as well. Half a century since its inception, it continues to foster emerging Nuyorican talent.

Which choice best describes the overall purpose of the text?

A) To explain what motivated Algarín to found the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

B) To situate the Nuyorican Poets Cafe within the cultural life of New York as a whole.

C) To provide an overview of the founding and mission of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

D) To discuss why the Nuyorican Poets Cafe expanded its scope to include art and music.

The following text is adapted from Paul Laurence Dunbar’s 1902 novel The Sport of the Gods. Joe and some of his family members have recently moved to New York City. [Joe] was wild with enthusiasm and with a desire to be a part of all that the metropolis meant. In the evening he saw the young fellows passing by dressed in their spruce clothes, and he wondered with a sort of envy where they could be going. Back home there had been no place much worth going to, except church and one or two people’s houses.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) It illustrates a character’s reaction to a new environment.

B) It explains why a character has traveled to a city.

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

D) To argue that the simplicity of life in the town makes it a pleasant place to live It presents a character feeling regret over leaving home.