According to botanists, a viburnum plant experiencing insect damage may develop erineum—a discolored, felty growth—on its leaf blades.A____viburnum plant, on the other hand, will have leaves with smooth surfaces and uniformly green coloration.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) struggling

B) beneficial

C) simple

D) healthy

Nigerian American author Teju Cole’s____his two passions—photography and the written word—culminates in his 2017 book, Blind Spot,which evocatively combines his original photographs from his travels with his poetic prose.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) indifference to

B) enthusiasm for

C) concern about

D) surprise at

The following text is from the 1924 poem “Cycle”by D’Arcy McNickle, who was a citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
There shall be new roads wending,
A new beating of the drum—
Men’s eyes shall have fresh seeing,
Grey lives reprise their span—
But under the new sun’s being,
Completing what night began,
There’ll be the same backs bending,
The same sad feet shall drum—
When this night finds its ending
And day shall have come…​..

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) To consider how the repetitiveness inherent in human life can be both rewarding and challenging.

B) To question whether activities completed at one time of day are more memorable than those completed at another time of day.

C) To refute the idea that joy is a more commonly experienced emotion than sadness is.

D) To demonstrate how the experiences of individuals relate to the experiences of their communities.

Novelist N. K. Jemisin declines to____the conventions of the science fiction genre in which she writes, and she has suggested that her readers appreciate her work precisely because of this willingness to thwart expectations and avoid formulaic plots and themes.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) question

B) react to

C) perceive

D) conform to

In Nature Poem (2017), Kumeyaay poet Tommy Pico portrays his____the natural world by honoring the centrality of nature within his tribe’s traditional beliefs while simultaneously expressing his distaste for being in wilderness settings himself.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) responsiveness to

B) renunciation of

C) ambivalence toward

D) mastery over

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 more 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) The fossil constitutes the first evidence found by scientists that mixopterids lived more than 400 million years ago.

B) The fossil helps establish that mixopterids are more closely related to modern arachnids and horseshoe crabs than previously thought.

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

Text 1

Astronomer Mark Holland and colleagues examined four white dwarfs—small, dense remnants of past stars—in order to determine the composition ofexoplanets 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 premature, because researchers have only just begun trying to determine what kinds of crusts white dwarf exoplanets had.

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.

The following text is adapted from Jane Austen’s 1814 novel Mansfield Park. The speaker, Tom, is considering staging a play at home with a group of his friends and family. We mean nothing but a little amusement among ourselves, just to vary the scene, and exercise our powers in something new. We want no audience, no publicity. We may be trusted, I think, in choosing some play most perfectly unexceptionable; and I can conceive no greater harm or danger to any of us in conversing in the elegant written language of some respectable author than in chattering in words of our own.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) To clarify that the play will not be performed in the manner Tom had originally intended.

B) To offer Tom’s assurance that the play will be inoffensive and involve only a small number of people.

C) To elaborate on the idea that the people around Tom lack the skills to successfully stage a play.

D) To assert that Tom believes the group performing the play will be able to successfully promote it.

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 triking 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 the songs on Turbulent Indigo, then explains how they relate to the album’s cover.

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

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

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

The domestic sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas)descends from a wild plant native to South America.It also populates the Polynesian Islands, where evidence confirms that Native Hawaiians and other Indigenous peoples were cultivating the plant centuries before seafaring first occurred over the thousands of miles of ocean separating them from South America. To explain how the sweet potato was first introduced in Polynesia, botanist Pablo Muñoz-Rodríguez and colleagues analyzed the DNA of numerous varieties of the plant, concluding that Polynesian varieties diverged from South American ones over 100,000 years ago. Given that Polynesia was peopled only in the last three thousand years, the team concluded that____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the cultivation of the sweet potato in Polynesia likely predates its cultivation in South America.

B) Polynesian peoples likely acquired the sweet potato from South American peoples only within the last three thousand years.

C) human activity likely played no role in the introduction of the sweet potato in Polynesia.

D) Polynesian sweet potato varieties likely descend from a single South American variety that was domesticated, not wild.

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 who were Black rose in the early 1970s and stabilized throughout the decade.

B) Black authors who were interviewed in the 1980s and 1990s were highly likely to cite Toni Morrison’s novels as a principal influence on their work.

C) The novels written by Toni Morrison that were published after 1983 sold significantly more copies and received wider critical acclaim than the novels she wrote that were published before 1983.

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

Ratified by more than 90 countries, the Nagoya Protocol is an international agreement ensuring that Indigenous communities are compensated when their agricultural resources and knowledge of wild plants and animals are utilized by agricultural corporations. However, the protocol has shortcomings. For example, it allows corporations to insist that their agreements with communities to conduct research on the commercial uses of the communities’ resources and knowledge remain confidential. Therefore, some Indigenous advocates express concern that the protocol may have the unintended effect of____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) diminishing the monetary reward that corporations might derive from their agreements with Indigenous communities.

B) limiting the research that corporations conduct on the resources of the Indigenous communities with which they have signed agreements.

C) discouraging Indigenous communities from learning new methods for harvesting plants and animals from their corporate partners.

D) preventing independent observers from determining whether the agreements guarantee equitable compensation for Indigenous communities.

Atoms in a synchrotron, a type of circular particle accelerator, travel faster and faster until they____a desired energy level, at which point they are diverted to collide with a target, smashing the atoms.

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

A) will reach

B) reach

C) had reached

D) are reaching

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 industry itself, for industry provides them with a means of subsistence, while literature gives them the desire and strength for life.

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

C) Where will a race of men go when they have lost the habit of thinking with faith about the scope and meaning of their actions? 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.

D) 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.

Former First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt and Indian activist and educator Hansa Mehta were instrumental in drafting the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that ____the basic freedoms to which all people are entitled.

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

A) have outlined

B) were outlining

C) outlines

D) outline

Even though bats prefer very sweet nectar, the plants that attract them have evolved to produce nectar that is only moderately sweet. A recent study____why: making sugar is energy-intensive, and it is more advantageous for plants to make a large amount of low-sugar nectar than a small amount of high-sugar nectar.

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

A) explains

B) explaining

C) having explained

D) to explain

The life spans of rockfish vary greatly by species. For instance, the colorful calico rockfish (Sebastes dalli)can survive for a little over a____the rougheye rockfish (Sebastes aleutianus) boasts a maximum life span of about two centuries.

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

A) decade: while

B) decade, while

C) decade; while

D) decade. While

The Lion Light system, developed by Kenyan inventor Richard Turere, consists of LED lights installed around the perimeter of livestock pastures.Powered with____the blinking LEDs keep lions away at night, thus protecting the livestock without risking harm to the endangered lions.

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

A) energy collected, by solar panels, during the day

B) energy collected by solar panels during the day

C) energy collected by solar panels during the day,

D) energy, collected by solar panels during the day,

Materials scientist Marie-Agathe Charpagne and her colleagues believed they could improve on the multicomponent alloy NiCoCr, an equal-proportions mixture of nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co), and chromium (Cr), by replacing chromium with ruthenium____the alloy that resulted, NiCoRu, turned out to be an unsuitable replacement for NiCoCr.

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

A) (Ru), but

B) (Ru) but

C) (Ru),

D) (Ru)

Based on genetic evidence, archaeologists have generally agreed that reindeer domestication began in the eleventh century CE. However, since uncovering fragments of a 2,000-year-old reindeer training harness in northern Siberia,____may have begun much earlier.

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

A) researcher Robert Losey has argued that domestication.

B) researcher Robert Losey’s argument is that domestication

C) domestication, researcher Robert Losey has argued,

D) the argument researcher Robert Losey has made is that domestication.

The Progressive Era in the United States witnessed the rise of numerous Black women’s clubs, local organizations that advocated for racial and gender equality. Among the clubs’ leaders____Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, founder of the Women’s Era Club of Boston.

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

A) are

B) were

C) was

D) have been

Hegra is an archaeological site in present-day Saudi Arabia and was the second largest city of the Nabataean Kingdom (fourth century BCE to first century CE). Archaeologist Laila Nehmé recently traveled to Hegra to study its ancient____into the rocky outcrops of a vast desert, these burial chambers seem to blend seamlessly with nature.

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

A) tombs. Built

B) tombs, built

C) tombs and built

D) tombs built

When external forces are applied to common glass made from silicates, energy builds up around minuscule defects in the material, resulting in fractures. Recently, engineer Erkka Frankberg of Tampere University in Finland used the chemical____to make a glassy solid that can withstand higher strain than silicate glass can before fracturing.

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

A) compound, aluminum oxide

B) compound aluminum oxide,

C) compound, aluminum oxide,

D) compound aluminum oxide

Etched into Peru’s Nazca Desert are line drawings so large that they can only be fully seen from high above. Archaeologists have known of the lines since the 1920s, when a researcher spotted some from a nearby foothill, and they have been studying the markings ever since.____archaeologists’ efforts are aided by drones that capture high-resolution aerial photographs of the lines.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A) Still,

B) In comparison,

C) Currently,

D) However,

Archaeologist Sue Brunning explains why the seventh-century ship burial site at Sutton Hoo in England was likely the tomb of a king. First, the gold artifacts inside the ship suggest that the person buried with them was a wealthy and respected leader.____the massive effort required to bury the ship would likely only have been undertaken for a king.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A) Second,

B) Still,

C) Specifically,

D) Instead,

The more diverse and wide ranging an animal’s behaviors, the larger and more energy demanding the animal’s brain tends to be.____from an evolutionary perspective, animals that perform only basic actions should allocate fewer resources to growing and maintaining brain tissue. The specialized subtypes of ants within colonies provide an opportunity to explore this hypothesis.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A) Subsequently,

B) Besides,

C) Nevertheless,

D) Thus,

When designing costumes for film, American artist Suttirat Larlarb typically custom fits the garments to each actor.____for the film Sunshine, in which astronauts must reignite a dying Sun, she designed a golden spacesuit and had a factory reproduce it in a few standard sizes; lacking a tailor-made quality, the final creations reflected the ungainliness of actual spacesuits.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A) Thus,

B) Nevertheless,

C) Likewise,

D) Moreover,

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• The factors that affect clutch size (the number of eggs laid at one time) have been well studied in birds but not in lizards.

• A team led by Shai Meiri of Tel Aviv University investigated which factors influence lizard clutch size.

• Meiri’s team obtained clutch-size and habitat data for over 3,900 lizard species and analyzed the data with statistical models.

• Larger clutch size was associated with environments in higher latitudes that have more seasonal change.

• Lizards in higher-latitude environments may lay larger clutches to take advantage of shorter windows of favorable conditions.

The student wants to emphasize the aim of the research study.

Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

A) We now know that lizards in higher-latitude environments may lay larger clutches to take dvantage of shorter windows of favorable conditions.

B) After they obtained data for over 3,900 lizard species, researchers determined that larger clutch size was associated with environments in higher latitudes that have more seasonal change.

C) Researchers wanted to know which factorsinfluence lizard egg clutch size because suchfactors have been well studied in birds but not in lizards.

D) Researchers obtained clutch-size and habitat data for over 3,900 lizard species and analyzed the data with statistical models.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Shaun Tan is an Australian author.

• In 2008, he published Tales from Outer Suburbia,a book of fifteen short stories.

• The stories describe surreal events occurring in otherwise ordinary suburban neighborhoods.

• In 2018, he published Tales from the Inner City, a book of twenty-five short stories.

• The stories describe surreal events occurring in otherwise ordinary urban settings.

The student wants to emphasize a similarity between the two books by Shaun Tan.

Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

A) Shaun Tan’s book Tales from Outer Suburbia,which describes surreal events occurring in otherwise ordinary places, contains fewer short stories than Tales from the Inner City does.

B) Tales from Outer Suburbia was published in 2008, and Tales from the Inner City was published in 2018.

C) Unlike Tales from the Inner City, Shaun Tan’s book Tales from Outer Suburbia is set in suburban neighborhoods.

D) Shaun Tan’s books Tales from Outer Suburbia and Tales from the Inner City both describe surreal events occurring in otherwise ordinary places.