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Advanced Reading and Writing Practice Test 3Advanced 3
Reading and Writing
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Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 1 of 27
The first telegraph cable laid across the Atlantic Ocean, completed in 1858, carried messages for only about three weeks before it failed, and a second cable snapped and was lost in midocean in 1865. Cyrus Field, the American businessman who had organized both efforts, nonetheless remained ______: he immediately began raising money for yet another attempt and assured investors that a stronger cable would succeed. In 1866 a new cable began operating, and it continued to work for years.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Correct choice: sanguine
Despite two failures, Field “immediately began raising money” and “assured investors that a stronger cable would succeed.” He remained sanguine—hopeful and confident about the outcome—before the 1866 success.
A: “Ambivalent” means having mixed feelings, but the text describes Field acting decisively and assuring investors of success.
B: Field was vindicated only when the 1866 cable worked; the blank describes his attitude after the 1865 failure, before any cable had lasted, so “remained vindicated” reverses the order of events.
C: “Complacent” means contentedly satisfied and so not inclined to act, but Field responded to the failures by immediately organizing another costly attempt.
Watch for: Place the blank in the story’s timeline: a word that fits the ending may not fit the moment the blank describes.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 2 of 27
The following text is from Charles Lamb’s essay “Poor Relations,” collected in his 1833 book The Last Essays of Elia. The narrator recalls W——, a proud schoolmate at Christ’s Hospital, a London charity school whose pupils wore long blue coats.
Poor W—— was of my own standing at Christ’s, a fine classic, and a youth of promise. If he had a blemish, it was too much pride; but its quality was inoffensive; it was not of that sort which hardens the heart, and serves to keep inferiors at a distance; it only sought to ward off derogation from itself. [...] Many a quarrel have I had with him, when we were rather older boys, and our tallness made us more Underlined: obnoxious End underlined. to observation in the blue clothes, because I would not thread the alleys and blind ways of the town with him to elude notice, when we have been out together on a holiday in the streets of this sneering and prying metropolis.
As used in the text, what does the word “obnoxious” most nearly mean?
Correct choice: exposed
The boys’ tallness made them easier to notice in their conspicuous uniforms, which is why W—— wanted to slip through “alleys and blind ways” to “elude notice.” Being “obnoxious to observation” here means being exposed, or liable, to it—an older sense of the word.
B: The quarrels arose because W—— cared a great deal about being noticed, so the boys were not indifferent to observation; the sentence describes how noticeable they were.
C: W—— disliked being watched, but the sentence says that the boys’ tallness made them more “obnoxious to observation”; height could not make them hostile to being seen, only more exposed to it.
D: “Offensive” is the modern sense of “obnoxious,” but the narrator is describing how easily the boys could be seen, not any offense they gave; being tall does not make anyone offensive to observation.
Watch for: In older prose, “obnoxious to” something often means “exposed” or “liable” to it; check what the context says actually happens to the people described.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 3 of 27
To readers who know Spanish or Italian, the letter i in the English word bite seems to stand for the wrong sound, as does the ou in house to readers who know French. In Middle English, the vowel of bite sounded much like the vowel in modern beet, and the vowel of house much like the one in modern goose. Between about 1400 and 1700, English speakers gradually changed the pronunciation of these and other long vowels, a change linguists call the Great Vowel Shift. Across the same centuries, printers, beginning with William Caxton in the 1470s, were gradually settling on standard spellings for English words.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
Correct choice: To suggest why some English letters seem to stand for the wrong sounds by placing two developments of the same period side by side
The text opens with a puzzle—English letters seem to stand for the “wrong” sounds—and then sets two developments side by side: the long vowels changed between 1400 and 1700 while spellings were being fixed. It leaves readers to infer that spellings settled on during or before the shift still record the older sounds, so its purpose is to account for the puzzle.
A: The text does not say that the vowel shift created a need for standard spellings; it presents the two developments as happening in the same period without making one the cause of the other.
B: The text never says that printers modeled their spellings on other languages; the comparison with Spanish, Italian and French only sets up the puzzle.
C: The text states what Middle English vowels sounded like but says nothing about how linguists learned this.
Watch for: When a text lays two facts side by side without stating their connection, the purpose is often to let that connection explain something raised at the start.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 4 of 27
For some fourteen centuries, most European physicians followed the ancient physician Galen in holding that the liver continually turns digested food into blood, which the body’s tissues then use up. In his 1628 book on the motion of the heart, the English physician William Harvey multiplied the amount of blood that he estimated the heart sends out with each beat by the number of times it beats. Underlined: Even with cautious assumptions, he found that the heart sends out more blood in half an hour than the entire body contains. End underlined. Harvey concluded that the same blood must leave the heart and return to it over and over again.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
Correct choice: It gives a result implying that, if the first sentence were true, the liver would have to turn food into blood far faster than seems possible.
If the tissues used up the blood and the liver replaced it from food, the liver would have to make more than the body’s entire supply of blood every half hour. The underlined result shows how implausible that is, which is why Harvey concluded that the same blood must circulate.
A: The calculation concerns how much blood passes through the heart, but its role in the text is to undercut the view that the liver makes blood continually, not to explain the heart’s workload.
C: The sentence compares the heart’s output with the body’s total blood; it does not claim that the body contains less blood than anyone believed.
D: Harvey drew the opposite conclusion: the same blood returns again and again, so the tissues do not use it up.
Watch for: Ask what the number would mean if the first view were true; a calculation often works by showing that a rival view demands something impossible.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 5 of 27
The following text is from Thomas Love Peacock’s 1818 novel Nightmare Abbey. Scythrop, a young man who spends his days reading in a gloomy family mansion, has become “troubled with the passion for reforming the world.” Illuminati and eleutherarchs are members and leaders of secret political societies; Horrid Mysteries is the title of a Gothic novel.
He built many castles in the air, and peopled them with secret tribunals, and bands of illuminati, who were always the imaginary instruments of his projected regeneration of the human species. Underlined: As he intended to institute a perfect republic, he invested himself with absolute sovereignty over these mystical dispensers of liberty. End underlined. He slept with Horrid Mysteries under his pillow, and dreamed of venerable eleutherarchs and ghastly confederates holding midnight conventions in subterranean caves.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
Correct choice: It exposes a contradiction in Scythrop’s ambition, since the liberty he means to establish would depend on his own unlimited power.
Scythrop means to found “a perfect republic” served by “dispensers of liberty,” yet he gives himself “absolute sovereignty” over them. The sentence quietly exposes the contradiction—liberty imposed by an absolute ruler—and so mocks his reforming passion.
B: The castles were imaginary from the start (“castles in the air”); the sentence does not explain why they stayed imaginary, and nothing says Scythrop distrusted others.
C: The sentence does name Scythrop’s goal, a republic, but the narrator pairs it with “absolute sovereignty” to mock the scheme rather than to approve of it.
D: Nothing suggests that Scythrop confused his imagined societies; the sentence concerns the power he gives himself over them.
Watch for: Satire often works by setting two words side by side that cannot both be true of the same scheme—here “republic” and “absolute sovereignty.”
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 6 of 27
Text 1
In the 1880s biologist August Weismann cut off the tails of mice for five successive generations; none of the more than 900 young born to these mice had shortened tails. His experiment is often cited as having disproved the idea, associated with the naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, that characteristics an animal acquires during its life can be passed on to its offspring.
Text 2
Lamarck proposed that an animal’s organs grow stronger through repeated use, or weaker through disuse, as the animal responds to its needs over its lifetime, and that such changes could be inherited. Nothing in his account suggests that injuries inflicted on an animal from outside would be passed on.
Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the way Text 1 characterizes Weismann’s experiment?
Correct choice: By arguing that the experiment tested a kind of change that Lamarck’s proposal did not concern and so could not by itself refute it.
Text 1 treats the mice’s normal tails as a refutation of Lamarck. Text 2 explains that Lamarck’s idea concerned changes an animal produces in itself through use or disuse, not injuries imposed from outside. The author of Text 2 would therefore say that cutting off tails tested something Lamarck never proposed, so the experiment could not by itself refute him.
A: Text 2 does not claim that Lamarck’s proposal has been confirmed or that Weismann’s results were wrong; it questions only what the results can show.
B: The number of generations is a possible objection, but Text 2 does not raise it; its point is about what kind of change the experiment tested.
D: Text 2 distinguishes changes produced by an animal’s own use or disuse of its organs from injuries inflicted from outside, and it says Lamarck’s account concerns only the former, so the author would not treat a cut tail as a fair test.
Watch for: Before accepting that an experiment refutes a theory, check that it tests what the theory actually claims.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 7 of 27
Text 1
When Nicaragua opened its first large schools for deaf children in the late 1970s, deaf students, most of whom had never met other signers, began creating a shared sign language. Over the following years the language became more systematic; for example, signers increasingly used a particular location in the space in front of them to refer back to the same person or thing. Some linguists have attributed such changes to the language’s longer use: the more years a community uses a language, the more time it has to refine it.
Text 2
Psychologists Ann Senghas and Marie Coppola compared the schools’ first signers with later entrants who learned from them. Among signers who had begun signing before about age ten, later entrants used locations to refer back to people and things more consistently than first-group signers did, even though the first group had been signing for longer. Among signers who had begun signing at older ages, entering later brought no such advantage.
Based on the texts, how would Senghas and Coppola (Text 2) most likely respond to the linguists’ explanation in Text 1?
Correct choice: They would argue that it cannot account for why the advantage appeared only among later entrants who began signing as young children.
If longer use alone refined the language, everyone signing in the community later on should have benefited, including later entrants who started as teenagers. Instead, the advantage appeared only in later entrants who started as young children—and those signers outdid first-group signers who had been signing longer. The change depended on young children learning the language, which elapsed time alone cannot explain.
A: Text 2 reports that the later entrants who began young used locations more consistently, so the language grew more systematic, not less.
B: It is true that later entrants learned an older language, but older-starting later entrants learned the same language and showed no advantage, so the language’s age cannot be what made the difference.
D: Neither text mentions spoken language, so nothing suggests that Senghas and Coppola would raise it.
Watch for: When a second text reports only a comparison, ask which explanation the comparison rules out: here, time in use is the same for groups that differ in result.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 8 of 27
Text 1
Until the 1980s most physicians attributed stomach ulcers to stress and to excess stomach acid. Drugs that reduce acid eased patients’ pain and allowed ulcers to heal, and many physicians took this success as confirmation that acid was the underlying cause of the disease.
Text 2
Physicians Robin Warren and Barry Marshall found the bacterium Helicobacter pylori in the stomachs of most ulcer patients. In later trials, ulcers came back within about a year in most patients whose ulcers had been healed with acid-reducing drugs alone, but in far fewer patients who had also been given antibiotics that eliminated the bacterium.
Based on the texts, how would Warren and Marshall (Text 2) most likely respond to the reasoning in Text 1?
Correct choice: They would argue that the drugs’ success does not show that acid is the underlying cause, since ulcers usually returned if the bacterium remained.
Text 1 reasons that because reducing acid healed ulcers, acid must be the cause. Text 2 shows that ulcers healed that way usually returned, while eliminating the bacterium kept them away. Relief from treating a symptom does not show what caused the disease; Warren and Marshall would point to the bacterium.
A: Text 2 says the antibiotics were given in addition to acid-reducing drugs, so it offers no evidence that antibiotics alone healed ulcers or that acid plays no part.
B: Text 2 grants that the drugs healed ulcers, but its trials show that the ulcers usually came back if the bacterium remained, which undercuts the inference that acid was the underlying cause.
C: Text 2 says nothing about stress or about how the bacterium grows; this links the two texts’ explanations in a way neither text supports.
Watch for: A treatment that relieves a condition does not by itself reveal the condition’s cause; look for evidence about what happens when the treatment stops.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 9 of 27
In Homer’s epics, characters and things are regularly paired with fixed descriptive phrases: Dawn is “rosy-fingered,” ships are “swift,” and Achilles is “swift-footed,” even when he is sitting still and the ships lie beached on the shore. In the 1920s classicist Milman Parry showed that each such phrase fills a particular portion of the poem’s rhythmic line, and that for a given figure in a given position in the line, the poems almost always use one phrase and only one. Parry argued that the poems grew out of a tradition in which poets composed aloud as they performed.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
Correct choice: Parry traced the fixed phrases in Homer’s epics to the needs of poets composing aloud, which explains why a phrase can appear where it does not suit the moment.
The text raises a puzzle (phrases that do not fit the moment), reports Parry’s finding that each phrase is tied to a position in the rhythmic line, and ends with his view that the poems come from a tradition of composing aloud. Together these explain the puzzle: a poet composing in performance reached for the phrase that fit the meter, whatever the character was doing.
A: The text attributes the mismatches to how the poems were composed, not to multiple authors; Parry’s finding that each phrase is tied to a metrical position points to the needs of composition.
B: This offers an explanation that the text does not give: Parry’s finding is that the choice of phrase depends on its position in the line, not on a quality the poet wished to stress.
D: The first part matches Parry’s finding, but the text says the poems grew out of a tradition of poets composing aloud, not that they prove a single poet working from memory.
Watch for: A main-idea choice must connect the puzzle and the explanation; choices that offer an explanation the text never gives are traps, however natural they sound.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 10 of 27
In Oliver Wendell Holmes’s 1858 poem “The Deacon’s Masterpiece,” a deacon builds a one-horse carriage, or “shay,” so that no part of it is weaker than any other, and the carriage runs for exactly a hundred years. Describing the carriage on the last morning of that century, the narrator suggests that no single part of it had worn out before the others, and he traces this to the way the deacon built it.
Which quotation from “The Deacon’s Masterpiece” most effectively illustrates the claim?
Correct choice: “But nothing local, as one may say. / There couldn’t be,—for the Deacon’s art / Had made it so like in every part / That there wasn’t a chance for one to start.”
The claim has two parts: no single part wore out first, and the narrator traces this to the deacon’s building. These lines say the decay was “nothing local” and explain why: the deacon’s art had made the carriage “so like in every part” that no part could fail first.
A: These lines state the general rule that ordinary carriages have a weakest spot somewhere; they say nothing about this carriage’s condition or why it had no weak spot.
C: These lines describe the carriage’s sudden collapse, not its condition that morning or the cause the narrator gives for it.
D: These lines establish that the carriage had aged, and “general” decay at most hints at even wear; they do not state that no single part wore out first, and they give no cause.
Watch for: Match every part of the claim, including any cause it names; a vivid line about the same event can still leave half the claim unsupported.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 11 of 27
In the 1770s and 1780s the physician Franz Anton Mesmer treated patients in Paris by passing his hands or specially prepared objects near them, claiming that an invisible fluid he called animal magnetism flowed into their bodies. Many patients reported unusual sensations, and some fell into convulsions. In 1784 a commission appointed by King Louis XVI tested Mesmer’s claim. The commissioners hypothesized that the patients’ reactions were produced by their own expectations rather than by any fluid.
Which finding, if true, would most directly support the commissioners’ hypothesis?
Correct choice: Blindfolded patients reacted when told they were being treated even when no one was treating them, but did not react when treated without being told.
To support the hypothesis, expectation and treatment must be separated. Blindfolded patients reacted when they only believed they were being treated and did not react when they were treated without knowing it, so the reactions followed belief, not treatment.
A: Patients who expected effects also received the treatment, so their reactions fit a real fluid just as well as they fit expectation; this finding does not separate the two.
C: Mesmer might transmit more of the supposed fluid, or might inspire stronger expectations; this finding fits both explanations.
D: Improvement after repeated treatment fits either explanation and does not separate expectation from the supposed fluid.
Watch for: The strongest evidence separates two possible causes, showing the effect with one cause alone and its absence with the other alone.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 12 of 27
In experiments published in 1935, psychologist J. Ridley Stroop timed participants as they worked through lists of 100 items. In one experiment, participants read color words aloud, either printed in black or printed in a conflicting ink color (the word “red” in blue ink, for example). In another, participants named ink colors, either of solid squares or of color words printed in a conflicting color. Stroop concluded that a conflicting word disrupts color naming far more than a conflicting ink color disrupts word reading, citing the finding that ______
Average Time to Complete Stroop’s Lists (seconds)
Task
Without conflict
With conflict
Reading color words aloud
41.0
43.3
Naming ink colors
63.3
110.3
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the text?
Correct choice: conflict added 47.0 seconds to the time needed to name ink colors but only 2.3 seconds to the time needed to read color words.
The conclusion compares how much conflict slowed each task. Conflict raised color-naming time from 63.3 to 110.3 seconds, an increase of 47.0, but raised word-reading time only from 41.0 to 43.3 seconds, an increase of 2.3.
B: These figures are accurate, but they compare the two tasks under conflict only; without the times for each task without conflict, they cannot show how much conflict slowed either task.
C: This is accurate but gives only the small effect of conflict on word reading, without the large effect on color naming that the conclusion contrasts it with.
D: This has the right shape, but it misreads the table: 69.3 is the difference between color naming with conflict (110.3) and word reading without conflict (41.0); conflict added 47.0 seconds to color naming (63.3 to 110.3).
Watch for: When a claim compares the effect of a condition on two tasks, compare each task with itself (with versus without), not the tasks with each other.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 13 of 27
Psychologists Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke had students read two short prose passages. For one passage, students then reread it; for the other, they took a test in which they wrote down as much of it as they could remember. Students took a final test on both passages after a delay of five minutes, two days, or one week. The researchers concluded that the benefit of testing appeared only after a delay and did not shrink as the delay grew longer, citing the finding that ______
Percent of Passage Ideas Recalled on the Final Test
Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the text?
Correct choice: students recalled less of the tested passage than of the reread one after five minutes (75 versus 81 percent) but more after two days (68 versus 54 percent) and after one week (56 versus 42 percent).
The conclusion has two parts: the benefit appeared only after a delay (the tested passage was recalled less well at five minutes, 75 versus 81 percent, but better later), and it did not shrink (the advantage was 14 points after two days, 68 versus 54, and still 14 after one week, 56 versus 42). Only this choice gives all three delays correctly.
A: These figures are accurate and show a lasting advantage for testing, but they omit the five-minute result, which is needed to show that the benefit appeared only after a delay.
B: This has the right shape and would support the conclusion, but it misreads the graph: after one week, students recalled 56 percent of the tested passage, not 58.
D: This shows that the benefit appeared only after a delay, but by skipping the two-day result it cannot show that the benefit held steady rather than shrinking over time.
Watch for: A claim about how an effect changes over time needs every time point the claim covers; a choice that skips one can look complete.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 14 of 27
In the early 1890s physicist Lord Rayleigh prepared nitrogen in two ways: by removing the oxygen, water vapor, and carbon dioxide from ordinary air, and by releasing nitrogen from chemical compounds such as ammonia. Nitrogen obtained from air was consistently about half a percent denser than nitrogen obtained from compounds, while nitrogen released from several different compounds, by different chemical reactions, always had the same density. Because a gas’s density depends on the masses of its molecules, these results suggest that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Correct choice: the gas obtained from air contained, in addition to nitrogen, a small amount of some heavier gas that had not been removed.
The gas from air was the denser one, so the difference points to something heavier in the air sample or something lighter in the chemical samples. Different reactions gave nitrogen of exactly the same density, which would be a remarkable coincidence if each reaction added its own impurity. The better explanation is that the air sample contained an unknown heavier gas. (Rayleigh and William Ramsay soon isolated it: argon.)
A: A heavier gas mixed into the chemical nitrogen would make it denser, but the chemical nitrogen was the lighter sample.
B: A lighter gas mixed into the air sample would make it less dense, but the air sample was the denser one.
C: This would explain the direction of the difference, but it is hard to square with the finding that several different reactions all gave nitrogen of exactly the same density.
Watch for: Check each explanation against both the direction of a difference and any result that stays constant across different methods.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 15 of 27
In a 1970 paper, economist George Akerlof considered a market for used cars in which each seller knows whether their own car is reliable but buyers cannot tell reliable cars from unreliable ones before buying. Unable to tell the difference, buyers will offer no more than a price that reflects the average quality of the cars for sale. Akerlof argued that in such a market, ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Correct choice: owners of reliable cars, unwilling to sell below their cars’ worth, would withdraw them, lowering the average quality of cars for sale and so the price buyers offer.
An average price is too low for owners of reliable cars, so they keep their cars. That leaves a worse mix for sale, which lowers the average quality and so the price buyers will offer, which drives out still more good cars.
B: This reverses the incentives: an average price is more than an unreliable car is worth, so its owner is glad to sell; it is the owners of reliable cars who are shortchanged.
C: The text says buyers offer a price reflecting the average quality of cars for sale; if the mix stayed the same, that price would not keep falling, so this describes a spiral with no cause in the situation described.
D: Because buyers cannot tell reliable cars apart, cutting the price of a reliable car would not attract buyers to it; the decline comes from reliable cars leaving the market.
Watch for: For a process that “feeds on itself,” trace one step through: who gains or loses at the current price, what they do, and how that changes the next price.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 16 of 27
The following text is Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem “Cliff Klingenhagen,” from his 1897 collection The Children of the Night. Wormwood is a plant used to make a very bitter drink.
Cliff Klingenhagen had me in to dine With him one day; and after soup and meat, And all the other things there were to eat, Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign For me to choose at all, he took the draught Of bitterness himself, and lightly quaffed It off, and said the other one was mine.
And when I asked him what the deuce he meant By doing that, he only looked at me And grinned, and said it was a way of his. And though I know the fellow, I have spent Long time a-wondering when I shall be As happy as Cliff Klingenhagen is.
Based on the text, what can most reasonably be inferred about Cliff’s habit, as the speaker sees it?
Correct choice: The speaker sees in it a clue to a happiness that he has long wondered when he will reach, though he cannot say how it works.
The poem sets Cliff’s unexplained act—quietly taking the bitter glass and giving his guest the wine—beside the speaker’s long wondering “when I shall be / As happy as Cliff.” The juxtaposition implies that the speaker links Cliff’s happiness to that habit, which Cliff will not explain (“it was a way of his”), and that the speaker has not reached that happiness himself.
A: The speaker calls Cliff happy and wonders when he himself will be as happy; nothing suggests he thinks Cliff is secretly unhappy.
B: The speaker notes that he was given no choice and asks what Cliff meant, but he shows puzzlement and admiration, not resentment of the habit.
D: The speaker is still “a-wondering when I shall be / As happy” as Cliff; nothing says he has adopted the habit himself.
Watch for: In a short poem, the final lines often reinterpret an earlier act; ask why the speaker places that act beside the closing thought.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 17 of 27
The Travels of Marco Polo, the account of a Venetian merchant’s years in China that circulated in Europe from about 1300, never mentions tea, chopsticks, or the Great Wall, and more than one scholar ______ asked whether Polo actually made the journey he described.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: has
The subject is “more than one scholar.” Although it refers to several people, the phrase is built on the singular noun “scholar” and takes a singular verb: “more than one scholar has asked.”
B: “Have” is plural; “more than one” followed by a singular noun takes a singular verb.
C: “Were asked” is plural and passive, and it would make the scholars the ones being asked rather than the ones asking.
D: “Are asked” is plural and passive, and it reverses who does the asking.
Watch for: “More than one” + a singular noun takes a singular verb, even though the meaning is plural.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 18 of 27
The Voynich manuscript, a book of about 240 vellum pages filled with drawings of unidentified plants and lines of an unknown script, names no ______ succeeded in reading its script since the bookseller Wilfrid Voynich acquired it in 1912.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: author, nor has anyone
“Nor” joins two independent clauses here, so a comma goes before it, and the clause it introduces inverts its subject and helping verb: “names no author, nor has anyone succeeded.”
A: When “nor” joins two independent clauses, a comma is needed before it; without one, the two clauses run together.
C: A clause that begins with “nor” must invert its subject and helping verb (“nor has anyone”); “nor anyone has” keeps ordinary word order.
D: “Nor” is a coordinating conjunction, so it takes no comma after it, and a semicolon before a coordinating conjunction is not needed here.
Watch for: A clause beginning with “nor” puts the helping verb before the subject: “nor has anyone,” “nor did they.”
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 19 of 27
Soon after the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990, engineers found that its main mirror had been ground to a slightly wrong shape, and they knew that unless they ______ the flaw, the telescope’s images would remain blurred; corrective optics installed by astronauts in 1993 solved the problem.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: corrected
The sentence reports in the past what the engineers knew: “unless they ______ the flaw, the … images would remain blurred.” The result clause takes “would,” and the condition takes the simple past: “unless they corrected the flaw.”
A: “Would” belongs in the result (“the images would remain blurred”), not in the “unless” clause that states the condition; the condition takes the simple past, “corrected.”
B: “Will correct” is future tense, but the sentence reports, in the past, what the engineers knew in 1990; the condition must shift to the past.
D: “Have corrected” is present perfect, which does not fit a condition reported from the engineers’ point of view in 1990.
Watch for: In a condition introduced by “if” or “unless,” do not use “would”; put “would” in the result clause.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 20 of 27
Work on the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1857, and the first complete edition, finished in 1928, was devoted to ______ the history of every word it included, from the word’s earliest recorded use to the present day.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: tracing
In “was devoted to,” “to” is a preposition (compare “devoted to its readers”), so the verb that follows must take the -ing form: “devoted to tracing.”
A: In “devoted to,” “to” is a preposition, so it must be followed by a noun or a gerund, not the base form of a verb.
C: “Traced” is a past-tense or past-participle form, which cannot serve as the object of the preposition “to.”
D: “Have traced” is a finite verb phrase, which cannot follow the preposition “to” in “devoted to.”
Watch for: When “to” is part of a phrase such as “devoted to” or “committed to,” it is a preposition and takes an -ing form.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 21 of 27
Blocks of limestone in the Great Pyramid of Giza weigh more than two metric tons on average. ______ the builders lifted so many of these blocks into place, they left no surviving account of the method, and archaeologists still debate whether ramps, levers, or some combination of the two was used.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: However
Here “However” means “in whatever way”: “However the builders lifted … into place, they left no … account.” It introduces a dependent clause, so no punctuation follows it; the comma after “into place” ends the dependent clause.
B: A semicolon cannot follow a single introductory word; outside of complex lists, a semicolon joins two independent clauses.
C: With a comma, “However” becomes a transition, and “the builders lifted so many of these blocks into place” becomes an independent clause joined to the next one by only a comma—a comma splice.
D: A colon must follow an independent clause, and “However” alone is not one.
Watch for: When “however” means “in whatever way,” it begins a dependent clause and takes no comma after it.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 22 of 27
Cochineal insects, which feed on prickly pear cactus, yield a deep red dye. ______ of dye, made from the insects’ dried bodies, was among the most valuable goods that Spain shipped from Mexico to Europe in the sixteenth century.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: This kind
The subject names one kind of dye, and its verb is the singular “was,” so both the demonstrative and the noun must be singular: “This kind of dye … was.”
B: “These” is plural, but it modifies the singular noun “kind,” and the verb “was” is singular; the demonstrative must match the noun: “This kind.”
C: “These kinds” is plural, but the verb “was” and the singular reference to one dye require a singular subject.
D: “This” is singular and cannot modify the plural noun “kinds.”
Watch for: A demonstrative must agree with its noun—“this kind,” “these kinds”—and the pair must agree with the verb.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 23 of 27
Dark rings several kilometers across sometimes appear in the spring ice of Siberia’s Lake Baikal. One early explanation held that methane gas bubbling up from the lakebed keeps the ice thin in a circle. ______ a later study proposed that the rings form above slowly rotating eddies of relatively warm water, which melt the ice from below.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Correct choice: Alternatively,
The text presents two different possible causes for the same rings: rising methane and warm-water eddies. “Alternatively” introduces a second, competing explanation.
A: “Similarly” would present the eddies as another example of the same process, but they are offered as a different cause than the methane explanation.
B: “Conversely” signals the reverse of what came before, but the eddy explanation is not the opposite of the methane explanation; it is another possible cause of the same rings.
C: “In turn” signals a next step in a chain of effects, but the later study proposes a rival cause, not a consequence of the methane.
Watch for: When a second sentence offers a different answer to the same question, look for a transition that signals an alternative, not a reversal.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 24 of 27
The Bayeux Tapestry, which tells the story of the Norman conquest of England in 1066, is not, strictly speaking, a tapestry, since its images were not woven into the cloth on a loom. ______ they were embroidered: stitched in colored wool yarn onto a strip of linen roughly 70 meters long.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Correct choice: Rather,
The first sentence says what the images are not (woven); the second says what they are (embroidered). “Rather” introduces a statement that replaces the one just denied.
A: “Nevertheless” signals that something holds despite what came before, but being embroidered is not something true in spite of not being woven; it is the correct description in place of the rejected one.
B: “Similarly” signals a likeness, but embroidery is presented as the alternative to weaving, not as something like it.
D: “Consequently” would make the embroidery a result of the images not being woven, but the text is correcting a description, not tracing a cause.
Watch for: After a sentence that denies one description, “Rather” introduces the accurate one.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 25 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
Zhang Heng was a Chinese astronomer and official of the Eastern Han dynasty.
In 132 CE he presented the Han court with a bronze device for detecting earthquakes.
According to the dynasty’s official history, eight dragons on the outside of the vessel each held a ball above an open-mouthed toad.
When the ground shook, a ball dropped from one dragon’s mouth into a toad’s mouth below.
The history reports that the device once signaled an earthquake that no one in the capital had felt; days later, a messenger arrived reporting an earthquake to the northwest.
The official history does not describe the device’s internal mechanism, which modern researchers have reconstructed in several different ways.
The student wants to emphasize what Zhang Heng’s device is reported to have accomplished while acknowledging uncertainty about how it worked. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
Correct choice: Zhang Heng’s device reportedly signaled an earthquake that no one in the capital had felt, though the official history does not describe how its internal mechanism worked.
The goal has two parts: what the device reportedly accomplished (signaling an earthquake no one in the capital felt) and uncertainty about how it worked (the official history does not describe its mechanism). Only this choice gives both.
A: This acknowledges the uncertainty about the mechanism but omits what the device is reported to have accomplished.
B: This gives the reported accomplishment but says nothing about uncertainty over how the device worked.
C: This gives the reported accomplishment and describes the device’s outward signal, but it acknowledges no uncertainty about how the device worked—if anything, it makes the mechanism sound known.
Watch for: Describing what a device visibly did is not the same as acknowledging uncertainty about how it worked inside.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 26 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
Wilson Bentley (1865–1931) was a farmer in Jericho, Vermont.
In 1885 he became the first person known to photograph a single snow crystal, by attaching a camera to a microscope.
He worked in an unheated shed so that the crystals would not melt before he could photograph them.
Over his lifetime he photographed more than 5,000 snow crystals.
He reported that he had never found two crystals that were alike.
In 1931 he and physicist William Humphreys published Snow Crystals, a book of more than 2,000 of his photographs.
The student wants to present Bentley’s claim about snow crystals while indicating how much evidence stood behind the claim. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
Correct choice: Having photographed more than 5,000 snow crystals, Wilson Bentley reported that he had never found two that were alike.
The goal pairs Bentley’s claim (no two crystals alike) with the extent of the evidence behind it (more than 5,000 crystals photographed). Only this choice gives both.
A: This presents the claim together with Bentley’s method, but it gives no indication of how many crystals he examined, which is what “how much evidence” asks for.
C: This describes Bentley’s first photograph and his method but not his claim about snow crystals.
D: This reports a number of published photographs but not Bentley’s claim, and the published selection is not the full body of evidence behind it.
Watch for: “How much evidence” asks for a scale—here, the number of crystals examined—not simply a method or a publication.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 27 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
Sequoyah, a Cherokee silversmith, completed a writing system for the Cherokee language in 1821.
Sequoyah could not read English, though he had seen English writing.
Nearly all of the system’s 85 characters stand for a syllable rather than a single sound.
Because most characters represent a whole syllable of spoken Cherokee, a Cherokee speaker who learned the characters could read most words by sounding them out syllable by syllable.
Some characters resemble Latin letters but stand for different sounds; the character shaped like D, for example, represents the syllable a.
Within a few years, thousands of Cherokee people had learned to read and write the language.
The student wants to explain why Sequoyah’s writing system could be learned quickly and to give evidence that people did learn it quickly. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
Correct choice: Because most characters in Sequoyah’s writing system stand for whole Cherokee syllables, a speaker could sound out most words, and within a few years thousands of Cherokee could read and write.
The goal has two parts: why the system could be learned quickly (most characters are whole syllables, so learning them lets a speaker sound out most words) and evidence that it was (thousands could read and write within a few years). Only this choice gives both.
A: This describes features of the system, but the resemblance to Latin letters does not explain quick learning, and the choice gives no evidence of how fast people learned it.
B: This gives the evidence of rapid learning but not the reason the system could be learned quickly.
C: This gives the reason but not the evidence that people in fact learned the system quickly.
Watch for: A goal that asks “why” and “evidence that” needs both a cause and a result; either one alone meets only half the goal.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 1 of 27
In 1877 the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reported a network of long, straight lines on the surface of Mars, which he called canali. The term was ______: in Italian it can refer either to natural channels or to artificial canals. English-language writers mostly rendered it as “canals,” encouraging speculation, most famously by the American astronomer Percival Lowell, that intelligent beings had built them.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Correct choice: equivocal
The colon introduces the explanation: in Italian, canali can mean either natural channels or artificial canals. A term open to two interpretations is equivocal.
A: Nothing suggests that canali was out of date; the text says it is still a word with two meanings in Italian.
B: The term was not wrong; the problem was that it could be read two ways and translators chose one reading.
D: “Evasive” implies a deliberate attempt to avoid being pinned down, but the text says only that the Italian word has two meanings, not that Schiaparelli chose it to dodge the question.
Watch for: A colon after the blank usually defines the missing word; match the definition exactly, and do not add intent that the text does not state.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 2 of 27
The following text is from William Hazlitt’s essay “On Thought and Action,” from his 1821 collection Table-Talk. Hazlitt has been discussing whether people who think should be ranked above people who act.
But is it right, then, to judge of action by the quantity of thought implied in it, any more than it would be to condemn a life of contemplation for being inactive? Or has not everything a source and principle of its own, to which we should refer it, and not to the principles of other things? [...] There have been heroes as well as sages, legislators and founders of religion, historians and able statesmen and generals, inventors of useful arts and instruments and explorers of undiscovered countries, as well as writers and readers of books. It will not do to set all these aside under any fastidious or pedantic distinction. Comparisons are odious, because they are Underlined: impertinent End underlined., and lead only to the discovery of defects [...].
As used in the text, what does the word “impertinent” most nearly mean?
Correct choice: irrelevant
Hazlitt holds that everything should be referred to “a source and principle of its own … and not to the principles of other things,” and that heroes, legislators and explorers cannot be ranked by a scholar’s standard. Comparisons are “impertinent” in the older sense of “not pertinent”: they judge one kind of achievement by a standard that does not apply to it.
B: Hazlitt does say that comparisons lead to “the discovery of defects,” but he gives that as a second, separate charge (“and lead only to …”); “impertinent” names a different fault.
C: “Insolent” reflects the modern sense of “impertinent” (rude), but Hazlitt’s complaint is that comparisons judge things by “the principles of other things,” not that they are rude.
D: Nothing in the text suggests that comparisons are tedious; the objection concerns the standard they apply.
Watch for: When a sentence gives two charges joined by “and,” the word in the first charge usually means something different from the second; look back for the principle the writer has just stated.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 3 of 27
The following text is from Henry Fielding’s 1742 novel Joseph Andrews. The narrator has been explaining that his satirical characters represent whole classes of people rather than individuals; “high people” are people of high social rank.
I shall detain my reader no longer than to give him one caution more of an opposite kind: for, as in most of our particular characters we mean not to lash individuals, but all of the like sort, so, in our general descriptions, we mean not universals, but would be understood with many exceptions: for instance, in our description of high people, we cannot be intended to include such as, whilst they are an honour to their high rank, by a well-guided Underlined: condescension End underlined. make their superiority as easy as possible to those whom fortune chiefly hath placed below them. Of this number I could name a peer no less elevated by nature than by fortune [...] I have seen this man relieve with generosity, while he hath conversed with freedom, and be to the same person a patron and a companion.
As used in the text, what does the word “condescension” most nearly mean?
Correct choice: graciousness
The narrator excepts from his satire high-ranking people who, by a well-guided condescension, make their superiority easy to bear for those below them, and he gives an example of a man who is both “patron and … companion.” “Condescension” here is used in its older, approving sense: gracious, friendly courtesy shown to people of lower rank.
A: “Arrogance” reflects the modern, disapproving sense of “condescension,” but the narrator praises these people as a credit to their rank who make their superiority “as easy as possible” for those below them.
B: “Deference” is courteous respect shown to someone of higher rank, but here the courtesy runs downward, from high people to “those whom fortune … hath placed below them.”
D: “Discretion” means careful judgment or tact, which suggests restraint; the passage stresses warm, open kindness—conversing “with freedom” and being “a patron and a companion.”
Watch for: Some words once carried praise that they no longer do; check whether the passage approves or disapproves of the quality it names.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 4 of 27
In 1966 and 1967 ecologists Daniel Simberloff and E. O. Wilson covered several tiny mangrove islands in the Florida Keys with tents and fumigated them, killing all the insects, spiders, and other small animals living there. They then recorded the species that arrived as the islands were recolonized. Within about a year, the number of species on nearly every island had returned to roughly its earlier level. Underlined: Many of the species present, however, were different from those that had lived there before. End underlined. The island nearest the mainland, which had held the most species before fumigation, again held the most.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
Correct choice: It shows that the islands’ return to their earlier species counts did not depend on the return of the same species that had lived there before.
Each island’s species count came back to about its old level, yet many of the species were new. The underlined sentence separates the number of species from their identity: the islands returned to a similar number without regaining the same residents, which suggests that something about each island, not the particular species, set the number.
A: The sentence says only that the species were different; nothing in the text suggests the newcomers were better suited than the earlier residents.
C: The final sentence links the number of species to nearness to the mainland, but the underlined sentence concerns which species arrived, not what set the islands’ counts.
D: The species count had already returned to its earlier level, so the islands were not still waiting to fill up; the earlier species had been replaced, not merely delayed.
Watch for: When a “however” sentence follows a result, ask what it rules out: here, that the count recovered because the same species came back.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 5 of 27
The following text is from Kenneth Grahame’s 1895 book The Golden Age. The adult narrator recalls how he and his brothers and sisters, raised by aunts and uncles, regarded the grown-ups around them.
These elders, our betters by a trick of chance, commanded no respect, but only a certain blend of envy—of their good luck—and pity—for their inability to make use of it. Indeed, it was one of the most hopeless features in their character (when we troubled ourselves to waste a thought on them: which wasn’t often) that, having absolute licence to indulge in the pleasures of life, they could get no good of it. Underlined: They might dabble in the pond all day, hunt the chickens, climb trees in the most uncompromising Sunday clothes; they were free to issue forth and buy gunpowder in the full eye of the sun—free to fire cannons and explode mines on the lawn: yet they never did any one of these things. End underlined.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
Correct choice: It backs up the children’s judgment that the elders wasted their freedom, with examples revealing what the children themselves counted as pleasures.
The children accuse the elders of wasting their “absolute licence to indulge in the pleasures of life.” The underlined list names the pleasures the elders neglect—dabbling in the pond, chasing chickens, firing cannons—which are a child’s pleasures. The examples support the charge while showing, with the adult narrator’s humor, that it rests on the children’s own standard.
B: The adult narrator’s humor is gentle; he presents the children’s view with evident affection, and nothing calls their pleasures foolish or destructive.
C: The text presents these freedoms as belonging to adults generally—“absolute licence to indulge in the pleasures of life”—and says nothing about the elders’ lack of children.
D: Nothing in the excerpt says the narrator now shares the elders’ view; the underlined portion presents the children’s judgment.
Watch for: When an adult narrator reports a child’s judgment, check whose standard the examples reflect; the humor often lies in that standard.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 6 of 27
Text 1
Among babies born with low birth weight, those whose mothers smoked during pregnancy have been found to die in infancy at lower rates than those whose mothers did not smoke. Some observers have taken this as a sign that, for babies already born small, a mother’s smoking may somehow offer protection.
Text 2
Epidemiologists note that a baby’s birth weight can be lowered by the mother’s smoking or by other conditions, such as serious birth defects, that are far more dangerous to the baby. Among babies of low birth weight, therefore, those whose mothers did not smoke are more likely to owe their low weight to one of these other conditions.
Based on the texts, how would the epidemiologists (Text 2) most likely respond to the observers’ interpretation in Text 1?
Correct choice: They would argue that the lower death rate may reflect the more dangerous causes of low birth weight among nonsmokers’ babies, not a benefit of smoking.
Text 1 compares only babies born small. Text 2 explains that among these babies, the nonsmokers’ babies are more likely to be small for a more dangerous reason. Their higher death rate can therefore come from those other conditions, so the comparison does not show that smoking protects anyone.
B: That smoking-related low birth weight is less dangerous does not mean smoking protects anyone; Text 2 uses this point to explain the comparison, not to endorse the observers’ interpretation.
C: Text 2 does not say how common each cause of low birth weight is; it explains why comparing only small babies can mislead.
D: Text 2 says nothing to suggest that birth weight is unimportant; it concerns why small babies of nonsmokers fare worse.
Watch for: When a comparison is limited to cases that share an outcome, ask whether the groups reached that outcome for different reasons.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 7 of 27
Text 1
In The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith observed that nothing is more useful than water, yet water can scarcely be exchanged for anything, whereas a diamond has scarcely any use, yet a great quantity of other goods may be had in exchange for it. To Smith, the contrast showed that how useful a good is does not determine how much it can be exchanged for.
Text 2
In the 1870s, economists such as Carl Menger argued that the value a person places on a good depends on the least important use to which that person would put his or her supply of it. When water is plentiful, one more bucket of it would serve only a minor purpose, such as washing a step; because diamonds are scarce, each one serves a purpose that its owner values highly.
Based on the texts, how would Menger (Text 2) most likely respond to Smith’s conclusion in Text 1?
Correct choice: He would argue that the contrast fits a link between usefulness and exchange value once usefulness is judged by one more unit of a good, not by the good as a whole.
Smith compares the usefulness of water as a whole with that of diamonds. Menger measures value by the least important use of the supply one has—in effect, by what one more unit adds. Because water is plentiful, one more bucket adds little; because diamonds are scarce, one more diamond adds much. The contrast is therefore consistent with usefulness governing value, which is exactly what Smith denied.
A: Menger ties value to the use served by one more unit, so the plentiful supply of water explains its low value through usefulness rather than showing that usefulness plays no part.
C: Text 2 says nothing about labor; it explains value through the use served by one more unit.
D: Scarcity matters in Text 2, but only because it changes the use that one more unit serves; Menger does not set scarcity against usefulness—he explains value through usefulness at the margin.
Watch for: A paradox can dissolve when a second text measures the key quantity differently; compare what each text is measuring—the whole supply or one more unit.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 8 of 27
Text 1
In studies begun in the late 1960s, psychologist Walter Mischel and colleagues offered preschoolers a choice: eat one treat right away, or wait alone for several minutes and then receive two. In follow-up studies, children who had waited longer tended, as teenagers, to earn higher scores on college-entrance exams. Many writers have concluded that the ability to delay gratification is a major cause of later academic achievement.
Text 2
In 2018 researchers Tyler Watts, Greg Duncan, and Haonan Quan analyzed data from a much larger and more economically varied group of children who had taken a similar waiting test as preschoolers in the 1990s. The link between waiting time and achievement at age fifteen was about half as strong as in the earlier studies, and once the researchers took into account the children’s family backgrounds and their cognitive abilities before age five, the link shrank by roughly another two-thirds.
Based on the texts, how would Watts, Duncan, and Quan (Text 2) most likely respond to the conclusion in Text 1?
Correct choice: They would argue that the link may largely reflect children’s backgrounds and early abilities rather than an effect of waiting itself.
If waiting itself caused later achievement, the link should remain after accounting for other differences among children. Instead, it largely disappeared once family background and early cognitive ability were taken into account, which suggests that those factors shape both waiting and achievement. The researchers would therefore doubt that waiting is a major cause.
A: Text 2 says nothing about behavior outside the laboratory; its evidence concerns other differences among the children.
B: This overstates Text 2: the link shrank sharply but did not disappear entirely, so the findings do not show that there is no connection at all.
C: They did find a link, but a weaker one that shrank sharply once other factors were considered, which undercuts the claim that waiting is a major cause.
Watch for: When a link weakens after other factors are “taken into account,” those factors may explain the link; that is a challenge to a causal claim, not an endorsement.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 9 of 27
The following text is from Samuel Johnson’s 1759 novel Rasselas. Imlac, a poet, is describing to Prince Rasselas how he prepared himself to write poetry.
“All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful to study, and every country which I have surveyed has contributed something to my poetical powers.”
“In so wide a survey,” said the Prince, “you must surely have left much unobserved. [...]”
“This business of a poet,” said Imlac, “is to examine, not the individual, but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances. He does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades of the verdure of the forest. He is to exhibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and striking features as recall the original to every mind, and must neglect the minuter discriminations, which one may have remarked and another have neglected, for those characteristics which are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness. [...]”
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
Correct choice: Imlac maintains that a poet should study nature widely but depict only those features that any reader, attentive or not, would recognize.
Imlac says he studied “all the appearances of nature,” and when the Prince objects that he must have missed much, Imlac explains that a poet does not record minute details but presents “prominent and striking features” that recall the original “to every mind.” The main idea combines both: study widely, depict the general.
A: The remark about leaving “much unobserved” is the Prince’s, and Imlac answers it by explaining what a poet should depict, not by conceding that his study was careless.
C: Imlac says he was “careful to study” all the appearances of nature; he does not treat study as unimportant, only the recording of minute details.
D: This reverses Imlac’s view: he says a poet “does not number the streaks of the tulip” and “must neglect the minuter discriminations.”
Watch for: Keep track of who says what in a dialogue, and look for how a speaker’s answer reconciles two claims that seem to conflict.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 10 of 27
In the 1790s many scientists held that heat is an invisible fluid, called caloric, contained in matter. While overseeing the boring of cannon barrels in Munich, the American-born scientist Count Rumford noticed that the metal grew extremely hot. Defenders of the caloric theory could explain this by arguing that boring breaks the metal into small chips that can hold less caloric than solid metal can, so that the extra caloric is squeezed out as heat.
Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the defenders’ explanation?
Correct choice: Metal chips from the boring could absorb as much heat per pound as solid metal from the same cannon.
The defenders’ explanation rests on the premise that chips hold less caloric than solid metal. If chips could absorb just as much heat per pound as solid metal, that premise fails, and the explanation loses its basis. (Rumford reported just such a result.)
A: On the defenders’ view, longer boring produces more chips and so releases more caloric; a cannon growing hotter over time fits their explanation.
B: Water boiling shows that a great deal of heat was produced, but the defenders’ explanation already accounts for heat being released; it does not test their premise.
D: If caloric is squeezed out of the chips, the chips should be hot; this finding fits the defenders’ explanation.
Watch for: To weaken an explanation, attack the premise it depends on; findings that the explanation already predicts do not weaken it.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 11 of 27
In experiments in the 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch asked participants to say which of three lines matched a reference line in length. Each participant answered after several other people who were secretly working with Asch and who, on certain trials, all gave the same obviously wrong answer. Participants often went along with the group. Asch proposed that much of the pressure came from the group’s unanimity itself—not simply from the number of people giving the wrong answer, and not from the lack of anyone who shared the participant’s own view.
Which finding, if true, would most directly support Asch’s proposal?
Correct choice: When one person in the group gave a wrong answer different from everyone else’s, participants went along with the rest of the group far less often.
To show that unanimity itself matters, the group must stop being unanimous without the participant gaining an ally. A dissenter who gives a different wrong answer does exactly that: the group is no longer unanimous, yet no one shares the participant’s view. If conformity still falls sharply, unanimity is what mattered.
A: This concerns the number of people giving the wrong answer, a factor Asch’s proposal set aside, and it does not involve breaking unanimity.
B: A dissenter who gives the correct answer breaks unanimity but also gives the participant an ally, so this result cannot show which of the two mattered.
D: This shows that the task was easy without group pressure, but it does not distinguish unanimity from the other possible sources of that pressure.
Watch for: Look for the condition that changes only the factor in question; a result that changes two factors at once cannot show which one mattered.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 12 of 27
In a study published in 1950, epidemiologists Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill interviewed men hospitalized in London with lung cancer and, for comparison, an equal number of men of similar ages hospitalized with other diseases. Because smoking was so common at the time, almost all of the men in both groups were smokers. Nonetheless, Doll and Hill concluded that smoking was associated with lung cancer, pointing out that ______
Smoking Status of Men in Doll and Hill’s Study
Group
Smokers
Nonsmokers
Men with lung cancer
647
2
Men with other diseases
622
27
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the text?
Correct choice: only 2 of the 649 men with lung cancer were nonsmokers, compared with 27 of the 649 men with other diseases.
Because nearly everyone smoked, the telling comparison is among the few nonsmokers: 27 of the men with other diseases were nonsmokers, but only 2 of the men with lung cancer were. Nonsmokers were far rarer among the cancer patients, which is what an association between smoking and lung cancer predicts.
A: This is accurate, but on its own it cannot show an association: 622 of the 649 men with other diseases were also smokers, so a high count of smokers among the cancer patients is expected either way.
C: This is accurate (647 of 649 and 622 of 649), but it stresses the similarity between the groups rather than the difference that supports the conclusion.
D: This has the right shape and would support the conclusion, but it overstates the table: 27 nonsmokers against 2 is a ratio of 13.5, not more than twenty.
Watch for: When almost everyone in both groups shares a trait, compare the groups on the rare cases—those without the trait.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 13 of 27
A vaccine against measles was licensed in the United States in 1963. A student claims that although reported measles cases in the United States fell dramatically over the following decades, the decline was not continuous.
Reported Measles Cases in the United States
Year
Reported cases
1960
441,703
1970
47,351
1980
13,506
1990
27,786
2000
86
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support the student’s claim?
Correct choice: Reported cases fell from 441,703 in 1960 to 86 in 2000, although they rose from 13,506 in 1980 to 27,786 in 1990.
The claim has two parts: cases fell dramatically (441,703 in 1960 to 86 in 2000) and the fall was not continuous (cases rose from 13,506 in 1980 to 27,786 in 1990). Only this choice supports both parts accurately.
B: This is accurate and shows that the decline was interrupted, but it omits the dramatic overall fall that the claim also asserts.
C: This is accurate and supports the claim’s first part, the dramatic fall, but not its second part, that the decline was not continuous.
D: This has the right shape but misreads the table: cases fell from 47,351 in 1970 to 13,506 in 1980; the rise came between 1980 and 1990.
Watch for: When a claim has an “although” clause, the evidence must support both parts, and each number must be matched to the right year.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 14 of 27
In many animal species, a single male can father offspring with many females, so a population with few males could produce as many young as one with equal numbers of each sex. Yet in most such species, males and females are born in nearly equal numbers. In 1930 statistician R. A. Fisher pointed out that every offspring has exactly one mother and one father. It follows that if males were ever less common than females, ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Correct choice: each male would, on average, have more offspring than each female, so parents inclined to produce sons would leave more grandchildren, and the share of males would rise.
Every offspring has one father and one mother, so males as a group and females as a group have the same total number of offspring. If males were fewer, that total would be divided among fewer individuals, so the average male would have more offspring than the average female. Parents producing sons would then leave more grandchildren, and the share of males would rise until the sexes were about equal.
A: This reverses the reasoning: if males were the rarer sex, the shared total of offspring would be divided among fewer males, so each male, not each female, would have more offspring.
B: The first part is right, but it draws the wrong consequence: the advantage of the rarer sex favors parents who produce sons, so the share of males would rise rather than stay the same.
D: The text says that a population with few males could produce as many young as one with equal numbers, so the population would not produce fewer young.
Watch for: When two groups must share a fixed total equally, the smaller group has the higher average; trace which parents that favors.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 15 of 27
In 1817 economist David Ricardo imagined that producing a certain quantity of cloth took the labor of 100 workers for a year in England and 90 in Portugal, while producing a certain quantity of wine took 120 workers for a year in England and 80 in Portugal. He supposed that this quantity of Portuguese wine could be traded for this quantity of English cloth. Although Portugal could make both goods with less labor than England, Ricardo argued that Portugal would gain by making wine and importing cloth, because ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Correct choice: wine made with the labor of 80 Portuguese workers could be traded for cloth that would have taken the labor of 90 Portuguese workers to make.
What matters to Portugal is what it gives up and what it gets. By making wine with 80 workers’ labor and trading it, Portugal obtains cloth that would have cost it 90 workers’ labor to make itself, a saving of 10 workers’ labor on each trade—even though Portugal makes cloth more cheaply than England does.
A: This compares English cloth with Portuguese wine, but Portugal’s gain depends on comparing the labor it spends on wine with the labor it would spend making cloth itself.
C: Subtracting the two countries’ advantages does not measure Portugal’s gain; Portugal saves the difference between 90 and 80 workers’ labor, or 10, on each trade.
D: This concerns England’s costs and misstates the comparison: English cloth took 100 workers’ labor, more than the 90 needed in Portugal.
Watch for: A country gains from trade when it can obtain a good more cheaply by trading for it than by making it; compare costs within one country, not across countries.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 16 of 27
The following text is from Oscar Wilde’s essay “The Decay of Lying,” collected in his 1891 book Intentions. The essay is a dialogue; here the speaker, Vivian, is discussing the fogs of nineteenth-century London.
Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that have influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty. Then, and then only, does it come into existence. At present, people see fogs, not because there are fogs, but because poets and painters have taught them the mysterious loveliness of such effects. There may have been fogs for centuries in London. I dare say there were. But no one saw them, and so we do not know anything about them. They did not exist till Art had invented them.
Based on the text, what can most reasonably be inferred about Vivian’s claim that fogs “did not exist till Art had invented them”?
Correct choice: It is a claim about perception: the fogs were present, but no one truly saw them until art taught people to notice their beauty.
Vivian grants that “there may have been fogs for centuries” but says “no one saw them.” By “exist” he means being truly seen—noticed for their beauty—which, he claims, art made possible. The paradox is about perception, not about records, taste or weather.
A: This makes the change one of taste, but Vivian says that “no one saw” the earlier fogs at all, not that people saw them and disliked them.
C: Vivian does say “we do not know anything about them,” but only because “no one saw them”; his point concerns seeing, not the lack of records.
D: Vivian concedes that “there may have been fogs for centuries,” so he is not claiming that the weather changed to match art.
Watch for: When a speaker states a paradox, look for a nearby concession (“I dare say there were”) that shows the claim cannot be meant literally.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 17 of 27
In 1860 the chemist Robert Bunsen and the physicist Gustav Kirchhoff, who relied on ______ expertise, used the new technique of spectroscopy, which identifies elements by the colors of light they give off, to discover the element cesium.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: each other’s
Each man relied on the other’s expertise, so the reciprocal pronoun must be possessive: “each other’s expertise.” Because “each other” is singular in form, the apostrophe comes before the s.
A: “Each other” is singular in form, so its possessive is “each other’s”; “each others’” treats it as a plural noun.
B: The expertise belongs to the two men, so a possessive is needed, and “each other” has no plural form “each others.”
C: Without an apostrophe, “each other” is not possessive, so “relied on each other expertise” does not say whose expertise it was.
Watch for: The possessive of “each other” is “each other’s,” never “each others’.”
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 18 of 27
In May 1975 the Japanese climber Junko Tabei, a member of an all-women expedition, became the first ______ the summit of Mount Everest, only twelve days after an avalanche had buried her team’s camp.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: woman to reach
“To reach the summit of Mount Everest” identifies what Tabei was the first woman to do; it is essential to “the first woman,” so no punctuation separates them.
A: The infinitive phrase “to reach the summit …” is essential to the meaning (it says in what way she was first), so no comma should separate it from “woman.”
B: A colon would introduce an explanation or list, but the infinitive phrase is a necessary part of the noun phrase “the first woman to reach the summit.”
C: A semicolon must join two independent clauses, but “to reach the summit of Mount Everest” is only a phrase.
Watch for: After “the first,” “the only” or “the last,” an infinitive phrase is usually essential and takes no comma.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 19 of 27
Clay tablets ______ at the ancient city of Ugarit, on the coast of present-day Syria, record a script of thirty signs that is among the earliest known alphabets; some tablets list the signs in a fixed order, much as schoolchildren recite the alphabet today.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: unearthed
The main verb of the sentence is “record,” so the blank must be a modifier of “Clay tablets.” The tablets were dug up by others, so the passive participle “unearthed” is correct: “Clay tablets unearthed at … Ugarit … record a script.”
A: “That unearthed” makes the tablets the ones that did the digging, and it leaves the relative clause without an object.
B: “Were unearthed” adds a second main verb, leaving “record” without a grammatical connection to the sentence.
D: “Unearthing” would mean that the tablets themselves did the digging; the tablets were dug up, so a passive form is needed.
Watch for: Find the sentence’s main verb first; a word describing the subject must then be a modifier, and its form must match who did the action.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 20 of 27
The physicist Ernest Rutherford, whose 1911 analysis of experiments in his laboratory revealed the atomic nucleus, grew up far from the centers of European science: he was born in Brightwater, New ______ 1871 and studied at Canterbury College in Christchurch before moving to England in 1895.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: Zealand, in
When a town is followed by its country, the country is set off by commas on both sides. The comma after “Brightwater” is already present, so a comma must follow “New Zealand” as well.
A: A colon would introduce an explanation or list, but “in 1871” simply continues the sentence.
B: A semicolon must join two independent clauses, but “in 1871 …” is not a clause.
C: Without a comma after “New Zealand,” the pair of commas that sets off the country is left incomplete.
Watch for: In “Town, Country,” the country is set off like an appositive: comma before and comma after.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 21 of 27
Pitch, a tarlike substance once used to waterproof ships, shatters like a solid when struck with a hammer, yet it is a liquid, one so ______ in an experiment begun at the University of Queensland in 1927, only nine drops fell from a funnel of it in the following eighty-seven years.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: viscous that
“So viscous that …” is a single construction: “so” sets up a degree, and the “that” clause gives its result. No punctuation separates “viscous” from “that.”
B: A semicolon joins independent clauses, but “that … only nine drops fell …” is a dependent clause that completes “so viscous.”
C: A colon would introduce an explanation after a complete statement, but “one so viscous” is not complete until the “that” clause finishes it.
D: A comma would split the “so … that” construction, separating the degree from the result it introduces.
Watch for: Keep “so … that” and “such … that” together without punctuation; the “that” clause completes the construction.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 22 of 27
Relative to its body size, New Zealand’s kiwi lays one of the largest eggs of any living bird: at about a fifth of the female’s weight, a kiwi’s egg is proportionally far larger than ______.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Correct choice: an ostrich’s
The sentence compares a kiwi’s egg with another bird’s egg, so the comparison must name the egg: “an ostrich’s” means “an ostrich’s egg.”
A: This compares the kiwi’s egg with an ostrich itself rather than with an ostrich’s egg, an illogical comparison.
B: “An ostrich does” compares the egg with something an ostrich does rather than with an ostrich’s egg.
C: “Ostriches” names the birds, not their eggs, so the comparison is still illogical.
Watch for: In a comparison, make sure like is compared with like: an egg with an egg, not an egg with a bird.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 23 of 27
When digging began on the Suez Canal in 1859, the project faced opposition from the British government, which feared French influence in Egypt, as well as shortages of labor and, in 1865, an outbreak of cholera among the workers. ______ the canal opened to shipping in November 1869, shortening the sea route between Britain and India by thousands of kilometers.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Correct choice: Ultimately,
The first sentence lists obstacles that arose over a decade of work; the second reports the final outcome, the canal’s opening in 1869. “Ultimately” introduces the end result of a long process.
A: “Initially” would place the opening at the start of the process, but the opening in 1869 came after the obstacles of 1859–1865.
B: “Consequently” would make the canal’s opening a result of the opposition, labor shortages and disease, but the canal opened despite them.
D: “Meanwhile” signals something happening at the same time as the preceding events, but the opening came after them.
Watch for: Check where the second sentence falls on the timeline: an end result after a series of events calls for a word like “Ultimately.”
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 24 of 27
On still, clear nights, the ground cools quickly and chills the air just above it, leaving a layer of warmer air higher up. Sound traveling upward into that warmer layer bends back toward the ground, which is why a distant train can sometimes be heard unusually clearly at night. ______ the roar of a highway can carry much farther on such nights, reaching neighborhoods where it is barely audible during the day.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Correct choice: By the same token,
The distant train and the highway are two effects of the same cause: sound bent back toward the ground by the warm layer. “By the same token” introduces a second consequence that follows for the same reason.
A: “Nevertheless” signals that something holds despite what came before, but the highway’s noise carrying farther follows from the same bending of sound, not in spite of it.
B: “In other words” would introduce a restatement of the train example, but the highway example is a second, separate consequence.
C: “Instead” signals a replacement, but the highway example adds to the train example rather than replacing it.
Watch for: When a second example follows from the same explanation as the first, look for a transition of parallel reasoning.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 25 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
In 1977 Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya.
The movement organized groups of women, most of them in rural areas, to plant tree seedlings.
The women were paid a small amount for each seedling that was still alive some months after planting.
The trees provided firewood, food, and shade and helped reduce soil erosion.
By the early 2000s, groups in the movement had planted tens of millions of trees.
In 2004 Maathai received the Nobel Peace Prize; no African woman had received it before.
The student wants to explain how the Green Belt Movement encouraged planters to keep their seedlings alive and to indicate how much the movement accomplished. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
Correct choice: The Green Belt Movement paid the women who planted its seedlings for each one that survived, and by the early 2000s its groups had planted tens of millions of trees.
The goal has two parts: the incentive (payment for each seedling that survived) and the movement’s accomplishment (tens of millions of trees). Only this choice gives both.
A: This describes the movement and the benefits of its trees but neither how planters were encouraged to keep seedlings alive nor how much the movement accomplished.
C: This explains the incentive for keeping seedlings alive but does not indicate how much the movement accomplished.
D: This indicates the movement’s scale and Maathai’s honor but not how planters were encouraged to keep their seedlings alive.
Watch for: Match each part of the goal to a specific note; an honor such as a prize is not the same as a measure of what was accomplished.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 26 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
In January 1913 Srinivasa Ramanujan, a clerk in the Indian city of Madras, wrote to the Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy.
Ramanujan had little formal training in mathematics and had failed to complete a university degree.
His letter contained more than 100 theorems, presented without proofs.
Some of the theorems were already known, and a few were wrong, but many were new.
Hardy later wrote that some of the formulas “must be true because, if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them.”
Hardy arranged for Ramanujan to come to Cambridge, where he arrived in 1914.
The student wants to emphasize that Hardy’s judgment of Ramanujan rested on the content of the letter rather than on Ramanujan’s credentials. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
Correct choice: Though Ramanujan had little formal training and no degree, Hardy, persuaded by theorems in Ramanujan’s letter that seemed beyond invention, arranged for him to come to Cambridge.
To show that Hardy’s judgment rested on the letter rather than on credentials, a choice must set Ramanujan’s lack of credentials against Hardy’s response to the letter’s theorems. Only this choice does both.
B: This describes the letter’s contents but not Hardy’s judgment or Ramanujan’s lack of credentials.
C: This mentions Ramanujan’s lack of credentials and Hardy’s response, but it presents them only as a sequence of events; it does not say that Hardy’s judgment rested on the letter’s content.
D: This reports Hardy’s response but not what it was based on or Ramanujan’s lack of credentials.
Watch for: “Rather than” goals need both sides: what the judgment rested on and what it did not rest on.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 27 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
The Kailasa temple at Ellora, in western India, is a Hindu temple built in the eighth century CE.
It was carved downward from the top of a single mass of basalt rock, removing an estimated 200,000 metric tons of stone.
The rock-cut churches of Lalibela, in northern Ethiopia, are Christian churches made in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.
Like the Kailasa temple, they were carved downward into solid volcanic rock rather than built up from blocks.
The Lalibela churches remain places of pilgrimage today.
The Kailasa temple is part of a complex of more than thirty cave temples and monasteries.
The student wants to stress how the two sites were made alike while noting that they were made at different times. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
Correct choice: Like the eighth-century Kailasa temple at Ellora, the churches of Lalibela, made some four centuries later, were carved downward into solid rock.
The goal has two parts: a similarity in method (both carved downward into solid rock) and a difference in date (the eighth century versus some four centuries later). Only this choice gives both.
A: This stresses the similarity in method, but the added detail about the Ellora complex is not a difference in when the sites were made.
B: This gives the similarity in method and a difference, but the difference is in religion, not in when the sites were made.
C: This gives the difference in date but not the similarity in how the sites were made.
Watch for: When a goal says to stress one point “while noting” another, the stressed point belongs in the main clause; also check that each part is the right kind of information.
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Answer from the passage. Read each passage or set of notes and select the single best answer. Use only the text and figures provided; no outside subject knowledge is required. Do not use a dictionary, search engine, or outside notes.
Work within the current module. Answer, skip, flag, and revisit questions until you submit the module or its timer expires. Submitted modules are locked. Read the next module's directions, then press Start Module when ready.
Review after finishing. Answers and explanations become available after the full test. Your result is the number correct, not an SAT scaled score.
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Module directions
Full section directions
Answer from the passage. Read each passage or set of notes and select the single best answer. Use only the text and figures provided; no outside subject knowledge is required. Do not use a dictionary, search engine, or outside notes.
Work within the current module. Answer, skip, flag, and revisit questions until you submit the module or its timer expires. Submitted modules are locked. Read the next module's directions, then press Start Module when ready.
Review after finishing. Answers and explanations become available after the full test. Your result is the number correct, not an SAT scaled score.
How this practice differs from the SAT
How this differs from the real SAT
The modules in this practice are fixed. On the real exam the second module gets harder or easier depending on how you did on the first.
You can pause whenever you want, and your answers save in this browser, so you can close the tab and come back. The real exam gives you one ten-minute break and no pause, unless you are approved for breaks as needed.
Every question here counts, and you get counts of right, wrong and blank rather than a score on the 400 to 1600 scale.