Standard Practice Test 1

Correct choice: perpetuates

The text says that each rebuilding requires younger carpenters to learn from workers who took part in the previous one, so the techniques are handed on rather than lost. Perpetuates, meaning causes to continue, describes this effect precisely.

A: To codify is to set down in a systematic written form, but the text describes skills passed on by working alongside experienced carpenters, not written rules.

B: The rebuilding may honor tradition, but “commemorates building skills that might otherwise disappear” misses the point that the practice keeps those skills in use.

D: The text stresses that the same traditional methods are used each time, not that the skills are made easier.

Watch for: Predict a word from the clause that follows the blank (skills that “might otherwise disappear”) before reading the choices.

Correct choice: feigned

In an older sense, to affect to do something is to make a show of doing it. Helen and Tibby profess to despise the Wilcoxes’ way of life, and the word implies that their contempt is partly a pose, whereas Margaret cannot share it at all. Feigned captures this meaning.

A: Resolved would mean that Helen and Tibby had firmly decided to despise the Wilcoxes’ life; affect does not carry this meaning, and the word suggests a show of contempt rather than a determination.

C: Influenced is the most familiar meaning of affect, but it does not fit the sentence: Helen and Tibby are not influencing anyone; they are the ones who display contempt.

D: Declined would mean that Helen and Tibby refused to despise the Wilcoxes’ life, which erases the contrast the sentence draws between them and Margaret.

Watch for: When a familiar word is followed by an infinitive (affected to do), test older senses: affect can mean to pretend or to make a show of.

Correct choice: It answers her repeated question indirectly, as she greets Sorrow the way one greets a frequent visitor.

The speaker asks whether she is “kin” to Sorrow because Sorrow knocks so often and “as long accustomed,” and she notes that the flowers at her step do not keep Sorrow away. The final line breaks off her repeated question with a greeting: she simply invites Sorrow in. This tacitly concedes the familiarity she has been questioning and treats Sorrow as a regular visitor rather than giving a direct answer.

A: The invitation lets Sorrow in; the flowers that might have kept Sorrow out are said to be ignored.

B: The poem identifies the knocking with Sorrow throughout and gives no sign of another visitor.

C: The greeting implies the opposite: the speaker treats Sorrow as familiar, as kin might be treated.

Watch for: An abrupt final line can answer a poem’s question by action rather than by statement.

Correct choice: It suggests that the new houses’ promise of laughter and tranquillity may be only an appearance, introducing doubt into a description that has so far admired the new city.

Up to this point the narrator describes the new city in glowing terms. The brief interruption “they seemed” turns the final claim about “laughter and tranquillity” into a matter of appearance, introducing a note of doubt about whether the houses’ promise will be fulfilled.

B: “Seemed” does mark an appearance, but nothing in the text attributes that impression to the residents; the aside qualifies the narrator’s own description.

C: The aside casts doubt on one claim about the new houses; it does not show that every earlier statement, such as the description of the towers, was ironic.

D: The aside is attached to the new houses on the hills, not to the older buildings, which the narrator plainly calls “grotesqueries.”

Watch for: Locate exactly what an aside modifies before deciding what it does; here “they seemed” qualifies only the promise of the new houses.

Correct choice: They would argue that their findings give little support to the idea of a long decline before people arrived, since moa populations showed no sign of shrinking.

Text 1’s suggestion requires populations that were shrinking before people arrived. Text 2 notes that shrinking populations tend to lose genetic diversity and reports that the moa’s diversity stayed stable until extinction, so its authors would say the evidence gives little support to a pre-human decline.

B: Text 2’s finding of stable diversity argues against any decline before people arrived, whatever its cause, and the text mentions no earlier visitors.

C: Stable genetic diversity indicates that populations did not shrink; it does not show that they grew, and Text 2 says nothing about growth after settlement.

D: Text 2 reports no loss of diversity at any point before extinction and does not link climate or eruptions to the moa at all.

Watch for: Text 2 never mentions climate or hunting; connect its general principle (shrinking populations lose diversity) to the specific suggestion in Text 1.

Correct choice: They would see the objection as weakened, since small, LB1-like hominins living hundreds of thousands of years earlier are hard to explain as one person’s disorder.

The objection depends partly on LB1 being a lone individual, which makes a personal disorder plausible. Text 2 reports similar small hominins on Flores some 700,000 years ago, which suggests a long-lived population of small people rather than one unusual person, so the Mata Menge team would see the objection as weakened.

B: The Mata Menge fossils belong to other individuals, so they cannot show directly whether LB1 itself had a disorder; they weaken the objection rather than refute it.

C: Small size shared across individuals separated by hundreds of thousands of years points to a population trait, not a disorder that happened to recur; the Mata Menge team would not take it as support for the objection.

D: Text 1’s objection concerns whether LB1 was a modern human with a disorder, not its age, and Text 2 dates the Mata Menge fossils, not LB1.

Watch for: Identify what the objection relies on (a single skull) and ask how new fossils bear on that reliance, without overstating what they prove.

Correct choice: By pointing out that Text 1 dismisses ice on the assumption that it would have to hold the rocks, whereas thin ice driven by wind can push them

Text 1 rejects an ice explanation because ice thick enough to hold heavy rocks rarely forms, and it favors strong gusts acting directly on the rocks. Text 2 reports that ice only a few millimeters thick, broken into panels and driven by light winds, shoved the rocks. The author of Text 2 would say that Text 1’s objection to ice assumes the wrong role for it: the ice did not have to hold the rocks, only push them.

A: Text 2 does not describe wind sliding the rocks directly. Light winds moved ice panels, and the panels shoved the rocks.

B: Text 2 gives wind an essential role: it “drove the panels against the rocks.”

D: Text 2 does not accept Text 1’s rejection of ice; its observations make ice central to the motion.

Watch for: When a second text partly agrees with the first (here, wind matters), find the exact point where it departs (the role of ice).

Correct choice: Adams judges that Harvard gave its students a respectable character and receptive minds but little knowledge and no strong sense of purpose.

Adams says Harvard made “respectable citizens” of a recognizable “type” but “not a will,” and that it “taught little, and that little ill”; yet it left minds “open,” “free from bias,” and “ready to receive knowledge,” and its stamp “was a good one.” His judgment is mixed: a sound but thin education.

A: Adams does credit Harvard with open minds, but he says “Leaders of men it never tried to make,” so he does not claim it prepared graduates to lead.

C: Adams does credit Harvard with forming character, but he says the graduate’s mind “remained supple, ready to receive knowledge,” so the teaching did not reduce students’ ability to learn.

D: Adams presents the lack of strong prejudices as a merit (“free from bias”), and he calls Harvard’s stamp “a good one,” so he does not treat its moderation as its chief failing.

Watch for: Adams’s irony mixes criticism with praise; a choice that keeps one half of his judgment and reverses the other misstates the main idea.

Correct choice: “Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk, / And nothing to look backward to with pride,”

The claim has two parts: Silas still wants to be of use to others, and his own life gives him little to be proud of. These lines state both: he is “so concerned for other folk” and has “nothing to look backward to with pride.”

A: These lines concern Silas’s self-respect, not his concern for others, and they do not say that his life has given him little to be proud of.

B: These lines show Silas’s wish to be useful to someone, but they do not address the second part of the claim, that his own life has given him little to be proud of.

D: These lines describe Silas’s exhaustion; they address neither his concern for others nor his lack of anything to be proud of.

Watch for: With a two-part claim, a quotation that supports only one part is a trap; check each choice against both parts.

Correct choice: “I learnt a little algebra, a little / Of the mathematics,—brushed with extreme flounce / The circle of the sciences”

The claim has two parts: the subjects are demanding and academic, and they are only sampled. Algebra, mathematics, and the sciences are demanding academic subjects. Aurora says she learned “a little” of each and “brushed” past the sciences “with extreme flounce,” a showy, superficial movement. The quotation shows serious subjects touched lightly rather than mastered.

A: These activities show a taste for decorative accomplishments, but dancing, glass spinning, and wax flowers are not demanding academic subjects.

C: This lists obscure facts Aurora was taught, which suggests an odd curriculum, but it does not show a subject being sampled rather than mastered; nothing indicates that she learned these facts only partially.

D: This supports a different claim, about books that belittle women’s thinking; it says nothing about how deeply Aurora studied.

Watch for: Match every part of the claim. A quotation that shows an odd or frivolous curriculum is not enough unless it also shows demanding subjects treated superficially.

Correct choice: Ethanol remains liquid down to about −114°C, far below mercury’s melting point of about −39°C, but ethanol boils at about 78°C, far below mercury’s 357°C.

The claim has two parts. Ethanol’s lower melting point (−114°C versus −39°C) lets it measure colder temperatures than mercury, and mercury’s higher boiling point (357°C versus 78°C) lets it measure hotter ones. Choice C supports both parts with the correct values.

A: This has the shape of the correct answer, but it misreads the table: 100°C is water’s boiling point; mercury boils at about 357°C.

B: These ranges are accurate, but the width of a range does not show which liquid can measure colder or hotter temperatures.

D: This supports only the hot-temperature half of the claim and says nothing about cold temperatures.

Watch for: For a two-part claim, make sure the choice supports both parts with correctly assigned values.

Correct choice: Saturn is about 1.8 times as far from the Sun as Jupiter is, but Saturn’s orbital period is about 2.5 times as long as Jupiter’s.

The claim compares two ratios. For Saturn and Jupiter, the distance ratio is 9.54 ÷ 5.20, or about 1.8, while the period ratio is 29.46 ÷ 11.86, or about 2.5. The period ratio is larger than the distance ratio, as the claim requires.

B: This is true but irrelevant: it compares no distances and so says nothing about how period grows with distance.

C: This has the shape the claim needs, but it misstates the table: Mars’s period is 1.88 years, about 1.9 times Earth’s, not about 3 times.

D: This is true, but it shows only that farther planets take longer, not that orbital period grows faster than distance.

Watch for: When a claim compares rates of growth, the evidence must compare two ratios, not just two directions.

Correct choice: include, for each eclipse, the time light takes to cross the distance between Jupiter and Earth.

On Rømer’s account, each eclipse is seen when its light arrives, which depends on how far that light must travel. Because the Earth–Jupiter distance changes through the year, an accurate prediction must add, for each eclipse, the travel time across the distance at that moment.

A: Light’s constant speed does not produce a constant delay: the distance changes, so the delay changes with Earth’s position. A single delay cannot match both the late and the early eclipses.

C: The text says nothing in Io’s own motion accounted for the difference, so treating its intervals as irregular contradicts Rømer’s explanation.

D: Using only near-Jupiter observations would ignore the late eclipses rather than predict them; the claim concerns every observed eclipse.

Watch for: A constant speed does not imply a constant delay when the distance varies; check which quantity actually changes.

Correct choice: the impacting body resembled Earth in composition, or the collision mixed the two bodies’ material more thoroughly than simulations suggest.

Because other bodies in the solar system differ from Earth in their isotope proportions, a Moon made mostly of impactor material should differ from Earth too. It does not. Keeping the impact explanation therefore requires either an impactor that happened to resemble Earth or far more mixing of material than the typical simulations assume.

A: Nothing in the text suggests that the Apollo samples came from an unusual region; this proposes an untested sampling problem instead of drawing a conclusion from the evidence and the impact explanation.

B: The Apollo results are surprising precisely because a Moon made mostly of impactor material would be expected to differ from Earth; the results do not suggest that the simulations are right.

C: Nothing in the text suggests the samples were contaminated, and such a claim would dismiss the results rather than draw a conclusion from them.

Watch for: When a completion begins “If the explanation is correct,” keep the explanation and ask what else must be true for it to fit the new evidence.

Correct choice: Mrs. Todd’s revival leads the narrator to reflect that many people have abilities their circumstances never call forth.

Mrs. Todd grows lively at the reunion, and the narrator realizes that her earlier dullness came from “lack of proper surroundings.” This prompts a general reflection on “the waste of human ability”: many people, like unused seeds, possess abilities that only “opportunity and stimulus” would bring out.

A: This reverses the text: Mrs. Todd’s earlier dullness came from “lack of proper surroundings,” not from her true character.

B: The narrator calls the occasion “a subtle stimulant” to abilities already present; people lack “opportunity and stimulus,” not the abilities themselves.

D: The text makes no comparison between country and city dwellers in this excerpt.

Watch for: Distinguish revealing an ability that exists from creating one; the text’s images (unused provision, a caged character) point to the former.

Correct choice: a

The sentence begins with the subordinate clause Although the coelacanth was known …, which must be joined to a main clause: a living specimen was caught …. Because although already expresses the contrast, no second conjunction belongs before the main clause.

B: But doubles the connection already made by although: the clauses may be joined by a subordinating conjunction or by a coordinating conjunction, but not by both.

C: So also doubles the connection made by although, and it signals a result, which contradicts the contrast the sentence expresses.

D: And doubles the connection made by although, and it signals addition where the sentence expresses contrast.

Watch for: A sentence that opens with although (or because, when, while) takes a comma and then a main clause, with no but, yet, or and.

Correct choice: 1735, weighed

“Completed in 1735” is a nonessential phrase that interrupts the subject (“Harrison’s first timekeeper”) and its verb (“weighed”). It opens with a comma, so it must close with a comma before the verb.

B: Without a closing comma, the phrase opened by the comma after “timekeeper” runs into the verb, leaving the interruption unclosed.

C: A semicolon would separate the subject from its verb, leaving a fragment before it.

D: A phrase opened with a comma cannot be closed with a dash.

Watch for: When commas are crowded together, pair each opening comma with its closing partner before the main verb.

Correct choice: build

The relative pronoun which refers to films, the plural noun it follows, so the verb in its clause must be plural: build. The singular nouns nearby, stalactite and ceiling, are not its antecedent.

A: Builds is singular; it would fit only if which referred to a singular noun such as stalactite, but which refers to the plural films.

C: Has built is singular and so does not agree with films.

D: Is building is singular and so does not agree with films.

Watch for: A verb in a relative clause agrees with the noun the relative pronoun refers to; find that noun first.

Correct choice: provide

The subject, “The cicadas that emerge in a single acre of forest,” needs a main verb. The two participial phrases (“sometimes numbering …” and “appearing …”) interrupt the subject and verb, so the blank must be a finite verb that agrees with the plural “cicadas”: “provide.”

A: “Providing” continues the pattern of the participial phrases, but it leaves the sentence with no main verb.

B: “To provide” is not a finite verb, so the sentence would have no main verb.

D: “Having provided” is also nonfinite and leaves the subject without a main verb.

Watch for: After a string of -ing phrases, check whether the sentence still has a main verb.

Correct choice: 1896), and

The sentence joins two independent clauses with and, so a comma belongs before and. The parenthetical (from 1893 to 1896) belongs to the first clause, so the comma comes after the closing parenthesis.

A: A comma inside the parentheses would belong to the parenthetical, leaving no comma to separate the two independent clauses outside it.

C: The comma must come before and, not after it; a comma after the conjunction separates it from the clause it introduces.

D: A comma after and wrongly separates the conjunction from the clause it introduces, and the semicolon before it doubles the punctuation between the clauses.

Watch for: Punctuation that belongs to the sentence goes outside a closing parenthesis; punctuation inside the parentheses belongs only to the parenthetical.

Correct choice: is

The subject is source, which is singular, so the verb must be singular: is. The plural nouns communities (in the prepositional phrase) and chemicals (after the verb) do not control agreement.

A: Are agrees with chemicals or communities, but chemicals is the complement after the verb and communities is inside a prepositional phrase; the subject is source.

C: Were is plural and also shifts to the past tense for a present-day fact.

D: Was is singular, but it shifts to the past tense for a present-day fact about the vents.

Watch for: In a sentence of the form “X is Y,” the verb agrees with the subject X, even when the noun after the verb is plural.

Correct choice: Conversely,

The sentence after the blank describes the reverse of the pattern just given: large species shrink on islands, while small species grow. Conversely signals that reversal.

A: Similarly would present the small species’ change as like the large species’ change, but the two changes run in opposite directions.

B: Thus would present the growth of small species as a result of the shrinking of large ones, a causal link the text does not make.

D: Instead signals that one thing replaces another, but the growth of small species does not replace the shrinking of large ones; the two patterns hold together, in opposite directions.

Watch for: Conversely and Instead both mark contrast, but Instead requires a substitution; use Conversely when two trends run in opposite directions.

Correct choice: Hence,

The final sentence states what Eratosthenes concluded because of his assumption that the Sun’s rays are parallel: if the rays arrive parallel, only Earth’s curvature can explain the different angles. Hence signals this conclusion.

A: Nevertheless signals a contrast with what comes before, but the conclusion follows from the assumption rather than contrasting with it.

B: For example introduces an instance of a general point, but the final sentence is a conclusion drawn from the assumption, not an example of it.

D: Similarly signals a second, comparable point, but the final sentence draws a consequence from the assumption rather than making a parallel point.

Watch for: Ask whether the sentence after the blank follows from the one before it; if so, a cause-and-effect transition is needed.

Correct choice: To that end,

The previous sentence states the engineers’ aim; the last sentence describes what they did to achieve it. To that end signals an action taken to accomplish a stated goal.

B: In contrast signals a difference, but fitting dampers carries out the engineers’ aim rather than contrasting with it.

C: Nonetheless signals that something happened despite what came before, but nothing in the aim would discourage fitting dampers.

D: Likewise signals a similar action or situation, but fitting dampers is the means of reaching the aim, not something similar to it.

Watch for: When the sentence before the blank states a goal and the next describes an action, look for a transition of purpose.

Correct choice: Glass frogs grow more transparent while they sleep by hiding red blood cells in their liver, but they lose that added transparency when they wake.

The goal has two parts: how the frogs become more transparent, and that the effect is temporary. This choice gives the mechanism (red blood cells hidden in the liver during sleep) and states that the added transparency is lost when the frogs wake.

A: This describes how much more transparent sleeping frogs become but not that the effect ends, so it does not show that the transparency is temporary.

B: This contrasts the frogs’ constant translucence with extra transparency during sleep, but it never says that the extra transparency goes away.

C: This describes the blood cells’ return when the frogs wake but never mentions transparency or how it arises, so it meets neither part of the goal directly.

Watch for: A choice can describe both halves of a process without making the point the goal asks for; here the choice must link the reversal to transparency.

Correct choice: After war disrupted its gene bank near Aleppo, ICARDA made the vault’s first withdrawal in 2015, rebuilt its collections, and later returned new samples.

Choice D presents the events in order: the war’s disruption (the reason), the 2015 withdrawal, the rebuilding of the collections, and the return of new samples to the vault.

A: This covers the reason and the return, but it mentions the withdrawal before the reason for it, so the steps are not presented in the order they occurred.

B: This follows the right order but stops at the rebuilding, never reaching the return of seeds to the vault.

C: This presents events out of order, beginning with the rebuilding and ending with the reason, and it omits the return of seeds.

Watch for: A sequence goal is about order as well as content; a choice can include every event and still fail.

Correct choice: Opened in 2002, the Falkirk Wheel lifts boats between the canals in minutes; the flight of locks used until the 1930s took most of a day.

Choice C compares the two travel times (minutes versus most of a day) and identifies the newer method by date: the wheel opened in 2002, whereas the locks were used until the 1930s.

A: This compares the times, but it never indicates which method is newer; no dates are given.

B: This dates the wheel but gives no travel times and no comparison.

D: This notes a similarity between the methods, not a difference in time.

Watch for: Check each part of a two-part goal separately; a choice that satisfies one part is still wrong.

Correct choice: masks

The hummingbird’s size suggests fragility, yet its nonstop flight across the Gulf shows great endurance. Its size therefore hides, or masks, that endurance.

A: Exaggerates would mean the bird’s size makes its endurance seem greater than it is, the reverse of the text’s point that the size makes the bird seem less capable than it is.

C: Reflects would mean the bird’s size shows its endurance accurately, but the text contrasts the two (“but”).

D: Offsets means counterbalances; the text does not say the bird’s size cancels out its endurance, only that the size gives no hint of it.

Watch for: Check which way the mismatch runs: the tiny size makes the endurance hard to see, so the word must mean hide, not overstate.

Correct choice: conscious

To be sensible of something is an older way of saying to be aware of it or keenly feel it. Gabriel’s mother chose her sons’ names because she was keenly aware of the dignity of family life, so conscious is the closest meaning.

A: Reasonable is the most common meaning of sensible, but “reasonable of the dignity of family life” makes no sense; the phrase sensible of describes awareness, not good judgment.

C: Practical is another everyday meaning of sensible, but the sentence concerns her feeling for the dignity of family life, not her practicality.

D: Moderate describes restraint, but the sentence stresses how strongly (“very”) she felt the dignity of family life, not any restraint in her attitude.

Watch for: When sensible is followed by of, it usually means aware of or alive to, not reasonable.

Correct choice: It specifies the limits of Tycho’s evidence before the text explains why that evidence still challenged a prevailing view.

The underlined sentence limits what Tycho’s observation could establish: not the star’s distance, only that any shift was undetectable. The next sentence (“That was enough, however”) explains why even this limited result placed the star beyond the Moon and so challenged the belief in unchanging heavens.

A: The text says the limited result “was enough” to place the star beyond the Moon, so the sentence does not deny that any conclusion could be drawn.

C: The sentence concerns the limits of Tycho’s evidence, not the reasons other scholars held their view.

D: The sentence adds no new observation; it states what the single observation could and could not show.

Watch for: A sentence that limits evidence can still set up a strong conclusion; read the sentence that follows it.

Correct choice: To show that the main evidence for one view of the burial fits a rival view equally well, so that the question remains open

The text sets out the cenotaph view and its evidence (no remains), then explains that acidic soil could have dissolved a body, so that evidence fits a burial just as well; it ends by noting that later chemical evidence is disputed. Its purpose is to show that the question remains open.

A: The text says only that some researchers read the chemical traces as signs of a body and that not all scholars accept that reading, so it does not argue that a body was present.

B: The text says a body could have dissolved entirely, leaving nothing to find; it does not claim that remains were present and overlooked.

D: The objects are listed in the first sentence as background; the text is about whether a body was buried, not about what the objects reveal.

Watch for: A main-purpose answer must fit the whole text, including its hedged ending; reject choices that settle a question the text leaves open.

Correct choice: It widens the narrator’s ironic target from Miss Crawley’s relatives to readers themselves, implying that anyone would overlook a rich relative’s faults.

The narrator has just said that Miss Crawley’s bank balance “would have made her beloved anywhere.” The underlined sentence shifts to “we” and wishes “every reader” such relatives, suggesting that we all look “tenderly” on a rich relative’s faults and find her “kind” because of her money. The satire now includes the reader.

B: Read literally, the sentence praises Miss Crawley, but its point is that her money makes people find her kind; the praise is ironic, and nothing suggests her relatives failed to appreciate her.

C: The sentence mentions her faults only to say that we overlook them; its target is the people who flatter her, not Miss Crawley herself.

D: The text attributes the family’s respect to her “balance at her banker’s,” not to her kindness; the sentence mocks that respect rather than explaining it sincerely.

Watch for: Notice when a narrator switches to “we” or addresses the reader: in satire, that switch often turns the criticism on the audience.

Correct choice: By suggesting that Text 1 ranks cooling first although stripes were not shown to cool and were shown to deter biting flies

Text 1 favors cooling because it is physically plausible and zebras live in hot regions. Text 2 reports that striped barrels warmed no less than gray ones, which is evidence against cooling, and that stripes sharply reduced horseflies’ landings. Its author would object that Text 1 ranks cooling first without supporting evidence while ignoring a demonstrated effect.

A: This accepts cooling, but Text 2’s barrel result gives no support for a cooling effect. The author would not agree that stripes probably cool zebras.

C: Neither text says zebras live in mild regions; Text 1 says they live in hot ones.

D: Text 2 already reports tests on horses in striped coats, and those concerned flies, not cooling; the similar approach rates are not a reason to test cooling on horses.

Watch for: A choice that sounds balanced, such as one that accepts cooling and adds a benefit against flies, can still contradict one text’s evidence; check that each clause is supported.

Correct choice: She would suggest that he names the wrong cause, since by her account he stole the hogs and went to the war only after he and she had quarreled.

Knowlt implies that he ran away and joined the army to escape jail for stealing hogs. Lydia flatly denies this (“that’s not the reason he turned a soldier”) and supplies another cause: he caught her with another man, they quarreled, and only then did he steal the hogs and go to the war. She would therefore say that he points to the wrong cause.

B: This misreads the timing: Lydia says Knowlt ran away the day before Curl Trenary swore out the warrant, so no warrant existed when he left.

C: Lydia never says why he stole the hogs, and she denies that the theft explains his becoming a soldier.

D: Lydia does not treat fear of jail as even part of his reason: she says flatly, “that’s not the reason he turned a soldier,” and puts the quarrel in its place.

Watch for: Track the order of events in Text 2 (quarrel, theft, departure, warrant) and notice where Lydia rejects the obvious explanation (“But that’s not the reason”).

Correct choice: They would argue that a resemblance in symptoms cannot establish poisoning when both who was afflicted and when their fits occurred point away from a shared source of food.

Text 2 does not deny that the reported symptoms resemble ergotism. It offers two objections: poisoning from shared grain should strike whole households, and it would not come and go with events in court. Spanos and Gottlieb would therefore say that Caporael’s argument from similar symptoms ignores a pattern of illness that ergotism cannot easily explain.

A: Text 2 presents the timing of the fits as a second problem for the ergotism account, not as something that account can explain.

B: Text 2 argues against a shared physical cause; nothing in it suggests a contagious illness, which would also be expected to spread within households.

D: Text 2 never discusses the weather or how much grain was eaten, and it does not grant that the rye was infected.

Watch for: When Text 2 raises two objections, a choice that treats one of them as a point in Text 1’s favor misreads the response.

Correct choice: He suspects, in hindsight, that the advice that governed twelve years of his conduct was either foolish or deliberately deceptive.

Dowell describes twelve years of steering every conversation because a doctor “assured” him it “must be done,” then bursts out: are the doctors “monstrous idiots,” or is there “a freemasonry”—a secret fellowship—among them? Either way, he now doubts the advice he followed, suspecting incompetence or collusion.

A: His doubt about Florence’s condition fits the text, but “a freemasonry between all of them” suggests he suspects the doctors of acting together, not that he trusts their intentions.

B: The text says nothing about which subjects mattered more to him than to Florence; his outburst is aimed at the doctors’ advice, not at the loss of particular topics.

C: “A freemasonry between all of them from end to end of the earth” suggests that the doctors all agreed, as if by secret arrangement, not that they gave conflicting advice.

Watch for: The final question is not a real request for information; ask what attitude toward the doctors it reveals, and reject choices that keep half of that attitude.

Correct choice: Artificially warmed west-facing heads received no more morning pollinator visits than unwarmed ones did.

The proposal credits morning warmth, rather than other effects of facing east, with attracting pollinators. Warming west-facing heads changes warmth without changing direction. If warmed heads drew no more visits than unwarmed ones, warmth alone would not account for the extra visits, and the proposal would be weakened.

A: More seeds on east-facing heads is consistent with the proposal; it does not bear on whether warmth or another effect of facing east matters.

C: This would, if anything, support the proposal: pollinators favor warmth whichever way the heads face.

D: This concerns when tracking stops, not why east-facing heads attract pollinators.

Watch for: To weaken a claim that one factor is responsible, look for a test that changes that factor alone and finds no effect.

Correct choice: Eel larvae grow far more slowly in the Sargasso Sea than elsewhere in the Atlantic, so that larvae of the same age are much smaller there.

Schmidt’s inference assumes that a larva’s size reflects its age. If larvae grew much more slowly in the Sargasso Sea, the small larvae there could be old rather than newly hatched, and their small size would no longer point to spawning there.

A: Losing contact with tagged eels leaves the question open; it offers no evidence against spawning in the Sargasso Sea, so it does not undercut the inference from larval size.

B: That a related species also spawns there says nothing against the European eel’s doing so; the finding is consistent with Schmidt’s conclusion.

D: A long drift from the Sargasso Sea to Europe fits Schmidt’s conclusion and explains why the larvae are larger near Europe.

Watch for: An inference can be weakened by attacking the assumption that links its evidence to its conclusion—here, that smaller means younger.

Correct choice: Seed shape and seed color, the traits with the largest totals, came closer to a ratio of three to one than flower color and pod color did.

The ratios are about 2.96 to 1 (seed shape) and 3.01 to 1 (seed color) for the two largest totals, and about 3.15 to 1 (flower color) and 2.82 to 1 (pod color) for the two smallest. The large-total traits are within 0.05 of three to one; the small-total traits are 0.15 and 0.18 away. Only this choice compares the two groups as the claim requires.

A: This is accurate (705 to 224 is about 3.15 to 1 and 428 to 152 about 2.82 to 1), but it describes only the small-total traits and never compares them with the large-total traits, which the claim requires.

C: This is accurate (6,022 to 2,001 is about 3.01 to 1 and 5,474 to 1,850 about 2.96 to 1), but it compares the two traits with the largest totals with each other rather than with the traits with the smallest totals.

D: This misreads the graph: pod color’s ratio, about 2.82 to 1, is 0.18 from three to one, while flower color’s, about 3.15 to 1, is only 0.15 away.

Watch for: When a claim compares two groups, compute the relevant values for both groups; an accurate statement about one group alone does not support the comparison.

Correct choice: Only 133 women applied to departments A and B, which admitted more than 60 percent of applicants, whereas more than 1,700 women applied to departments C through F, which admitted no more than 37 percent.

The claim has two parts: where women applied, and how selective those departments were. Only 108 + 25 = 133 women applied to A and B, which admitted over 60 percent, while 593 + 375 + 393 + 341 = 1,702 applied to C through F, which admitted at most 37 percent of either group.

A: This is accurate and supports the finding that women did well within departments, but it says nothing about which departments women applied to, which is the heart of the claim.

C: This is accurate and shows where women applied, but it never shows that departments C through F admitted smaller shares of applicants, so it does not explain the overall gap.

D: This reverses the table: most men (825 + 560) applied to A and B, while most women applied to C through F.

Watch for: An overall gap can arise from where groups apply rather than from how each department treats them; a supporting choice must connect the application pattern to the departments’ admission rates.

Correct choice: the same kind of evidence can point to an unseen body without by itself establishing that such a body exists.

The same reasoning, inferring an unseen planet from an orbital deviation, succeeded for Uranus (Neptune was found) and failed for Mercury (a different explanation proved correct). Together the cases show that such a deviation can point to an unseen body but cannot by itself establish that one exists.

A: Two cases cannot support a general rule about distance from the Sun, and the text offers no such rule.

B: The text does not say Le Verrier miscalculated; it says Mercury’s motion had a different explanation.

C: The text says Neptune accounted for Uranus’s deviations; relativity is mentioned only for Mercury.

Watch for: When a text pairs a success and a failure of one method, the conclusion usually concerns what the method can and cannot establish.

Correct choice: favored the model with one original and one new strand, since the mixed model predicts a single band lying between intermediate and light.

Under the mixed model, every molecule after two rounds would contain the same small share of original material, giving one band between intermediate and light. Under the one-original-strand model, half the molecules would still carry an original strand (intermediate) and half would be entirely new (light). The two observed bands match the second model only.

B: The mixed model predicts a single band, not two, so the result counts against it rather than for it.

C: The intact-original model predicts a band of fully dense DNA and no intermediate band; the observed intermediate band still rules it out.

D: Only the one-original-strand model predicts a fully light band; the mixed model does not, so the two bands do distinguish the models.

Watch for: Work out what each remaining model predicts for the second round before choosing; a result that shares one feature with both models can still differ from one of them.

Correct choice: mutations that had arisen in that population by about generation 20,000, though they did not themselves allow citrate use, made that ability possible later.

Every restarted culture had the same conditions and time, yet only those begun from later samples produced citrate users. Something in the population’s history by about generation 20,000 must have made the ability possible—earlier mutations that set the stage without themselves allowing citrate use, since no earlier sample could use citrate.

A: The result concerns the history of one population; nothing suggests that every population reaches the same point after 20,000 generations, and the other eleven had not evolved the ability.

B: The restarted cultures began from single cells, and the text says samples taken before generation 30,000 contained no bacteria that could use citrate, so citrate use had not already arisen and gone undetected; it evolved again in the new cultures.

C: A chance event unrelated to the population’s earlier history could have happened in cultures started from any generation, yet citrate users arose only from cells taken after about generation 20,000.

Watch for: When an outcome can be repeated only from later starting points, look for something that changed in the population’s history, not in the conditions or the outcome itself.

Correct choice: hypotheses

The sentence needs the plural of hypothesis (“two rival …”), and nothing belongs to the hypotheses, so no apostrophe is needed. The plural of hypothesis is hypotheses.

B: Hypothesis is singular, but “two rival” requires a plural noun.

C: Hypothesis’s is a singular possessive, but the sentence needs a plural noun and nothing follows that the hypotheses possess.

D: Hypotheses’ is a plural possessive, but nothing in the sentence belongs to the hypotheses.

Watch for: Many nouns of Greek or Latin origin ending in -is form their plurals by changing -is to -es (hypothesis, hypotheses; analysis, analyses); add an apostrophe only to show possession.

Correct choice: bays—

The phrase “one of the brightest of the world’s bioluminescent bays” interrupts the subject and its verb, “glows.” It opens with a dash, so it must close with a dash.

A: An interrupting phrase must be closed with the same punctuation that opened it; a dash cannot be paired with a comma.

B: Without closing punctuation, the phrase runs into the main verb, and the sentence reads as if “bays” were the subject of “glows.”

D: A semicolon separates independent clauses; it cannot close an interrupting phrase.

Watch for: Look back for the punctuation that opened an interruption and close it the same way.

Correct choice: strong threads

Thin, flexible, and remarkably strong is a series of adjectives describing threads. Commas separate the adjectives from one another, but no punctuation separates the last adjective from the noun it modifies.

A: A comma between the last adjective, strong, and the noun threads wrongly separates a modifier from the word it describes.

B: A comma after threads would separate the noun from the clause that the animals secrete …, which identifies which threads are meant and so takes no comma.

D: This makes both errors: a comma between strong and threads, and a comma before the restrictive clause that the animals secrete ….

Watch for: Commas separate the adjectives in a series, but none goes between the last adjective and its noun, or before a restrictive that clause.

Correct choice: its

The pronoun refers to the subject, “A honeybee colony,” which is singular, and it must show possession of the brood comb: “its.” The plural “workers” sits inside a nonessential clause and is not the antecedent.

B: “Their” is plural and would refer to the workers inside the “which” clause, but the colony is the subject that keeps the temperature of its comb.

C: “It’s” is a contraction of “it is,” not a possessive.

D: “There” indicates a place and is not a possessive pronoun.

Watch for: A plural noun inside a nonessential clause does not change the number of the subject a pronoun refers to.

Correct choice: deduce

After the causative verb make in the active voice (“make his students …”), the following verb takes the bare infinitive, without to: “make his students deduce.”

A: To deduce would follow verbs such as ask or encourage (“encourage his students to deduce”), but after active make the infinitive drops to.

C: Deducing is a participle; “make his students deducing” is not a standard construction.

D: Deduced would fit only a passive or perfect construction; “make his students deduced” is ungrammatical.

Watch for: Causative make, let, and have take the bare infinitive (“made them wait”), while cause, get, and ask take to (“caused them to wait”).

Correct choice: many of which

Many of which begins a relative clause describing the manuscripts, so it can be attached to the main clause with a comma. The other choices begin a second independent clause, which a comma alone cannot join to the first.

A: Many of them survive … is an independent clause; after a comma with no conjunction, it creates a comma splice.

C: Many of these survive … is also an independent clause, so the sentence would be a comma splice.

D: Most survive … is an independent clause; joining it with only a comma creates a comma splice.

Watch for: Which can attach a clause with a comma; them, these, and they start a new independent clause.

Correct choice: On the other hand,

The last sentence describes the other group in the comparison—people exposed early rather than late—and their different outcome. On the other hand introduces this contrasting case.

B: Nevertheless signals that something holds despite what came before, but the early group’s outcomes are not a surprising exception to the late group’s; they are a second, different case.

C: Instead signals that one thing takes the place of another, but the early group’s outcomes do not replace the late group’s; both are findings of the same comparison.

D: Even so signals that something holds despite a preceding point, but the early group’s outcomes are not presented as holding despite the late group’s small birth size; they are simply a second, different case.

Watch for: All four choices signal some kind of contrast; On the other hand is the one that sets two cases side by side without implying that one defies or replaces the other.

Correct choice: In turn,

The ancient seed produced a tree, and that tree then supplied the pollen that let another ancient palm bear fruit. In turn marks this next step, in which the result of one step becomes the means of the next.

A: Meanwhile signals that two things happened at the same time, but the pollination happened “later,” after Methuselah had grown into a tree.

B: For instance introduces an example of a general point, but the pollination is a later step in Methuselah’s story, not an example of anything stated before it.

C: In short introduces a summary, but the final sentence reports a new event rather than summarizing the previous ones.

Watch for: In turn fits when each step makes the next possible: seed, tree, pollen, fruit.

Correct choice: DNA from 1840s herbarium leaves showed that the famine was caused not by US-1, as long assumed, but by a previously unknown strain, HERB-1.

The goal needs the method (DNA from 1840s herbarium leaves) and the assumption it overturned (that US-1 caused the famine). Only this choice gives both and states the correction.

A: This gives the method and its result but never mentions the earlier assumption, so it does not show that anything was overturned.

B: This states the assumption and its correction but not how the researchers reached the correction.

D: This mentions the source of the DNA and the strain’s disappearance but not the assumption about US-1 that the work overturned.

Watch for: “How researchers overturned an assumption” requires both the means and the assumption; a choice with only one of them is incomplete.

Correct choice: Tinbergen and Perdeck found that a thin red rod with three white bands near its tip drew even more pecks from gull chicks than a realistic model of a gull’s head did.

The most surprising result is that an unrealistic object—a banded red rod—outdrew a realistic gull head. An audience that already knows how chicks beg needs no explanation of the behavior, so this choice presents the result directly.

A: This explains the begging behavior the audience already knows, and the result it reports follows naturally from that behavior rather than being the most surprising one.

B: This reports a result, but one that follows naturally from the chicks’ pecking at a parent’s red spot; it is not the surprising finding that an unrealistic rod beat a realistic head.

C: This explains the familiar begging behavior and describes the setup of the experiments but reports no result.

Watch for: Two conditions are hidden in this goal: the most surprising result, and no background the audience already has.

Correct choice: The same levels of Lake Suigetsu’s sediment can be dated in two ways—by counting yearly layers and by radiocarbon dating trapped leaves—so the two ages can be compared.

Calibration requires material with both a radiocarbon age and a known calendar age. Suigetsu’s layers supply both at the same levels: counted layers give calendar ages, and trapped leaves give radiocarbon ages. Only this choice combines the two and states why that matters.

A: This explains why calibration is needed but not what makes Suigetsu’s sediments suited to it.

B: This explains how the layers give calendar ages but not that they also contain material that can be radiocarbon dated.

C: This explains that the layers contain datable material and span a long period but not that they also give calendar ages to compare with.

Watch for: When usefulness depends on two properties together, a choice that names only one property, however accurate, does not explain it.

A radical becomes a fractional exponent whose numerator is the power under the radical and whose denominator is the index of the root, so $\sqrt[3]{x^5} = x^{5/3}$. Reading the fraction upside down gives $x^{3/5}$, which is the cube root's fifth power turned inside out. Adding the index to the power instead of writing it beneath gives $x^{8/3}$, and multiplying the two gives $x^{15}$, which is the result of raising to the third power rather than taking a third root.

Consecutive odd integers rise by $2$, so calling the least of them $n$ gives $n + (n + 2) + (n + 4) + (n + 6) = 4n + 12 = 72$, and $n = 15$. The four are $15$, $17$, $19$, and $21$, so the greatest is $21$. Answering $15$ reports the least instead of the greatest, and $19$ the third. The average, $72 \div 4 = 18$, is not one of them at all, since four consecutive odd integers have an even number midway between the middle two.

Answer: B.

Because $\ell\parallel m$, the $52^\circ$ angle at $A$ and $\angle ABC$ are alternate interior angles, so $\angle ABC=52^\circ$. The $115^\circ$ angle at $C$ is an exterior angle of triangle $ABC$, so $\angle ACB=180^\circ-115^\circ=65^\circ$. The angles of triangle $ABC$ sum to $180^\circ$:

$x=180-52-65=63$

Check: The exterior angle at $C$ equals the sum of the two remote interior angles: $52^\circ+63^\circ=115^\circ$.

A: This is the measure of $\angle ABC$, which equals the given $52^\circ$ angle; it is not $\angle BAC$.

C: This is the measure of $\angle ACB$, the angle supplementary to the $115^\circ$ angle.

D: This treats $x$ as supplementary to the $52^\circ$ angle, but those two angles do not form a straight line.

Watch for: Label each angle of the triangle before adding; only the angle at $A$ between segments $AB$ and $AC$ is $x^\circ$.

Answer: A.

The original ordered values are $2,2,4,7,9$. Replacing 9 by 14 adds 5 to the sum, so the mean increases by $5/5=1$. The middle value remains 4.

Check: The means are $24/5=4.8$ and $29/5=5.8$; both medians are 4.

B: Only the mean changes.

C: Five is the change in the sum, not in the mean.

D: The mean changes; the median does not.

Watch for: A change to an extreme value affects the sum but need not change the middle position.

Answer: D.

Recover $a$ from the stated condition first: $2a+1=-3$ gives $2a=-4$, so $a=-2$. Then $f(-2)=(-2)^2-3(-2)=4+6=10$, and applying the outer function gives $g(10)=2(10)+1=21$.

Check: Composing symbolically instead, $g(f(x))=2(x^2-3x)+1=2x^2-6x+1$, and substituting $x=-2$ gives $8+12+1=21$.

A: $-2$ is the value of $a$ itself, the input the condition produces, not the value of $g(f(a))$.

B: 9 comes from solving $2a+1=-3$ as $a=\dfrac{-3+1}{2}=-1$, adding the 1 instead of subtracting it; that gives $f(-1)=4$ and $g(4)=9$.

C: 18 is $f(g(a))=f(-3)=9+9=18$, the same two functions applied in the wrong order.

Watch for: When the input to a composition is described by a condition instead of given outright, solve for it first, and check which of the two functions the condition is about.

Answer: D.

Let $b$ and $f$ be the masses, in kilograms, of one crate of bolts and one crate of fittings. The shipments give $4b+3f=87$ and $2b+5f=89$. Solving the system yields $b=12$ and $f=13$, so $b+f=25$ kilograms.

Check: $4(12)+3(13)=48+39=87$ and $2(12)+5(13)=24+65=89$, so both stated shipment masses are reproduced.

A: Subtracting the second equation from the first gives $2b-2f=-2$, so $f-b=1$. That is the difference of the two crate masses, not their sum.

B: $12$ is the mass of one crate of bolts by itself.

C: $13$ is the mass of one crate of fittings by itself.

Watch for: After solving a system, reread which combination of the variables the question asks for.

For a quadratic written as $ax^2 + bx + c = 0$, the two solutions add to $-\frac{b}{a}$.

Here $a$ is $2$ and $b$ is $-14$.

Substituting those values:

The two solutions add to $7$.

Answer: 18

The pass total is 54 + 36 = 90. If this is 75% of all hinges, the total is 90/0.75 = 120. The three known cells sum to 102, so n = 18.

Check: The completed failure total is 30, one quarter of 120.

Watch for: An overall proportion uses the grand total, not either orientation’s row total.

Answer: C.

Substituting the reported depth gives $0.4+0.15p=3.25$, so $0.15p=2.85$ and $p=19$ passes. Twice as many passes means $p=38$, and the model then gives $d=0.4+0.15(38)=0.4+5.7=6.10$ millimeters.

Check: Each pass adds $0.15$ millimeter, so the $19$ extra passes add $19(0.15)=2.85$ millimeters to the original $3.25$ millimeters, which is $6.10$.

A: This adds the starting depth $0.4$ to the given $3.25$ a second time instead of doubling the number of passes.

B: This computes $0.15(38)=5.70$ but drops the constant term $0.4$, which is the depth the groove already has before any pass is made.

D: This doubles the depth itself, $2(3.25)=6.50$. Doubling the input doubles the output only for a proportional relationship, and here the $0.4$ does not double.

Watch for: Doubling the input of a linear model does not double the output unless the constant term is zero.

Answer: 2

Write each difference in terms of $a$ and $b$:

$f(2)-f(1)=ab^2-ab=ab(b-1)=12$

$f(3)-f(2)=ab^3-ab^2=ab^2(b-1)=36$

Dividing the second equation by the first gives $b=3$. Then $a(3)(3-1)=12$, so $6a=12$ and $a=2$. Because $f(0)=a\cdot b^0=a$, the value of $f(0)$ is $2$.

Check: With $f(x)=2\cdot3^x$, the values are $f(1)=6$, $f(2)=18$, and $f(3)=54$. The differences are $18-6=12$ and $54-18=36$.

Watch for: The most common wrong value is $6$, from writing $f(2)-f(1)$ as $a(b-1)$ and leaving out the factor $b$. The value $6$ is also $f(1)$, not $f(0)$.

Answer: 57

The sum of the $20$ numbers is $20(50)=1{,}000$.

Without the greatest number, the sum is $19(48)=912$, so the greatest number is $1{,}000-912=88$.

Without the least number, the sum is $19(51)=969$, so the least number is $1{,}000-969=31$.

The range is $88-31=57$.

Check: Removing $88$ from a sum of $1{,}000$ leaves $912$, and $\frac{912}{19}=48$; removing $31$ leaves $969$, and $\frac{969}{19}=51$.

Watch for: The most common wrong value is $3$, the difference between the two new means; find each removed number from the change in the sum.

Answer: 20/3

The midpoint of the segment is $(4,4)$, and the segment’s slope is $\dfrac{6-2}{7-1}=\dfrac23$. Line $\ell$ passes through $(4,4)$ with slope $-\dfrac32$, so $y-4=-\dfrac32(x-4)$. Setting $y=0$ gives $x-4=\dfrac83$, so $x=\dfrac{20}{3}$.

Check: The point $\left(\tfrac{20}{3},0\right)$ is equidistant from both endpoints: $\left(\tfrac{17}{3}\right)^2+2^2=\tfrac{325}{9}$ and $\left(\tfrac{1}{3}\right)^2+6^2=\tfrac{325}{9}$.

Watch for: The most common wrong value is $\tfrac43$, from using slope $+\tfrac32$ (the reciprocal without the sign change); another is $10$, the $y$-intercept.

The vertex is at $(h, k) = (2, -3)$. The graph also passes through $(5, 3)$, so $3 = a|5 - 2| - 3$, giving $3a = 6$ and $a = 2$. Then $a + h + k = 2 + 2 - 3 = 1$. Reading the vertex as $(2, 3)$, with the sign of $k$ reversed, gives $7$. Reporting $k$ alone gives $-3$, and reporting $a$ alone gives $2$.

Answer: B.

In the undiluted bath every $3$ liters of concentrate is matched by $22$ liters of water, so $54$ liters of concentrate calls for $54\times\dfrac{22}{3}=396$ liters of water. The extra $90$ liters raise the water to $486$ liters while the concentrate stays at $54$, and $54:486$ reduces to $1:9$.

Check: The reduction is exact because $54\times 9=486$, and the diluted bath totals $540$ liters, of which the concentrate is one part in ten, consistent with one part concentrate to nine parts water.

A: $1:10$ compares concentrate with the whole diluted bath, $54:540$, rather than with the water alone.

C: $3:22$ is the ratio before the extra water goes in; the $90$ liters were never counted.

D: $4:11$ adds the $90$ liters to the concentrate instead of to the water, giving $144:396$.

Watch for: Adding one ingredient changes a part-to-part ratio but leaves the other part untouched, so settle which part the addition joins before reducing.

Answer: C.

Each hour the count is multiplied by $0.6$, so over two hours it is multiplied by $(0.6)^2=0.36$. A multiplier of $0.36$ leaves $36\%$ of the parcels, so the decrease is $100\%-36\%=64\%$.

Check: Starting from $1{,}200$ parcels, the model gives $1{,}200(0.6)=720$ after one hour and $720(0.6)=432$ after two. The drop is $1{,}200-432=768$, and $768/1{,}200=0.64$.

A: $36\%$ is the fraction of parcels still unscanned after two hours, not the percent by which the count fell.

B: $40\%$ is the decrease over a single hour, not over two.

D: This doubles the hourly $40\%$ decrease. Repeated percent changes multiply rather than add, so two hours leave $0.6(0.6)=36\%$, not $20\%$.

Watch for: Percent decreases compound by multiplying the remaining fractions; they never simply add.

Answer: A. −4 The first inequality gives $2a + 2 > 9$, or $a > 3.5$. The second gives $4a - 2 < 17$, or $a < 4.75$. The only integer is $a = 4$. Then $f(x) = 2x + 8$, whose zero is $x = -4$.

Watch for: Find the allowed integer parameter before using the line's intercept formula.

Answer: A.

Tangency to the x-axis makes the radius 4. The point condition gives $(5-a)^2+(6-4)^2=16$, so $(5-a)^2=12$. Since a < 5, $5-a=2\sqrt3$, giving $a=5-2\sqrt3$.

Check: The horizontal and vertical offsets to the point have squares 12 and 4, totaling the radius squared 16.

B: This violates a < 5.

C: This has both the wrong displacement and the wrong side.

D: This doubles the required horizontal displacement.

Watch for: Use the side condition to select the sign after taking a square root.

Answer: B.

Because $f(-2)=f(6)$, the axis of symmetry of the parabola is halfway between $-2$ and $6$, at $x=2$.

Both $0$ and $1$ are to the left of the axis, and $0$ is farther from it. Since $f(0)>f(1)$, the values increase with distance from the axis, so the parabola opens upward and $f$ has its minimum at $x=2$.

For an upward-opening parabola, the input farther from the axis has the greater output. The input $5$ is $3$ units from the axis and $0$ is $2$ units from it, so $f(5)>f(0)$ must be true.

Check: The function $f(x)=(x-2)^2$ satisfies both conditions: $f(-2)=16=f(6)$ and $f(0)=4>1=f(1)$. It gives $f(5)=9>4=f(0)$, while the statements in choices A, C, and D are false for it.

A: This would be true if the parabola opened downward; but $f(0)>f(1)$ means the parabola opens upward, so $f(2)$ is the minimum and $f(2)<f(1)$.

C: $4$ and $0$ are both $2$ units from the axis $x=2$, so $f(4)=f(0)$.

D: $3$ is only $1$ unit from the axis and $0$ is $2$ units away, so $f(3)<f(0)$ for an upward-opening parabola.

Watch for: Use the equal outputs to find the axis, then use the inequality to decide which way the parabola opens before comparing distances from the axis.

Let the $y$-intercept be $(0, b)$. Then the $x$-intercept is $(2b, 0)$.

The slope between the two intercepts is the change in $y$ over the change in $x$:

The slope is $-\dfrac{1}{2}$ no matter what $b$ is, so the line has the form

Substitute the point $(4, 3)$:

Simplify the right side and solve:

So the line is $y = -\dfrac{1}{2}x + 5$. Its $y$-intercept is $5$ and its $x$-intercept is $10$, which is twice $5$.