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Standard Reading and Writing Practice Test 1Standard 1
Reading and Writing
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Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 1 of 27
Every twenty years, the main buildings of the Ise Grand Shrine in Japan are taken down and rebuilt on an adjacent site using the same traditional methods. Because each reconstruction requires younger carpenters to learn techniques from workers who took part in the previous one, the practice ______ building skills that might otherwise disappear during the long intervals between major projects.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 2 of 27
The following text is from E. M. Forster’s 1910 novel Howards End. Margaret Schlegel is thinking about the Wilcoxes, a family of brisk, practical businesspeople whose way of life differs from that of Margaret and her younger siblings, Helen and Tibby.
To Margaret this life was to remain a real force. She could not despise it, as Helen and Tibby Underlined: affected End underlined. to do. It fostered such virtues as neatness, decision, and obedience, virtues of the second rank, no doubt, but they have formed our civilisation. They form character, too; Margaret could not doubt it; they keep the soul from becoming sloppy.
As used in the text, what does the word “affected” most nearly mean?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 3 of 27
The following text is Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Kin to Sorrow,” from her 1917 collection Renascence and Other Poems.
Am I kin to Sorrow, That so oft Falls the knocker of my door— Neither loud nor soft, But as long accustomed, Under Sorrow's hand? Marigolds around the step And rosemary stand, And then comes Sorrow— And what does Sorrow care For the rosemary Or the marigolds there? Am I kin to Sorrow? Are we kin? That so oft upon my door— Underlined: Oh, come in! End underlined.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 4 of 27
The following text is from Sinclair Lewis’s 1922 novel Babbitt. The narrator describes Zenith, a fictional American city, early in the morning.
The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They were neither citadels nor churches, but frankly and beautifully office-buildings. The mist took pity on the fretted structures of earlier generations: the Post Office with its shingle-tortured mansard, the red brick minarets of hulking old houses, factories with stingy and sooted windows, wooden tenements colored like mud. The city was full of such grotesqueries, but the clean towers were thrusting them from the business center, and on the farther hills were shining new houses, homes—Underlined: they seemed End underlined.—for laughter and tranquillity.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 5 of 27
Text 1
New Zealand’s moa, flightless birds that included species taller than a person, disappeared within about two centuries after Polynesians settled the islands around 1300 CE. Some researchers have suggested that hunting merely finished off moa populations that were already shrinking before people arrived, perhaps because of a changing climate or volcanic eruptions.
Text 2
Geneticist Morten Allentoft and colleagues analyzed ancient DNA from hundreds of moa bones dated to the four thousand years before the birds’ extinction. Populations that shrink over many generations tend to lose genetic diversity, yet the team found no such loss: the genetic diversity of all four moa species they studied remained stable until the birds vanished.
Based on the texts, how would Allentoft and colleagues (Text 2) most likely respond to the suggestion described in Text 1?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 6 of 27
Text 1
In 2003 researchers excavating Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores found the skeleton of an adult hominin, known as LB1, that lived roughly 60,000 to 100,000 years ago, stood only about a meter tall and had a brain roughly a third the size of a modern human’s. Its discoverers assigned it to a new species, Homo floresiensis. Some researchers objected that LB1 was more likely a modern human with a disorder that stunts growth, an argument that rested partly on the fact that LB1 was the only skull ever found.
Text 2
In 2016 a team working at Mata Menge, about 70 kilometers from Liang Bua, reported a jaw fragment and teeth roughly 700,000 years old. The fossils resemble those of LB1 and come from individuals as small as LB1 or even smaller.
Based on the texts, how would the researchers who studied the Mata Menge fossils (Text 2) most likely respond to the objection described 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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 7 of 27
Text 1
Rocks on Racetrack Playa, a dry lakebed in California’s Death Valley, leave long trails in its surface, but for decades no one saw them move. Some researchers proposed that ice carried the rocks, yet ice thick enough to hold heavy rocks rarely forms in this desert. A more plausible explanation, other researchers argued, is that strong gusts pushed the rocks directly across mud made slick by rare rains.
Text 2
During the winter of 2013–2014, a research team using GPS-equipped rocks, cameras, and a weather station recorded the rocks moving. After rain left a shallow pond on the lakebed, ice only a few millimeters thick formed overnight. As the sheet melted and broke into large floating panels, light winds drove the panels against the rocks, shoving them across the soft ground beneath the water.
Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the reasoning presented in Text 1?
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).
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 8 of 27
The following text is from Henry Adams’s 1918 autobiography The Education of Henry Adams. Adams attended Harvard College in the 1850s.
Harvard College, as far as it educated at all, was a mild and liberal school, which sent young men into the world with all they needed to make respectable citizens, and something of what they wanted to make useful ones. Leaders of men it never tried to make. [...] In effect, the school created a type but not a will. Four years of Harvard College, if successful, resulted in an autobiographical blank, a mind on which only a water-mark had been stamped. The stamp, as such things went, was a good one. [...] It taught little, and that little ill, but it left the mind open, free from bias, ignorant of facts, but docile. The graduate had few strong prejudices. He knew little, but his mind remained supple, ready to receive knowledge.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 9 of 27
In Robert Frost’s 1914 poem “The Death of the Hired Man,” Mary tells her husband, Warren, about Silas, an aging farmhand who has returned to their farm. Warren considers Silas unreliable, but Mary defends him. She suggests that Silas’s wish to be of use to others has survived even though his own life has given him little to be proud of.
Which quotation from “The Death of the Hired Man” most effectively illustrates the claim?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 10 of 27
Aurora Leigh is an 1856 verse novel by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In the poem, the narrator, Aurora, recalls the education her aunt arranged for her and suggests that the aunt’s plan of study treated even demanding academic subjects as things to be sampled rather than mastered.
Which quotation from Aurora Leigh most effectively illustrates the claim?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 11 of 27
A liquid-in-glass thermometer works only between the temperature at which its liquid freezes and the temperature at which it boils. The table shows the melting and boiling points of three liquids at sea-level pressure. A student claims that a thermometer filled with ethanol is better suited than one filled with mercury for measuring very cold temperatures, but a mercury thermometer is better suited for measuring very hot ones.
Melting and Boiling Points at Sea-Level Pressure
Liquid
Melting point (°C)
Boiling point (°C)
Ethanol
−114
78
Mercury
−39
357
Water
0
100
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support the student’s claim?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 12 of 27
In 1619 Johannes Kepler published a precise mathematical relationship between planets’ distances from the Sun and the time they take to complete their orbits. The table shows four planets’ average distances from the Sun, in astronomical units (AU), and their orbital periods, in Earth years. A student claims that orbital period grows faster than distance: when one planet is some number of times as far from the Sun as another, its orbital period is more than that number of times as long.
Distances from the Sun and Orbital Periods
Planet
Average distance from Sun (AU)
Orbital period (Earth years)
Earth
1.00
1.00
Mars
1.52
1.88
Jupiter
5.20
11.86
Saturn
9.54
29.46
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support the student’s claim?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 13 of 27
In 1676 astronomer Ole Rømer studied eclipses of Io, a moon of Jupiter that regularly passes into the planet’s shadow. Predicting eclipses from the average interval between them, Rømer found that the eclipses were seen later than predicted when Earth, in its orbit, was far from Jupiter and earlier than predicted when Earth was near Jupiter, although nothing in Io’s own motion accounted for the difference. He reasoned that light from Io needed time to cross the distance to Earth. Rømer’s reasoning implies that for predictions to match every observed eclipse, they would have to ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 14 of 27
Most planetary scientists think that the Moon formed from debris thrown out when a body about the size of Mars struck the young Earth. Computer simulations of such a collision typically predict that most of the Moon’s material came from the impacting body rather than from Earth. Yet rocks brought back by the Apollo missions have almost exactly the same proportions of oxygen isotopes as rocks on Earth, whereas meteorites from Mars and most meteorites from the asteroid belt have proportions measurably different from Earth’s. If the impact explanation is correct, the Apollo results suggest that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 15 of 27
The following text is from Sarah Orne Jewett’s 1896 novel The Country of the Pointed Firs. The narrator is attending a large family reunion with her friend Mrs. Todd.
As the feast went on, the spirits of my companion steadily rose. The excitement of an unexpectedly great occasion was a subtle stimulant to her disposition, and I could see that sometimes when Mrs. Todd had seemed limited and heavily domestic, she had simply grown sluggish for lack of proper surroundings. [...] It was not the first time that I was full of wonder at the waste of human ability in this world, as a botanist wonders at the wastefulness of nature, the thousand seeds that die, the unused provision of every sort. The reserve force of society grows more and more amazing to one's thought. More than one face among the Bowdens showed that only opportunity and stimulus were lacking,—a narrow set of circumstances had caged a fine able character and held it captive.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 16 of 27
Although the coelacanth was known to scientists only from fossils more than 66 million years old, ______ living specimen was caught off the coast of South Africa in 1938.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 17 of 27
John Harrison spent decades building marine timekeepers that could keep accurate time at sea. Harrison’s first timekeeper, completed in ______ about 34 kilograms; his fourth, tested at sea in the 1760s, was small enough to hold in one hand.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 18 of 27
A stalactite grows as drops of water seeping through a cave’s ceiling leave behind thin films of minerals, which ______ up, layer by layer, over thousands of years into a stone icicle.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 19 of 27
In some broods of periodical cicadas, adults emerge from the ground together only once every seventeen years. The cicadas that emerge in a single acre of forest, sometimes numbering more than a million and appearing within a few weeks of one another, ______ far more insects than local predators can eat.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 20 of 27
Fridtjof Nansen’s ship, the Fram, drifted with the Arctic pack ice for nearly three years (from 1893 to ______ the drift carried it farther north than any ship had gone before.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 21 of 27
Deep-sea hydrothermal vents support dense communities of tubeworms, clams, and other animals in complete darkness. The main source of energy for these communities ______ chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide rather than sunlight; bacteria living in and around the animals use the chemicals to make food.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 22 of 27
On islands, mammals often evolve body sizes very different from those of their mainland relatives. Large species, which may face limited food and few predators, tend to become smaller: on Sicily and Malta, extinct elephants evolved to stand only about a meter tall at the shoulder. ______ small species on islands tend to become larger, perhaps because the absence of predators removes the advantage of a small, easily hidden body; the same islands were once home to a dormouse far larger than its mainland relatives.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 23 of 27
In the third century BCE, the scholar Eratosthenes learned that at noon on the summer solstice, the Sun shone straight down a well at Syene, in southern Egypt, while at Alexandria, to the north, a vertical rod cast a shadow at an angle of about one-fiftieth of a full circle. Eratosthenes assumed that the Sun is so far away that its rays reach Earth along parallel lines. ______ he reasoned, the difference in the angle of sunlight at the two cities had to be caused by the curvature of Earth’s surface between them, so Earth’s circumference must be about fifty times the distance separating the cities.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 24 of 27
When London’s Millennium Bridge opened in June 2000, it swayed so noticeably under the feet of crowds that it was closed after just two days. Engineers traced the sway to a feedback loop: as the deck moved slightly sideways, pedestrians fell into step with the motion, pushing the deck farther. The engineers’ aim was to keep that motion from building up without limiting how many people could use the bridge. ______ they fitted the bridge with dozens of dampers that absorb the energy of the sway, and it reopened in 2002.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 25 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
Glass frogs are small tree frogs that live in the rainforests of Central and South America.
Many glass frogs have translucent skin and muscles, especially on their undersides.
In 2022 a team led by Carlos Taboada and Jesse Delia studied sleeping glass frogs of the species Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni.
The team found that sleeping frogs hid nearly 90 percent of their red blood cells in their liver.
Removing the red blood cells from circulation made the frogs two to three times more transparent.
When the frogs woke up and became active, the red blood cells returned to their blood vessels.
The student wants to explain how some glass frogs make themselves more transparent and to emphasize that the effect is temporary. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 26 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which opened in 2008 on a Norwegian island in the Arctic, stores backup copies of seed samples held by gene banks around the world.
The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) had stored backup samples in the vault.
War in Syria disrupted ICARDA’s gene bank near Aleppo.
In 2015, ICARDA made the first withdrawal of seeds from the vault.
ICARDA used the withdrawn seeds to rebuild its collections at new facilities in Lebanon and Morocco.
It later returned newly grown seed samples to the vault.
The student wants to present each step of the vault’s first withdrawal in the order it occurred, from the reason for it to the return of seeds to the vault. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 1 · Question 27 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift in Scotland that opened in 2002.
It connects the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal, which lies at a higher level.
The wheel lifts boats about 24 meters.
Until the 1930s, boats traveled between the two canals through a flight of eleven locks, which was later removed.
Passing through the flight of locks took most of a day.
A trip on the wheel takes only a few minutes.
The student wants to compare the time needed to travel between the canals by the two methods and to identify which method is newer. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 1 of 27
At about 3 grams, a ruby-throated hummingbird weighs less than a nickel, but its tiny size ______ its endurance: each fall, many of these birds fly nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico, a journey of some 800 kilometers.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 2 of 27
The following text is from James Joyce’s 1914 short story “The Dead,” collected in Dubliners. Gabriel Conroy is looking at a photograph of his late mother.
Her photograph stood before the pierglass. She held an open book on her knees and was pointing out something in it to Constantine who, dressed in a man-o’-war suit, lay at her feet. It was she who had chosen the names of her sons for she was very Underlined: sensible End underlined. of the dignity of family life. Thanks to her, Constantine was now senior curate in Balbriggan and, thanks to her, Gabriel himself had taken his degree in the Royal University.
As used in the text, what does the word “sensible” most nearly mean?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 3 of 27
In 1572 a brilliant new star appeared in the constellation Cassiopeia. Many scholars of the time held that the heavens beyond the Moon never change, so they assumed that any new light in the sky must lie closer to Earth than the Moon does. Astronomer Tycho Brahe found that, over the course of a night, the new star did not shift against the background stars, as the Moon visibly does. Underlined: He could not measure the star’s distance; he could conclude only that any shift was too small for his instruments to detect. End underlined. That was enough, however, to place the star far beyond the Moon, in the region supposedly incapable of change.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 4 of 27
When the great ship burial at Sutton Hoo in eastern England was excavated in 1939, the burial chamber held a helmet, weapons, silver vessels, and other rich objects but no human remains. Some scholars concluded that the mound was a cenotaph, a monument to a person buried elsewhere. Others pointed out that the site’s acidic, sandy soil dissolves bone, so that a body placed in the chamber could have disappeared entirely. Chemical tests of the soil in the 1960s later found traces that some researchers interpreted as signs of a decayed body, though not all scholars accept that interpretation.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 5 of 27
The following text is from William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1848 novel Vanity Fair. Miss Crawley is the wealthy, unmarried half-sister of Sir Pitt Crawley, a baronet.
Miss Crawley was, in consequence, an object of great respect when she came to Queen’s Crawley, for she had a balance at her banker’s which would have made her beloved anywhere. What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker’s! Underlined: How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative (and may every reader have a score of such), what a kind good-natured old creature we find her! End underlined. How the junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling to the carriage with the lozenge upon it, and the fat wheezy coachman!
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 6 of 27
Text 1
Why zebras have stripes has long been debated. One proposal holds that stripes help keep zebras cool: black stripes absorb more sunlight than white ones, and the resulting temperature differences might create small air currents above the skin. Because zebras live in hot regions, supporters argue, cooling is the most likely reason that stripes evolved.
Text 2
In a 2019 study, horseflies approached zebras and horses at similar rates but rarely landed on zebras, often flying past them or bumping into them without slowing down. When horses wore striped coats, far fewer flies landed on those coats than on solid black or white coats. In an earlier experiment, water-filled barrels covered in zebra-striped hide warmed no less than a barrel covered in gray hide.
Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the reasoning presented in Text 1?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 7 of 27
The following texts are from Edgar Lee Masters’s 1915 poetry collection Spoon River Anthology, in which people buried in the cemetery of a fictional Illinois town speak about their lives. Text 1 is spoken by Knowlt Hoheimer, a soldier killed in the Civil War; Text 2 is spoken by Lydia Puckett, a woman from the same town. “Pro Patria” is Latin for “for one’s country.”
Text 1
I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge. When I felt the bullet enter my heart I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary, Instead of running away and joining the army. Rather a thousand times the county jail Than to lie under this marble figure with wings, And this granite pedestal Bearing the words, “Pro Patria.” What do they mean, anyway?
Text 2
Knowlt Hoheimer ran away to the war The day before Curl Trenary Swore out a warrant through Justice Arnett For stealing hogs. But that’s not the reason he turned a soldier. He caught me running with Lucius Atherton. We quarreled and I told him never again To cross my path. Then he stole the hogs and went to the war— Back of every soldier is a woman.
Based on the texts, how would Lydia Puckett (Text 2) most likely respond to the reason Knowlt Hoheimer suggests in Text 1 for having joined the army?
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”).
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 8 of 27
Text 1
In 1976 psychologist Linnda Caporael proposed that the witchcraft accusations in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 may have been set off by convulsive ergotism, a poisoning caused by a fungus that infects rye. The young accusers, she noted, reported pinching and crawling sensations and suffered fits, symptoms associated with ergot poisoning, and the weather of the previous growing season may have favored the fungus.
Text 2
Psychologists Nicholas Spanos and Jack Gottlieb countered that because ergotism comes from eating contaminated grain, it tends to strike several members of a household at once. In Salem, however, most of the afflicted were girls and young women, many of whom lived in households where no one else fell ill. Moreover, their fits often began and ended at telling moments in court, such as when an accused person entered or glanced at them.
Based on the texts, how would Spanos and Gottlieb (Text 2) most likely respond to Caporael’s reasoning in Text 1?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 9 of 27
The following text is from Ford Madox Ford’s 1915 novel The Good Soldier. The narrator, John Dowell, is recalling his marriage to his wife, Florence.
For I was solemnly informed that if she became excited over anything or if her emotions were really stirred her little heart might cease to beat. For twelve years I had to watch every word that any person uttered in any conversation and I had to head it off what the English call “things”—off love, poverty, crime, religion and the rest of it. Yes, the first doctor that we had when she was carried off the ship at Havre assured me that this must be done. Good God, are all these fellows monstrous idiots, or is there a freemasonry between all of them from end to end of the earth?...
Based on the text, what can most reasonably be inferred about Dowell?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 10 of 27
Young sunflowers track the Sun across the sky each day, but mature sunflowers stop moving and face east. In a 2016 study, plant biologist Stacey Harmer and her colleagues found that east-facing flower heads warmed more quickly in the morning and received more visits from pollinating insects than west-facing heads did. The researchers proposed that the heads’ morning warmth, rather than some other effect of facing east, is what attracts the additional pollinators.
Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the researchers’ proposal?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 11 of 27
The European eel spends most of its life in the rivers and coastal waters of Europe, but no one has ever observed it spawning. In the early twentieth century, the Danish biologist Johannes Schmidt spent nearly two decades collecting eel larvae across the Atlantic Ocean. He found that the larvae were progressively smaller the farther west and south he sampled, with the very smallest taken in the Sargasso Sea, south of Bermuda. Reasoning that the smallest larvae must be the most recently hatched, Schmidt concluded that the eels spawn in the Sargasso Sea—an inference that has guided research on the species ever since.
Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken Schmidt’s conclusion?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 12 of 27
In experiments published in 1866, Gregor Mendel crossed pea plants that differed in a single trait, such as seed shape, and then let the offspring pollinate themselves. In the next generation, one form of each trait, which Mendel called dominant, appeared about three times as often as the other, recessive form. Because some traits were scored on individual seeds and others on whole plants, the totals Mendel counted varied widely. A student claims that the traits with the largest totals came closer to an exact three-to-one ratio than the traits with the smallest totals did, as would be expected if the counts varied by chance around a true ratio of three to one.
Dominant and Recessive Forms Counted for Four Traits in Mendel’s Pea Experiments
Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to support the student’s claim?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 13 of 27
In 1973 the University of California, Berkeley, admitted about 45 percent of the men but only about 30 percent of the women who applied to its six largest graduate departments. Statisticians who studied the data found that within most of these departments, women were admitted at rates similar to or higher than those for men. A student claims that the overall gap arose mainly because women tended to apply to the departments that admitted the smallest shares of their applicants.
Applicants and Admission Rates in Six Graduate Departments, University of California, Berkeley, 1973
Department
Men applying
Men admitted (%)
Women applying
Women admitted (%)
A
825
62
108
82
B
560
63
25
68
C
325
37
593
34
D
417
33
375
35
E
191
28
393
24
F
373
6
341
7
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support the student’s claim?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 14 of 27
In 1846 astronomers found the planet Neptune close to the position that mathematician Urbain Le Verrier had calculated from small, unexplained deviations in the orbit of Uranus. Le Verrier later applied the same reasoning to an unexplained shift in Mercury’s orbit and proposed an undiscovered planet, which came to be called Vulcan, orbiting even closer to the Sun. No such planet was ever found, and in 1915 Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity accounted for Mercury’s motion without one. Taken together, these two cases suggest that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 15 of 27
In 1958 Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl grew bacteria for many generations on a nutrient containing a heavy form of nitrogen, making their DNA dense, and then moved them to a nutrient containing only ordinary, lighter nitrogen. After one round of DNA replication, all of the DNA had a single, intermediate density. This ruled out a model in which each original DNA molecule stays intact and the copy is built entirely from new material, but it fit two others: one in which each new molecule has one original strand and one new strand, and one in which old and new material are mixed throughout both strands. After a second round, the DNA formed two bands, one of intermediate density and one light. This second result ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 16 of 27
In 1988 biologist Richard Lenski began growing twelve populations of the bacterium E. coli, all descended from one ancestor, in a nutrient solution containing glucose and citrate. Like other E. coli, the bacteria could consume glucose but could not use citrate when oxygen was present. After more than 30,000 generations, bacteria in one population evolved the ability to use citrate; samples taken earlier contained no bacteria that could do so. To learn why, researchers restarted that population’s evolution many times from single cells isolated from frozen samples taken at different generations, growing every restarted culture under the same conditions for the same number of generations. Citrate users evolved again only in cultures started from samples taken after roughly generation 20,000. This result suggests that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 17 of 27
In the early twentieth century, geologists debated two rival ______ about Earth’s surface: that the continents had always been fixed in place, or, as Alfred Wegener proposed in 1912, that they slowly drift across the globe.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 18 of 27
Mosquito Bay on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico—one of the brightest of the world’s bioluminescent ______ glows blue when moving water stimulates microscopic organisms called dinoflagellates to emit light.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 19 of 27
Mussels anchor themselves to rocks with a byssus, a bundle of thin, flexible, and remarkably ______ that the animals secrete from a gland in their muscular foot.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 20 of 27
A honeybee colony, which may contain tens of thousands of workers, keeps the temperature of ______ brood comb within a few degrees. When the hive overheats, workers fan their wings to draw in cooler air, and water carried in by foragers evaporates from the comb.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 21 of 27
Sherlock Holmes, the fictional detective who first appeared in 1887, solves cases by noticing small physical details that others overlook. His creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, drew on Joseph Bell, a surgeon who had taught him at the University of Edinburgh and who liked to make his students ______ a patient’s occupation from such details before asking a single question.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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”).
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 22 of 27
The Dead Sea Scrolls, found in caves near Qumran between 1947 and 1956, are the remains of roughly 900 manuscripts, ______ survive only as fragments that scholars have spent decades piecing together.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 23 of 27
During the winter of 1944–1945, a severe famine struck the German-occupied western Netherlands, with official food rations falling below 1,000 calories a day. Because the famine began and ended abruptly, researchers have been able to compare people who were exposed to it at different stages of development before birth. Those exposed late in their mothers’ pregnancies tended to be born unusually small. ______ those exposed early in pregnancy were born at roughly normal weights, yet as adults they showed higher rates of obesity and heart disease.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 24 of 27
In 2005 researchers germinated a date palm seed that had been recovered from the ruins of Masada, an ancient fortress in Israel, and radiocarbon-dated to about 2,000 years ago. The seedling, nicknamed Methuselah, grew into a healthy male tree. ______ pollen from Methuselah was later used to pollinate a female palm grown from another ancient seed, and that tree produced dates.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 25 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
The Irish potato famine of the 1840s was caused by Phytophthora infestans, a funguslike organism that destroys potato plants.
For decades, researchers assumed that the strain responsible was US-1, the most widespread strain in the world for much of the twentieth century.
In 2013 a team including Kentaro Yoshida and Hernán Burbano sequenced the organism’s DNA from dried potato leaves collected in the 1840s and preserved in herbarium collections.
They identified a previously unknown strain, which they named HERB-1.
HERB-1 was genetically distinct from US-1, although the two strains were closely related.
HERB-1 appears to have died out in the early twentieth century.
The student wants to explain how researchers were able to overturn an earlier assumption about the famine. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 26 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
Herring gull chicks beg for food by pecking at a red spot near the tip of a parent’s yellow bill, which prompts the parent to regurgitate food.
In experiments published in 1950, Niko Tinbergen and Albert Perdeck offered chicks cardboard models of gull heads.
Chicks pecked far more often at models with a red spot than at models without one.
A thin red rod with three white bands near its tip drew even more pecks than a realistic model of a gull’s head.
Tinbergen later called exaggerated cues of this kind “supernormal stimuli.”
The student wants to present the most surprising result of the experiments to an audience already familiar with how gull chicks beg for food. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
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.
Reading and Writing · Module 2 · Question 27 of 27
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
Radiocarbon dating estimates the age of once-living material from how much carbon-14 it retains.
Because the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has varied over time, radiocarbon ages must be calibrated against records of known age.
Each year a thin light layer and a thin dark layer of sediment settle to the bottom of Lake Suigetsu in Japan.
Counting these paired layers gives the calendar age of each level of the lake’s sediment.
The layers also trap leaves and twigs from the surrounding forest, which can be radiocarbon dated.
The Suigetsu layers extend back tens of thousands of years.
The student wants to explain why Lake Suigetsu’s sediments are especially useful for calibrating radiocarbon dates. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
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.
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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.
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