Grammar Quiz

In a 2016 study, Eastern Washington University psychologist Amani El-Alayli found that, among the study participants who experienced frisson (a physiological response akin to goosebumps or getting the chills) while listening to music, there was one personality trait that they scored particularly ______ openness to experience.

• high on;

• high on

• high. On

• high on:

While one requires oxygen and one does ______ and anaerobic respiration are both forms of cellular respiration—that is, they are processes by which cells break down glucose to use as energy.

• not. Aerobic

• not; aerobic

• not aerobic

• not, aerobic

Scientists believe that, unlike most other species of barnacle, turtle barnacles (Chelonibia testudinari) can dissolve the cement-like secretions they use to attach _______ to a sea turtle shell, enabling the barnacles to move short distances across the shell’s surface.

• it

• themselves

• them

• itself

In 1881, French chemist Camille Faure redesigned the rechargeable lead-acid battery. Faure’s design greatly increased the amount of electricity that the original battery, which the French physicist Gaston Planté ______ fifteen years earlier, could hold.

• is inventing

• will invent

• had invented

• invents

After winning the 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln appointed Edward Bates, Salmon P. Chase, and William H. Seward to his cabinet. Lincoln’s decision was surprising, since each of these men had run against him, but historians have praised it, noting that Lincoln ______ his rivals’ diverse talents to strengthen his administration.

• will leverage

• is leveraging

• has leveraged

• leveraged

Ten of William Shakespeare’s plays are classified as histories. Although each one of these plays, which include Henry V and Richard III, ______ on a single historical figure (specifically, an English king), some, such as Henry VI Part One and Henry VI Part Two, feature different episodes from the same monarch’s life.

• focuses

• focus

• are focused

• were focused

In 1990, California native and researcher Ellen Ochoa left her position as chief of the Intelligent Systems Technology Branch at a NASA research center ______ the space agency’s astronaut training program.

• to join

• is joining

• joined

• joins

Official measurements of the Mississippi River’s length vary: according to the US Geologic Survey, the river is 2,300 miles long, whereas the Environmental Protection Agency records its length as 2,320 miles. This disparity can be explained in part by the fact that rivers such as the Mississippi expand and contract as ______ sediment.

• one accumulates

• they accumulate

• it accumulates

• we accumulate

In 1994, almost 200 years after the death of Wang Zhenyi, the International Astronomical ______ the contributions of the barrier-breaking 18th-century astronomer and author of “Dispute of the Procession of the Equinoxes,” naming a crater on Venus after her.

• Union, finally acknowledging

• Union, having finally acknowledged

• Union would finally acknowledge

• Union to finally acknowledge

Photographer Ansel Adams’s landscape portraits are iconic pieces of American art. However, many of the ______ of landscapes were intended not as art but as marketing; a concessions company at Yosemite National Park had hired Adams to take pictures of the park for restaurant menus and brochures.

• photographers early photo’s

• photographers early photos

• photographer’s early photos

• photographer’s early photo’s