Text Structure Quiz

“How lifelike are they?” Many computer animators prioritize this question as they strive to create ever more realistic environments and lighting. Generally, while characters in computer-animated films appear highly exaggerated, environments and lighting are carefully engineered to mimic reality. But some animators, such as Pixar’s Sanjay Patel, are focused on a different question. Rather than asking first whether the environments and lighting they’re creating are convincingly lifelike, Patel and others are asking whether these elements reflect their films’ unique stories.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined question in the text as a whole?

• A. It reflects a primary goal that many computer animators have for certain components of the animations they produce.

• B. It represents a concern of computer animators who are more interested in creating unique backgrounds and lighting effects than realistic ones.

• C. It conveys the uncertainty among many computer animators about how to create realistic animations using current technology.

• D. It illustrates a reaction that audiences typically have to the appearance of characters created by computer animators.

Astronomers are confident that the star Betelgeuse will eventually consume all the helium in its core and explode in a supernova. They are much less confident, however, about when this will happen, since that depends on internal characteristics of Betelgeuse that are largely unknown. Astrophysicist Sarafina El-Badry Nance and colleagues recently investigated whether acoustic waves in the star could be used to determine internal stellar states but concluded that this method could not sufficiently reveal Betelgeuse’s internal characteristics to allow its evolutionary state to be firmly fixed.

Which choice best describes the function of the second sentence in the overall structure of the text?

• A. It describes a serious limitation of the method used by Nance and colleagues.

• B. It presents the central finding reported by Nance and colleagues.

• C. It identifies the problem that Nance and colleagues attempted to solve but did not.

• D. It explains how the work of Nance and colleagues was received by others in the field.

Archeological excavation of Market Street Chinatown, a nineteenth-century Chinese American community in San Jose, California, provided the first evidence that Asian food products were imported to the United States in the 1800s: bones from a freshwater fish species native to Southeast Asia. Jinshanzhuang—Hong Kong–based import/export firms—likely coordinated the fish’s transport from Chinese-operated fisheries in Vietnam and Malaysia to North American markets. This route reveals the (often overlooked) multinational dimensions of the trade networks linking Chinese diaspora communities.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?

• A. It explains why efforts to determine the country of origin of the items mentioned in the previous sentence remain inconclusive.

• B. It provides information that helps support a claim about a discovery's significance that is presented in the following sentence.

• C. It traces the steps that were taken to locate and recover the objects that are described in the previous sentence.

• D. It outlines a hypothesis that additional evidence discussed in the following sentence casts some doubt on.

. According to historian Vicki L. Ruiz, Mexican American women made crucial contributions to the labor movement during World War II. At the time, food processing companies entered into contracts to supply United States armed forces with canned goods. Increased production quotas conferred greater bargaining power on the companies’ employees, many of whom were Mexican American women: employees insisted on more favorable benefits, and employers, who were anxious to fulfill the contracts, complied. Thus, labor activism became a platform for Mexican American women to assert their agency.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?

• A. It elaborates on a claim about labor relations in a particular industry made earlier in the text.

• B. It offers an example of a trend in the World War II-era economy discussed earlier in the text.

• C. It notes a possible exception to the historical narrative of labor activism sketched earlier in the text.

• D. It provides further details about the identities of the workers discussed earlier in the text.

Yawn contagion occurs when one individual yawns in response to another’s yawn. Studies of this behavior in primates have focused on populations in captivity, but biologist Elisabetta Palagi and her colleagues have shown that it can occur in wild primate populations as well. In their study, which focused on a wild population of gelada monkeys (Theropithecus gelada) in Ethiopia, the researchers further reported that yawn contagion most commonly occurred in males and across different social groups instead of within a single social group.

Which choice best describes the function of the first sentence in the text as a whole?

• A. It defines a phenomenon that is discussed in the text.

• B. It introduces a problem that is examined in the text.

• C. It makes a claim that is challenged in the text.

• D. It presents a hypothesis that is evaluated in the text.

Text 1- Italian painters in the 1500s rarely depicted themselves in their work. Even more rare were self-portrait paintings that portrayed the artist as a painter. At the time, painting was not yet respected as a profession, so painters mostly chose to emphasize other qualities in their self-portraits, like their intellect or social status. In the city of Bologna, the first artist to depict themself painting was a man named Annibale Carracci. A painting of his from around 1585 shows Carracci in front of an easel holding a palette. 

Text 2 - In their self-portraits, Bolognese artists typically avoided referring to the act of painting until the mid-1600s. However, Lavinia Fontana’s 1577 painting, Self-Portrait at the Keyboard, stands out as the earliest example of such a work by an artist from Bologna. Although the artist is depicted playing music, in the background, one can spot a painting easel by a window.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the underlined claim in Text 1?

• A. Carracci and Fontana were among the most well-respected painters in Bologna at the time.

• B. The depiction of Fontana in Self-Portrait at the Keyboard was intended to underscore the artist's creativity.

• C. Fontana likely inspired the reference to an easel and palette in Carracci's painting.

• D. Self-Portrait at the Keyboard was painted earlier than Carracci's painting and also refers to the artist's craft.

The following text is from Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novel The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale. Mr. Verloc is navigating the London streets on his way to a meeting. Before reaching Knightsbridge, Mr. Verloc took a turn to the left out of the busy main thoroughfare, uproarious with the traffic of swaying omnibuses and trotting vans, in the almost silent, swift flow of hansoms [horse-drawn carriages]. Under his hat, worn with a slight backward tilt, his hair had been carefully brushed into respectful sleekness; for his business was with an Embassy. And Mr. Verloc, steady like a rock—a soft kind of rock—marched now along a street which could with every propriety be described as private.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined phrase in the text as a whole?

• A. It qualifies an earlier description of Mr. Verloc.

• B. It emphasizes an internal struggle Mr. Verloc experiences.

• C. It contrasts Mr. Verloc with his surroundings.

• D. It reveals a private opinion Mr. Verloc holds.

A study by a team including finance professor Madhu Veeraraghavan suggests that exposure to sunshine during the workday can lead to overly optimistic behavior. Using data spanning from 1994 to 2010 for a set of US companies, the team compared over 29,000 annual earnings forecasts to the actual earnings later reported by those companies. The team found that the greater the exposure to sunshine at work in the two weeks before a manager submitted an earnings forecast, the more the manager’s forecast exceeded what the company actually earned that year.

Which choice best states the function of the underlined sentence in the overall structure of the text?

• A. To summarize the results of the team's analysis

• B. To present a specific example that illustrates the study's findings

• C. To explain part of the methodology used in the team's study

• D. To call out a challenge the team faced in conducting its analysis

The following text is adapted from Zora Neale Hurston’s 1921 short story “John Redding Goes to Sea.” John is a child who lives in a town in the woods. Perhaps ten-year-old John was puzzling to the folk there in the Florida woods for he was an imaginative child and fond of day-dreams. The St. John River flowed a scarce three hundred feet from his back door. On its banks at this point grow numerous palms, luxuriant magnolias and bay trees. On the bosom of the stream float millions of delicately colored hyacinths. [John Redding] loved to wander down to the water’s edge, and, casting in dry twigs, watch them sail away down stream to Jacksonville, the sea, the wide world and [he] wanted to follow them.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?

• A. It provides an extended description of a location that John likes to visit.

• B. It reveals that some residents of John's town are confused by his behavior.

• C. It illustrates the uniqueness of John's imagination compared to the imaginations of other children.

• D. It suggests that John longs to experience a larger life outside the Florida woods.