Unit Preview

Far from being modern inventions, ______ more than 5,000 years ago.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• 
  Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia used drinking straws

• • drinking straws were used by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia

• ancient Mesopotamia was home to Sumerians who used drinking straws

• the use of drinking straws by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia happened

Matthew D. Rocklage and team examined whether consumer ratings of movies can predict box office success. The team considered both numeric star ratings and written reviews in their research. To analyze the written reviews, the team measured the emotionality—the degree to which a written review expresses an emotional reaction—of user reviews on a movie rating website, assigning each review an emotionality score. After reviewing this research, a student argues that the emotionality of movie reviews is unrelated to a movie’s success at the box office.

Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the student’s conclusion?

• The average emotionality score of a movie’s reviews was a positive predictor of that movie’s box office earnings.

• More than half of the movies that the team examined received an average star rating of 3 out of 5 stars.

• The movies that were most successful at the box office tended to have high average star ratings.

• Movies that had the highest average emotionality scores received the lowest average star ratings on the movie rating website.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

Some US reformers sought to improve society in the 1800s by building utopias.

• A utopia is a community intended to represent a perfect society based on a specific set of principles.

• One such community was Brook Farm near Boston, Massachusetts.

• It was founded in 1841 by writer George Ripley.

• Ripley wrote in a letter that his goal for Brook Farm was “to guarantee the highest mental freedom, by providing all with labor, adapted to their tastes and talents, and securing to them the fruits of their industry.”

The student wants to explain the goal of Brook Farm using a quotation from George Ripley. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

• • Founded by George Ripley near Boston, Massachusetts, Brook Farm was part of a trend in the 1800s, when reformers in the United States built utopias.

• • Utopias, such as Brook Farm, founded by George Ripley in 1841, were based on a specific set of principles intended to create a perfect society.

• • Established in 1841, Brook Farm was a utopian community created to “guarantee the highest mental freedom, by providing all with labor... [and] the fruits of their industry,” according to founder George Ripley.

• • In a letter, writer George Ripley explained his goal to “guarantee the highest mental freedom.”

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?

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

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

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

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

In 2008, two years after the death of science fiction writer Octavia Butler, the Huntington Library in ______ received a collection of more than 8,000 items, including Butler’s private notes, research materials, manuscripts, photos, and drawings. Today, the Octavia E. Butler Collection is one of the most researched archives at the library.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• California

• California,

• California:

• California-

In 2008 a complete set of ancient pessoi (glass game pieces) was uncovered from beneath a paving stone in modern-day Israel. Due to their small size, pessoi were easily misplaced, making a whole set a rare find. This has led some experts to suggest that the set may have been buried intentionally; however, without clear evidence, archaeologists are left to ______ what happened.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

• dismiss

• catalog

• speculate about

• expand on

For years, biologists have experimented with using grime-eating bacteria rather than harsh chemicals to clean artworks, and results have been impressive overall. ______ these bacterial strains—which can metabolize centuries’ worth of oil, glue, dirt, and other surface impurities without creating harmful byproducts—have proven more effective than traditional chemical cleaning methods.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• Additionally,

• In many cases,

• As a result,

• However,

Archaeologists have been debating the origin of a rare form of lead found in Shang dynasty (1766–1046 BCE) bronze artifacts since its presence was discovered in China in the 1990s. Different researchers have proposed theories on which regions of the world would have had the raw materials containing the specific lead in these artifacts, but no conclusive evidence has been presented. What is intriguing is that bronze artifacts from China dated after the Shang dynasty do not contain this form of lead, suggesting that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

• bronze was used for a short time during the Shang dynasty before different metals were used to make artifacts.

• Shang dynasty bronze pieces are rare and therefore more valuable than those from other time periods.

• methods used to analyze bronze artifacts are not useful on pieces that are dated after the Shang dynasty.

• the source of some of the raw materials used to make bronze was exploited only until the end of the Shang dynasty.

The following text is adapted from Christina Rossetti’s 1881 poem “Monna Innominata 2.”

I wish I could remember that first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me,
If bright or dim the season, it might be
Summer or Winter for [all] I can say;
So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

• As the anniversary of the beginning of an important relationship approaches, the speaker feels conflicted about how best to commemorate it.

• • After years of neglecting a once valuable relationship, the speaker worries it may be too late for her to salvage the relationship.

• The speaker celebrates how the passage of time has strengthened a relationship that once seemed unimportant.

• Because the speaker did not anticipate how important a relationship would become, she cannot recall how the relationship began, which she regrets.

The following text is adapted from Mohsin Hamid’s 2017 novel Exit West. Saeed lives with his mother and father.

On cloudless nights after a daytime rain, Saeed’s father would sometimes bring out the telescope, and the family would sip green tea on their balcony, enjoying a breeze, and take turns to look up at objects whose light, often, had been emitted before any of these three viewers had been born—light from other centuries, only now reaching Earth.

©2017 by Mohsin Hamid

As used in the text, what does the word “reaching” most nearly mean?

• Consulting with

• • Arriving at

• Clinging to

• Running to