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The following text is from the 1913 story “The King’s

Coin” by Emily Pauline Johnson, a Kanienkahagen

(Mohawk) writer also known as Tekahionwake.

Fox-Foot, a young Ojibwe man, is guiding a group of

fur traders who are traveling by canoe and suspects

that they are being followed.

At supper time, Fox-Foot would allow no fire to

be built, no landing to be made, no trace of their

passing to be left. They ate canned meat and

marmalade, drank again of the stream and

pushed on, until just at dusk they reached the

edge of a long, still lake, with shores of granite

and dense fir forest.

As used in the text, what does the word “trace” most

nearly mean?

• A) Evidence

• B) Blemish

• C) Amount

• D) Sketch

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Many ancient sculptures of people’s heads are

missing their noses. This is because the nose is the

most _______ part of a sculpture of a person’s head.

It is delicate and sticks out from the rest of the

sculpture, making it especially easy to break.

Which choice completes the text with the most

logical and precise word or phrase?

• A) recognizable

• B) fragile

• C) common

• D) sophisticated

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K.D. Leka and colleagues found that the Sun’s

corona provides an advance indication of solar

flares—intense eruptions of electromagnetic

radiation that emanate from active regions in

the Sun’s photosphere and can interfere with

telecommunications on Earth. Preceding a flare, the

corona temporarily exhibits increased brightness

above the region where the flare is _______ .

Which choice completes the text with the most

logical and precise word or phrase?

• A) antecedent

• B) impending

• C) innocuous

• D) perpetual

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To demonstrate that the integrity of underground

metal pipes can be assessed without unearthing the

pipes, engineer Aroba Saleem and colleagues

_______ the tendency of some metals’ internal

magnetic fields to alter under stress: the team showed

that such alterations can be measured from a

distance and can reveal concentrations of stress in

the pipes.

Which choice completes the text with the most

logical and precise word or phrase?

• A) hypothesized

• B) discounted

• C) redefined

• D) exploited

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Despite the generalizations about human behavior

they have produced, many studies of behavioral

psychology have used highly unrepresentative subject

pools: students at the colleges and universities where

the researchers are employed. To _______ this

situation, it is necessary to actively recruit subjects

from diverse backgrounds and locations.

Which choice completes the text with the most

logical and precise word or phrase?

• A) sanction

• B) ameliorate

• C) rationalize

• D) postulate

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The following text is adapted from Jean Webster’s

1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs. The narrator is a young

college student writing letters detailing her weekly

experiences.

[The college is] organizing the Freshman

basket-ball team and there’s just a chance that I

shall make it. I’m little of course, but terribly

quick and wiry and tough. While the others are

hopping about in the air, I can dodge under their

feet and grab the ball.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the

text?

• A) To compare basketball with other sports

• B) To provide details of how to play basketball

• C) To state how players will be chosen for the

  basketball team

• D) To explain why the narrator thinks she might

  make the basketball team

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In the late 1800s, Spanish-language newspapers

flourished in cities across Texas. San Antonio alone

produced eleven newspapers in Spanish between

1890 and 1900. But El Paso surpassed all other

cities in the state. This city produced twenty-two

newspapers in Spanish during that period. El Paso is

located on the border with Mexico and has always

had a large population of Spanish speakers. Thus, it

is unsurprising that this city became such a rich site

for Spanish-language journalism.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the

text?

• A) To compare Spanish-language newspapers

  published in Texas today with ones published

  there during the late 1800s

• B) To explain that Spanish-language newspapers

  thrived in Texas and especially in El Paso during

  the late 1800s

• C) To argue that Spanish-language newspapers

  published in El Paso influenced the ones

  published in San Antonio during the late 1800s

• D) To explain why Spanish-language newspapers

  published in Texas were so popular in Mexico

  during the late 1800s

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Chile’s Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on

Earth. Mary Beth Wilhelm and other astrobiologists

search for life, or its remains, in this harsh place

because the desert closely mirrors the extreme

environment on Mars. The algae and bacteria found

in Atacama’s driest regions may offer clues about

Martian life. By studying how these and other

microorganisms survive such extreme conditions on

Earth, Wilhelm’s team hopes to determine whether

similar life might have existed on Mars and to

develop the best tools to look for evidence of it.

Which choice best describes the function of the

underlined sentence in the text as a whole?

• A) To contrast the conditions in the Atacama

  Desert with those on Mars

• B) To explain why many life-forms cannot survive

  in the Atacama Desert

• C) To indicate why astrobiologists choose to

  conduct research in the Atacama Desert

• D) To describe certain limitations to conducting

  scientific study in the Atacama Desert

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More than 60% of journeys in Mexico City occur via

public transit, but simply reproducing a feature of

the city’s transit system—e.g., its low fares—is

unlikely to induce a significant increase in another

city’s transit ridership. As Erick Guerra et al. have

shown, transportation mode choice in urban areas of

Mexico is the product of a complex mix of factors,

including population density, the spatial distribution

of jobs, and demographic characteristics of

individuals. System features do affect ridership, of

course, but there is an irreducibly contextual

dimension of transportation mode choice.

Which choice best describes the function of the

underlined portion in the text as a whole?

• A) It presents an objection to the argument of

  Guerra et al. about transportation mode choice

  in urban areas of Mexico.

• B) It explains why it is challenging to influence

  transit ridership solely by altering characteristics

  of a transit system.

• C) It illustrates the claim that a characteristic

  associated with high transit ridership in Mexico

  City is not associated with high transit ridership

  elsewhere.

• D) It substantiates the assertion that population

  density, the spatial distribution of jobs, and

  demographic characteristics are important

  factors in transportation mode choice.

Changes to vegetation cover and other human

activities influence carbon and nitrogen levels in soil,

though how deep these effects extend is unclear.

Hypothesizing that differences in land use lead to

differences in carbon and nitrogen levels that are not

restricted to the topsoil layer (0–30 cm deep),

Chukwuebuka Okolo and colleagues sampled soils

across multiple land-use types (e.g., grazing land,

cropland, forest) within each of several Ethiopian

locations. They found, though, that across land-use

types, carbon and nitrogen decreased to comparably

low levels beyond depths of 30 cm.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of

the text?

• A) It describes a phenomenon that scientists do not

  fully understand, explains a research team’s

  hypothesis about that phenomenon, and then

  describes a finding that led the team to refine the

  hypothesis.

• B) It introduces an unresolved scientific question,

  presents a research team’s hypothesis pertaining

  to that question, and then describes an

  observation made by the team that conflicts with

  that hypothesis.

• C) It discusses a process that scientists are

  somewhat unclear about, introduces competing

  hypotheses about that process, and then explains

  how a research team concluded that one of those

  hypotheses is likely correct.

• D) It explains a hypothesis that has been the subject

  of scientific debate, discusses how a research

  team tested that hypothesis, and then presents

  data the team collected that validate the

  hypothesis.

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