PSAT English Review

Which choice provides a supporting example that reinforces the main point of the sentence?

Employee naps might also lead to reduced health care costs for companies, since regular napping leads to long-term health benefits, and it improves workers’ average weekly attendance.

• NO CHANGE

• which are essential in an era of rising health care costs.

• including a lower risk of cardiovascular problems such as heart attack and stroke.

• in addition to making employees more efficient.

The writer wants a concluding sentence that restates the main argument of the passage. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?

Zephrin Lasker, CEO of the mobile-advertising firm Pontiflex, has observed that employees are happier and more productive since he created a nap room in the company’s Brooklyn headquarters. Ryan Hodson of Kodiak Capital Group and Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post Media Group have promoted napping among their workers and have been effusive about the results. In light of the benefits not only to employees’ efficiency but also to their health and sense of well-being, these executives’ enthusiasm is not surprising. These executives are among the most successful leaders in their respective fields.

• NO CHANGE

• Clearly, employers should consider reducing employees’ hours when they are overworked.

• More businesses should follow their lead and embrace napping on the job.

• Companies should consider employee schedules carefully when implementing a napping policy.

They know it as colony collapse disorder (CCD), this phenomenon will have a detrimental impact on global agriculture if its causes and solutions are not determined.

• NO CHANGE

• Colony

• It is known as colony

• Known as colony

Which choice most smoothly and effectively introduces the writer’s discussion of studies of CCD in this paragraph?

Studies have offered several possible reasons that bees are vanishing. One reason that is often cited is the use of pesticides called neonicotinoids, which are absorbed by plants and linger much longer than do topical pesticides.

• NO CHANGE

• DELETE the underlined sentence.

• Bees are vanishing, and according to studies there are several possible reasons for this trend.

• Several possible reasons, offered by studies, may explain why bees are vanishing.

Some farmers have resorted to renting hives from beekeepers to pollinate their crops; when there is a shortage of bees this being an expensive proposition.

• NO CHANGE

• crops; an expensive proposition when there is a shortage of bees.

• crops, this is an expensive proposition when there is a shortage of bees.

• crops, an expensive proposition when there is a shortage of bees.

Lunar farming has its skeptics, who are not sure of the method’s efficacy.

• NO CHANGE

• skeptics, who have yet to be convinced.

• skeptics—those who doubt the method.

• skeptics.

The writer is considering deleting the underlined portion (ending the sentence with a period). Should the writer make this deletion?

In 1990, chef Louis Szathmary, a voracious collector of cookbooks, donated approximately 20,000 culinary artifacts to the University of Iowa library. The gift included more than 100 manuscript recipe books — collections of recipes handwritten by the people who used them. The manuscripts, some of which date back to the seventeenth century, are an invaluable resource for food historians as well as the general public.

• Yes, because the underlined portion detracts from the paragraph’s focus on the Szathmary collection.

• Yes, because the information in the underlined portion is provided in the previous sentence.

• No, because the underlined portion defines a term that is important to the passage.

• No, because the underlined portion gives an example of a particular culinary artifact.

Volunteer transcribers need no particular expertise; prosaic directives are provided on the DIY History website. Transcribing is easy. The ingredients (one recipe requires something called “ringon root”) and measurements (a “ditto” of baking soda), moreover, can be puzzling.

• NO CHANGE

• in short,

• therefore,

• however,