[2C: CB] CB SAT English SEC Form Structure Sense-IIIA (Hard,30Q)

A species of Byropsis algae produces toxins to avoid being eaten by predators. However, in some cases, the toxins the organism uses to protect itself from predation actually _____ its attractiveness to predators. The Hawaiian sea slug, for example, not only tolerates Byropsis toxins but actually uses them for protection in the same way the algae does.

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

• is increasing

• increase

• increases

• has increased

Answer explanation

Tags

CCSS.L.3.1E

CCSS.L.4.1B

CCSS.L.5.1.B-D

CCSS.L.5.1C

CCSS.L.5.1D

A model created by biologist Luis Valente predicts that the rate of speciation—the rate at which new species form—on an isolated island located approximately 5,000 kilometers from the nearest mainland _____ triple the rate of speciation on an island only 500 kilometers from the mainland.

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

• being

• to be

• to have been

• will be

Answer explanation

Tags

CCSS.L.4.1B

CCSS.L.5.1.B-D

CCSS.L.5.1B

CCSS.L.5.1C

CCSS.L.5.1D

In 1453, English King Henry VI became unfit to rule after falling gravely ill. As a result, Parliament appointed Richard, Third Duke of York, who had a strong claim to the English throne, to rule as Lord Protector. Upon recovering two years later, _____ forcing an angered Richard from the royal court and precipitating a series of battles later known as the Wars of the Roses.

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

• Henry resumed his reign,

• the reign of Henry resumed,

• Henry’s reign resumed,

• it was Henry who resumed his reign,

Answer explanation

Tags

CCSS.L.3.1A

Researchers studying the “terra-cotta army,” the thousands of life-size statues of warriors found interred near the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang of China, were shocked to realize that the shape of each statue’s ears, like the shape of each person’s ears, _____ unique.

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

• are

• is

• were

• have been

Answer explanation

Tags

CCSS.L.4.1B

CCSS.L.5.1.B-D

CCSS.L.5.1B

CCSS.L.5.1C

CCSS.L.5.1D

In Marisol’s 1968 sculpture Mi Mama y Yo, gone are the types of pop culture references that made the Parisian-born Venezuelan American artist a star at the height of the pop art movement. In _____ place is a far more personal subject: a sculptural depiction of the artist as a young girl with her mother.

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

• its

• they're

• their

• it’s

Answer explanation

Tags

CCSS.L.3.1A

The ghazal, a poetic form originating in seventh-century Arabic poetry, has an intricate structure. The twentieth-century Kashmiri American poet Agha Shahid Ali explains that each one of a ghazal’s couplets, while adhering to the patterns of rhyme (qafia) and refrain (radif) established in the poem’s opening lines (matla), _____ thematically and logically autonomous, resulting in a poem with “a stringently formal disunity.”

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

• is

• were

• have been

• are

Answer explanation

Tags

CCSS.RF.3.3B

CCSS.RF.3.3C

CCSS.RF.3.3D

CCSS.RF.4.3A

CCSS.RF.5.3A

In 2015, a team led by materials scientists Anirudha Sumant and Diana Berman succeeded in reducing the coefficient of friction (COF) between two surfaces to the lowest possible level—superlubricity. A nearly frictionless (and, as its name suggests, extremely slippery) state, _____

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

• when their COF drops below 0.01, two surfaces reach superlubricity.

• two surfaces, when their COF drops below 0.01, reach superlubricity.

• reaching superlubricity occurs when two surfaces’ COF drops below 0.01.

• superlubricity is reached when two surfaces’ COF drops below 0.01.

Answer explanation

Tags

CCSS.L.4.1F

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.

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

• Union would finally acknowledge

• Union to finally acknowledge

• Union, having finally acknowledged

• Union, finally acknowledging

Answer explanation

Tags

CCSS.L.8.1A

Increased gender diversity is revitalizing the field of economics, according to Harvard’s Claudia Goldin. The trailblazing accomplishments of Goldin, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics for her work on women in the labor force, _____ to the value of scholars of diverse backgrounds in spurring research into previously unexplored, but vitally important, topics.

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

• attests

• has attested

• is attesting

• attest

Answer explanation

Tags

CCSS.L.3.1E

CCSS.L.4.1B

CCSS.L.5.1.B-D

CCSS.L.5.1C

CCSS.L.5.1D

Recent pollen analyses of the Aran Islands have led some researchers to propose that the now treeless islands were once wooded. This hypothesis _____ that certain trees, such as P. sylvestris, survived without interruption or human intervention throughout the Holocene cannot stand, researchers Michael O’Connell and Karen Molloy counter, unless other explanations can first be ruled out.

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

• suggesting

• suggested

• suggests

• has suggested

Answer explanation

Tags

CCSS.L.3.2C

CCSS.L.4.2B

CCSS.L.6.3A