SAT HADZIQ 1

The following text is from Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar’s 1961 novel The Time Regulation Institute (translated from the Turkish in 2014 by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe). The narrator was once involved with the Time Regulation Institute, a fictional bureaucracy that regulates the time of Turkey’s clocks.

I may be the most humble and absurd man in the world and, as my wife says, the most slovenly creature you may ever meet—that is, before the founding of our institute—but I did come to know a truly great man who possessed a natural genius for invention. I spent years at his side. I watched the way he worked. I witnessed how an idea would suddenly catch fre in his mind and take shape, like a tree sprouting shoots and branches, before coming into being.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

• A person was fortunate enough to have found love despite his obvious shortcomings.

• An exceptionally talented person professes humility to avoid intimidating others.

• A person appreciates the extensive time he passed in the company of someone he deeply admired.

• A truly brilliant person lets ideas mature in his mind before expressing them aloud.

A subject of much speculation, distinctive sets of parallel ridges mark the icy crust of Europa, Jupiter’s smallest moon. Researchers now claim that the ridges’ formation mechanism mirrors that of a strikingly similar pair on Greenland’s ice sheet. There, surface water seeped through fissures in the sheet and formed a water pocket that subsequently disrupted the overlying ice, forcing fragments of it upward and outward into peaks, as the pocket froze and expanded. Although Europa lacks liquid surface water, the same process could be driven by the moon’s subsurface ocean.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

• Researchers think that the ridges on Europa and the ridges in Greenland may have been formed by the same process even though Europa, unlike Greenland, doesn’t have liquid water on its surface.

• The primary difference between the ridges on Europa and the ridges in Greenland is that unlike the Europa ridges, the Greenland ridges are parallel.

• The pair of ridges found on Greenland’s ice sheet appear to have formed long before the recently discovered sets of ridges on Europa formed.

• Researchers don’t understand why Europa is marked by so many sets of ridges when the moon doesn’t have any liquid water on its surface that could have collected and expanded under the icy crust.

NASA’s Aspera mission, led by Carlos Vargas, will investigate the circum galactic medium (CGM), the huge swaths of low-density gas that fll and surround galaxies. Specifically, the team will focus on portions of the gas that exist in a “warm-hot” phase: these portions haven’t previously been observable but are thought to fuel new star formation and hold most of the mass that makes up a galaxy. Using a telescope capable of revealing these parts of the CGM, the Aspera mission should help answer long-standing questions about how galaxies emerge, change, and even interact. Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

• As the leader of NASA’s Aspera mission, Vargas will be the frst person to investigate the makeup of the CGM.

• Although galaxies that are surrounded by the CGM have been studied, researchers have been unable to directly observe low-density gas in the CGM in the “warm-hot” phase.

• Researchers don’t yet have a complete understanding of the process of galaxy evolution but have raised the possibility that galaxies interact with each other at times.

• The Aspera mission is expected to produce the frst direct observations of CGM gas in the “warm-hot” phase, which likely has an important role in the evolution of galaxies.

Many intellectual histories of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s rely heavily on essays and other explicitly ideological works as primary sources, a tendency that can overrepresent the perspectives of a small number of thinkers, most of whom were male. Historian Ashley D. Farmer has shown that expanding the array of primary sources to encompass more types of print material—including political cartoons, advertisements, and artwork—leads to a much better understanding of the movement and the crucial and diverse roles that Black women played in shaping it. Which choice best describes the main idea of the text?

• Farmer’s methods and research have enriched the historical understanding of the Black Power movement and Black women’s contributions to it.

• Before Farmer’s research, historians had largely ignored the intellectual dimensions of the Black Power movement.

• Other historians of the Black Power movement have criticized Farmer’s use of unconventional primary sources

• The fgures in the Black Power movement whom historians tend to cite would have agreed with Farmer’s conclusions about women’s roles in the movement.

Using the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a team of astronomers mapped out the magnetic feld of G47, one of the Milky Way’s galactic bones (dense clouds of gas and dust that run through the middle of the arm of a spiral galaxy). Surprisingly, the map revealed a magnetic feld with no clear pattern or direction. The researchers had expected the magnetic feld to be similar to the more uniform felds seen in galactic bones in other arms of the Milky Way. According to the text, what was surprising about the researchers’ mapping of the magnetic feld of galactic bone G47?

• It showed a weaker magnetic feld than expected.

• It implied that previous mappings of the magnetic feld were inaccurate.

• It produced magnetic feld measurements similar to those for other galactic bones.

• It revealed a magnetic feld that wasn’t uniform.

In many of his sculptures, artist Richard Hunt uses broad forms rather than extreme accuracy to hint at specifc people or ideas. In his frst major work, Arachne (1956), Hunt constructed the mythical character Arachne, a weaver who was changed into a spider, by welding bits of steel together into something that, although vaguely human, is strange and machine-like. And his large bronze sculpture The Light of Truth (2021) commemorates activist and journalist Ida B. Wells using mainly fowing, curved pieces of metal that create stylized fame. Which choice best states the text’s main idea about Hunt?

• He often depicts the subjects of his sculptures using an unrealistic style.

• He uses different kinds of materials depending on what kind of sculpture he plans to create.

• He tends to base his art on important historical fgures rather than on fctional characters.

• He has altered his approach to sculpture over time, and his works have become increasingly abstract.

The following text is adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 novel Treasure Island. Bill is a sailor staying at the Admiral Benbow, an inn run by the narrator’s parents. Every day when [Bill] came back from his stroll he would ask if any seafaring men had gone by along the road. At frst we thought it was the want of company of his own kind that made him ask this question, but at last we began to see he was desirous to avoid them. When a seaman did [stay] at the Admiral Benbow (as now and then some did) he would look in at him through the curtained door before he entered the parlour; and he was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any such was present. According to the text, why does Bill regularly ask about “seafaring men”?

• He’s hoping to fnd an old friend and fellow sailor.

• He’s trying to secure a job as part of the crew on a new ship.

• He isn’t sure that other guests at the inn will be welcoming of sailors.

• He doesn’t want to encounter any other sailor unexpectedly.

The following text is adapted from Guy de Maupassant’s nineteenth-century short story “The Trip of Le Horla” (translated by Albert M. C. McMaster, A. E. Henderson, Mme. Quesada, et al.). The narrator is part of a group traveling in a hot-air balloon at night.

The earth no longer seems to exist, it is buried in milky vapors that resemble a sea. We are now alone in space with the moon, which looks like another balloon travelling opposite us; and our balloon, which shines in the air, appears like another, larger moon, a world wandering in the sky amid the stars, through infnity. We no longer speak, think nor live; we foat along through space in delicious inertia. The air which is bearing us up has made of us all beings which resemble itself, silent, joyous, irresponsible beings, peculiarly alert, although motionless.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

• The narrator feels a growing sense of isolation even though his companions are nearby during the balloon ride.

• The narrator and his companions are completely absorbed in the change in perspective they gain while riding in the balloon.

• The narrator and his companions are troubled by the disorienting effects of the altitude while riding in the balloon.

• The narrator is pleasantly surprised by his companions’ unrestrained enthusiasm about the sensation of riding in the balloon.

The recovery of a 1,000-year-old Chinese shipwreck in the Java Sea near present-day Indonesia has yielded a treasure trove of artifacts, including thousands of small ceramic bowls. Using a portable X-ray fluorescence analyzer tool, Lisa Niziolek and her team were able to detect the chemical composition of these bowls without damaging them. By comparing the chemical signatures of the bowls with those of the materials still at old Chinese kiln sites, Niziolek and her team can pinpoint which Chinese kilns likely produced the ceramic bowls

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

• Because of a new technology, researchers can locate and recover more shipwrecks than they could in the past.

• Researchers have been able to identify the location of a number of Chinese kilns in operation 1,000 years ago.

• With the help of a special tool, researchers have determined the likely origin of bowls recovered from a shipwreck.

• Before the invention of portable X-ray fluorescence, researchers needed to take a small piece out of an artifact to analyze its components.

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

I wish I could remember that frst day,  First hour, frst 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 way,  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?

• 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.

• 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.