Section 1, Module 2: Reading and Writing (hard)

The parks of Los Angeles, California, seem to be making people happier. In a 2022 study, researchers studying connections between the physical location in which a social media post was created and _____ blank contents analyzed geotagged social media posts from Los Angeles. They found that posts from the city's parks contained more words associated with happiness than other posts did. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• they're

• it's

• their

• its

On April 12, 1985, the space shuttle Discovery blasted off into space, commencing Mission _____ blank six days and twenty-three hours, the mission ended when the shuttle landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• A. STS-51-D, it lasted

• B. STS-51-D, lasting

• C. STS-51-D lasting

• D. STS-51-D. lasting

Now seen as a mechanical precursor to the e-reader, Spanish educator and inventor Angela Ruiz Robles’s Enciclopedia Mecánica eschewed pages in favor of three horizontal paper scrolls that could be easily swapped out to accommodate a range of subjects. Though Ruiz Robles’s prototype had limited functionality, interactive features described in her 1949 patent—such as a button labeled “verb” that would illuminate relevant text when pressed—_____ blank an impressive early vision of hypertext.

• revealing

• reveal

• reveals

• has revealed

Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1818) is considered a satire of another novel popular at the time: Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), which Austen’s heroine, Catherine Morland, is depicted reading. However, the similarity of the _____ blank experiences—the predicaments of both Catherine and Radcliffe’s Emily St. Aubert result from men’s greed—suggests that underlying the satire is a social critique.

• A. novel’s protagonists’

• B. novels’ protagonists

• C. novels’ protagonists’

• D. novel’s protagonist’s

Roger Angell’s reputation as one of the greatest baseball writers of all _____ bolstered by dozens of New Yorker essays in which he demonstrated a deep affection for and knowledge of the game, has perhaps overshadowed his remarkable career as a fiction editor: during his decades-long tenure at the New Yorker, Angell helped shape the work of John Updike, Ann Beattie, and other contributors of note. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• A. time was

• B. time,

• C. time had been

• D. time, was

Before the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, many US territories extended voting rights to women, in part to spur westward migration that would help these territories meet population thresholds for statehood. The Territory of Wyoming approved women’s suffrage in 1869 before attaining statehood in _____blank while eastern states, lacking the same incentive, did not follow suit until after the turn of the century. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• A. 1890, for example:

• B. 1890, for example,

• C. 1890; for example,

• D. 1890, for example:

The legacy of the Spanish Empire, which once controlled portions of five continents, is evident in Spanish-speaking Panama, one of many places that reveal their imperial history in their language. Contrast Panama with the Netherlands, which ceased to be part of the empire in ______ blank the latter’s connection to the empire is so attenuated that Spanish is seldom spoken there today. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• A. 1648 and

• B. 1648:

• C. 1648,

• D. 1648

To determine the approximate age of stone tools excavated from ancient lake beds in Saudi Arabia, archaeologist Eleanor Scerri and colleagues collected samples of sediments surrounding the tools; these samples were then analyzed using a method known as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating. ______ blank OSL dating indicated that the tools were around 400,000 years old.

• In addition,

• By comparison,

• Similarly,

• Ultimately,

The moon Lysithea orbits Jupiter in the same direction that the planet rotates. _____ blank Lysithea’s orbit is described as prograde. Meme, another of Jupiter’s moons, orbits in the opposite direction, so its orbit is described with the opposite term: retrograde.

• A. Likewise,

• B. Next,

• C. Thus,

• D. However,

Macarena Garcia Marin is a space scientist who works on the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST. Thanks in part to Garcia Marin’s contributions, the telescope is now positioned near the Sun–Earth L2 Lagrange point, almost one million miles beyond Earth’s orbit. _____ blank the JWST’s predecessor, the Hubble Telescope, is only about 340 miles above Earth’s surface.

• A. Similarly,

• B. Secondly,

• C. By contrast,

• D. Therefore,