Why do gift-givers assume that gift price is closely linked to gift-recipients’ feelings of appreciation? Perhaps givers believe that bigger (i.e., more expensive) gifts convey stronger signals of thoughtfulness and consideration.

As it is used above, the word “convey” most nearly means:

The forum on space mining comes hot on the heels of the 2012 unveiling of two private asteroid-mining firms. Planetary Resources of Washington says it will launch its first prospecting telescopes in two years, while Deep Space Industries of Virginia hopes to be harvesting metals from asteroids by 2020. Another commercial venture that sprung up in 2012, Golden Spike of Colorado, will be offering trips to the moon, including to potential lunar miners. Within a few decades, these firms may be meeting earthly demands for precious metals, such as platinum and gold, and the rare earth elements vital for personal electronics, such as yttrium and lanthanum.

As it is used above, the word “demands” most nearly means:

Recent debates about the economy have rediscovered the question, “is that right?”, where “right” means more than just profits or efficiency. Some argue that because the free markets allow for personal choice, they are already ethical. Others have accepted the ethical critique and embraced corporate social responsibility.

As it is used above, the word “embraced” most nearly means:

Many moral dilemmas arise when these three views of ethical decision-making pull in different directions but clashes are not inevitable.

As it is used above, the word “clashes” most nearly means:

Because these waves are involved in ocean mixing and thus the transfer of heat, understanding them is crucial to global climate modeling, says Tom Peacock, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most models fail to take internal waves into account. “If we want to have more and more accurate climate models, we have to be able to capture processes such as this,” Peacock says.

As it is used above, the word “capture” is closest in meaning to:

The researchers were also able to devise a mathematical model that describes the movement and formation of these waves. Whereas the model is specific to the Luzon Strait, it can still help researchers understand how internal waves are generated in other places around the world.

As it is used above, the word “devise” most nearly means:

In Shanghai, German-made magnetic levitation trains skim over elevated tracks at 266 miles an hour, whisking people to the airport at a third of the speed of sound. In provincial French towns, electric-powered streetcars run silently on rubber tires, sliding through narrow streets along a single guide rail set into cobblestones. In Latin America, China, and India, working people board fast-loading buses that move like subway trains along dedicated busways, leaving the sedans and SUVs of the rich mired in dawn-to-dusk traffic jams.

If you credit the demographers, this transit trend has legs. The “Millenials,” who reached adulthood around the turn of the century and now outnumber baby boomers, tend to favor cities over suburbs, and are far more willing than their parents to ride buses and subways.

As it is used above, the word “credit” most nearly means:

At field sites around the world, Ken Dial saw a pattern in how young pheasants, quail, tinamous, and other ground birds ran along behind their parents. “They jumped up like popcorn,” he said, describing how they would flap their half-formed wings and take short hops into the air. So when a group of graduate students challenged him to come up with new data on the age-old ground-up-tree-down debate, he designed a project to see what clues might lie in how baby game birds learned to fly.

As it is used above, the word “challenged” most nearly means:

Ken called the technique WAIR, for wing-assisted incline running, and went on to document it in a wide range of species. It not only allowed young birds to climb vertical surfaces within the first few weeks of life but also gave adults an energy-efficient alternative to flying.

As it is used above, the word “document” most nearly means:

In addition, immunocompromised or nutritionally deficient bees may be further weakened when commercially produced insecticides are introduced into their hives by bee keepers in an effort to fight mite infestation. We further postulate that the proper dosage necessary to prevent mite infestation may be better left to the bees, who may seek out or avoid pyrethrum containing plants depending on the amount necessary to defend against mites and the amount already consumed by the bees, which in higher doses could be potentially toxic to them.

As it is used above, the word “postulate” most nearly means to:

But there is no reason to believe that the demographic trends prevailing prior to the construction bust will not resume once that bust is over. It is important to remember that demographic inversion is not a proxy for population growth; it can occur in cities that are growing, those whose numbers are flat, and even in those undergoing a modest decline in size.

As it is used above, the word “flat” is closest in meaning to:

Burgess was right about the urban America of 1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974. Virtually every city in the country had a downtown where the commercial life of the metropolis was conducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it had districts of working-class residences just beyond that; and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and the upper middle class at the far end of the continuum.

As it is used above, the word “conducted” is closest in meaning to:

Lady Carlotta stepped out on to the platform of the small wayside station and took a turn or two up and down its uninteresting length, to kill time till the train should be pleased to proceed on its way.

As it is used above, the word “turn” most nearly means:

[selected from a passage adapted from Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s address to the 1869 Woman Suffrage Convention in Washington, DC.]

The male element has held high carnival thus far; it has fairly run riot from the beginning, overpowering the feminine element everywhere, crushing out all the diviner qualities in human nature, until we know but little of true manhood and womanhood, of the latter comparatively nothing, for it has scarce been recognized as a power until within the last century. Society is but the reflection of man himself, untempered by woman’s thought; the hard iron rule we feel alike in the church, the state, and the home.

As it is used above, the word “rule” most nearly refers to:

[selected from a passage adapted from Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s address to the 1869 Woman Suffrage Convention in Washington, DC.]

People object to the demands of those whom they choose to call the strong-minded, because they say “the right of suffrage will make the women masculine.” That is just the difficulty in which we are involved today.Though disfranchised, we have few women in the best sense; we have simply so many reflections, varieties, and dilutions of the masculine gender. The strong, natural characteristics of womanhood are repressed and ignored in dependence, for so long as man feeds woman she will try to please the giver and adapt herself to his condition.

As it is used above, the word “best” most nearly means:

[selected from a passage adapted from Talleyrand et al., Report on Public Instruction (originally published in 1791)]

If the exclusion from public employments decreed against women leads to a greater sum of mutual happiness for the two sexes, then this becomes a law that all Societies have been compelled to acknowledge and sanction. Any other ambition would be a reversal of our primary destinies; and it will never be in women’s interest to change the assignment they have received. It also seems to us incontestable that our common happiness, above all that of women, requires that they never aspire to the exercise of political rights and functions.

As it is used above, the word “common” most nearly means:

[selected from a passage adapted from MacDonald Harris’s The Balloonist. During the summer of 1897, the narrator of this story, a fictional Swedish scientist, has set out for the North Pole in a hydrogen-powered balloon.]

My emotions are complicated and not readily verifiable. I feel a vast yearning that is simultaneously a pleasure and a pain. I am certain of the consummation of this yearning, but I don’t know yet what form it will take, since I do not understand quite what it is that the yearning desires. For the first time there is borne in upon me the full truth of what I myself said to the doctor only an hour ago: that my motives in this undertaking are not entirely clear.

As it is used above, the words “not readily verifiable” most nearly mean:

[selected from a passage adapted from MacDonald Harris’s The Balloonist. During the summer of 1897, the narrator of this story, a fictional Swedish scientist, has set out for the North Pole in a hydrogen-powered balloon.]

Here I am. The wind is still from the south, bearing us steadily northward at the speed of a trotting dog. Behind us, perhaps forever, lie the Cities of Men with their teacups and their brass bedsteads.

As it is used in the lines above, the word “bearing” most nearly means:

[selected from a passage adapted from Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (originally published in 1790).]

Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.

As it is used above, the word “low” most nearly means: