Despite the fact that the health-inspection procedures for catering establishments are more stringent than those for ordinary restaurants, more of the cases of food poisoning reported to the city health department were brought on by banquets served by catering services than were brought on by restaurant meals.

Which of the following, if true, helps explain the apparent paradox in the statement above?

In a plausible but speculative scenario, oceanographer Douglas Martinson suggests that temperature increases caused by global warming would not significantly affect the stability of the Antarctic environment, where sea ice forms on the periphery of the continent in the autumn and winter and mostly disappears in the summer. True, less sea ice would form in the winter because global warming would cause temperatures to rise. However, Martinson argues, the effect of a warmer atmosphere may be offset as follows. The formation of sea ice causes the concentration of salt in surface waters to increase; less sea ice would mean a smaller increase in the concentration of salt. Less salty surface waters would be less dense and therefore less likely to sink and stir up deep water. The deep water, with all its stored heat, would rise to the surface at a slower rate. Thus, although the winter sea-ice cover might decrease, the surface waters would remain cold enough so that the decrease would not be excessive.

According to the passage, which of the following is true about the sea ice that surrounds the Antarctic continent?

African American newspapers in the 1930s faced many hardships. For instance, knowing that buyers of African American papers also bought general-circulation papers, advertisers of consumer products often ignored African American publications. Advertisers’ discrimination did free the African American press from advertiser domination. Editors could print politically charged material more readily than could the large national dailies, which depended on advertisers’ ideological approval to secure revenues. Unfortunately, it also made the selling price of Black papers much higher than that of general-circulation dailies. Often as much as two-thirds of publication costs had to come from subscribers or subsidies from community politicians and other interest groups. And despite their editorial freedom, African American publishers often felt compelled to print a disproportionate amount of sensationalism, sports, and society news to boost circulation.

For the following question, consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

The passage suggests that if advertisers had more frequently purchased advertising in African American newspapers, then which of the following might have resulted?

Ragwort was accidentally introduced to New Zealand in the late nineteenth century and, like so many invading foreign species, quickly became a pest. By the 1920s, the weed was rampant. What made matters worse was that its proliferation coincided with sweeping changes in agriculture and a massive shift from sheep farming to dairying. Ragwort contains a battery of toxic and resilient alkaloids: even honey made from its flowers contains the poison in dilute form. Livestock generally avoid grazing where ragwort is growing, but they will do so once it displaces grass and clover in their pasture. Though sheep can eat it for months before showing any signs of illness, if cattle eat it they sicken quickly, and fatality can even result.

For the following question, consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

The passage implies which of the following about the problems ragwort poses to dairy farmers?

Years ago, consumers in Frieland began paying an energy tax in the form of two Frieland pennies for each unit of energy consumed that came from nonrenewable sources. Following the introduction of this energy tax, there was a steady reduction in the total yearly consumption of energy from nonrenewable sources.

If the statements in the passage are true, then which of the following must on the basis of them be true?

In a plausible but speculative scenario, oceanographer Douglas Martinson suggests that temperature increases caused by global warming would not significantly affect the stability of the Antarctic environment, where sea ice forms on the periphery of the continent in the autumn and winter and mostly disappears in the summer. True, less sea ice would form in the winter because global warming would cause temperatures to rise. However, Martinson argues, the effect of a warmer atmosphere may be offset as follows. The formation of sea ice causes the concentration of salt in surface waters to increase; less sea ice would mean a smaller increase in the concentration of salt. Less salty surface waters would be less dense and therefore less likely to sink and stir up deep water. The deep water, with all its stored heat, would rise to the surface at a slower rate. Thus, although the winter sea-ice cover might decrease, the surface waters would remain cold enough so that the decrease would not be excessive.

It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following is true of the surface waters in the current Antarctic environment?

That sales can be increased by the presence of sunlight within a store has been shown by the experience of the only Savefast department store with a large skylight. The skylight allows sunlight into half of the store, reducing the need for artificial light. The rest of the store uses only artificial light. Since the store opened two years ago, the departments on the sunlit side have had substantially higher sales than the other departments.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?

While the best sixteenth-century Renaissance scholars mastered the classics of ancient Roman literature in the original Latin and understood them in their original historical context, most of the scholars’ educated contemporaries knew the classics only from school lessons on selected Latin texts. These were chosen by Renaissance teachers after much deliberation, for works written by and for the sophisticated adults of pagan Rome were not always considered suitable for the Renaissance young: the central Roman classics refused (as classics often do) to teach appropriate morality and frequently suggested the opposite. Teachers accordingly made students’ needs, not textual and historical accuracy, their supreme interest, chopping dangerous texts into short phrases, and using these to impart lessons extemporaneously on a variety of subjects, from syntax to science. Thus, I believe that a modern reader cannot know the associations that a line of ancient Roman poetry or prose had for any particular educated sixteenth-century reader.

The passage is primarily concerned with discussing the____

In humans, the pilomotor reflex leads to the response commonly known as goose bumps, and this response is widely considered to be vestigial—that is, something formerly having a greater physiological advantage than at present. It occurs when the tiny muscle at the base of a hair follicle contracts, pulling the hair upright. In animals with feathers, fur, or quills, this creates a layer of insulating warm air or a reason for predators to think twice before attacking. But human hair is too puny to serve these functions. Goose bumps in humans may, however, have acquired a new role. Like flushing—another thermoregulatory (heat-regulating) mechanism—goose bumps have become linked with emotional responses, notably fear, rage, or the pleasure of, say, listening to beautiful music. They may thus serve as a signal to others.

In explaining the “new role” that goose bumps in humans may have acquired, the author assumes which of the following?

This passage is adapted from material published in 2001.

Frederick Douglass was unquestionably the most famous African American of the nineteenth century; indeed, when he died in 1895 he was among the most distinguished public figures in the United States. In his study of Douglass’ career as a major figure in the movement to abolish slavery and as a spokesman for Black rights, Waldo Martin has provoked controversy by contending that Douglass also deserves a prominent place in the intellectual history of the United States because he exemplified so many strands of nineteenth-century thought: romanticism, idealism, individualism, liberal humanism, and an unshakable belief in progress. But this very argument provides ammunition for those who claim that most of Douglass’ ideas, being so representative of their time, are now obsolete. Douglass’ vision of the future as a melting pot in which all racial and ethnic differences would dissolve into “a composite American nationality” appears from the pluralist perspective of many present-day intellectuals to be not only utopian but even wrongheaded. Yet there is a central aspect of Douglass’ thought that seems not in the least bit dated or irrelevant to current concerns. He has no rival in the history of the nineteenth-century United States as an insistent and effective critic of the doctrine of innate racial inequality. He not only attacked racist ideas in his speeches and writings, but he offered his entire career and all his achievements as living proof that racists were wrong in their belief that one race could be inherently superior to another. While Martin stresses Douglass’ antiracist egalitarianism, he does not adequately explain how this aspect of Douglass’ thought fits in with his espousal of the liberal Victorian attitudes that many present-day intellectuals consider to be naïve and outdated. The fact is that Douglass was attracted to these democratic-capitalist ideals of his time because they could be used to attack slavery and the doctrine of White supremacy. His favorite rhetorical strategy was to expose the hypocrisy of those who, while professing adherence to the ideals of democracy and equality of opportunity, condoned slavery and racial discrimination. It would have been strange indeed if he had not embraced liberal idealism, because it proved its worth for the cause of racial equality during the national crisis that eventually resulted in emancipation and citizenship for African Americans. These points may seem obvious, but had Martin given them more attention, his analysis might have constituted a more convincing rebuttal to those critics who dismiss Douglass’ ideology as a relic of the past. If one accepts the proposition that Douglass’ deepest commitment was to Black equality and that he used the liberal ideals of his time as weapons in the fight for that cause, then it is hard to fault him for seizing the best weapons at hand.

The passage as a whole can best be described as doing which of the following?

The plant called the scarlet gilia can have either red or white flowers. It had long been thought that hummingbirds, which forage by day, pollinate its red flowers and that hawkmoths, which forage at night, pollinate its white flowers. To try to show that this pattern of pollination by colors exists, scientists recently covered some scarlet gilia flowers only at night and others only by day: plants with red flowers covered at night became pollinated; plants with white flowers covered by day became pollinated.

Which of the following, if true, would be additional evidence to suggest that hummingbirds are attracted to the red flowers and hawkmoths to the white flowers of the scarlet gilia?

Supernovas in the Milky Way are the likeliest source for most of the cosmic rays reaching Earth. However, calculations show that supernovas cannot produce ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), which have energies exceeding 1018 electron volts. It would seem sensible to seek the source of these in the universe’s most conspicuous energy factories: quasars and gamma-ray bursts billions of light-years away from Earth. But UHECRs tend to collide with photons of the cosmic microwave background—pervasive radiation that is a relic of the early universe. The odds favor a collision every 20 million light-years, each collision costing 20 percent of the cosmic ray’s energy. Consequently, no cosmic ray traveling much beyond 100 million light-years can retain the energy observed in UHECRs.

For the following question, consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

It can be inferred that the author of the passage would agree with which of the following about the origin of UHECRs that reach Earth?

The massive influx of women cyclists—making up at least a third of the total market— was perhaps the most striking and profound social consequence of the mid-1890s cycling boom. Although the new, improved bicycle had appealed immediately to a few privileged women, its impact would have been modest had it not attracted a greater cross section of the female population. It soon became apparent that many of these pioneer women bicyclists had not taken up the sport as an idle pastime. Rather, they saw cycling as a noble cause to be promoted among all women as a means to improve the general female condition. Not only would cycling encourage healthy outdoor exercise, they reasoned, it would also hasten long-overdue dress reform. To feminists, the bicycle affirmed nothing less than the dignity and equality of women.

For the following question, consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

Which of the following does the passage suggest about pioneer women cyclists?

X-ray examination of a recently discovered painting—judged by some authorities to be a self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh—revealed an underimage of a woman’s face. Either van Gogh or another painter covered the first painting with the portrait now seen on the surface of the canvas. Because the face of the woman in the underimage also appears on canvases van Gogh is known to have painted, the surface painting must be an authentic self-portrait by van Gogh.

The conclusion is properly drawn if which of the following is assumed?