Alex Atala and Brazilian Cuisine

At first, Brazilian chef Alex Atala opened his restaurant in São Paulo in 1999, people told him he’d never succeed. In a country where European cuisine was held in the highest regard, they said, no one would patronize a restaurant serving Brazilian food. Atala, whose restaurant has consistently ranked among the world’s best, has long disproven the naysayers. Using traditional Brazilian ingredients, such as, manioc root and even ants—in innovative ways, he has thrilled diners from around the world.

Still, Atala felt he could do more for his country and its cuisine. In 2012, he founded Instituto Atá to help promote lesser-known ingredients, particularly those of the Amazon basin, while working to protect Brazil’s biodiversity. Hearts of palm, for example, were typically harvested from Brazil’s wild juçara palms in an unsustainable way. Needing eight years to mature, the tree dies once its large heart is removed. Atala began persuading producers to cultivate Amazonian pupunha palms, which grow clusters of stems, each with a small heart. Careful harvesting ensures that the tree will live to yield more hearts, resulting in environmentally friendly production.

Atala prioritizes his working relationships with Amazonian tribes. Utilizing their historical know‑how they have, he aims to bolster tribe members’ livelihoods while exposing a wider audience to Brazilian ingredients. For instance, Baniwa women have farmed distinctly flavorful chili peppers for centuries that use indigenous agricultural techniques, to create a seasoning called pimenta jiquitaia. Partnering with Instituto Atá have enabled these women from a remote rain forest region to scale up production and market their product globally.

Expanding awareness of the rich diversity of Brazil’s native ingredients, Atala continues to lead in deciphering the country’s food culture. With his characteristic passion and intensity, the renowned chef seeks to inspire Brazilians to rediscover the connections between culture, nature, and food.

Question 2 refers to the underlined passage text {ingredients, such as, manioc root}.

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

Alex Atala and Brazilian Cuisine

At first, Brazilian chef Alex Atala opened his restaurant in São Paulo in 1999, people told him he’d never succeed. In a country where European cuisine was held in the highest regard, they said, no one would patronize a restaurant serving Brazilian food. Atala, whose restaurant has consistently ranked among the world’s best, has long disproven the naysayers. Using traditional Brazilian ingredients, such as, manioc root and even ants—in innovative ways, he has thrilled diners from around the world.

Still, Atala felt he could do more for his country and its cuisine. In 2012, he founded Instituto Atá to help promote lesser-known ingredients, particularly those of the Amazon basin, while working to protect Brazil’s biodiversity. Hearts of palm, for example, were typically harvested from Brazil’s wild juçara palms in an unsustainable way. Needing eight years to mature, the tree dies once its large heart is removed. Atala began persuading producers to cultivate Amazonian pupunha palms, which grow clusters of stems, each with a small heart. Careful harvesting ensures that the tree will live to yield more hearts, resulting in environmentally friendly production.

Atala prioritizes his working relationships with Amazonian tribes. Utilizing their historical know‑how they have, he aims to bolster tribe members’ livelihoods while exposing a wider audience to Brazilian ingredients. For instance, Baniwa women have farmed distinctly flavorful chili peppers for centuries that use indigenous agricultural techniques, to create a seasoning called pimenta jiquitaia. Partnering with Instituto Atá have enabled these women from a remote rain forest region to scale up production and market their product globally.

Expanding awareness of the rich diversity of Brazil’s native ingredients, Atala continues to lead in deciphering the country’s food culture. With his characteristic passion and intensity, the renowned chef seeks to inspire Brazilians to rediscover the connections between culture, nature, and food.

Question 3 refers to the underlined passage text {thrilled}.

The writer wants to emphasize the positive experience diners have had at Atala’s restaurant. Which choice best accomplishes that goal?

Alex Atala and Brazilian Cuisine

At first, Brazilian chef Alex Atala opened his restaurant in São Paulo in 1999, people told him he’d never succeed. In a country where European cuisine was held in the highest regard, they said, no one would patronize a restaurant serving Brazilian food. Atala, whose restaurant has consistently ranked among the world’s best, has long disproven the naysayers. Using traditional Brazilian ingredients, such as, manioc root and even ants—in innovative ways, he has thrilled diners from around the world.

Still, Atala felt he could do more for his country and its cuisine. In 2012, he founded Instituto Atá to help promote lesser-known ingredients, particularly those of the Amazon basin, while working to protect Brazil’s biodiversity. Hearts of palm, for example, were typically harvested from Brazil’s wild juçara palms in an unsustainable way. Needing eight years to mature, the tree dies once its large heart is removed. Atala began persuading producers to cultivate Amazonian pupunha palms, which grow clusters of stems, each with a small heart. Careful harvesting ensures that the tree will live to yield more hearts, resulting in environmentally friendly production.

Atala prioritizes his working relationships with Amazonian tribes. Utilizing their historical know‑how they have, he aims to bolster tribe members’ livelihoods while exposing a wider audience to Brazilian ingredients. For instance, Baniwa women have farmed distinctly flavorful chili peppers for centuries that use indigenous agricultural techniques, to create a seasoning called pimenta jiquitaia. Partnering with Instituto Atá have enabled these women from a remote rain forest region to scale up production and market their product globally.

Expanding awareness of the rich diversity of Brazil’s native ingredients, Atala continues to lead in deciphering the country’s food culture. With his characteristic passion and intensity, the renowned chef seeks to inspire Brazilians to rediscover the connections between culture, nature, and food.

Question 4 refers to the underlined passage text {know‑how they have,}.

Which choice is least redundant in context?

Cameron took 4 tests, and his scores were as follows: 100, 60, 80, and 30. Cameron took another test that was scored x. The mean score of the 5 tests he took is 72. What is the value of x?

In the Venn diagram, circles S, C, and P represent farms raising sheep, cows, and pigs, respectively. How many of the 47 farms represented in the diagram do not raise cows?

Marco designs a spinner wheel that has exactly 4 red, blue, green, and yellow. He wants the spinner wheel to have a 25% chance of landing on each section. He spins the wheel 500 times. The results of the spins are shown in this table.

Based on the results in this table, one of the following changes would be the best fix. Which one?

In △ABC, ∠A and ∠C are congruent, and the measure of ∠B is 143.6°. What is the measure of ∠A?

Passage

The bowl was perfect. Perhaps it was not what you’d select if you faced a shelf of bowls, and not the sort of thing that would inevitably attract a lot of attention at a crafts fair, yet it had real presence. It was as predictably admired as a mutt who has no reason to suspect he might be funny. Just such a dog, in fact, was often brought out (and in) along with the bowl.

Andrea was a real-estate agent, and when she thought that some prospective buyers might be dog-lovers, she would drop off her dog at the same time she placed the bowl in the house that was up for sale. She would put a dish of water in the kitchen for Mondo, take his squeaking plastic frog out of her purse and drop it on the floor. He would pounce delightedly, just as he did every day at home, batting around his favorite toy. The bowl usually sat on a coffee table, though recently she had displayed it on top of a pine blanket chest and on a lacquered table. It was once placed on a cherry table beneath a glorious still-life painting, where it held its own.

Everyone who has purchased a house or who has wanted to sell a house must be familiar with some of the tricks used to convince a buyer that the house is quite special: a fire in the fireplace in early evening; jonquils in a pitcher on the kitchen counter, where no one ordinarily has space to put flowers; perhaps the slight aroma of spring, made by a single drop of scent vaporizing from a lamp bulb.

The wonderful thing about the bowl, Andrea thought, was that it was both subtle and noticeable—a paradox of a bowl. Its glaze was the color of cream and seemed to glow no matter what light it was placed in. There were a few bits of color in it—tiny geometric flashes—and some of these were tinged with flecks of silver. They were as mysterious as cells seen under a microscope; it was difficult not to study them, because they shimmered, flashing for a split second, and then resumed their shape. Something about the colors and their random placement suggested motion. People who liked country furniture always commented on the bowl, but then it turned out that people who felt comfortable with opulence loved it just as much. But the bowl was not at all ostentatious, or even so noticeable that anyone would suspect that it had been put in place deliberately. They might notice the height of the ceiling on first entering a room, and only when their eye moved down from that, or away from the refraction of sunlight on a pale wall, would they see the bowl. Then they would go immediately to it and comment. Yet they always faltered when they tried to say something. Perhaps it was because they were in the house for a serious reason, not to notice some object.

Once, Andrea got a call from a woman who had not put in an offer on a house she had shown her. That bowl, she said—would it be possible to find out where the owners had bought that beautiful bowl? Andrea pretended that she did not know what the woman was referring to. A bowl, somewhere in the house? Oh, on a table under the window. Yes, she would ask, of course. She let a couple of days pass, then called back to say that the bowl had been a present and the people did not know where it had been purchased.

She was sure that the bowl brought her luck. Bids were often put in on houses where she had displayed the bowl. Sometimes the owners, who were always asked to be away or to step outside when the house was being shown, didn’t even know that the bowl had been in their house. Once—she could not imagine how—she left it behind, and then she was so afraid that something might have happened to it that she rushed back to the house and sighed with relief when the owner opened the door. The bowl, Andrea explained—she had purchased a bowl and set it on the chest for safekeeping while she toured the house with the prospective buyers, and she . . . She felt like rushing past the frowning woman and seizing her bowl. The owner stepped aside. In the few seconds before Andrea picked up the bowl, she realized that the owner must have just seen that it had been perfectly placed, that the sunlight struck the bluer part of it. Her pitcher had been moved to the far side of the chest, and the bowl predominated. All the way home, Andrea wondered how she could have left the bowl behind. It was like leaving a friend at an outing—just walking off. Sometimes there were stories in the paper about families forgetting a child somewhere and driving to the next city. Andrea had only gone a mile down the road before she remembered.

Question 1 of 4

The point of view from which the passage is told is best described as that of a:

Passage

The bowl was perfect. Perhaps it was not what you’d select if you faced a shelf of bowls, and not the sort of thing that would inevitably attract a lot of attention at a crafts fair, yet it had real presence. It was as predictably admired as a mutt who has no reason to suspect he might be funny. Just such a dog, in fact, was often brought out (and in) along with the bowl.

Andrea was a real-estate agent, and when she thought that some prospective buyers might be dog-lovers, she would drop off her dog at the same time she placed the bowl in the house that was up for sale. She would put a dish of water in the kitchen for Mondo, take his squeaking plastic frog out of her purse and drop it on the floor. He would pounce delightedly, just as he did every day at home, batting around his favorite toy. The bowl usually sat on a coffee table, though recently she had displayed it on top of a pine blanket chest and on a lacquered table. It was once placed on a cherry table beneath a glorious still-life painting, where it held its own.

Everyone who has purchased a house or who has wanted to sell a house must be familiar with some of the tricks used to convince a buyer that the house is quite special: a fire in the fireplace in early evening; jonquils in a pitcher on the kitchen counter, where no one ordinarily has space to put flowers; perhaps the slight aroma of spring, made by a single drop of scent vaporizing from a lamp bulb.

The wonderful thing about the bowl, Andrea thought, was that it was both subtle and noticeable—a paradox of a bowl. Its glaze was the color of cream and seemed to glow no matter what light it was placed in. There were a few bits of color in it—tiny geometric flashes—and some of these were tinged with flecks of silver. They were as mysterious as cells seen under a microscope; it was difficult not to study them, because they shimmered, flashing for a split second, and then resumed their shape. Something about the colors and their random placement suggested motion. People who liked country furniture always commented on the bowl, but then it turned out that people who felt comfortable with opulence loved it just as much. But the bowl was not at all ostentatious, or even so noticeable that anyone would suspect that it had been put in place deliberately. They might notice the height of the ceiling on first entering a room, and only when their eye moved down from that, or away from the refraction of sunlight on a pale wall, would they see the bowl. Then they would go immediately to it and comment. Yet they always faltered when they tried to say something. Perhaps it was because they were in the house for a serious reason, not to notice some object.

Once, Andrea got a call from a woman who had not put in an offer on a house she had shown her. That bowl, she said—would it be possible to find out where the owners had bought that beautiful bowl? Andrea pretended that she did not know what the woman was referring to. A bowl, somewhere in the house? Oh, on a table under the window. Yes, she would ask, of course. She let a couple of days pass, then called back to say that the bowl had been a present and the people did not know where it had been purchased.

She was sure that the bowl brought her luck. Bids were often put in on houses where she had displayed the bowl. Sometimes the owners, who were always asked to be away or to step outside when the house was being shown, didn’t even know that the bowl had been in their house. Once—she could not imagine how—she left it behind, and then she was so afraid that something might have happened to it that she rushed back to the house and sighed with relief when the owner opened the door. The bowl, Andrea explained—she had purchased a bowl and set it on the chest for safekeeping while she toured the house with the prospective buyers, and she . . . She felt like rushing past the frowning woman and seizing her bowl. The owner stepped aside. In the few seconds before Andrea picked up the bowl, she realized that the owner must have just seen that it had been perfectly placed, that the sunlight struck the bluer part of it. Her pitcher had been moved to the far side of the chest, and the bowl predominated. All the way home, Andrea wondered how she could have left the bowl behind. It was like leaving a friend at an outing—just walking off. Sometimes there were stories in the paper about families forgetting a child somewhere and driving to the next city. Andrea had only gone a mile down the road before she remembered.

Question 2 of 4

The passage as a whole can best be described as an exploration of the:

Passage

The bowl was perfect. Perhaps it was not what you’d select if you faced a shelf of bowls, and not the sort of thing that would inevitably attract a lot of attention at a crafts fair, yet it had real presence. It was as predictably admired as a mutt who has no reason to suspect he might be funny. Just such a dog, in fact, was often brought out (and in) along with the bowl.

Andrea was a real-estate agent, and when she thought that some prospective buyers might be dog-lovers, she would drop off her dog at the same time she placed the bowl in the house that was up for sale. She would put a dish of water in the kitchen for Mondo, take his squeaking plastic frog out of her purse and drop it on the floor. He would pounce delightedly, just as he did every day at home, batting around his favorite toy. The bowl usually sat on a coffee table, though recently she had displayed it on top of a pine blanket chest and on a lacquered table. It was once placed on a cherry table beneath a glorious still-life painting, where it held its own.

Everyone who has purchased a house or who has wanted to sell a house must be familiar with some of the tricks used to convince a buyer that the house is quite special: a fire in the fireplace in early evening; jonquils in a pitcher on the kitchen counter, where no one ordinarily has space to put flowers; perhaps the slight aroma of spring, made by a single drop of scent vaporizing from a lamp bulb.

The wonderful thing about the bowl, Andrea thought, was that it was both subtle and noticeable—a paradox of a bowl. Its glaze was the color of cream and seemed to glow no matter what light it was placed in. There were a few bits of color in it—tiny geometric flashes—and some of these were tinged with flecks of silver. They were as mysterious as cells seen under a microscope; it was difficult not to study them, because they shimmered, flashing for a split second, and then resumed their shape. Something about the colors and their random placement suggested motion. People who liked country furniture always commented on the bowl, but then it turned out that people who felt comfortable with opulence loved it just as much. But the bowl was not at all ostentatious, or even so noticeable that anyone would suspect that it had been put in place deliberately. They might notice the height of the ceiling on first entering a room, and only when their eye moved down from that, or away from the refraction of sunlight on a pale wall, would they see the bowl. Then they would go immediately to it and comment. Yet they always faltered when they tried to say something. Perhaps it was because they were in the house for a serious reason, not to notice some object.

Once, Andrea got a call from a woman who had not put in an offer on a house she had shown her. That bowl, she said—would it be possible to find out where the owners had bought that beautiful bowl? Andrea pretended that she did not know what the woman was referring to. A bowl, somewhere in the house? Oh, on a table under the window. Yes, she would ask, of course. She let a couple of days pass, then called back to say that the bowl had been a present and the people did not know where it had been purchased.

She was sure that the bowl brought her luck. Bids were often put in on houses where she had displayed the bowl. Sometimes the owners, who were always asked to be away or to step outside when the house was being shown, didn’t even know that the bowl had been in their house. Once—she could not imagine how—she left it behind, and then she was so afraid that something might have happened to it that she rushed back to the house and sighed with relief when the owner opened the door. The bowl, Andrea explained—she had purchased a bowl and set it on the chest for safekeeping while she toured the house with the prospective buyers, and she . . . She felt like rushing past the frowning woman and seizing her bowl. The owner stepped aside. In the few seconds before Andrea picked up the bowl, she realized that the owner must have just seen that it had been perfectly placed, that the sunlight struck the bluer part of it. Her pitcher had been moved to the far side of the chest, and the bowl predominated. All the way home, Andrea wondered how she could have left the bowl behind. It was like leaving a friend at an outing—just walking off. Sometimes there were stories in the paper about families forgetting a child somewhere and driving to the next city. Andrea had only gone a mile down the road before she remembered.

Question 3 of 4

The passage most strongly suggests that a useful characteristic of the bowl, in terms of Andrea’s purpose for the object, is the bowl’s:

Passage

The bowl was perfect. Perhaps it was not what you’d select if you faced a shelf of bowls, and not the sort of thing that would inevitably attract a lot of attention at a crafts fair, yet it had real presence. It was as predictably admired as a mutt who has no reason to suspect he might be funny. Just such a dog, in fact, was often brought out (and in) along with the bowl.

Andrea was a real-estate agent, and when she thought that some prospective buyers might be dog-lovers, she would drop off her dog at the same time she placed the bowl in the house that was up for sale. She would put a dish of water in the kitchen for Mondo, take his squeaking plastic frog out of her purse and drop it on the floor. He would pounce delightedly, just as he did every day at home, batting around his favorite toy. The bowl usually sat on a coffee table, though recently she had displayed it on top of a pine blanket chest and on a lacquered table. It was once placed on a cherry table beneath a glorious still-life painting, where it held its own.

Everyone who has purchased a house or who has wanted to sell a house must be familiar with some of the tricks used to convince a buyer that the house is quite special: a fire in the fireplace in early evening; jonquils in a pitcher on the kitchen counter, where no one ordinarily has space to put flowers; perhaps the slight aroma of spring, made by a single drop of scent vaporizing from a lamp bulb.

The wonderful thing about the bowl, Andrea thought, was that it was both subtle and noticeable—a paradox of a bowl. Its glaze was the color of cream and seemed to glow no matter what light it was placed in. There were a few bits of color in it—tiny geometric flashes—and some of these were tinged with flecks of silver. They were as mysterious as cells seen under a microscope; it was difficult not to study them, because they shimmered, flashing for a split second, and then resumed their shape. Something about the colors and their random placement suggested motion. People who liked country furniture always commented on the bowl, but then it turned out that people who felt comfortable with opulence loved it just as much. But the bowl was not at all ostentatious, or even so noticeable that anyone would suspect that it had been put in place deliberately. They might notice the height of the ceiling on first entering a room, and only when their eye moved down from that, or away from the refraction of sunlight on a pale wall, would they see the bowl. Then they would go immediately to it and comment. Yet they always faltered when they tried to say something. Perhaps it was because they were in the house for a serious reason, not to notice some object.

Once, Andrea got a call from a woman who had not put in an offer on a house she had shown her. That bowl, she said—would it be possible to find out where the owners had bought that beautiful bowl? Andrea pretended that she did not know what the woman was referring to. A bowl, somewhere in the house? Oh, on a table under the window. Yes, she would ask, of course. She let a couple of days pass, then called back to say that the bowl had been a present and the people did not know where it had been purchased.

She was sure that the bowl brought her luck. Bids were often put in on houses where she had displayed the bowl. Sometimes the owners, who were always asked to be away or to step outside when the house was being shown, didn’t even know that the bowl had been in their house. Once—she could not imagine how—she left it behind, and then she was so afraid that something might have happened to it that she rushed back to the house and sighed with relief when the owner opened the door. The bowl, Andrea explained—she had purchased a bowl and set it on the chest for safekeeping while she toured the house with the prospective buyers, and she . . . She felt like rushing past the frowning woman and seizing her bowl. The owner stepped aside. In the few seconds before Andrea picked up the bowl, she realized that the owner must have just seen that it had been perfectly placed, that the sunlight struck the bluer part of it. Her pitcher had been moved to the far side of the chest, and the bowl predominated. All the way home, Andrea wondered how she could have left the bowl behind. It was like leaving a friend at an outing—just walking off. Sometimes there were stories in the paper about families forgetting a child somewhere and driving to the next city. Andrea had only gone a mile down the road before she remembered.

Question 4 of 4

In the passage, Andrea is characterized as believing that compared to most tricks used by real estate agents to impress potential buyers, her trick of placing the bowl in a home is: