The general store was essential to daily life in the rural United States during the 1800s because

it provided the supplies that the people living in nearby communities needed. Also, the store
was a _______ of information. People socializing at the general store would share news and
help spread it throughout their communities.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) source

B) rival

C) condition

D) waste

For painter Jacob Lawrence, being _______ was an important part of the artistic process.
Because he paid close attention to all the details of his Harlem neighborhood, Lawrence’s
artwork captured nuances in the beauty and vitality of the Black experience during the Harlem
Renaissance and the Great Migration.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) skeptical

B) observant

C) critical

D) confident

Former astronaut Ellen Ochoa says that although she doesn’t have a definite idea of when it
might happen, she _______ that humans will someday need to be able to live in other
environments than those found on Earth. This conjecture informs her interest in future research
missions to the moon.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) demands

B) speculates

C) doubts

D) establishes
The parasitic dodder plant increases its reproductive success by flowering at the same time as
the host plant it has latched onto. In 2020, Jianqiang Wu and his colleagues determined that the
tiny dodder achieves this _______ with its host by absorbing and utilizing a protein the host
produces when it is about to flower.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) synchronization

B) hibernation

C) prediction

D) moderation

Barring major archaeological discoveries, we are unlikely to ever have _______ account of
ancient Egypt under the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, as much of the evidence of her reign was
deliberately destroyed by her successors.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) an imaginative

B) a superficial

C) an exhaustive

D) a questionable
Jazz tap is a dance form that was first developed in African American communities. Jazz tap was
heavily influenced by jazz music, which became widely popular in the United States in the
1920s. Tap dancers were inspired by jazz music’s quick rhythms and by the way jazz musicians
would make up melodies as they played. As jazz music continued to develop in the 1930s and
1940s, jazz tap evolved with it. Because of jazz music’s influence, jazz tap quickly developed into
a dance form that was very different from earlier kinds of tap dance.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A) It explains why audiences prefer some kinds of music over others.

B) It discusses the development of a dance form.

C) It describes how to play a musical instrument.

D) It emphasizes the popularity of a famous dancer.

The north celestial pole (NCP)—the fixed point around which stars in the Northern Hemisphere
(including the Sun) appear to rotate—is discernible only at night. Inspired by the navigational
strategies of some insects and birds, researchers devised a method for locating the NCP in
daytime using skylight polarization, which occurs as atmospheric particles scatter sunlight. A
polarimetric camera captures images of polarization patterns, which rotate as the Sun’s position
in the sky changes; temporal variances across images can then be used to determine an
observer’s latitude and bearing relative to the NCP.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A) It illustrates how most navigational tools utilize the NCP, recounts how researchers
discovered that certain animals are able to navigate without using the NCP, and then proposes
that this discovery could be used to avoid problems in navigation associated with reliance on
the NCP.

B) It presents a celestial-based method of navigation, enumerates the comparative benefits of

an alternative method used by certain animals that is based on an unrelated natural occurrence,
and then indicates how researchers assessed the relative accuracy of the two methods.

C) It explains how the NCP is typically located, emphasizes a key difference between how
humans and certain animals use the NCP for navigation, and then suggests an alternative way of
using the NCP to improve existing navigational instruments.

D) It notes an obstacle to observing an astronomical phenomenon, mentions a navigational

ability of certain animals that inspired a solution to that obstacle, and then explains how
researchers used an optical device to mimic that ability.
The following text is adapted from Zora Neale Hurston’s 1921 short story “John Redding Goes to
Sea.” John is a child who lives in a town in the woods.

Perhaps ten-year-old John was puzzling to the folk there in the Florida woods for he was an
imaginative child and fond of day-dreams. The St. John River flowed a scarce three hundred feet
from his back door. On its banks at this point grow numerous palms, luxuriant magnolias and
bay trees. On the bosom of the stream float millions of delicately colored hyacinths. [John
Redding] loved to wander down to the water’s edge, and, casting in dry twigs, watch them sail
away down stream to Jacksonville, the sea, the wide world and [he] wanted to follow them.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?

A) It provides an extended description of a location that John likes to visit.

B) It reveals that some residents of John’s town are confused by his behavior.

C) It illustrates the uniqueness of John’s imagination compared to the imaginations of other

children.

D) It suggests that John longs to experience a larger life outside the Florida woods.

Astronomers are confident that the star Betelgeuse will eventually consume all the helium in its
core and explode in a supernova. They are much less confident, however, about when this will
happen, since that depends on internal characteristics of Betelgeuse that are largely unknown.
Astrophysicist Sarafina El-Badry Nance and colleagues recently investigated whether acoustic
waves in the star could be used to determine internal stellar states but concluded that this
method could not sufficiently reveal Betelgeuse’s internal characteristics to allow its
evolutionary state to be firmly fixed.

Which choice best describes the function of the second sentence in the overall structure of the
text?

A) It describes a serious limitation of the method used by Nance and colleagues.

B) It presents the central finding reported by Nance and colleagues.

C) It identifies the problem that Nance and colleagues attempted to solve but did not.

D) It explains how the work of Nance and colleagues was received by others in the field.
Text 1

Astronomer Mark Holland and colleagues examined four white dwarfs—small, dense remnants
of past stars—in order to determine the composition of exoplanets that used to orbit those
stars. Studying wavelengths of light in the white dwarf atmospheres, the team reported that
traces of elements such as lithium and sodium support the presence of exoplanets with
continental crusts similar to Earth’s.

Text 2

Past studies of white dwarf atmospheres have concluded that certain exoplanets had
continental crusts. Geologist Keith Putirka and astronomer Siyi Xu argue that those studies
unduly emphasize atmospheric traces of lithium and other individual elements as signifiers of
the types of rock found on Earth. The studies don’t adequately account for different minerals
made up of various ratios of those elements, and the possibility of rock types not found on
Earth that contain those minerals.

Based on the texts, how would Putirka and Xu (Text 2) most likely characterize the conclusion
presented in Text 1?

A) As unexpected, because it was widely believed at the time that white dwarf exoplanets lack
continental crusts

B) As premature, because researchers have only just begun trying to determine what kinds of
crusts white dwarf exoplanets had

C) As questionable, because it rests on an incomplete consideration of potential sources of the

elements detected in white dwarf atmospheres

D) As puzzling, because it’s unusual to successfully detect lithium and sodium when analyzing
wavelengths of light in white dwarf atmospheres
The following text is from David Barclay Moore’s 2022 novel Holler of the Fireflies. The narrator
has just arrived at summer camp, which is far away from his home.

This place was different than I thought it would be. I’d never been somewhere like this before. I
did feel scared, but also excited.

©2022 by David Barclay Moore

According to the text, how does the narrator feel about being at summer camp?

A) He feels overjoyed.

B) He feels peaceful.

C) He feels both scared and excited.

D) He feels both angry and jealous.

The following text is adapted from Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian
Gray is taking his first look at a portrait that Hallward has painted of him. Dorian passed listlessly
in front of his picture and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks
flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognized
himself for the first time. He stood there motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that
Hallward was speaking to him, but not catching the meaning of his words. The sense of his own
beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before.

According to the text, what is true about Dorian?

A) He wants to know Hallward’s opinion of the portrait.

B) He is delighted by what he sees in the portrait.

C) He prefers portraits to other types of paintings.

D) He is uncertain of Hallward’s talent as an artist.

Choctaw/Cherokee artist Jeffrey Gibson turns punching bags used by boxers into art by
decorating them with beadwork and elements of Native dressmaking. These elements include
leather fringe and jingles, the metal cones that cover the dresses worn in the jingle dance, a
women’s dance of the Ojibwe people. Thus, Gibson combines an object commonly associated
with masculinity (a punching bag) with art forms traditionally practiced by women in most
Native communities (beadwork and dressmaking). In this way, he rejects the division of male
and female gender roles.

Which choice best describes Gibson’s approach to art, as presented in the text?

A) He draws from traditional Native art forms to create his original works.

B) He has been influenced by Native and non-Native artists equally.

C) He finds inspiration from boxing in designing the dresses he makes.

D) He rejects expectations about color and pattern when incorporating beadwork.

O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by Willa Cather. In the novel, Cather portrays Alexandra Bergson as
having a deep emotional connection to her natural surroundings: _______

Which quotation from O Pioneers! most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) “She had never known before how much the country meant to her. The chirping of the
insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music. She had felt as if her heart
were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things
that crooned or buzzed in the sun. Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.”

B) “Alexandra talked to the men about their crops and to the women about their poultry. She
spent a whole day with one young farmer who had been away at school, and who was
experimenting with a new kind of clover hay. She learned a great deal.”

C) “Alexandra drove off alone. The rattle of her wagon was lost in the howling of the wind, but
her lantern, held firmly between her feet, made a moving point of light along the highway, going
deeper and deeper into the dark country.”

D) “It was Alexandra who read the papers and followed the markets, and who learned by the
mistakes of their neighbors. It was Alexandra who could always tell about what it had cost to
fatten each steer, and who could guess the weight of a hog before it went on the scales closer
than John Bergson [her father] himself.”
The novelist Toni Morrison was the first Black woman to work as an editor at the publishing
company Random House, from 1967 to 1983. A scholar asserts that one of Morrison’s likely
aims during her time as an editor was to strengthen the presence of Black writers on the list of
Random House’s published authors.

Which finding, if true, would most strongly support the scholar’s claim?

A) The percentage of authors published by Random House who were Black rose in the early
1970s and stabilized throughout the decade.

B) Black authors who were interviewed in the 1980s and 1990s were highly likely to cite Toni
Morrison’s novels as a principal influence on their work.

C) The novels written by Toni Morrison that were published after 1983 sold significantly more
copies and received wider critical acclaim than the novels she wrote that were published before
1983.

D) Works that were edited by Toni Morrison during her time at Random House displayed
stylistic characteristics that distinguished them from works that were not edited by Morrison.

Archaeologist Petra Vaiglova, anthropologist Xinyi Liu, and their colleagues investigated the
domestication of farm animals in China during the Bronze Age (approximately 2000 to 1000
BCE). By analyzing the chemical composition of the bones of sheep, goats, and cattle from this
era, the team determined that wild plants made up the bulk of sheep’s and goats’ diets, while
the cattle’s diet consisted largely of millet, a crop cultivated by humans. The team concluded
that cattle were likely raised closer to human settlements, whereas sheep and goats were
allowed to roam farther away.

Which finding, if true, would most strongly support the team’s conclusion?

A) Analysis of the animal bones showed that the cattle’s diet also consisted of wheat, which
humans widely cultivated in China during the Bronze Age.

B) Further investigation of sheep and goat bones revealed that their diets consisted of small
portions of millet as well.

C) Cattle’s diets generally require larger amounts of food and a greater variety of nutrients than
do sheep’s and goats’ diets.

D) The diets of sheep, goats, and cattle were found to vary based on what the farmers in each
Bronze Age settlement could grow.
In a study of the evolution of DptA and DptB—Diptericin genes encoding antimicrobial peptides
that combat pathogens and foster beneficial microbes in fruit flies (Drosophila)—researchers
assessed Drosophila melanogaster resistance to pathogenic infections by Providencia rettgeri
and Acetobacter sicerae, bacteria common in the flies’ environments. Subjects included flies
identified by mutations silencing DptA, DptB, or both DptA and DptB (termed types A, B, and
AB, respectively). In conjunction with the observation that resistance to P. rettgeri correlates
with DptA activity but is not significantly affected by DptB activity, data in the graph of survival
rates post–A. sicerae infection suggest that _______

Which completion of the text is best supported by data in the graph?

A) DptAconfers defense against A. sicerae regardless of the presence of DptB.

B) DptBprotects against only one bacteria species, whereas DptA protects against multiple
species.

C) DptBmay have developed as a specific defense against A. sicerae.

D) defense against A. sicerae is strongest when both DptA and DptB are present.
Euphorbia esula (leafy spurge) is a Eurasian plant that has become invasive in North America,
where it displaces native vegetation and sickens cattle. E. esula can be controlled with chemical
herbicides, but that approach can also kill harmless plants nearby. Recent research on
introducing engineered DNA into plant species to inhibit their reproduction may offer a path
toward exclusively targeting E. esula, consequently _______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) making individual E. esula plants more susceptible to existing chemical herbicides.

B) enhancing the ecological benefits of E. esula in North America.

C) enabling cattle to consume E. esula without becoming sick.

D) reducing invasive E. esula numbers without harming other organisms.

A team of biologists led by Jae-Hoon Jung, Antonio D. Barbosa, and Stephanie Hutin investigated
the mechanism that allows Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress) plants to accelerate flowering at
high temperatures. They replaced the protein ELF3 in the plants with a similar protein found in
another species (stiff brome) that, unlike A. thaliana, displays no acceleration in flowering with
increased temperature. A comparison of unmodified A. thaliana plants with the altered plants
showed no difference in flowering at 22° Celsius, but at 27° Celsius, the unmodified plants
exhibited accelerated flowering while the altered ones did not, which suggests that _______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) temperature-sensitive accelerated flowering is unique to A. thaliana.

B) A. thaliana increases ELF3 production as temperatures rise.

C) ELF3 enables A. thaliana to respond to increased temperatures.

D) temperatures of at least 22° Celsius are required for A. thaliana to flower.