For each item, select the best answer choice using the directions given.
If a question has answer choices with ovals, then the correct answer will be a single choice. If a question’s answer choices have squares, the correct answer may have more than one choice. Be sure to read all directions carefully.
For each blank, select an answer choice from the corresponding column of choices. Fill in the blank in such a way that it best completes the text.
The oppressive regime, having taken control of the country’s military and mass media, sought to the fledgling rebellion that aimed to restore individual freedoms.
According to Norse mythology, the mischievous god Loki, a shape-shifting deity known for his , would often transform into animals in order to interfere with the other gods’ plans and alliances.
The Dewey Decimal System, a numerical method devised by Melvil Dewey in 1876 for categorizing nonfiction books according to topic, may seem (i) when compared to the advanced technologies found today in most modern libraries, but it continues to be a valuable organizational tool. The system has developed dramatically since its inception, and it is likely to continue to evolve in perpetuity as the accumulation of the knowledge it catalogs is (ii) pursuit.
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The intrepid group of veteran hikers chose to advance along a mountain path that was notoriously (i) , while the (ii) team of inexperienced hikers took a decidedly more circuitous, though less challenging, trail.
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The 1918 influenza pandemic initially drew (i) attention, principally due to the fact that most regions experienced (ii) fatalities among the enormous numbers of people infected. Yet, there were warnings: those who did expire from influenza were often young adults who, prior to their infection, had been of (iii) health.
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The replacement of human steelworkers with robots has not only made the steel production process involving molten metal less (i) but has also (ii) production quality due to the robots’ ability to make very precise measurements, each at the same exact place and under the same conditions as the others.
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For the following questions, select the two answer choices that, when inserted into the sentence, fit the meaning of the sentence as a whole and yield complete sentences that are similar in meaning.
Johnson’s colleagues were when he was awarded tenure by the university; his ideas were seldom acknowledged or discussed by other scholars, and when they were discussed, they were usually dismissed outright.
For many professionals, the promise that mobile communication will improve peace of mind has collided with the reality that the ability to be reached by superiors during times intended to be devoted to family can lead to .
During the 16th century, many food plants native to the Americas, including specimens as as potatoes and chocolate, were transported to Europe, where they reshaped people’s diets and revolutionized traditional cuisines.
Historically, soap has been by treating animal or vegetable oils with a strong base, such as sodium hydroxide, to create a form of lipid with hydrophobic “tails,” which surround oil and other particles, and hydrophilic “heads,” which attract water molecules.
Questions 11 and 12 are based on the passage below.
Most literature is written such that the order of reading is unambiguous. Indeed, most Western prose is intended to be read from left to right and top to bottom. This is not the only system, however; texts written in Arabic or Hebrew are read from right to left, and hieroglyphics, which can seem involved to modern eyes, were understood by ancient readers to be read vertically, down columns arranged from left to right. There exist, on the other hand, works of literature that require effort on the part of the reader to determine an appropriate order for reading the text on the page or even an appropriate order of the pages themselves. These works of ergodic literature (from the Greek ergon, meaning “work,” and hodos, meaning “path”) challenge the reader to be an active participant in experiencing the prose. The I Ching, for example, instructs the reader to pick random numbers and use them to look up passages to read. Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves is a modern illustration of ergodic literature. One chapter in which a group of characters traverses a maze is presented in a similarly labyrinthine manner: the reader must navigate text that winds back and forth, upside-down and right-side-up, and across and between pages to follow the episode.
Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.
Which of the following would the author of the passage most likely consider an example of ergodic literature?
In the context in which it appears, “involved” most nearly means
Question 13 is based on the passage below.
When people today recall Hannibal Barca, the Carthaginian general who lived from 247 to circa 181 BCE, they typically focus on the one fact that is commonly taught in history classes: during the Second Punic War against Rome, Hannibal marched across the Alps with a team of war elephants, nearly all of which were lost due to the harsh conditions of the region. Historians and students of history alike regard this decision as a blunder. Of course, were this the only notable event in Hannibal’s military career, it would be correct to look upon him with disfavor.
No one would disagree that Hannibal underestimated the number of souls that would be lost on the perilous march through France and incorrectly believed that the elephants would be hardier than they turned out to be for the trek. Nonetheless, it is abundantly clear from historical accounts that he was aware of the danger and planned well ahead of time to reinforce his numbers by using both his charisma and his military might to convince the Gauls and other tribes native to the Alpine foothills to join him in fighting the Romans, and was largely successful in doing so. He was also a master tactician, able to take advantage of the diversity of his fighting forces, the local terrain, and the single-minded regimentation of the Roman forces to win skirmishes in which his own troops were vastly outnumbered.
The two highlighted sentences play which of the following roles in the passage?
Questions 14–16 are based on the passage below.
The first recorded example of what we would recognize as organized religion was that of the Mesopotamians, a civilization located in what would become modern day Iraq. The two rivers that defined the region, the Tigris and Euphrates, flooded violently and unpredictably. As a result, the Mesopotamians viewed their pantheon of gods as capricious and vengeful, and the citizens were thus burdened with carrying out what they believed to be the will of the gods and providing lavish offerings in order to keep the gods appeased and prevent disaster. Different circumstances existed in Egypt: The Egyptians lived along the Nile, a river that, prior to the completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970, would flood gently every four months, depositing silt that provided nutrients vital to agriculture in the region. The Egyptian people thus saw themselves as beloved by their gods and considered themselves the favored civilization, a bastion of order in an otherwise chaotic world.
The author is primarily concerned with
Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.
Based on the information in the passage, which of the following cultures could be reasonably expected to have religious beliefs similar to those of the Mesopotamians?
Select the sentence that best describes a reason for a civilization to view itself as favored by its gods.
Questions 17–19 are based on the passage below.
It is a scientific fact that water is among the few substances that expand when they freeze. This explains why ice floats in liquid water; because it is less dense than the water around it, the buoyant force pushes it to the surface. Larger differences in density create stronger buoyant forces. This fact also accounts for the observation that melting ice does not cause the level of the surface of the water in which it is floating to change. While some of the ice protrudes above the surface, melting causes the volume of what was the ice cube to decrease so that the newly melted water exactly fills the space that the frozen ice cube occupied under the surface.
There are those who would use these facts to declare that the melting of the polar ice caps would not contribute to sea level rise, but this is an example of the saying that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” First, the southern polar cap is not floating on the surface of the ocean, but rather is supported by the Antarctic land mass. As a result, the portions of this ice cap that are submerged displace far less ocean water than would be displaced by a floating cap. Additionally, the ocean water is salty while the ice caps are fresh. Consequently, ocean water is more dense than fresh water, which means that it generates larger buoyant forces and so can support a larger ice cap than fresh water would. For both of these reasons, melting of the polar ice caps would in fact cause nontrivial sea level rise.
Which of the following statements presents a situation most analogous to that described in the highlighted sentence?
Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.
Which of the following statements is supported by this passage?
The passage cites each of the following as contributing to a complete explanation for melting ice caps causing a rise in sea levels EXCEPT:
Question 20 is based on the passage below.
The Arnolfini Portrait, painted by Dutch artist Jan van Eyck in 1434, depicts two richly dressed figures, a man and a woman, standing hand-in-hand in an upstairs room which most likely functioned as a place to receive visitors. A common interpretation of the painting is that it is meant to serve as a marriage contract of sorts. The artist’s signature is both elaborate and central to the painting, appearing to be drawn on the wall behind the couple. The reflection in a mirror beneath the signature shows two additional figures just inside the door, one of whom is presumably van Eyck himself. It is argued that these two individuals constitute the two witnesses required to make a wedding legal, and that van Eyck’s signature acts as a testament to this role. Additionally, the female subject appears pregnant, which many interpret as a sign that this is a marriage of necessity.
More recent and informed scholarship, on the other hand, questions the legitimacy of this analysis. An unmarried woman would have worn her hair down, while the female figure is wearing her hair up in a headdress. Furthermore, the female may not be pregnant after all, as female virgin saints were often depicted similarly, and her size may be a symbol of fertility rather than of pregnancy.
In this passage, the author is primarily concerned with