Test practice 3 Flashcards
Artist Marilyn Dingle’s intricate, coiled baskets are ______blank sweetgrass and palmetto palm. Following a Gullah technique that originated in West Africa, Dingle skillfully winds a thin palm frond around a bunch of sweetgrass with the help of a “sewing bone” to create the basket’s signature look that no factory can reproduce.
Question 1 Answers
Prompt for question1
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. indicated by
B. handmade from
C. represented by
D. collected with
B. handmade from
Some researchers believe that the genes that enable groundhogs and certain other mammals to hibernate through the winter by slowing their breathing and heart rates and lowering their body temperature may be ______blank in humans: present yet having essentially no effect on our bodily processes.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. decisive
B. lacking
C. variable
D. dormant
D.
dormant
“dormant” means inactive
The following text is from Walt Whitman’s 1860 poem “Calamus 24.”
I HEAR it is charged against me that I seek to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions
(What indeed have I in common with them?—Or what with the destruction of them?),
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta [Manhattan] and in every city of These States, inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel [ship] little or large, that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.
Question 6 Answers
Prompt for question6
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
A. The speaker questions an increasingly prevalent attitude, then summarizes his worldview.
B. The speaker regrets his isolation from others, then predicts a profound change in society.
C. The speaker concedes his personal shortcomings, then boasts of his many achievements.
D. The speaker addresses a criticism leveled against him, then announces a grand ambition of his.
Choice D is the best answer
because it best describes the overall structure of the text. The speaker begins by stating that he has heard that others are accusing him of seeking to destroy institutions. The speaker then addresses this criticism by stating that he is “neither for nor against institutions.” Instead, the speaker states that his ultimate goal is to instill “the institution of the dear love of comrades” everywhere in the country. Therefore, the overall structure of the text is best described as an address of criticism followed by an announcement of a grand ambition.
Cats can judge unseen people’s positions in space by the sound of their voices and thus react with surprise when the same person calls to them from two different locations in a short span of time. Saho Takagi and colleagues reached this conclusion by measuring cats’ levels of surprise based on their ear and head movements while the cats heard recordings of their owners’ voices from two speakers spaced far apart. Cats exhibited a low level of surprise when owners’ voices were played twice from the same speaker, but they showed a high level of surprise when the voice was played once each from the two different speakers.
Question 8 Answers
Prompt for question8
According to the text, how did the researchers determine the level of surprise displayed by the cats in the study?
A. They watched how each cat moved its ears and head.
B. They examined how each cat reacted to the voice of a stranger.
C. They studied how each cat physically interacted with its owner.
D. They tracked how each cat moved around the room
A.
They watched how each cat moved its ears and head
O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by Willa Cather. In the novel, Cather depicts Alexandra Bergson as a person who takes comfort in understanding the world around her: ______blank
Question 10 Answers
Prompt for question10
Which quotation from O Pioneers! most effectively illustrates the claim?
A.
“She looked fixedly up the bleak street as if she were gathering her strength to face something, as if she were trying with all her might to grasp a situation which, no matter how painful, must be met and dealt with somehow.“
B.
“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.“
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.
“Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so keenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch them, to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered march. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations of nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security.”
Choice D is the best answer
because it most effectively uses a quotation from O Pioneers! to illustrate the claim that Alexandra Bergson takes comfort in understanding the world around her. In the quotation, Alexandra is described as enjoying looking at the stars and feeling a “sense of personal security” when she contemplates nature’s order and its governing laws. This suggests that Alexandra takes comfort in understanding the world around her.
Many of William Shakespeare’s tragedies address broad themes that still appeal to today’s audiences. For instance, Romeo and Juliet, which is set in the Italy of Shakespeare’s time, tackles the themes of parents versus children and love versus hate, and the play continues to be read and produced widely around the world. But understanding Shakespeare’s so-called history plays can require a knowledge of several centuries of English history. Consequently, ______blank
Question 13 Answers
Prompt for question13
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. many theatergoers and readers today are likely to find Shakespeare’s history plays less engaging than the tragedies.
B. some of Shakespeare’s tragedies are more relevant to today’s audiences than twentieth-century plays.
C. Romeo and Juliet is the most thematically accessible of all Shakespeare’s tragedies.
D. experts in English history tend to prefer Shakespeare’s history plays to his other works.
A. many theatergoers and readers today are likely to find Shakespeare’s history plays less engaging than the tragedies.
In her analysis of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth (1905), scholar Candace Waid observes that the novel depicts the upper classes of New York society as “consumed by the appetite of a soulless ______blank an apt assessment given that The House of Mirth is set during the Gilded Age, a period marked by rapid industrialization, economic greed, and widening wealth disparities.
Question 14 Answers
Prompt for question14
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. materialism”; and
B. materialism” and
C. materialism,”
D. materialism”
C. materialism,”
African American Percy Julian was a scientist and entrepreneur whose work helped people around the world to see. Named in 1999 as one of the greatest achievements by a US chemist in the past hundred years, ______blank led to the first mass-produced treatment for glaucoma.
Question 19 Answers
Prompt for question19
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Julian synthesized the alkaloid physostigmine in 1935; it
B. in 1935 Julian synthesized the alkaloid physostigmine, which
C. Julian’s 1935 synthesis of the alkaloid physostigmine
D. the alkaloid physostigmine was synthesized by Julian in 1935 and
C. Julian’s 1935 synthesis of the alkaloid physostigmine
Novelist N. K. Jemisin declines to ______blank the conventions of the science fiction genre in which she writes, and she has suggested that her readers appreciate her work precisely because of this willingness to thwart expectations and avoid formulaic plots and themes.
Question 5 Answers
Prompt for question5
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. question
B. react to
C. perceive
D. conform to
Choice D is the best answer
because it most logically completes the text’s discussion of Jemisin’s writing. In this context, “conform to” means to act in accordance with something. The text suggests that in her science fiction writing, Jemisin’s willingness to go against expectations and not use plots and themes that seem to follow a formula reflects how she treats the standard practices of the genre. This context conveys that Jemisin chooses not to act in accordance with those conventions.
The following text is from Ezra Pound’s 1909 poem “Hymn III,” based on the work of Marcantonio Flaminio.
As a fragile and lovely flower unfolds its gleaming
foliage on the breast of the fostering earth, if
the dew and the rain draw it forth;
So doth my tender mind flourish, if it be fed with the
sweet dew of the fostering spirit,
Lacking this, it beginneth straightway to languish,
even as a floweret born upon dry earth, if the
dew and the rain tend it not.
Question 10 Answers
Prompt for question10
Based on the text, in what way is the human mind like a flower?
A. It becomes increasingly vigorous with the passage of time.
B. It draws strength from changes in the weather.
C. It requires proper nourishment in order to thrive.
D. It perseveres despite challenging circumstances.
Choice C is the best answer
because it presents a description of how the human mind is like a flower that is directly supported by the text. The text compares the needs of a “fragile and lovely flower” to those of the speaker’s “tender mind”: both need to be fed if they’re going to survive. Without such feeding, they’ll “beginneth straightway to languish,” or weaken. Thus, the text suggests that the human mind is like a flower in that they both need proper nourishment in order to thrive.
The Post Office is a 1912 play by Rabindranath Tagore, originally written in Bengali. The character Amal is a young boy who imagines that the people he sees passing the window of his home are carefree even when engaged in work or chores, as is evident when he says to the daughter of a flower seller, ______blank
Question 13 Answers
Prompt for question13
Which quotation from The Post Office most effectively illustrates the claim?
A.
“I see, you don’t wish to stop; I don’t care to stay on here either.”
B.
“Oh, flower gathering? That is why your feet seem so glad and your anklets jingle so merrily as you walk.”
C.
“I’ll pay when I grow up—before I leave to look for work out on the other side of that stream there.”
D.
“Wish I could be out too. Then I would pick some flowers for you from the very topmost branches right out of sight.”
Choice B is the best answer
because it most effectively illustrates the claim that Amal imagines the people he sees are carefree even when engaged in work. In the quotation, Amal observes that the flower seller’s daughter is “flower gathering,” or working, as the text indicates. Moreover, Amal notes that the daughter’s feet “seem so glad” and her “anklets jingle so merrily,” suggesting that Amal believes that the flower seller’s daughter is cheerful.
