Text Structure and Purpose

Question 1

The author’s claim about the relationship between Neanderthals and
Homo sapiens
is ______
, as it fails to account forseveral recent archaeological discoveries. To be convincing, his argument would need to address recent fi nds of additionalhominid fossils, such as the latest Denisovan specimens and
Homo longi
.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
disorienting
B.
tenuous
C.
nuanced
D.
unoriginal

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Whether the reign of a French monarch such as Hugh Capet or Henry I was historically consequential or relativelyuneventful, its trajectory was shaped by questions of legitimacy and therefore cannot be understood without a corollaryunderstanding of the factors that allowed the monarch to ______
his right to hold the throne.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
disengage
B.
annotate
C.
buttress
D.
reciprocate

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Some foraging models predict that the distance bees travel when foraging will decline as fl oral density increases, butbiologists Shalene Jha and Claire Kremen showed that bees’ behavior is inconsistent with this prediction if fl owers in densepatches are ______
: bees will forage beyond patches of low species richness to acquire multiple resource types.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
depleted
B.
homogeneous
C.
immature
D.
dispersed

Answer 3

B

Question 4

The güiro, a musical instrument traditionally made from a dried and hollowed gourd, is thought to have originated with theTaíno people of Puerto Rico. Players use a wooden stick to scrape along ridges cut into the side of the gourd, creatingsounds that are highly ______
: the sounds produced by güiros can differ based on the distance between the ridges, the typesof strokes the player uses, and the thickness of the gourd.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
overlooked
B.
powerful
C.
routine
D.
variable

Answer 4

D

Question 5

Rejecting the premise that the literary magazine
Ebony and Topaz
(1927) should present a unifi ed vision of Black Americanidentity, editor Charles S. Johnson fostered his contributors’ diverse perspectives by promoting their authorial autonomy.Johnson’s self-effacement diverged from the editorial stances of W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain Locke, whose decisions for theirpublications were more ______
.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
profi cient
B.
dogmatic
C.
ambiguous
D.
unpretentious

Answer 5

B

Question 6

Close analysis of the painting
Girl with a Flute,
long attributed to the seventeenth-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer,has revealed subtle deviations from the artist’s signature techniques. These variations suggest that the work may be that ofa student under Vermeer’s tutelage—potentially ______
our understanding of Vermeer as a solitary artist.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
negating
B.
prefi guring
C.
entrenching
D.
substantiating

Answer 6

A

Question 7

Within baleen whale species, some individuals develop an accessory spleen—a seemingly functionless formation ofsplenetic tissue outside the normal spleen. Given the formation’s greater prevalence among whales known to make deeperdives, some researchers hypothesize that its role isn’t ______
; rather, the accessory spleen may actively support divingmechanisms.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
replicable
B.
predetermined
C.
operative
D.
latent

Answer 7

D

Question 8

According to a US tax policy expert, state taxes are ______
other factors when considering an interstate move. Evensignifi cant differences in state taxation have almost no effect on most people’s decisions, while differences in employmentopportunities, housing availability, and climate are strong infl uences.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
consistent with
B.
representative of
C.
overshadowed by
D.
irrelevant to

Answer 8

C

Question 9

Some economic historians ______
that late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century households in the United Statesexperienced an economy of scale when it came to food purchases—they assumed that large households spent less on foodper person than did small households. Economist Trevon Logan showed, however, that a close look at the available datadisproves this supposition.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
surmised
B.
contrived
C.
questioned
D.
regretted

Answer 9

A

Question 10

Seminole/Muscogee director Sterlin Harjo ______
television’s tendency to situate Native characters in the distant past: thisrejection is evident in his series
Reservation Dogs
, which revolves around teenagers who dress in contemporary styles andwhose dialogue is laced with current slang.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
repudiates
B.
proclaims
C.
foretells
D.
recants

Answer 10

A

Question 11

Researcher Haesung Jung led a 2020 study showing that individual acts of kindness can ______
prosocial behavior across alarger group. Jung and her team found that bystanders who witness a helpful act become more likely to offer help tosomeone else, and in doing so, can inspire still others to act.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
require
B.
remember
C.
foster
D.
discourage

Answer 11

C

Question 12

As an undergraduate researcher in anthropology, Jennifer C. Chen contributed to a groundbreaking study challenging theaccepted view that among prehistoric peoples, female participation in hunting was ______
. The research team’s review ofdata from late Pleistocene and early Holocene burials in the Americas revealed that, in fact, as many as half of the huntersin those populations were female.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
inevitable
B.
satisfactory
C.
negligible
D.
commonplace

Answer 12

C

Question 13

New and interesting research conducted by Suleiman A. Al-Sweedan and Moath Alhaj is inspired by their observation thatthough there have been many studies of the effect of high altitude on blood chemistry, there is a ______
studies of the effecton blood chemistry of living in locations below sea level, such as the California towns of Salton City and Seeley.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
quarrel about
B.
paucity of
C.
profusion of
D.
verisimilitude in
ID:

Answer 13

B

Question 14

It is by no means ______
to recognize the infl uence of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch on Ali Banisadr’s paintings; indeed,Banisadr himself cites Bosch as an inspiration. However, some scholars have suggested that the ancient Mesopotamianpoem
Epic of Gilgamesh
may have had a far greater impact on Banisadr’s work.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
substantial
B.
satisfying
C.
unimportant
D.
appropriate

Answer 14

C

Question 15

For her 2021 art installation
Anthem
, Wu Tsang joined forces with singer and composer Beverly Glenn-Copeland to producea piece that critics found truly ______
: they praised Tsang for creatively transforming a museum rotunda into a dynamicexhibit by projecting fi lmed images of Glenn-Copeland onto a massive 84-foot curtain and fi lling the space with the soundsof his and other voices singing.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
restrained
B.
inventive
C.
inexplicable
D.
mystifying

Answer 15

B

Question 16

The province of Xoconochco was situated on the Pacifi c coast, hundreds of kilometers southeast of Tenochtitlan, thecapital of the Aztec Empire. Because Xoconochco’s location within the empire was so ______
, cacao and other trade goodsproduced there could reach the capital only after a long overland journey.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
unobtrusive
B.
concealed
C.
approximate
D.
peripheral

Answer 16

D

Question 17

Economist Marco Castillo and colleagues showed that nuisance costs—the time and effort people must spend to makedonations—reduce charitable giving. Charities can mitigate this effect by compensating donors for nuisance costs, butthose costs, though variable, are largely ______
donation size, so charities that compensate donors will likely favor attractinga few large donors over many small donors.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
supplemental to
B.
predictive of
C.
independent of
D.
subsumed in

Answer 17

C

Question 18

While most animals are incapable of passing somatic mutations—genetic alterations that arise in an organism’snonreproductive cells—on to their offspring, elkhorn coral (
Acropora palmata
) presents an intriguing ______
: in a 2022 study,researchers found that elkhorn coral produced offspring that inherited somatic mutations from a parent.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
hypothesis
B.
affi nity
C.
anomaly
D.
corroboration

Answer 18

C

Question 19

Investigating whether shared false visual memories—specifi c but inaccurate and widely held recollections of images suchas product logos—are caused by people’s previous ______
incorrect renditions of the images, researchers Deepasri Prasadand Wilma Bainbridge found that, in fact, such memories are often not explained by familiarity with erroneous versions ofthe images.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
compliance with
B.
exposure to
C.
criteria for
D.
forfeiture of

Answer 19

B

Question 20

Critics have asserted that fi ne art and fashion rarely ______
in a world where artists create timeless works for exhibition anddesigners periodically produce new styles for the public to buy. Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock beadwork artist and designerJamie Okuma challenges this view: her work can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and purchased through heronline boutique.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
prevail
B.
succumb
C.
diverge
D.
intersect

Answer 20

D

Question 21

The following text is adapted from George Eliot’s 1871–72 novel
Middlemarch
.
[Mr. Brooke] had travelled in his younger years, and was held in this part of the country to have
contracted
a toorambling habit of mind. Mr. Brooke’s conclusions were as diffi cult to predict as the weather.
As used in the text, what does the word “contracted” most nearly mean?
A.
Restricted
B.
Described
C.
Developed
D.
Settled

Answer 21

C

Question 22

Scholarly discussions of gender in Shakespeare’s comedies often celebrate the rebellion of the playwright’s charactersagainst the rigid expectations ______
by Elizabethan society. Most of the comedies end in marriage, with charactersreturning to their socially dictated gender roles after previously defying them, but there are some notable exceptions.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
interjected
B.
committed
C.
illustrated
D.
prescribed

Answer 22

D

Question 23

Some scientists have suggested that mammals in the Mesozoic era were not a very ______
group, but paleontologist Zhe-XiLuo’s research suggests that early mammals living in the shadow of dinosaurs weren’t all ground-dwelling insectivores.Fossils of various plant-eating mammals have been found in China, including species like
Vilevolodon diplomylos
, which Luosays could glide like a fl ying squirrel.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
predatory
B.
obscure
C.
diverse
D.
localized

Answer 23

C

Question 24

The work of Kiowa painter T.C. Cannon derives its power in part from the tension among his ______
infl uences: classicEuropean portraiture, with its realistic treatment of faces; the American pop art movement, with its vivid colors; andfl atstyle, the intertribal painting style that rejects the effect of depth typically achieved through shading and perspective.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
complementary
B.
unknown
C.
disparate
D.
interchangeable

Answer 24

C

Question 25

Given that the conditions in binary star systems should make planetary formation nearly impossible, it’s not surprising thatthe existence of planets in such systems has lacked ______
explanation. Roman Rafi kov and Kedron Silsbee shed light onthe subject when they used modeling to determine a complex set of factors that could support planets’ development.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
a discernible
B.
a straightforward
C.
an inconclusive
D.
an unbiased

Answer 25

B

Question 26

In studying the use of external stimuli to reduce the itching sensation caused by an allergic histamine response, LouiseWard and colleagues found that while harmless applications of vibration or warming can provide a temporary distraction,such ______
stimuli actually offer less relief than a stimulus that seems less benign, like a mild electric shock.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A.
deceptive
B.
innocuous
C.
novel
D.
impractical

Answer 26

B