The following text is from Mark Twain's 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom, a child, has been told by his aunt to paint their house's fence.
Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high.
As used in the text, what does the word "surveyed" most nearly mean?

Zygomorphic (bilaterally symmetric) flowers remain open and functional on average 1.1 days longer than actinomorphic (radially symmetric) flowers do. Ruby E. Stephens and colleagues claim that this extended period could be ____ the relatively small pool of potential pollinators available to zygomorphic flowers and the greater chance at successful pollination that remaining open affords them.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

The influence of William Shakespeare's writings is clear in a vast range of subsequent literary works and is similarly ____ in many works in other media, from fine art (such as Edward Alcock's painting Portia and Shylock) to popular music (such as the band the Lumineers' song "Ophelia").
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

Mastering ‘ajami, a Syrian art of creating intricately painted wood panels, demands a skill set that ____ innate talent: crafting the panels requires not just the ability to draw but also an understanding of traditional techniques, materials, and design elements, necessitating expertise gained through dedicated guidance from experienced artisans.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

Phillip Hayes Dean’s award-winning play The Sty of the Blind Pig was produced in 1971 by the groundbreaking Negro Ensemble Company (NEC). NEC cofounder Douglas Turner Ward, who worked as an actor, director, and playwright, had met actor and producer Robert Hooks while they were performing in a 1960 touring production of Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun. Together, they envisioned a theater company that would nurture and showcase the work of Black theater professionals. Since NEC’s founding in 1967, its workshops and performances have given Black playwrights, including Dean, a forum for their compelling stories.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?

The following text is from Rachel Heng’s 2023 novel The Great Reclamation. Ah Boon is fishing off the coast of Singapore.
When he pulled up the nets, they contained only one kind of fish—black pomfrets, the flat diamonds of their bodies slick in the morning light. This uniformity did not surprise him; over the years, he’d learned that the waters here were temperamental. They could be relied upon for a good catch, but from time to time threw up only prawns or squid, and other times colorful varieties of fish that weren’t even supposed to be found in this region. He’d grown to accept the unpredictability, embracing it as a game to be played, like the reading of tea leaves or the grooves of a palm.
Taken together, the three underlined portions most clearly serve which function in the text as a whole?

When a landscape with native megafaunal (large-bodied) mammalian herbivores experiences a substantial decline in those populations, it loses a functional component of plant ecology. Introducing non-native proxy species has been beneficial in some such cases, but the reasonable concern persists that ecosystems may be negatively affected by species that didn't coevolve with local vegetation. Scholarly. analysis of findings from 221 studies revealed no evidence that nativeness mediates the ecological effects of megafauna, however, determining instead that other traits, such as diet selectivity, are more germane.
Which choice best states the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?

Given the immense scope of space, the search for extraterrestrial life is almost necessarily concentrated on the exoplanets deemed to have the most plausible chance of success—typically, atmosphere-bearing terrestrial planets orbiting within a certain range of their stars (termed the habitable zone). Claiming that Earth experienced a long transition from single-lid to plate tectonics that accelerated the emergence and evolution of complex organisms, researchers Robert J. Stern and Taras V. Gerya hold that consideration of tectonics, an often overlooked factor, could help further narrow the search for advanced extraterrestrial species.
Based on the text, what do Stern and Gerya most likely believe about the development of complex life on exoplanets?

Quality assessments of concrete typically focus almost exclusively on compressive strength as a measure of durability, overlooking other potentially relevant factors. Lisa Ptacek et al. therefore investigated the potential of gas permeability (vulnerability to incursion by gases), which is caused in part by excessive porosity, as a durability indicator. Their measurements and observations revealed that quality of conditions during the concrete curing phase negatively correlates with gas permeability and that high gas permeability values are associated with increased deterioration as concrete surfaces age.
Information in the text best supports which statement about Ptacek et al.'s findings?

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a 1900 novel by L Frank Baum. In the novel, Dorothy, who is from Kansas, finds herself in an unfamiliar place called Oz. Kansas is presented as being less appealing than Oz, as is clear when _____
Which quotation from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz most effectively illustrates the claim?