Module I: Reading and Writing

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The Gleaners, painted in the realist style by Jean-François Millet, depicts peasants picking stray wheat from a field after the harvest. The realists’ emphasis on accurately portraying the experiences of average working people was largely a rejection of the romantic style evident in many paintings by Horace Vernet, which instead magnify their subjects’ private traits, altering subjects to appear more beautiful or heroic than they actually were.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
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Mark for Review
counteract
rectify
apprehend
magnify
The tomato was domesticated in South America. Its physical structure is no longer identical to the structure of the wild plant it is descended from. Maize (corn) also varies from its wild ancestor. That ancestor plant had a few small kernels. Indigenous people in Mexico carefully bred the crop until it had numerous fleshy kernels.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
2
Mark for Review
argues with
varies from
helps with
reacts to
The collectibles market is one of the most difficult segments of the consumer economy to forecast. Few economists would have predicted, for example, that the prices of video game cartridges from the 1980s and 1990s would soar in the late 2010s, but soar they did.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
3
Mark for Review
monitor
avoid
exchange
forecast
Buenaventura, Colombia, was named a City of Gastronomy by UNESCO in 2017, a title that denotes that Buenaventura has a unique and vibrant food culture worthy of celebration.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
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Mark for Review
denotes
renounces
complains
discovers
The following text is from Louise Erdrich’s 1986 novel The Beet Queen. Celestine takes her infant daughter with her to the butcher shop where she makes sausages. Sometimes Celestine turned around and met the direct gaze of her daughter, a look so penetrating that Celestine’s breath caught. She dropped the spice, the string, the knife she was using, and took the girl up in her arms, ready for her to speak as if a spell had suddenly lifted. When the baby flexed her entire body and struggled to free herself, Celestine put her down. No matter how thorough Celestine’s exhaustion, no matter how little sleep she’d had, there was a nerve of excitement running through each hour.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
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Mark for Review
To demonstrate Celestine’s unhappiness in the workplace
To portray Celestine’s excitement about her daughter
To show that Celestine enjoys imagining her daughter’s future life
To explain how Celestine’s coworkers bond with her daughter
A team investigating frugivorous (fruit–eating) birds found that their feeding patterns vary depending on where they live within their habitat range. At the geographic boundaries of their natural range, these birds become highly selective, choosing fruits that closely match their beak size to maximize energy intake while minimizing effort. However, this fruit–selection strategy doesn’t occur at elevation boundaries (the highest and lowest altitudes of their range). In these areas, other factors, such as territorial competition among species, have a stronger influence on feeding patterns.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
6
Mark for Review
To discuss how competition among frugivorous bird species influences their habitat boundaries
To describe research methods that can be used to study the habitat preferences of frugivorous birds
To present research findings concerning how location within a habitat affects the feeding patterns of frugivorous birds
To explain why habitat boundaries are more important than beak size in determining the feeding patterns of frugivorous birds
In the 1940s, Carl T. Rowan began his journalism career, becoming a renowned columnist referred to as the nation’s “most visible Black journalist.” Rowan’s accomplishment is just one example of the rich history of black journalism in the United States. That history is preserved by the National Association of Black Journalists, which was founded in Washington, DC, in 1975 to support Black media professionals and honor people like Rowan.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
7
Mark for Review
It summarizes a theory about journalism, then explains how a journalistic practice has changed over time.
It describes the career of a well-known figure in Black journalism, then compares that career to one of a figure who is lesser known.
It introduces the history of an organization honoring Black journalists, then suggests how that organization might recruit more members.
It mentions a specific achievement in Black journalistic history, then describes an organization dedicated to upholding that history.
Though Vasily Grossman’s novel Stalingrad is considered inferior to his later work Everything Flows, some critics praise it despite an arduous writing process required to satisfy Soviet censors (Tom Birchemough in The Arts Deal called Stalingrad “a monumental achievement”). Of the novels eleven drafts, the second is inexplicably missing, the sixth closely hews to Soviet orthodoxy, and published versions most resemble the fifth. The English editions translators called material from unpublished drafts and published Russian versions to create a comprehensive edition.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
8
Mark for Review
It describes a novel whose critical reputation has declined over time, explains the cause of that decline, and reports the effort of translators to rehabilitate a work they believe has been unjustly ignored.
It refers to a novel that has several different published and unpublished versions, identifies characteristics that have led critics to prefer one version to others, and tells how translators justified their choice to bring one particular version of the novel into another language.
It notes a novel’s critical reception, addresses the complicated history of the novel’s development, and suggests how that history informed the work of the novel’s English translators.
It mentions a novel whose quality critics do not agree on, discusses obstacles that make it difficult to determine what the best version of that novel might be, and offers a reason why some critics find a translation of the novel to be superior to the original.
Vehicle transmissions and many other widely used mechanical systems have moving parts that rub or slide against one another, creating friction. This friction increases energy consumption and causes wear, which decreases the stability and life span of the system. Using carbon nanotubes and oil, Jun Qu and colleagues at a US Department of Energy lab have created a coating for moving parts that reduces friction to the point where it is almost nonexistent. The new coating is suitable for common applications, unlike other approaches that require special conditions.
What does the text most strongly suggest about the coating created by Qu and colleagues?
9
Mark for Review
It is unlikely to reduce wear in mechanical systems that have multiple moving parts.
It is unlikely to be widely used because it can be applied only under special conditions.
It can likely improve the energy consumption of certain mechanical systems but not of vehicle transmissions.
It can likely be used to reduce energy consumption and wear in vehicle transmissions and other common mechanical systems.
Optimal foraging theory (OFT) holds that animals’ foraging behaviors reflect cost-benefit trade-offs that vary by species and with dynamic ecological circumstances. One such circumstance is lunar intensity, which Butt Kotler and colleagues found to be negatively associated with foraging by greater Egyptian gerbils but Eduardo Fernández-Duque and colleagues found to be positively associated with foraging by Azorca night monkeys. This discrepancy is explicable in terms of OFT: the monkeys’ greater reliance on vision means that higher lunar intensity benefits them more than it benefits the gerbils.
Information in the text best supports which statement about OFT?
10
Mark for Review
It may be weakened by the finding that the costs and benefits associated with a particular ecological circumstance vary by species.
It can explain why some species act in accordance with cost-benefit trade-offs and others do not.
It tends to allow for a better understanding of the benefits of ecological circumstances than the costs of those circumstances.
It can account for observations of different species responding differently to similar ecological circumstances.
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