Module I: Reading and Writing

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The following text is from Mark Oshiro’s 2018 novel Anger Is a Gift. In the novel, Moss and his friends are on a subway train in Northern California.
Lights from the outside world then filled the train car as it rose out of the ground and climbed the elevated track. As long as Moss had lived in West Oakland, he’d never tired of this specific view, so he pointed toward the windows. “Check it,” he said, and the Port of Oakland began to pass by them.
As used in the text, what does the word “specific” most nearly mean?
1
Mark for Review
Imaginary
Correct
Energetic
Particular
The following text is adapted from John Matheus’s 1925 short story “Fog.”
The fog extended its tentacles over city and river, gradually obliterating traces of familiar landscapes. At five-thirty the old Panhandle bridge, supported by massive sandstone pillars, stalwart, as when erected fifty years before to serve a generation now passed behind the portals of life, had become a spectral outline against the sky.
As used in the text, what does the word “supported” most nearly mean?
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Mark for Review
Cherished
Defended
Held up
Improved on
Although the government of the Soviet Union attempted to ______ Georgi Vladimov’s novel Faithful Ruslan, copies of the book circulated in secret among readers in several parts of the country.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
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Mark for Review
replicate
import
suppress
critique
Although the clustering of information technology firms in Northern California is often cited as typical of industrial agglomeration, Giulia Faggio et al. use UK data to show that the mix of factors driving the phenomenon is ______ across industries: while the potential for knowledge spillovers can prompt agglomeration, collocation among tube manufacturers occurs for different reasons.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
4
Mark for Review
credible
heterogeneous
imperative
decisive

The following text is from Anne Spencer’s 1922 poem “Translation.”
We trekked into a far country,
My friend and I.
Our deeper content was never spoken,
But each knew all the other said.
He told me how calm his soul was laid
By the lack of anvil and strife.
“The wooing kestrel,” I said, “mutes his mating-note
To please the harmony of this sweet silence.”

Which choice best describes the function of the reference to the “wooing kestrel” (a type of birD. in the text as a whole?

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Mark for Review
It emphasizes the speaker’s belief that her friend is not sharing his true feelings with her.
It suggests that nature has secrets that humans are fundamentally incapable of discovering.
It illustrates the assertion that peace is a subjective state rather than an objective one.
 It presents the natural world as aligning with the experience of the speaker and her friend.
The 2021 novel My Heart Is a Chainsaw confirmed that Stephen Graham Jones is one of the most talented writers of horror fiction today.
By featuring main characters who are Blackfeet, like Jones himself, the novel also helped to ensure that Indigenous people have a place within the horror genre.
But Jones is hardly the only Indigenous voice in horror: Lisa Fuller, a member of the Murri people of Australia, has also written in the genre. Her acclaimed 2019 young adult novel Ghost Bird is set in a Murri community in Queensland, Australia.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence?
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Mark for Review
It predicts that non-Indigenous authors will include more Indigenous characters in their work.
It challenges the widely held view that Stephen Graham Jones based My Heart Is a Chainsaw on events in his own life.
It highlights the significance of the portrayal of Indigenous people in My Heart Is a Chainsaw.
It asks why so many readers who don’t enjoy the horror genre have purchased My Heart Is a Chainsaw.
Horizontal gene transfer involves the exchange of genetic material between organisms not in a parent-offspring relationship.
It is common among prokaryotes (single-celled organisms, such as the bacteria Enterococcus cecorum and Moraxella caviae).
The process can have the effect of increasing bacterial resistance to antibiotics; as such, an understanding of how to prevent horizontal gene transfer might result in the mitigation of dangerous pathogens (organisms that cause disease).
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
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Mark for Review
It suggests that a commonly held belief regarding an organism is mistaken.
It summarizes the history of research into a biological phenomenon.
It illustrates why one organism may pose more of a threat than another.
It explains a practical benefit of researching a particular biological process.
In 2013 Oona M. Lönnstedt and colleagues published a study concluding that ocean acidification has a strong effect on the behavior of Pomacentrus amboinensis, a species of fish.
However, Lönnstedt and colleagues’ study relied on a mean sample size of only about 28 fish.
In a 2022 review of various scientists' conclusions about the impacts of ocean acidification on fish behavior, Jeff C. Clements and colleagues caution that relying on such a relatively small sample size can increase the potential for biased analysis.
Such analysis, in turn, can contribute to reports of exaggerated effects.
Which choice best states the main topic of the text?
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Mark for Review
A possible shortcoming of a study involving Pomacentrus amboinensis
A discovery regarding the evolution of Pomacentrus amboinensis
A change in fish behavior first reported in 2022
A newly identified cause of ocean acidification
Historians point to the rule of the Piast dynasty as crucial to the formation of the Polish state. However, some differentiate between members of the dynasty like Wladyslaw I Herman, who ruled as duke from 1079 to 1102 CE, and less well-documented figures like Lestek, who is said to have ruled in the 9th and 10th centuries but whose historical actuality is disputed. Lestek appears in the Gesta principum Polonorum, a chronicle of medieval Polish history written between 1112 and 1118. However, the chronicle’s documentation of Lestek relies on oral tradition, unlike its records of later rulers.
According to the text, what is a difference between how historians view Lestek and how they view Wladyslaw I Herman?
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Mark for Review
Historians believe that the Gesta principum Polonorum provides more evidence for Lestek’s existence than it does for Wladyslaw I Herman’s existence.
Historians agree that Wladyslaw I Herman existed, but disagree about whether Lestek existed.
Historians agree that Lestek ruled Poland much later than Wladyslaw I Herman.
Historians find the orally transmitted stories affirming the existence of Wladyslaw I Herman to be more convincing than similar stories about Lestek.


Days per Winter That Lakes Have Surface Ice

LakeLatitude (degrees)1980–811985–861990–911995–962000–012005–06
Spirit Lake43.46102135121134147126
Lake Kegonsa42.9794116104113124101
Näckten62.913177168144174133134
 
It is common for freshwater lakes near or above a latitude of 45° north of the equator, like Lake Stechlin in Germany, to accumulate surface ice in winter. The amount and duration of ice depends on many factors, including local weather conditions as well as the lake’s depth, volume, and surface area, but a climate researcher claims that the higher a lake’s latitude, the more days per winter it will typically have measurable amounts of surface ice.
Which choice best describes data in the table that support the researcher’s claim?

10
Mark for Review
Näckten is at a higher latitude than Lake Kegonsa and typically had fewer days of ice per winter than Lake Kegonsa did.
Spirit Lake had 102 days of ice in the winter of 1980–81 and 126 days of ice in the winter of 2005–06.
Näckten had 177 days of ice in the winter of 1980–81 and 134 days of ice in the winter of 2005–06.
Näckten is at a higher latitude than Lake Kegonsa and typically had more days of ice per winter than Lake Kegonsa did.
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