Module I: Reading and Writing

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The following text is adapted from Mary Seacole’s 1857 autobiography Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands.
That journey across the Isthmus [of Panama], insignificant in distance as it was, was by no means an easy one. It seemed as if nature had determined to throw every conceivable obstacle in the way of those who should seek to join the two great oceans of the world.
As used in the text, what does the word “conceivable” most nearly mean?
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Mark for Review
Persuasive
Permanent
Obvious
Imaginable
Whether the reign of a French monarch such as Louis XII or Louis IV was historically consequential or relatively uneventful, its trajectory was shaped by questions of legitimacy and therefore cannot be understood without a corollary understanding of the factors that allowed the monarch to ______ his right to hold the throne successfully.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
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assert
annotate
reciprocate
disengage
Any effort to raise the toll that drivers must pay to use the Ogdensburg-Prescott Bridge, which spans the Saint Lawrence River to connect New York State and Ontario, Canada, should explain why a higher toll is necessary; no amount of justification, however, is likely to persuade some drivers who believe the current toll is ____.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
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Mark for Review
contentious
equivocal
exorbitant
warranted
Often, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is given to a single person, such as Frederick Sanger in 1958. But sometimes the Nobel Committee wants to reward work attributed to two or three individuals, in which case, the award is given _____. For instance, in 2008, Roger Y. Tsien was among those awarded for “the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP.”
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
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Mark for Review
ceremoniously
reluctantly
jointly
retroactively
The lion can run very fast—up to 81 kilometers per hour (km/hr)—but it is significantly slower than the white-throated needletail swift, which can fly at speeds up to 169 km/hr. The difference between these speeds is largely ____ of the fact that the features that make flight possible do less to limit top speeds than the features suitable for running on land.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
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Mark for Review
a repudiation
an explanation
an objective
a consequence
Though John Crowley, author of Flint and Mirror, is perhaps not as well known as the most commercially successful American writers of the past fifty years, influential figures have championed his work, including the poet John Hollander and the literary critic Harold Bloom. In his afterword to Crowley’s book Little, Big, Bloom praises the novel’s adroit blend of what Playwright Friedrich Schiller termed the naive and sentimental modes—while Schiller thought works could be classified as either naive (seeking to describe reality) or sentimental (seeking to develop ideas), Little, Big demonstrates that a work can be both.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
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Mark for Review
To compare the work of a writer with the work of a poet who admired him
To present a reason why a literary critic is impressed by a certain novel
To argue that all writing must be classified as belonging to one of two categories
To explain what inspired an author to write a particular work
Community science, which involves professional scientists collaborating with amateur science enthusiasts to study a topic, is often an effective and engaging way to conduct research. It can allow people to assist with conservation efforts, build youth confidence in the sciences, and increase the amount of data researchers can collect. This approach was essential to the success of a study by biologist Abbigail Merrill and colleagues of how butterfly color relates to flower choice, which included findings from hundreds of students and community members in northwestern Arkansas.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
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Mark for Review
It describes the development of a type of scientific collaboration, shows how that type of collaboration has been used in a particular field of study, and then suggests future collaborative projects.
It identifies a particular approach to research, lists some benefits of that approach, and then mentions a study in which that approach was used.
It introduces the topic of a scientific study, describes the study’s importance, and then presents the study’s results.
It argues for a new approach to scientific research, comments on the public’s opinion about the approach, and then describes how that approach was applied in a certain study.
The following text is adapted from Jerome K. Jerome’s 1859 novel Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog).
We [people] are creatures of the sun. We love light and life. That is why we crowd into the towns and cities, and the country grows more and more deserted every year. In the sunlight—in the daytime, when Nature is alive and busy all around us, we like the open hill-sides and the deep woods well enough: but in the night, when our Mother Earth has gone to sleep, and left us waking, oh! the world seems so lonesome, and we get frightened, like children in a silent house. Then we sit and sob, and long for the gas-lit streets, and the sound of human voices, and the answering throb of human life.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
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Mark for Review
To address common traits that motivate many people to choose to live in urban environments
To indicate that people sometimes experience feelings of isolation in crowded areas
To illustrate the idea that most people tend to prefer hillsides in the country to certain aspects of towns and cities
To caution people not to be so quick to dismiss the natural beauty that can be found in rural areas
“Cocoa” is an example of a loanword—that is, a word that originated in one language and was later adopted by another. The word came to English indirectly from _cacao_, the Spanish word for the plant that chocolate is made from. Spanish had borrowed it from Nahuatl, an Indigenous language of Central Mexico, in which the words original form is _cacahuatl_.
“Maize” is also Indigenous in origin and entered English through Spanish. But in this case, the original source was Taino, a language of the Caribbean islands, in which the word for the corn plant is _mahis_.
The author makes which point about the Spanish language?
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Mark for Review
It adopted Nahuatl and Taino words in approximately equal numbers.
It has served as a medium through which Indigenous languages have influenced English.
Its contribution to English vocabulary roughly equals the collective contribution by Indigenous languages.
It has borrowed words from Indigenous languages and contributed words to them.
In a study by Mika R. Moran, Daniel A. Rodriguez, and colleagues, residents of Quito, Ecuador, and Lima, Peru, were surveyed about parks in their cities. Of the 618 respondents from Quito, 82.9% indicated that they use the city’s parks, and of the 663 respondents from Lima, 72.7% indicated using city parks. Given that the percentage of Quito respondents who reported having access to other desired amenities near parks was much lower than that reported by Lima respondents, the difference in park use can’t be explained by Quito residents having more access to desired nonpark amenities near parks.
Which choice best describes the main idea of the text?
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Mark for Review
Even though the study found that parks in Lima are more likely to be close to other amenities than parks in Quito are, Quito has more amenities overall than Lima does.
The study’s findings suggest that an increase in the number of amenities near city parks would likely increase park use in Quito but not in Lima.
The study’s finding that a greater proportion of residents use parks in Quito than in Lima is partly due to the greater prevalence of parks in Quito.
Although the study found that a greater proportion of residents use parks in Quito than in Lima, that difference isn’t due to greater access to amenities near parks in Quito.
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