The following text is from Lilliam Rivera's 2020 novel Never Look Back. The text describes the narrator's friend Pheus, a young musician, after finishing a performance during a church service.
Pheus pulls a handkerchief from his back pocket and wipes his forehead. I mime a quiet clap for him. He does a slight bow and flashes his dimples. This is where Pheus truly shines. When Pheus is in front of an audience, it's as if he becomes another person, a more heightened version of himself.
As used in the text, what does the word “truly” most nearly mean?

The discoveries of natural satellites by Scott S. Sheppard's team of astronomers have been ________: S/2017 J 2, which the group of researchers found orbiting Jupiter in 2017, is just one of over one hundred that they have spotted, while many astronomers have been happy to discover only one or two.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
 

Certain features are almost always included in the designs of mosques, like the ablution (ritual cleansing) area, which is considered to be a ________ of mosque architecture. Even mosques that exhibit elements of multiple architectural styles, such as the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, which incorporates elements from the Islamic, Ottoman, and Mamluk revivalist styles, will also include several of these standard features.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
 

________ traditional descriptions of pollination syndromes (suites of floral traits, such as nectar volume and flower orientation, hypothesized to have independently evolved as a result of selection pressure exerted by pollinators) and recent empirical observations of floral-trait combinations have led some ecologists to express reservations about the utility of those descriptions.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
 

Vertical gene transfer involves the transmission of genetic material from a parent to offspring; horizontal gene transfer, on the other hand, involves the exchange of genetic material between organisms not in a parent-offspring relationship. While horizontal gene transfer is common among prokaryotes—single-celled organisms, such as the bacteria Enterococcus cecorum and Lactobacillus curvatus—it has rarely been observed among eukaryotes (multicellular organisms). However, new studies suggest that horizontal gene transfer is more common in eukaryotes than originally thought.
Which choice best states the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
 

Puck and other nineteenth- and early twentieth-century US general-interest periodicals included contributions by various individual writers but often strove to display a single, broadly appealing style and perspective. Accordingly, scholars long characterized the genre of mass-media periodicals as having erased the distinctiveness of individual voices in service of commercial aims. More recently, scholars have complicated this picture by showing that Half-Century Magazine and other titles from the period that were marketed to Black women featured a more heterogeneous mix of voices.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
 

In a study by Mika R. Moran, Daniel

LaRose is a 2016 novel by Ojibwe writer Louise Erdrich. It explores how historical events affect families on a reservation in rural North Dakota. LaRose is typical of Erdrich's work. Her writing usually focuses on portrayals of everyday life in Ojibwe communities. Yet some of her novels have fantastical plots and take place outside Ojibwe communities. For example, her 19911 novel The Crown of Columbus is essentially adventure fiction, and the thrilling events in its plot are set largely on a Caribbean island.
According to the text, what is one way that The Crown of Columbus differs from most of Erdrich's work?

The following text is adapted from Rupa Bajwa's 2004 novel The Sari Shop. Ramchand works as an assistant in a shop in Amritsar, India.
Even at ten in the morning, the bazaar was throbbing with activity. The halwai [baker] was already installed in front of the Mishthaan Sweet Shop, pressing jalebi batter into squiggly shapes that floated and simmered in the oil in a big iron cauldron. All the shops had opened for the day and, Ramchand noted guiltily, all the shop assistants were already in place, trying to sell things with fixed, attentive smiles on their shiny, bathed faces.1
Based on the text, what can most reasonably be inferred about Ramchand?

Cumulative Counts of Fish in Three Taiwanese Tide Pools, 1999–2018
 

Species	Station 1	Station 2	Station 3
striated rockskipper	41	39	47
blackspot sergeant	338	261	136
rippled rockskipper	453	360	247
Bengal sergeant	123	58	48

Lin-Tai Ho and colleagues tracked fish populations in three tide pool– monitoring stations in Taiwan from 1999 to 2018. Although a total of only 48 Bengal sergeants were observed at station 3, that was not the lowest count at any station: _____
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the assertion?