ID: a153ad6a
While light is known as one of the fastest-moving substances, it slows down when passing through some types of matter.
One such type of matter is a form of cooled, condensed gas called a Bose-Einstein condensate ______ Dutch physicist Lene
Hau famously used a BEC to slow a beam of light to a complete halt.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. (BEC),
B. (BEC) and
C. (BEC);
D. (BEC)
ID: 35ae047d
In 1929, Edwin Herbert Land invented a polarizing filter that was featured in a number of products, from sunglasses to 3D
movies. A decade later, Land ______ his technology to invent the world’s first instant camera, the Polaroid Land camera.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. used
B. to have used
C. to use
D. using
ID: 9eb43963
Water in the North Atlantic Ocean is pushed eastward by powerful winds, but the rotation of Earth and interference from
nearby landmasses together cause ______ to swirl into a massive, churning whirlpool—also called the North Atlantic Gyre—
that spins clockwise.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. these
B. those
C. them
D. it
ID: eeb14722
The soundtrack to Mira Nair’s 1991 film Mississippi Masala expressively captures the clashing of cultures that happens when
______ (a young Indian woman from Uganda and a young African American man from Mississippi) meet. Featured
throughout the film are songs from Uganda’s Afrigo Band, the Indian composer L. Subramaniam, and the Mississippi blues
musician Sam Chatmon.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. it’s two protagonists
B. its two protagonist’s
C. it’s two protagonist’s
D. its two protagonists
ID: 6e071432
In 1986, conceptual artist Sophie Calle asked twenty-three people, all of whom had been born without sight, to describe “their
image of beauty” in rich detail. Calle paired excerpts of these conversations with photographs—both of interviewees and the
items they ______ to powerful effect in her exhibition The Blind.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. described, from hair to grass to sculptures
B. described, from hair to grass to sculptures—
C. described—from hair to grass to sculptures,
D. described: from hair to grass to sculptures
ID: db4e3819
Midway through her 1968 jazz album A Monastic Trio, Alice Coltrane switches instruments, swapping the piano for the harp.
With the same fluid style that Coltrane was famous for on piano, she ______ her fingers across the harp strings and creates a
radiant sound.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. sweep
B. are sweeping
C. were sweeping
D. sweeps
ID: 20ea68b7
It can take time for proposed amendments to the US Constitution to become law. For example, the Twenty-Second
Amendment, which limits the number of ______ can serve, was first proposed in 1947 but wasn’t approved by the required
three-fourths majority of state legislatures until 1951.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. terms presidents
B. term’s presidents
C. term’s president’s
D. terms president’s
ID: 77e06a09
Between 322 and 184 BCE, the Maurya Empire established a complex economic system that, through trade and centralized
______ funded major infrastructure projects throughout the Indian subcontinent. This included the building of many roads,
canals, and hospitals.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. taxation:
B. taxation,
C. taxation—
D. taxation
ID: 6ea8c23f
In 2018, a team of researchers led by Dr. Caitlin Whalen compiled every available measurement of ocean mixing rates from
the past two decades. With this novel data set, the team was able to determine how current-driven mixing varies across
______ and what impact it has on the distribution of heat and nutrients in the ocean.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. regions,
B. regions:
C. regions;
D. regions
ID: aab74a3b
Researcher Lin Zhi developed a process for increasing the tensile strength—measured in gigapascals, or GPa—of silkworm
______ dissolving and reweaving the silk in a solution of iron metal ions, zinc, and sugar, Zhi increased the amount of force
required to stretch it from approximately 0.5 GPa to 2 GPa.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. silk, by
B. silk by
C. silk and by
D. silk. By
ID: 1724dac2
A subseasonal weather forecast attempts to predict weather conditions three to four weeks in ______ its predictions are
therefore more short-term than those of the seasonal forecast, which attempts to predict the weather more than a month in
advance.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. advance,
B. advance
C. advance;
D. advance and
ID: 512f0ac9
Working from an earlier discovery of Charpentier’s, chemists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna—winners of the
2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry—re-created and then reprogrammed the so-called “genetic scissors” of a species of DNA-
cleaving bacteria ______ a tool that is revolutionizing the field of gene technology.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. to forge
B. forging
C. forged
D. and forging
ID: a9e5b788
In discussing Mary Shelley’s 1818 epistolary novel Frankenstein, literary theorist Gayatri Spivak directs the reader’s attention
to the character of Margaret Saville. As Spivak points out, Saville is not the protagonist of Shelley’s ______ as the recipient of
the letters that frame the book’s narrative, she’s the “occasion” of it.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. novel
B. novel,
C. novel; rather,
D. novel, rather,
ID: cdbbbf94
As British scientist Peter Whibberley has observed, “the Earth is not a very good timekeeper.” Earth’s slightly irregular rotation
rate means that measurements of time must be periodically adjusted. Specifically, an extra “leap second” (the 86,401st
second of the day) is ______ time based on the planet’s rotation lags a full nine-tenths of a second behind time kept by
precise atomic clocks.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. added, whenever
B. added; whenever
C. added. Whenever
D. added whenever
ID: a3e87535
Julia Alvarez’s 1994 novel In the Time of the Butterflies, a fictionalized account of the lives of the Mirabal ______ can serve as
a starting point for those wanting to explore how the rule of dictator Rafael Trujillo has been represented in Dominican
American literature.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. sisters, and
B. sisters and
C. sisters,
D. sisters
ID: d47bb0a4
Objects ranging from the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle to the Yamaha VMAX motorcycle to the Komachi bullet train ______
designed by twentieth-century industrial designer Kenji Ekuan.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. was
B. is
C. has been
D. were
ID: e3b72630
In the historical novel The Surrender Tree, Cuban American author Margarita Engle uses poetry rather than prose ______ the
true story of Cuban folk hero Rosa La Bayamesa.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. tells
B. told
C. is telling
D. to tell
ID: d2b81427
In assessing the films of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, ______ have missed his equally deep engagement with Japanese
artistic traditions such as Noh theater.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. many critics have focused on Kurosawa’s use of Western literary sources but
B. Kurosawa’s use of Western literary sources has been the focus of many critics, who
C. there are many critics who have focused on Kurosawa’s use of Western literary sources, but they
D. the focus of many critics has been on Kurosawa’s use of Western literary sources; they
ID: 56315bd0
Solarpunk is an art movement that imagines renewable energy–powered technology infused complementarily into nature. In
Paolo Bacigalupi’s solarpunk short story “Efficiency,” an artificial intelligence that absorbs sustainable energies, redistributing
them through intricate networks of weights and generators, ______ Chicago’s energy grid.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. have been powering
B. power
C. powers
D. are powering
ID: a1e0c981
In her book The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, author Maxine Hong Kingston examines themes
______ childhood, womanhood, and Chinese American identity by intertwining autobiography and mythology.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. of:
B. of
C. of—
D. of,
ID: b35cefb7
The fine, powdery substance that covers the Moon’s surface is called regolith. Because regolith is both readily available and
high in oxygen ______ scientists have wondered whether it could be used as a potential source of oxygen for future lunar
settlements.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. content and
B. content,
C. content
D. content, and
ID: e76e74e8
Over twenty years ago, in a landmark experiment in the psychology of choice, professor Sheena Iyengar set up a jam-tasting
booth at a grocery store. The number of jams available for tasting ______ some shoppers had twenty-four different options,
others only six. Interestingly, the shoppers with fewer jams to choose from purchased more jam.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. varied:
B. varied,
C. varied, while
D. varied while
ID: b74f676f
Classical composer Florence Price’s 1927 move to Chicago marked a turning point in her career. It was there that Price
premiered her First Symphony—a piece that was praised for blending traditional Romantic motifs with aspects of Black folk
music—and ______ supportive relationships with other Black artists.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. developing
B. developed
C. to develop
D. having developed
ID: 1a61e2ae
English poet and Shakespeare contemporary John Donne’s ______ much admired during his lifetime (1572–1631) and in the
decades that followed, had, at the time of their enthusiastic rediscovery by the early twentieth-century modernists, been
essentially gathering dust for the intervening 250 years.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. works were
B. works, were
C. works,
D. works had been
ID: 3a35ddd1
Like other amphibians, the wood frog (Rana sylvatica) is unable to generate its own heat, so during periods of subfreezing
temperatures, it ______ by producing large amounts of glucose, a sugar that helps prevent damaging ice from forming inside
its cells.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. had survived
B. survived
C. would survive
D. survives
ID: 69f031ab
While exploring Nevada’s Gypsum Cave in 1930, Seneca and Abenaki archaeologist Bertha Parker made her most famous
discovery: the skull of a now-extinct ground sloth (Nothrotheriops shastensis) alongside human-made tools. Parker’s crucial
finding was the first ______ humans in North America as far back as 10,000 years ago.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. places
B. placed
C. place
D. to place
ID: 083a35dc
Po’Pay was a Tewa leader from Ohkay Owingeh, a pueblo located about twenty-five miles north of present-day Santa Fe, New
Mexico. He was instrumental in organizing the Pueblo Revolt of ______ as a result of his leadership, the Spanish colonizers
were expelled from the region for a time.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. 1680
B. 1680 and
C. 1680,
D. 1680, and
ID: 486f03da
The short story “Rogue Enchantments” by Isabel Ibañez appears in Reclaim the ______ anthology of fantasy and science
fiction written by authors of Latin American descent.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Stars. An
B. Stars, while an
C. Stars an
D. Stars, an
ID: aab78b25
Psychophysicist Howard Moskowitz was hired by a soda company to determine how much artificial sweetener ______ After
conducting consumer taste tests, he found that no such ideal existed: participants expressed a wide range of preferences
for different blends of sweetener, carbonization, and flavoring.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. do most people prefer in a diet drink?
B. do most people prefer in a diet drink.
C. most people prefer in a diet drink?
D. most people prefer in a diet drink.
ID: 8b002b08
Many Samoans enjoy a sport called kilikiti. This bat-and-ball game was derived from ______ kilikiti differs from cricket in a
few key ways.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. cricket but:
B. cricket but,
C. cricket, but
D. cricket, but,
ID: 145d5ca7
Gathering accurate data on water flow in the United States is challenging because of the country’s millions of miles of ______
the volume and speed of water at any given location can vary drastically over time.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. waterways and the fact that,
B. waterways, and the fact that,
C. waterways, and, the fact that
D. waterways and the fact that
ID: 843f92af
The sun never sets during the Arctic summer in the Far North. In response, reindeer in this region must change their sleep
habits. Instead of resting when it gets dark, they rest when they need ______ their food.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. digest
B. will digest
C. to digest
D. digesting
ID: 430d929a
British scientists James Watson and Francis Crick won the Nobel Prize in part for their 1953 paper announcing the double
helix structure of DNA, but it is misleading to say that Watson and Crick discovered the double helix. ______ findings were
based on a famous X-ray image of DNA fibers, “Photo 51,” developed by X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin and her
graduate student Raymond Gosling.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. They’re
B. It’s
C. Their
D. Its
ID: 1684b237
One of the few African American global explorers during the turn of the 20th century, ______
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Matthew Henson made several treks across Greenland between 1891 and 1909.
B. 1891 and 1909 were the years between which Matthew Henson made several treks across Greenland.
C. Greenland was where Matthew Henson made several treks between 1891 and 1909.
D. several treks across Greenland were made by Matthew Henson between 1891 and 1909.
ID: be34a3df
In 2008, two years after the death of science fiction writer Octavia Butler, the Huntington Library in ______ received a
collection of more than 8,000 items, including Butler’s private notes, research materials, manuscripts, photos, and drawings.
Today, the Octavia E. Butler Collection is one of the most researched archives at the library.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. California,
B. California:
C. California—
D. California
ID: 1f8cd95f
In the 1950s, a man named Joseph McVicker was struggling to keep his business afloat when his sister-in-law Kay Zufall
advised him to repurpose the company’s product, a nontoxic, clay-like substance for removing soot from wallpaper, as a
modeling putty for kids. In addition, Zufall ______ selling the product under a child-friendly name: Play-Doh.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. suggested
B. suggests
C. had suggested
D. was suggesting
ID: 73a6603c
On sunny days, dark rooftops absorb solar energy and convert it to unwanted heat, raising the surrounding air ______ a light-
colored covering to an existing dark roof, either by attaching prefabricated reflective sheets or spraying on a paint-like
coating, helps combat this effect.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. temperature; by adding
B. temperature, adding
C. temperature. Adding
D. temperature by adding
ID: 70ced8dc
Typically, underlines, scribbles, and notes left in the margins by a former owner lower a book’s ______ when the former owner
is a famous poet like Walt Whitman, such markings, known as marginalia, can be a gold mine to literary scholars.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. value, but
B. value
C. value,
D. value but
ID: 3bceeb93
When they were first discovered in Australia in 1798, duck-billed, beaver-tailed platypuses so defied categorization that one
scientist assigned them the name Ornithorhynchus paradoxus: “paradoxical bird-snout.” The animal, which lays eggs but
also nurses ______ young with milk, has since been classified as belonging to the monotremes group.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. they’re
B. their
C. its
D. it’s
ID: 6fac7f45
Butterfly is a 1988 painting by the Japanese artist Ay-O. Like many of Ay-O’s paintings, Butterfly, which portrays a swimmer
performing the butterfly stroke, attempts to make use of the entire visual light ______ sporting rainbow-striped goggles, the
rainbow-hued swimmer splashes through a wavy rainbow of water.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. spectrum
B. spectrum:
C. spectrum while
D. spectrum, while
ID: 2c9c6ca9
The term “retroflex” derives from Latin and means “bent back,” an apt descriptor for the branch of consonants—retroflex
consonants—pronounced with the tongue curling up and back in the mouth. In many languages, including English, these
consonants are ______ in some dialects of Mandarin, however, four such consonants (“ch,” “sh,” “zh,” and “r”) are relatively
common.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. rare and
B. rare,
C. rare
D. rare;
ID: 8a3998f1
After the United Kingdom began rolling out taxes equivalent to a few cents on single-use plastic grocery bags in 2011,
plastic-bag consumption decreased by up to ninety ______ taxes are subject to what economists call the “rebound effect”: as
the change became normalized, plastic-bag use started to creep back up.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. percent, such
B. percent and such
C. percent. Such
D. percent such
ID: dab8b8ee
Known as Earth’s “living skin,” biocrusts are thin layers of soil held together by surface-dwelling microorganisms such as
fungi, lichens, and cyanobacteria. Fortifying soil in arid ecosystems against erosion, ______
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. a recent study’s estimate is that these crusts reduce global dust emissions by 60 percent each year.
B. an estimated 60 percent reduction in global dust emissions each year is due to these crusts, according to a recent study.
C. these crusts reduce global dust emissions by an estimated 60 percent each year, according to a recent study.
D. a recent study has estimated that these crusts reduce global dust emissions by 60 percent each year.
ID: 4bed4658
In order to prevent nonnative fish species from moving freely between the Mediterranean and Red Seas, marine biologist
Bella Galil has proposed that a saline lock system be installed along the Suez Canal in Egypt’s Great Bitter Lakes. The lock
would increase the salinity of the lakes and ______ a natural barrier of water most marine creatures would be unable to cross.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. creates
B. create
C. creating
D. created
ID: 96953201
In her two major series “Memory Test” and “Autobiography,” painter Howardena Pindell explored themes ______ healing, self-
discovery, and memory by cutting and sewing back together pieces of canvas and inserting personal artifacts, such as
postcards, into some of the paintings.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. of
B. of,
C. of—
D. of:
ID: acf454af
An online content creator who uses copyrighted songs without permission risks being demonetized (prohibited from
including paid advertisements in content). The best way to avoid demonetization is to choose music from the public domain.
Using one of these noncopyrighted songs ______ a creator won’t lose advertising revenue.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. are ensuring
B. have ensured
C. ensure
D. ensures
ID: 8f6d6ae6
Archaeologists have estimated that the pre-Columbian Native American city of Cahokia, located across the Mississippi River
from modern-day St. Louis, Missouri, had as many as 20,000 inhabitants in the year 1150 ______ it one of the largest cities in
North America at the time.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. CE making
B. CE. Making
C. CE, making
D. CE; making
ID: 26c8c88c
About 70,000 meteorites have been found on Earth. Although most meteorites are fragments of ______ hundred have been
identified as being from the Moon or Mars.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. asteroids. Several
B. asteroids, several
C. asteroids; several
D. asteroids: several
ID: c06af4d8
Sociologist Alton Okinaka sits on the review board tasked with adding new sites to the Hawai‘i Register of Historic Places,
which includes Pi‘ilanihale Heiau and the ‘Ōpaeka‘a Road Bridge. Okinaka doesn’t make such decisions ______ all historical
designations must be approved by a group of nine other experts from the fields of architecture, archaeology, history, and
Hawaiian culture.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. single-handedly, however;
B. single-handedly; however,
C. single-handedly, however,
D. single-handedly however
ID: f4fd123c
The African Games Co-production Market, one of over 180 annual international conferences supporting video game
development, ______ the growth of the African gaming industry by helping start-up studios in Africa find partners.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. promote
B. are promoting
C. promotes
D. have promoted
ID: e8926747
Eighteen letters written by Louisa May Alcott, author of the popular novel Little Women (1868), can be found at the New York
Historical Society. ______ letters demonstrate Alcott’s keen business sense in her interactions with publishers.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. One
B. That
C. This
D. These
ID: e9aee0d8
On November 2, 1772, amid rising tensions with Great Britain, Boston colonists formed the Boston Committee of
Correspondence. By 1774, what had started as a local means of mobilizing support for the Patriot cause had grown into
something far more ______ network of such committees that, facilitating communication among the colonies, helped lay the
groundwork for the Continental Congress.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. extensive: a
B. extensive; a
C. extensive, it was a
D. extensive. A
ID: 9579581e
As cheesemaking practices spread throughout Europe and Asia during and after the Neolithic, divergent strategies for
preserving milk ______ whereas rennet-coagulated cheesemaking became key to milk preservation in Europe and Southwest
Asia, acid-heat coagulation methods became common among nomadic herding populations of the northeastern Eurasian
steppe.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. emerged
B. emerged and
C. emerged:
D. emerged,
ID: 60713427
Polyphenols are organic compounds ______ among their many roles, provide pigment that helps protect plants against
ultraviolet radiation from sunlight.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. that—
B. that;
C. that,
D. that:
ID: 7f1df833
In 1966, Emmett Ashford became the first African American to umpire a Major League Baseball game. His energetic
gestures announcing when a player had struck out and his habit of barreling after a hit ball to see if it would land out of
______ transform the traditionally solemn umpire role into a dynamic one.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. bounds helped
B. bounds, helping
C. bounds that helped
D. bounds to help
ID: 2ee50d41
The classic children’s board game Chutes and Ladders is a version of an ancient Nepalese game, Paramapada Sopanapata.
In both games, players encounter “good” or “bad” spaces while traveling along a path; landing on one of the good spaces
______ a player to skip ahead and arrive closer to the end goal.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. allows
B. are allowing
C. have allowed
D. allow
ID: 15d6d837
Literary agents estimate that more than half of all nonfiction books credited to a celebrity or other public figure are in fact
written by ghostwriters, professional authors who are paid to write other ______ but whose names never appear on book
covers.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. people’s stories
B. peoples story’s
C. peoples stories
D. people’s story’s
ID: 59209b6d
Based on genetic evidence, archaeologists have generally agreed that reindeer domestication began in the eleventh century
CE. However, since uncovering fragments of a 2,000-year-old reindeer training harness in northern Siberia, ______ may have
begun much earlier.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. researcher Robert Losey has argued that domestication
B. researcher Robert Losey’s argument is that domestication
C. domestication, researcher Robert Losey has argued,
D. the argument researcher Robert Losey has made is that domestication
ID: a75d5984
Several advantages—the ability to react strongly with chip components, to avoid interference from other waves, and to be
confined within tiny circuits—______ acoustic waves as a promising alternative to electrical waves for transmitting data on
computer chips; as a result, researchers are invested in developing more acoustic wave–based chips.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. have positioned
B. positioning
C. by positioning
D. having positioned
ID: 2b512e65
Eli Eisenberg, a genetics expert at Tel Aviv University in Israel, recently discovered that ______ have a special genetic ability
called RNA editing that confers evolutionary advantages.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. cephalopods, ocean dwellers that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish
B. cephalopods—ocean dwellers—that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish,
C. cephalopods, ocean dwellers that include: the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish,
D. cephalopods—ocean dwellers that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish—
