Command of Evidence

The Reckoning and Resilience (2022) exhibition at Duke University's Nasher Museum of Art was the first to focus entirely on North Carolina artists since the exhibition Across County Lines four years earlier. The curators of the 2022 exhibition included painters like Juan Logan, photographers like Cornell Watson, and printmakers like Ayla Gizlice. But whereas the work by Watson would have fit the theme for Across County Lines, works by Logan and Gizlice would not have.

Which finding about the Across County Lines exhibition, if true, would most directly support the underlined claim?

A) It consisted entirely of works by photographers.

B) It was curated specifically to emphasize works that are not owned by the Nasher Museum.

C) It included a greater number of artists than Reckoning and Resilience.

D) It consisted mostly of works by printmakers.

One antipredator defense that the common sandpiper uses to protect its nest and young chicks is called "broken-wing display"; this form of deceptive defense involves an adult bird pretending to be injured and unable to fly in order to distract an approaching predator. A student predicts that bird species with mean body masses greater than 150 grams do not use deceptive defenses because larger birds tend to be more effective than smaller birds at using aggressive defenses to protect nests from predators, making deceptive defenses unnecessary.

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to weaken the student's prediction?

A) The common ringed plover uses broken-wing display, but the pied-billed grebe does not.

B) The ruddy turnstone uses broken-wing display even though it is larger than the common ringed plover.

C) The pied-billed grebe has a mean body mass of 409 grams and is known to perform broken-wing display.

D) The ruddy turnstone and the common ringed plover both have a mean body mass under 150 grams and use broken-wing display.

A student is writing a paper about One Night in Miami..., a 2020 film directed by Regina King and written by Kemp Powers. Powers adapted the film's screenplay from his 2013 play, which he wrote after learning about a 1964 meeting that took place in Miami, Florida, between four prominent figures of the Civil Rights movement: Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke. The student claims that although Powers was inspired by this meeting, the film is best understood not as a precise retelling of historical events but rather as a largely imagined but informed representation of them.

Which quotation from an article about One Night in Miami... would be the most effective evidence for the student to include in support of this claim?

A) "When Powers learned of the meeting, he initially planned to write a much longer work about its four famous participants rather than focusing on the meeting itself."

B) "One Night in Miami... received numerous awards and nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for Powers for Best Adapted Screenplay."

C) "Powers has described One Night in Miami... as the story of four friends encouraging and supporting one another while engaged in a crucial political debate about how best to achieve equality for Black people in the United States."

D) "Powers could find only the most superficial historical details about the meeting, so he read extensively about the four individuals and their thinking at the time in an effort to portray what might have happened between them."

E-books became an increasingly popular means of reading in the United States in the 2000s and 2010s, though that popularity was concentrated in titles that, like those in most fiction genres, are meant to be read straight through from beginning to end. For books in nonfiction genres that do not tell stories and require the reader to flip back and forth through a volume, e-books were significantly less commercially successful. This can be seen by comparing ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to illustrate the claim?

A) the percentage of 2016 cookbook sales that were e-books with the percentage of 2016 science fiction and fantasy sales that were e-books.

B) the percentage of 2006 romance sales that were e-books with the percentage of 2016 romance sales that were e-books.

C) the percentage of 2006 romance sales that were e-books with the 2006 science fiction and fantasy sales that were e-books.

D) the percentage of 2011 travel guide sales that were e-books with the percentage of 2016 travel guide sales that were e-books.

River Lengths

Researcher Peidong Jin and team presented updated measurements of the lengths of several rivers.

According to the table, which river is the longest?

A) Zambezi River

B) Snake River

C) Mississippi River

D) Yenisey River

Percentage of City's Commuters Regularly Biking to Work in 2016

The table shows that in 2016, the percentage of commuters who regularly biked to work in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) 1.6.

B) 9.0.

C) 0.6.

D) 4.6.

Number of City Residents Who Often Biked to Work in 2016

In the table, the city with the lowest number of residents who often biked to work in 2016 is ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) Boulder, Colorado.

B) Albuquerque, New Mexico.

C) New York, New York.

D) Boston, Massachusetts.

Maximum Speed for High-Speed Railway Lines in Four Countries

A student is comparing the speeds of trains on high-speed rail lines in different countries. The table shows information about high-speed rail in four countries.

According to the table, what is the maximum speed for high-speed railway lines in China?

A) 350 km/h

B) 450 km/h

C) 300 km/h

D) 110 km/h

Brown Bears in Katmai National Park, Alaska

Scientists collected information about brown bears in Katmai National Park in Alaska. This information included each bear's sex, age, and approximate weight. For the bear with identification number 122, for example, the scientists recorded that the bear was _____

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) male, 4 years old, and weighed approximately 275 pounds.

B) female, 10 years old, and weighed approximately 400 pounds.

C) male, 3 years old, and weighed approximately 200 pounds.

D) female, 6 years old, and weighed approximately 325 pounds.

While doing research for a paper about metal exports, a student finds a table indicating how much copper was mined in each of four countries in 1995 and 2020. The student notes that in 1995, Mexico mined ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) 0.38 million metric tons of copper.

B) 0.33 million metric tons of copper.

C) 1.85 million metric tons of copper.

D) 0.44 million metric tons of copper.

Researchers Carolina Laura Morales and Anna Traveset gathered data about flowering plants growing alongside each other in various locations. In each case, the researchers identified one plant as a “target species” and a nearby plant as a “neighboring species.” The researchers then calculated a value to show how the neighboring species affected pollinator visits to the target species. The table shows that the Himalayan balsam had an effect value of ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the example?

A) 0.7905.

B) −0.3238

C) −3.257

D) 0.4729

A student is writing an essay about four pyramids for a history class and wants to note how long ago each pyramid was built and how tall each pyramid is. Consulting the table, the student finds that el Castillo was built 1,100 to 1,400 years ago and is ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the text?

A. 33 meters tall.

B. 47 meters tall.

C. 40 meters tall.

D. 60 meters tall.

A team of researchers used bacteria to create a biofuel (a renewable fuel produced from plants, algae, or other living materials). The team called the new fuel POP biofuel. To determine how much energy is stored in POP biofuel compared to other fuels, the team calculated the fuels' energy density, in megajoules per liter (MJ/L). The team found that the fuel with the highest energy density is ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the sentence?

A) ethanol.

B) POP biofuel.

C) jet fuel.

D) gasoline.

Museums sometimes make parts of their collections available online. The Museo de Arte de Lima in Lima, Peru, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York, have both shared digital images of some of their artworks in online collections. Online collections make it much easier for people to experience art belonging to museums that aren’t located close to them.

Which quotation from a student best illustrates the underlined claim?

A) “My family members enjoy going to museums when they travel.”

B) “I probably won’t visit the Museo de Arte de Lima because I don’t like art museums very much.”

C) “The last time I went to a museum, I spent the whole day looking at different things on display.”

D) “The Museo de Arte de Lima is far away from where I live, but I was able to look at some of its art online today.”

Brown Bears in Katmai National Park, Alaska

Scientists collected information about brown bears in Katmai National Park in Alaska. This information included each bear’s sex, age, and approximate weight. The bear with the lowest approximate weight shown in the table was a ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) female that was 5 years old.

B) male that was 23 years old.

C) male that was 10 years old.

D) female that was 16 years old.

Hermit Crab Reactions to a Shell on a Beach

Pacific hermit crabs live in shells that they either find empty or take from another hermit crab. Biologists Louise Roberts and Mark Laidre noticed that hermit crabs sometimes vibrate their shells and wondered if they do this to scare away other crabs. The researchers put a shell on a beach and set it up to remain still, gently vibrate, or strongly vibrate when another hermit crab approached it. They recorded how many of those crabs tried to flip the shell over, which is the first step in trying to take a shell from another crab.

According to the table, what percentage of hermit crabs tried to flip the shell over when it was gently vibrating?

A) 35%

B) 0%

C) 19%

D) 70%

Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge is an 1838 historical account by Elleanor Eldridge and Frances Harriet Whipple Green. In the book, the authors assert that all people naturally have an emotional attachment to where they live, writing, ______

Which quotation from Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "This little book is published for the express purpose of giving a helping hand to suffering and persecuted merit."

B) "To give some idea of the high esteem in which the subject of the following narrative is held, and the strong interest her misfortunes have excited, a few, from the great number of recommendations in her possession, are selected."

C) "Blessed are the slumbers of the innocent! They are kindlier than balm, and they refresh and gladden the spirit of childhood, like ministerings from a better world."

D) "Home is home, to the lowly as well as the great, and no rank, or color, destroys its sacred character, its power over the mind, and the affections."

Peter Pan is a 1911 novel by J.M. Barrie. In the fantasy novel, Peter is a young boy who can fly. He brings Wendy, John, and Michael to Neverland, the mythical island where he lives. The narrator suggests that activity on the island stops when Peter is away and starts again when he is about to return: ________

Which quotation from Peter Pan best supports the claim?

A) "The rock was very small now."

B) "Wendy and John and Michael stood on tip-toe in the air to get their first sight of the island."

C) "Peter was alone on the lagoon."

D) "Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life."

Cane is a 1923 novel by Jean Toomer. In the novel, Toomer mentions a road in rural Georgia called Dixie Pike and describes it as having a deep connection to a faraway place, writing, ______

Which quotation from Cane most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "And when the wind is from the South, soil of my homeland falls like a fertile shower upon the lean streets of [Washington, DC]."

B) "The Dixie Pike has grown from a goat path in Africa."

C) "From down the railroad track, the chug-chug of a gas engine announces that the repair gang is coming home."

D) "One evening I walked up the [Dixie] Pike on purpose, and stopped to say hello [to Fern]."

Peter Pan is a 1911 novel by J.M. Barrie. In the fantasy novel, a dog named Nana is a nurse (nanny) for the children in the Darling family—Wendy, John, and Michael. The narrator describes Nana as planning for events like a human would: ________

Which quotation from Peter Pan best illustrates the claim?

A) "On John's [soccer] days [Nana] never once forgot his sweater, and she usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in case of rain."

B) "[Mrs. Darling] was wearing Wendy's bracelet on her arm."

C) "Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbours."

D) "Of course [Nana's] kennel was in the nursery."

Researchers Carolina Laura Morales and Anna Traveset gathered data about flowering plants growing alongside each other in various locations. In each case, the researchers identified one plant as a "target species" and a nearby plant as a "neighboring species." The researchers then calculated a positive or negative value to show how the neighboring species affected pollinator visits to the target species. One example of a neighboring species with a negative effect value is the ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the example?

A. Himalayan balsam.

B. common dandelion.

C. star chickweed.

D. Virginia spring beauty.

"We Are Marching" is a 1921 poem by Carrie Law Morgan Figgs. In the poem, the speaker predicts future success: ______

Which quotation from "We Are Marching" most effectively illustrates the claim?

A. "Can't you hear the sound of feet?"

B. "You who are out just get in line."

C. "We have answered duty's call."

D. "We shall never know defeat."

Average Paperback Prices, 2016–19

An intern at a publishing house who is writing a report is asked to determine which of several genres of books published in 2019 had paperbacks with the lowest average price. Consulting the table, she determines that, on average, the least expensive paperbacks in that year belonged to the genre of ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the assertion?

A) comics and graphic novels.

B) young adult.

C) mathematics.

D) reference.

Most bird species that are capable of flight weigh less than a kilogram (kg), which is not surprising considering the burden that extra body weight puts on a flying animal. But not all flying birds are so light, as we can see most clearly in the example of the ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the example?

A) northern cassowary, which has an average mass of 44.0 kg.

B) Andean condor, which has an average mass below 10 kg.

C) northern cassowary, which has a higher average mass than the lesser rhea.

D) Dalmatian pelican, which has an average mass of 11.5 kg.

A student is collecting data about countries with volcanoes that have been active in the time since 1800 and in the time since 1960. The student records that Nicaragua has _____

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the statement?

A) no volcanoes that have been active since 1800.

B) the same number of volcanoes that have been active since 1800 as Tanzania has.

C) more volcanoes that have been active since 1960 than Tanzania has.

D) fewer volcanoes that have been active since 1960 than Tanzania has.

Just Patty is a 1911 novel by Jean Webster. Patty and her friends have just been informed that they will no longer be roommates while at school. Patty talks to Mrs. Trent, the head of the school, about the situation. The narrator presents Patty as trying hard to convince Mrs. Trent to allow the group to continue sharing a room: ______

Which quotation from Just Patty most effectively illustrates the claim?

A. "[Mrs. Trent's] lips twitched. It was a fact, deplored by her assistants, that her sense of humour frequently ran away with her sense of justice."

B. "[Mrs. Trent] nodded dismissal, and the three of them found themselves in the hall again. They looked at one another for a moment of blank silence."

C. "Patty's eyes suddenly brightened. She seized [her friends] by [the] elbow and shoved them into the empty schoolroom."

D. "Patty did use all the diplomacy at her command. Having dwelt touchingly upon their long friendship, and their sorrow at being separated, she passed lightly to the matter of their new roommates."

The Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has over 90,000 works of art. Digital images of thousands of those works have been put online through the museum's website and the Google Arts & Culture project. One of the images is of Mississippi Delta, a drawing by Siah Armajani. In a paper, a student claims that putting a work from the museum online increases the number of people who experience that work.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the underlined claim?

A. The Minneapolis Institute of Art has several works by Siah Armajani.

B. Many people who have been to Minneapolis say that the Minneapolis Institute of Art is worth visiting.

C. Mississippi Delta has been praised by some art critics.

D. Each year, more people access the online image of Mississippi Delta than visit the Minneapolis Institute of Art in person.

The US Department of Agriculture's Fruit and Tree Nuts Outlook is a document that covers a variety of subjects, from the changing retail prices for strawberries and grapes to the forecast for yields of apple crops. A student studying agricultural economics is consulting a graph in the document that shows the prices for which several types of nuts have been sold by growers in the United States over four growing seasons from 2016 to 2020. The student wishes to know which of four varieties of nuts sold for the lowest price in the 2018/2019 season. According to the graph, the lowest-priced nuts were ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the statement?

A) pistachios.

B) almonds.

C) hazelnuts.

D) pecans.

The Man in the Brown Suit is a 1924 novel by Agatha Christie. In the novel, the protagonist, Anne Beddingfeld, talks about how much her father disliked living in the present era, saying, ______

Which quotation from The Man in the Brown Suit most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) “[Papa] returned late that evening, and, to my dismay, I saw his overcoat was missing.”

B) “I have seldom seen Papa so angry.”

C) “Although [Papa] was a fellow of almost every important society, and had rows of letters after his name, the general public scarcely knew of his existence.”

D) “[Papa’s] mind dwelt in Palaeolithic times, and the inconvenience of life for him was that his body inhabited the modern world.”

The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by Edith Wharton set in New York City in the 1870s. In the novel, Newland Archer attends an opera. Newland compares his intellect favorably to that of other men of New York City society who are in the audience: ______

Which quotation from The Age of Innocence best illustrates the claim?

A) "It surprised [Newland] that life should be going on in the old way when his own reactions to it had so completely changed."

B) "Singly [the men around Newland] betrayed their inferiority; but grouped together they represented 'New York,' and the habit of masculine solidarity made him accept their doctrine on all the issues called moral."

C) "But, in the first place, New York was a metropolis, and perfectly aware that in metropolises it was 'not the thing' to arrive early at the opera."

D) "Newland Archer felt himself distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old New York gentility; he had probably read more, thought more, and even seen a good deal more of the world, than any other man of the number."

A student is researching the trends in the topics submitted to a national science fair for high school students. The graph shows the number of submissions by topic that were made each year. Based on the data in the graph, the student claims that there were more medicine and health research topics submitted in 2019 than in any other year.

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to support the underlined claim?

A) In 2016, the number of cellular and molecular biology topic submissions was the same as the number of animal science topic submissions.

B) In 2019, there were more physics and space science topic submissions than there were medicine and health topic submissions.

C) The lowest number of animal science topic submissions in a year was approximately 95 in 2016.

D) The highest number of medicine and health topic submissions during the period shown is approximately 285 in 2019.

A student is writing a paper on the global rise of the home video game industry during the 1980s. The student is researching the relative popularity of various genres of console and computer games. Looking at the information in the table, the student finds that the games in the genres of ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) puzzle and sports sold nearly the same number of units.

B) platformer and education sold nearly the same number of units.

C) puzzle and platformer outsold the games in the other genres.

D) platformer and sports outsold the games in the other genres.

In what is now the state of California, there are over 100 tribal nations. One of the largest, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, covers 141.68 square miles in the northern part of the state. However, most tribal nations in California are less than 50 square miles in total area. For example, the total area of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians in Southern California is ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support the statement?

A. 13.50 square miles.

B. 53.68 square miles.

C. 9.36 square miles.

D. 39.21 square miles.

Many trees produce growth rings as they age, with each ring in a tree's trunk representing one year in the tree's life. This often makes it fairly easy to determine how old a tree was when it was cut down. To do so, you look at the tree stump and count the dark rings you see. But a researcher claims that this method often can't be used to identify the age of olive trees.

Which detail, if true, would most directly support the researcher's claim?

A. The oldest olive tree in the world is likely over 1,100 years old.

B. Narrow growth rings can suggest that an olive tree experienced harsh conditions.

C. Many olive trees have growth rings that are difficult to see.

D. Olive trees thrive in areas with hot, dry summers.

A survey listed methods for signing into online accounts. Participants in different countries were asked to choose the sign-in method they view as most secure. The table presents data for two of the methods. According to the table, onetime passcodes were viewed as most secure by ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the text?

A. 33 percent of survey participants in the UK.

B. 22 percent of survey participants in India.

C. 8 percent of survey participants in Japan.

D. 16 percent of survey participants in India.

A student is using the table as part of a social studies class presentation on the US auto industry in the early twentieth century. The student notes that, according to the table, from 1910 to 1925 ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) the number of cars produced increased but the number of companies producing cars decreased.

B) both the number of cars produced and the number of companies producing cars remained unchanged.

C) the number of cars produced decreased but the number of companies producing cars remained unchanged.

D) both the number of cars produced and the number of companies producing cars increased.

Deposits of valuable objects, called hoards, have been unearthed in many different parts of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Technological advancements in the twenty-first century have made it easier to locate hoards, but plenty of hoards were found earlier. For example, ________

Table title: Examples of Hoards found in Ireland and Northern Ireland

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) the Ardagh Hoard and Balline Hoard were both found before 2000.

B) Balline Hoard and Carrick-on-Suir Hoard were both discovered in the 1900s.

C) the Balline Hoard was found in 1868.

D) the Ardagh Hoard, Balline Hoard, and Carrick-on-Suir Hoard have all been found since 1868.

Since the nation’s earliest days, both houses of the United States Congress have counted many military veterans among their elected officials, including Hiram L. Fong (who served in the US Army Air Force) and Ralph Harold Metcalfe Sr. (who served in the US Army). A research institute gathered historical data about congressional members who have reported past military experience and determined that ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the sentence?

A) the percentage of those members remained fairly consistent, regardless of house, from 1993 to 2023.

B) from 2003 to 2023, the House of Representatives had a higher percentage of those members than the Senate did.

C) the percentage of those members decreased substantially in both houses of Congress from 1973 to 2013.

D) from 1953 to 2003, those members constituted a majority in both houses of Congress.

It may seem that works of art are best experienced in person. However, in an online collection from the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan, people can zoom in on a high-quality image of the woodblock print Fine Breezy Day by Katsushika Hokusai. A student argues that viewers usually can't examine works of art in a museum as carefully as they can examine works in online collections.

Which statement, if true, would most directly support the underlined argument?

A) Most museums have signs that provide basic information about the works of art on display.

B) Many museums have started adding images of works from their collections to their websites.

C) Most museums don't allow visitors to get very close to the works of art on display.

D) Museums don't always put works by different artists together in one room.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a 1900 novel by L. Frank Baum. In the novel, Dorothy, who is from Kansas, finds herself in an unfamiliar place called Oz. Kansas is presented as being less appealing than Oz, as is clear when ______

Which quotation from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) the narrator states, "Dorothy did not feel nearly so bad as you might think a little girl would who had been suddenly whisked away from her own country and set down in the midst of a strange land."

B) a character says to Dorothy, "I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas."

C) the narrator states, "They walked along listening to the singing of the brightly colored birds and looking at the lovely flowers which now became so thick that the ground was carpeted with them."

D) a character says to others, "But it will take more than imagination to carry Dorothy back to Kansas, and I'm sure I don't know how it can be done."

While doing research for a paper about copper mining, a student finds a table with information about four different countries. The student notes that the country that mined 0.55 million metric tons of copper in 2020 had mined ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A. 0.59 million metric tons of copper in 1995.

B. 0.44 million metric tons of copper in 1995.

C. 0.26 million metric tons of copper in 1995.

D. 2.49 million metric tons of copper in 1995.

“The Open Boat” is an 1897 short story by Stephen Crane. In the story, four men are at sea in a lifeboat. The narrator suggests that the progress of the boat is dependent on the forces of nature: ______

Which quotation from “The Open Boat” most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) “There was a long, loud swishing astern of the boat, and a gleaming trail of phosphorescence, like blue flame, was furrowed on the black waters.”

B) “These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colours of the sea.”

C) “It was a long afternoon. A changed tide tried to force [the boat] southward, but wind and wave said northward.”

D) “The wind came stronger, and sometimes a wave suddenly raged out like a mountain-cat, and there was to be seen the sheen and sparkle of a broken crest.”

There Is Confusion is a 1924 novel by Jessie Redmon Fauset. In the novel, the narrator portrays the character Joanna as someone who admires ambition in other people to the exclusion of all other qualities: ____

Which quotation from There Is Confusion most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "Indeed from the very beginning Joanna showed her preference for her father."

B) "Joanna was like her father not only so far as ambition was concerned but also in her willingness to work."

C) "Joanna was mightily interested in people who had a 'purpose' in life. Otherwise not at all."

D) "She had a good sense of logic, a strong power of concentration, and a remarkably retentive and visualizing memory."

A student is writing a research paper on the history of irrigation in the southwestern United States, situating the development of Lake Sabrina (a man-made body of water created in Inyo County, California, in 1908) in a larger historical context. The student claims that some modern-day irrigation methods used in southwestern states, such as California, Arizona, and New Mexico, have a lineage that long predates the completion of Lake Sabrina.

Which quotation from a historian best supports the student's claim?

A) "Sprinkler irrigation systems, which were developed in the late 20th century, are a convenient technique of irrigating that makes use of machinery in order to spray water in all directions. Many areas of the Southwestern United States are currently irrigated by this method."

B) "In the decades following the Second World War, irrigation of arid areas for agriculture increased to such a degree that it now accounts for roughly 70% of the world's water usage."

C) "The irrigation system developed by the Hohokam people in what is now central Arizona in the 7th century CE was simple but made use of hydraulic engineering design principles that are still utilized by today's engineers."

D) "The importance of the development of irrigation infrastructure in the American Southwest today cannot be overstated, since it is the most common means of conveying water for food production."

"A Pair of Silk Stockings" is an 1897 short story written by Kate Chopin. In the story, Mrs. Sommers becomes engrossed in the decision of how she should spend a recently obtained sum of money:

Which quotation from "A Pair of Silk Stockings" most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself the unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars."

B) "It seemed to her a very large amount of money, and the way in which it stuffed and bulged her worn old porte-monnaie [small purse] gave her a feeling of importance such as she had not enjoyed for years."

C) "Mrs. Sommers was one who knew the value of bargains; who could stand for hours making her way inch by inch toward the desired object that was selling below cost."

D) "The question of investment was one that occupied her greatly. For a day or two she walked about apparently in a dreamy state, but really absorbed in speculation and calculation."

The passage of time is among the many obstacles faced by scientists who are pursuing de-extinction efforts—that is, efforts to use breeding or a mixture of cloning and genetic engineering to bring back extinct species. Specifically, researchers are concerned that the longer a species has been extinct, the less likely it is that a suitable habitat still exists for that species. Among candidate species for de-extinction, this problem would be especially concerning for the ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), which became extinct only a few years after the huia (Heteralocha acutirostris).

B) saber-toothed cat (Smilodon), which became extinct 11,000 years ago.

C) woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), which became extinct several thousand years before the saber-toothed cat (Smilodon).

D) Caribbean monk seal (Monachus tropicalis), which became extinct in 1952.

A student is writing a research paper on the history of irrigation in the United States, situating the development of Lake Yosemite (created in Merced County, California, in 1888) in a larger historical context. The student claims that California's climate renders irrigation an essential component of agriculture in some parts of the state but not in others.

Which quotation from a study of California agriculture best supports the student's claim?

A) "While the low humidity of Southern California's desert areas makes irrigation a requirement if agriculture is to be a success there, the relatively high humidity in the northern parts of the state makes such practices less necessary."

B) "The irrigation system developed by the Hohokam people in the 7th century CE in what is now Arizona was simple but applied hydraulic engineering design features that are in use today throughout California."

C) "Sprinkler irrigation systems are a method of irrigating that requires machinery to spray water in all directions. These systems can presently be found in use throughout California."

D) "The usefulness of irrigation infrastructure in California today cannot be overstated, since it is the most common means of conveying water for agricultural purposes."

The Underdogs is a 1915 novel by Mariano Azuela, originally written in Spanish. In the novel, Azuela depicts the character Camilla as experiencing a change in how she perceives her immediate surroundings: ________

Which quotation from a translation of The Underdogs most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "Camilla stared up at the blue sky so [Luis] should not read the expression in her eyes."

B) "Camilla, standing on the beach of washed, round stones, caught a reflection of herself in the waters."

C) "All nature was as she had found it before, evening upon evening; but in the stones and the dry weeds, amid the fragrance of the air and the light whir of falling leaves, Camilla sensed a new strangeness, a vast desolation in everything about her."

D) "[Camilla] closed her eyes fast to hold back the tears that welled up in them. Then, with the back of her hand, she wiped her wet cheeks, and just as she had done three days ago, fled with all the swiftness of a young deer."

Examples of Hoards Found in Ireland and Northern Ireland

An anthropologist is recording the metal contents of various historical deposits of valuables, called hoards, found in Ireland and Northern Ireland. She notes that the hoards differed in their contents; for example, ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) the Ballinesker Hoard contained no gold or silver.

B) the Ardagh Hoard was the only hoard that contained silver.

C) the Armagh City Hoard and the Ardagh Hoard each contained bronze.

D) the Ballinesker Hoard was the only hoard that contained just gold.

Elisabeth Pötzelsberger and colleagues gathered data on 23 non-native tree species grown in Europe. They analyzed reports from Poland, Belgium, and Finland about the number of these species grown in those countries as well as the numbers of insect and fungus species that damage those trees. The researchers concluded that Poland reported a greater number of damaging insect species than either of the other countries did.

Which choice best describes data from the table that support Pötzelsberger and colleagues' conclusion?

A) Belgium reported 13 damaging fungus species and 11 damaging insect species, while both Poland and Finland reported more insect species than fungus species.

B) Poland reported 25 damaging fungus species, which is more than either Belgium or Finland reported.

C) Finland and Belgium reported 6 and 4 damaging insect species, respectively, which is far fewer than Poland reported.

D) Poland reported 105 damaging insect species, which is more than either Finland or Belgium reported.

Poems of Experience is a 1910 collection of poetry by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. In one of her poems, the speaker indicates that several beneficial opportunities have recently become available to women, saying ____

Which quotation from Poems of Experience most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "Delicate creature of light and shade, / [Woman] gleamed like an opal, on wide worlds under." (from "Woman")

B) "We must use the joys of earth, / All its cares we'll keep; / Night was made for youth and mirth, / Day was made for sleep." (from "The Voices of the City")

C) "For worlds to conquer [woman] had not yearned, / Till [man] spoke of her feminine sphere as 'narrow.'" (from "Woman")

D) "Trade and science and craft and art, / Have opened their doors to the call of woman; / And greater she stands in her greater part, / More tenderly wise, and more sweetly human."

A study of commercial airline routes that carried the greatest number of passengers in 2017 and 2018 shows that, in general, domestic routes (routes within a single country) carried many more passengers than international routes. However, a few international routes were so popular that they carried more travelers than some of the most highly traveled domestic routes, as can be seen when comparing the ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the example?

A) number of passengers who traveled between Jakarta and Singapore in 2017 with the number who traveled that same route in 2018.

B) number of passengers who traveled between Jeju and Seoul-Gimpo in 2017 with the number who traveled between Hong Kong and Manila during that same year.

C) number of passengers who traveled between Jakarta and Singapore in 2018 with the number who traveled between Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City during that same year.

D) distance between Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City with the distance between Jakarta and Singapore.

The only flowering plant species native to Antarctica, Colobanthus quitensis and Deschampsia antarctica grow in places where the earth remains free of ice for much of the year. Botanist Niccoletta Cannone wondered how the warming of Antarctica’s climate in recent years had affected these species, so she visited a site in Antarctica, first in 2009 and later in 2018, to count the number of plants growing there. Cannone found that the area of land covered by the two species had significantly expanded during the nine-year period. While both species likely benefited from warming temperatures, Colobanthus quitensis ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the comparison?

A) suppressed the growth of Deschampsia antarctica, which covered a smaller area of land in 2018 than it had in 2009.

B) saw a greater expansion than Deschampsia antarctica did, increasing the area of land it covered by more than half.

C) showed a greater increase in the average size of individual plants than Deschampsia antarctica did.

D) covered land newly freed from ice at a rate 55% faster than that of Deschampsia antarctica.

Elisabeth Potzelsberger and colleagues gathered data on 23 non-native tree species grown in Europe. They analyzed reports from Denmark, Finland, and Belgium about the number of these species grown by the timber industries in those countries. The researchers concluded that none of these countries' timber industries grow all 23 species.

Which choice best describes data from the graph that support Potzelsberger and colleagues' conclusion?

A) There are species other than those reported by Belgium that are important to its timber industry, but they're native to the country.

B) Some of the species that Finland reported are not among the 23 tree species that Potzelsberger and colleagues were evaluating.

C) Denmark, Finland, and Belgium each reported at least 4 of the 23 species.

D) Denmark, which reported more of the 23 species than either Finland or Belgium did, reported fewer than 15 of the species.

Lin-Tai Ho and colleagues counted fish in a tide pool in Taiwan at several times during the year and found that some species had a significantly higher maximum population count than others. For example, the highest count for the combtooth blenny was 62 individuals in January of 2001, whereas the highest count for the striated rockskipper was _____

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the example?

A) 16 individuals in October of 2001.

B) 15 individuals in July of 2001.

C) 72 individuals in January of 2001.

D) 5 individuals in July of 2001.

A student in Hawaii is interested in pursuing a career in technology and decides to do some research on local trends. The student notices that the number of jobs in computer services in 2010 was ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the statement?

A) higher than the number of jobs in technical consulting services, and in 2019 was about the same as the number of jobs in engineering services.

B) about the same as the number of jobs in engineering services, and in 2019 was about the same as the number of jobs in technical consulting services.

C) lower than the number of jobs in engineering services, but in 2019 was higher than the number of jobs in engineering services.

D) about the same as the number of jobs in technical consulting services, but in 2019 was lower than the number of jobs in technical consulting services.

A marine biologist is researching four stony coral species in Caribbean and Indo-Pacific waters, focusing on sightings of these species in the shallow zone (less than 30 meters below the surface) and the mesophotic zone (30 to 150 meters below the surface). Consulting the table, she notes that the smallest maximum depth is located in ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) Caribbean waters in the shallow zone.

B) Indo-Pacific waters in the mesophotic zone.

C) Indo-Pacific waters in the shallow zone.

D) Caribbean waters in the mesophotic zone.

Life Among the Paiutes is an 1882 autobiographical narrative by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, a Northern Paiute author, educator, and activist. In the work, Winnemucca directly addresses the reader to explain certain customs, writing _____

Which quotation from Life Among the Paiutes most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "But how can I describe the scene that followed? Some of you, dear readers, can imagine."

B) "Now, my dear reader, there is no word so endearing as the word father, and that is why [my people] call all good people father or mother."

C) "During the time my grandfather was away in California, where he [stayed] till after the Mexican war, there was a girl-baby born in our family."

D) "We would all go in company to see if the flowers we were flavored are right there."

The Apollo program missions were spaceflights to the moon led by the United States during the 1960s and 1970s during which astronauts collected some samples of the moon’s surface. More recently, China launched the Chang’e 5 mission, which returned additional lunar surface samples. Researchers have analyzed and dated each of the samples, concluding that the lunar samples collected during the Chang’e 5 mission are significant because ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the claim?

A) they are much younger than the samples brought back from any of the Apollo missions.

B) they were collected from the same landing site as the Apollo 11 mission.

C) they are closest in age to the samples brought back by the Apollo 17 mission.

D) they helped confirm the predicted ages of the lunar samples from the Apollo missions.

The nearly forty tribes located in Oklahoma, including the Osage Nation and the Seminole Nation, operate numerous businesses and generate billions of dollars in revenue. A student in an economics class is researching the tribes' collective activity as a single industry. The student wants to compare that industry's contribution to Oklahoma's overall economy in 2017 with the contributions made by three other industries in the state. Looking at the table, the student finds that tribal economic activity totaled over $7.3 billion, ranking it above ________

Table title: Impact of Four Key Industries on Oklahoma Economy in 2017

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the comparison?

A) accommodation/food services but below health care and retail.

B) health care, retail, and accommodation/food services.

C) accommodation/food services and retail but below health care.

D) both accommodation/food services and retail but below health care.

The Man-Made World: Or, Our Androcentric Culture is a 1911 nonfiction work by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the text, the author emphasizes the importance of cultivating individuals rather than comparing them: ______

Which quotation from The Man-Made World: Or, Our Androcentric Culture most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "That every child on earth shall have right conditions to make the best growth possible to it; that every citizen, from birth to death, shall have a chance to learn all he or she can [absorb], to develop every power that is in them."

B) "We do not sadly measure the cabbage-stalk by the corn-stalk, and praise the corn for getting ahead of the cabbage—nor incite the cabbage to [imitate] the corn. We nourish both, to its best growth—and are the richer."

C) "We have but to learn the real elements in humanity; its true powers and natural characteristics."

D) "We are now to consider the growth of the family in humanity."

Installing a new high-speed rail (HSR) hub in an area has the potential to boost residential development nearby, though the amount and type of development vary considerably by location. This potential is greatest when HSR hubs are established in areas far away from city centers, as these locations tend to have more available land for redevelopment into residential areas.

Which statement is best supported by information from the text and table?

A) The area around Lille Europe has greater potential for residential development than the area around Reggio Emilia AV Mediopadana does.

B) The area around Lille Europe has greater potential for residential development than the area around København H does.

C) The area around København H has greater potential for residential development than the area around Reggio Emilia AV Mediopadana does.

D) The area around København H has greater potential for residential development than the area around Stuttgart Hbf does.

It is common for freshwater lakes near or above a latitude of 45° north of the equator, like Lake Mjøsa in Norway, 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 some lakes in these latitudes have seen a decline in the duration of ice between the early 1980s and the mid-2000s. She cites as a typical example ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the researcher's example?

A. both Lake Neusiedl and Oulujärvi, which had fewer than 195 days of ice in the winter of 1980–81.

B. Lake Neusiedl, which had more days of ice in the winter of 2005–06 than it did in the winter of 1980–81.

C. Oulujärvi, which had fewer days of ice in the winter of 2005–06 than it did in the winter of 1980–81.

D. both Lake Neusiedl and Oulujärvi, which had more than 105 days of ice in the winter of 2005–06.

Among the most visited art museums in the world, the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence had approximately 1.7 million visitors in 2019. The Galleria dell'Accademia also offers virtual tours that art lovers can view online for free. Although there were initial concerns that people who viewed the virtual tours would then consider an in-person visit unnecessary, museum administrators claim that their surveys of in-person visitors show that those concerns were unjustified.

Which statement, if true, would most directly support the administrators' claim?

A. Many surveyed visitors to the Galleria dell'Accademia indicated that the virtual tours convinced them to plan an in-person visit.

B. Most surveyed visitors to the Galleria dell'Accademia indicated that they were unaware of the virtual tours before their first in-person visit.

C. Most surveyed visitors to the Galleria dell'Accademia indicated that they lived somewhere other than Florence.

D. Many surveyed visitors to the Galleria dell'Accademia indicated that they would likely view the virtual tours in order to reminisce about their in-person visit.

Julianne I. Moses and colleagues have reported that Neptune may have cooled significantly between 2003 and 2020. The team reached this conclusion by analyzing existing infrared imaging and spectroscopy data about the planet obtained from various instruments in different years. Of the team's sources listed in the table, the earliest example of spectroscopy data included in the analysis was obtained in ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the text?

A. 2007 using TEXES at the Gemini Observatory.

B. 2007 using T-ReCS at the Gemini Observatory.

C. 2006 using VISIR at the European Southern Observatory.

D. 2003 using LWS at the W.M. Keck Observatory.

A student is conducting an experiment to test the effect of temperature and ethylene treatment on the ripening speed of bananas. The student treated some bananas with ethylene while leaving others untreated, then allowed both types of bananas to ripen at one of four different temperatures. Comparing the data for bananas with and without ethylene, the student concluded that ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the student's conclusion?

A. 20°C is the ideal temperature at which to store bananas to slow ripening time.

B. for those bananas that were not treated with ethylene, differences in temperature were not associated with absolute differences in ripening time.

C. bananas treated with ethylene ripen faster at 14°C and 16°C than at 18°C and 20°C.

D. ethylene was associated with a greater absolute change in ripening time at 14°C, 16°C, and 18°C than at 20°C.

Sharks that occupy the top of their marine food chain, such as the dusky shark, help maintain a balance in the populations of species at lower trophic levels. Ecology professor Charles Peterson led a team that hypothesized that an overfishing-caused decline in dusky sharks in the Atlantic Ocean led to an increase in cownose rays (a shark prey species) and that growing cownose ray populations caused a depletion of eastern oysters (a ray prey species).

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the team's hypothesis?

A) Dusky sharks primarily prey on cownose rays, while cownose rays primarily prey on eastern oysters.

B) Cownose rays have expanded into ecological niches previously occupied by dusky sharks.

C) Consumption of eastern oysters by cownose rays substantially increased before the decline in dusky shark abundance began.

D) Cownose rays have increased in regional abundance as dusky sharks have decreased in regional abundance.

Researchers investigated how enjoyment of a story is affected when it has been spoiled (when the reader has foreknowledge of an important plot development). As part of the study, participants rated their enjoyment of one story that was spoiled before they read it and one story that was unspoiled. For each story, participants who had been given a spoiler reported greater enjoyment than did those who hadn't received a spoiler. But the degree of this difference varied across the stories, as is best illustrated by the enjoyment ratings for ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the statement?

A) "Blitzed" and "Plumbing."

B) "Owl Creek Bridge" and "A Chess Problem."

C) "Blitzed" and "A Chess Problem."

D) "The Calm" and "Plumbing."

Working in Ghana, Emmanuel Hanyabui and colleagues compared the impact on pineapple growth of different combinations of soil additives, including NPK fertilizer (an inorganic fertilizer containing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), organic compost, and biochar (a carbon-rich material produced from organic waste matter). Based on data in the table, pineapple farmers with no access to inorganic soil additives would likely increase the weight and size of their fruits by the greatest amount by using ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the text?

A) biochar and NPK fertilizer.

B) biochar and compost.

C) biochar alone.

D) compost alone.

Poems of Experience is a 1910 collection of poetry by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. In one of her poems, the speaker suggests that there should be external negative consequences for holding uncharitable feelings, saying ________

Which quotation from Poems of Experience most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) “Let each ill thought that in my heart may be, / Mould circumstance and bring ill luck to me.” (from “A Prayer”)

B) “It is up to you, to be, and do, / What you look for in others. See?” (from “See?”)

C) “[Woman] grasped the scope of the First Intent / That made her kingdom for her, no other.” (from “Woman”)

D) “[Man] grown tender, and [woman] grown wise, / They shall enter the Eden by both created.” (from “Woman”)

A marine biologist is researching four scleractinian coral species, which are also called stony corals because of the hard skeletons they develop. Consulting the table, she notes that the two species for which the maximum depths are most similar are ________

Table title: Minimum and Maximum Depths of Stony Coral Species in Caribbean and Indo-Pacific Waters

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) Astreopora expansa and Scolymia lacera.

B) Astreopora expansa and Acropora echinata.

C) Acropora echinata and Danafungia scruposa.

D) Danafungia scruposa and Scolymia lacera.

Studies of Cougar Population Density

Studies of the population density of cougars (Puma concolor) have yielded a range of results, which may in part reflect natural variations in the resources that cougars need to survive. For example, the difference between the maximum population density reported by Sean M. Murphy et al. and that reported by Robin E. Russell et al. may indicate that ____

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the example?

A) the cougar habitat in Washington can support more than 1.90 individuals per 100 square kilometers.

B) the cougar habitat in New Mexico cannot support as many individuals as can the cougar habitat in Montana.

C) cougar habitat makes up a greater proportion of the overall land area in Montana than is the case in New Mexico.

D) there are more cougars overall in both Oregon and Washington than there are in New Mexico.

The bird species Hylophilus ochraceiceps (the tawny-crowned greenlet) shares some territory in French Guiana with Thamnomanes caesius (the cinereous antshrike), which emits a loud alarm call when it detects predators. Biologist Ari Martinez and colleagues recorded T. caesius alarm calls and played them in the vicinity of wild H. ochraceiceps. Finding that the birds often froze in place or scattered into vegetation upon hearing the calls, they concluded that H. ochraceiceps associates T. caesius alarm calls with danger.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Martinez and colleagues' conclusion?

A) When Martinez and colleagues played control sounds of random noise in the vicinity of H. ochraceiceps, the birds displayed no reaction.

B) Other bird species than H. ochraceiceps also showed a tendency to freeze in place or scatter into vegetation when Martinez and colleagues played T. caesius alarm calls.

C) Martinez and colleagues played alarm calls from different T. caesius individuals and observed no significant variation in the responses of H. ochraceiceps.

D) In some instances, H. ochraceiceps froze in place or scattered into vegetation when Martinez and colleagues approached but before they began playing sounds.

Terrestrial plants typically carry a negative electrical charge, while hummingbirds and other pollinators tend to accumulate a positive charge. A team of researchers therefore hypothesized that electrostatic attraction (mutual attraction between objects with opposite charges) might enhance pollen transmission between plants and their pollinator species. The team's experiments showed that the maximum positive charge of foraging honeybees is sufficiently high to facilitate electrostatic pollen transfer, a finding that suggests that ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the text?

A) houseflies should demonstrate the opposite tendency.

B) Anna's hummingbirds should also demonstrate this capacity.

C) the minimum positive charge necessary for a pollinator to induce electrostatic attraction must be greater than 100 pC.

D) Anna's hummingbirds and houseflies, having greater maximum charges than foraging honeybees have, should not demonstrate this capacity.

A team of public transportation experts in Detroit is creating a new streetcar stop for the Woodward Avenue Streetcar system that will service a neighborhood in which a stop does not currently exist. To decide where to base the new neighborhood stop, they are using a survey from ten years ago that asked how far neighborhood residents would be willing to walk to a streetcar stop. The team also looked at studies showing that people's willingness to walk to public transit is influenced by factors like weather and the presence of well-enforced low speed limits for cars. A researcher has argued that the survey does not accurately reflect the feelings of today's residents of this neighborhood.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researcher's claim?

A) Current users of the Woodward Avenue Streetcar are satisfied with the number of stops along the line.

B) The enforcement of posted speed limits in the neighborhood that the streetcar stop will service has increased substantially in the last ten years.

C) Residents of Detroit are much less likely to use public transit on rainy days than on clear days.

D) There has been a sharp increase in the last ten years in cyclists who use the roads in the neighborhood that the streetcar stop will service.

Great Expectations is an 1861 novel by Charles Dickens. The narrator describes his uncle, Joe Gargery, as being both powerful and tender: _____

Which quotation from Great Expectations most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "There I stood, for minutes, looking at Joe, already at work with a glow of health and strength upon his face that made it show as if the bright sun of the life in store for him were shining on it."

B) "In his working-clothes, Joe was a well-knit characteristic-looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes, he was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances, than anything else."

C) "I have often thought [Joe] since, like the steam-hammer that can crush a man or pat an egg-shell, in his combination of strength with gentleness

D) "Estella opened the gate as usual, and, the moment she appeared, Joe took his hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands."

Andrea Sommese, Ádám Miklósi, and team investigated head-tilting behavior in a group of forty dogs, which included thirty-four typical dogs from five different breeds (including Benhur, a kelpie) and six dogs that had previously demonstrated giftedness at learning words, all of which were border collies. The researchers recorded the dogs head-tilting behavior in response to requests to fetch a toy that had been introduced early in the study. They found that all six gifted dogs tilted their heads at least some of the time when asked to retrieve the toy by name, while the typical dogs almost never tilted their heads. After reviewing the study, a student concludes that a tendency to tilt their heads is a characteristic trait of all border collies.

Which finding from the study, if true, would most directly challenge the student's conclusion?

A) Most of the gifted dogs tilted their heads to the same side in each trial.

B) The majority of dogs in the typical group were border collies.

C) The border collies successfully fetched the toy more often than the dogs of other breeds did.

D) The typical dogs that tilted their heads appeared to be processing the meaning of the requests.

Callie W. Babbitt, Hema Madaka, and colleagues assembled a database of materials used in consumer electronics by studying products in the lab and by gathering data from similar product studies. The team gave each of these studies a rating for level of detail (with a higher rating for reported data with more detail) and for level of traceability (with a higher rating for clearer descriptions of procedures). Based on these ratings, a second research team concluded that a study by Greg L. Kozak and Gregory A. Keoleian provided more specificity in its data than a study by Oguchi Masahiro and colleagues did.

Which finding, if true, would most directly challenge the second research team's conclusion?

A) The study by Kozak and Keoleian had a lower detail rating than the study by Oguchi and colleagues did.

B) The study by Kozak and Keoleian had a lower traceability rating than the study by Oguchi and colleagues did.

C) The study by Kozak and Keoleian had a high detail rating and a high traceability rating.

D) The study by Oguchi and colleagues had a low detail rating and a low traceability rating

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 Upham and John Hafner found to be negatively associated with foraging by desert kangaroo rats but Eduardo Fernández-Duque and colleagues found to be positively associated with foraging by Azara’s 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 kangaroo rats.

According to the text, the difference between Upham and Hafner’s findings and Fernández-Duque and colleagues’ findings can be attributed to which difference between desert kangaroo rats and Azara’s night monkeys?

A) The kangaroo rats decrease their foraging activity as lunar intensity increases, whereas the monkeys increase their foraging activity.

B) The kangaroo rats are more vulnerable to predators than the monkeys are.

C) The kangaroo rats are less reliant on vision than the monkeys are.

D) The kangaroo rats encounter different levels of lunar intensity than the monkeys do.

Memoirs of Eleanor Eldridge is an 1838 historical account by Eleanor Eldridge and Frances Harriet Whipple Green. In the book the authors caution against inquiring into the private life of the book's subject beyond what is presented in the text, writing:

Which quotation from Memoirs of Eleanor Eldridge most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "Let us, dear reader, remember the punishment of idle curiosity, as taught in the true and affecting history [named] 'Blue Beard;' and, striving to be content with the facts in the case, seek not to lift the veil, which the sensibility of truelove, and feminine delicacy, have alike conspired to draw."

B) "Having thus so comfortably established ourselves, with no evil-minded eaves-dropper to make us afraid, bend now dear reader, thy most earnest and delicately adjusted ear: for I am going to tell thee a secret."

C) "To give some idea of the high esteem in which the subject of the following narrative is held, and the strong interest her misfortunes have excited, a few, from the great number of recommendations in her possession, are selected."

D) "Blessed are the slumbers of the innocent! They are kindlier than balm, and they refresh and gladden the spirit of childhood, like ministerings from a better world."

Mountain summits are often described in terms of their elevation, or height above sea level. But a summit's elevation may not be as good an indication of how high the mountain appears to observers as is the summit's prominence, or its height above its surroundings, and these values can differ significantly. For example, the Indian mountain of ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the example?

A) Saser Kangri III has an elevation of 7,495 meters but a considerably lower prominence of 850 meters.

B) Kangto has a much higher prominence than does Langpo.

C) Kangto has a high prominence but is from a different mountain range than Mount Lakshmi, which has a lower prominence.

D) Sri Kailash has an elevation of 6,932 meters and is considered the highest mountain from the Garhwal Himalaya range.

Drosophila (fruit flies) have generation times of 10–12 days, so seasonal changes in rainfall and other environmental conditions can drive seasonal fluctuations in chromosome rearrangements in species such as D. robusta and D. [the species name and the assertion sentence containing the blank are clipped from the source scan — the page is cut off here. Text below this point is a CB-template reconstruction, NOT verbatim. Flagged for Sam.] _____

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the assertion?

A) the average monthly low temperature was lower in May than in June.

B) the average female wing centroid size was 2.02 mm in July but was 2.31 mm in June.

C) the average male wing centroid size was consistently smaller than the average female wing centroid size in all four months in the table.

D) the average male wing centroid size was smaller in May than in July.

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 Mahmoud-Reza Hemami and colleagues found to be negatively associated with foraging by Iranian jerboas but Deborah J. Curtis and colleagues found to be positively associated with foraging by mongoose lemurs. This discrepancy is explicable in terms of OFT: the lemurs' greater reliance on vision means that higher lunar intensity benefits them more than it benefits the jerboas.

Information in the text best supports which statement about OFT?

A) It can account for observations of different species responding differently to similar ecological circumstances.

B) It tends to allow for a better understanding of the benefits of ecological circumstances than the costs of those circumstances.

C) It may be weakened by the finding that the costs and benefits associated with a particular ecological circumstance vary by species.

D) It can explain why some species act in accordance with cost-benefit trade-offs and others do not.

Poems is an 1895 collection of poetry by Frances E.W. Harper. In one of Harper's poems, the speaker criticizes activists who champion humanitarian causes in other countries while overlooking local concerns, saying, _____

Which quotation from Poems most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "God bless our native land, / Her homes and children bless, / Oh may she ever stand / For truth and righteousness." (from "God Bless Our Native Land")

B) "Say not the age is hard and cold— / I think it brave and grand; / When men of diverse sects and creeds / Are clasping hand in hand." (from "The Present Age")

C) "Men may tread down the poor and lowly, / May crush them in anger and hate, / But surely the mills of God's justice / Will grind on the grist of their fate." (from "An Appeal to My Countrywomen")

D) "When ye plead for the wrecked and fallen, / The exile from far-distant shores, / Remember that men are still wasting / Life's crimson around your own doors." (from "An Appeal to My Countrywomen")

Average Hours Worked per Person per Year in 1950 and 2017

Calculations may be inexact due to rounding.

A student in an economics course is examining the decline since 1950 in average hours worked per person per year in various nations due to both increased productivity and the adoption of policies that limit working hours. The student researches how the decline in the United Kingdom compares to that in other countries and finds that _____

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the student's conclusion?

A) though the decline in number of hours worked in the United Kingdom was not as great as that in Germany, it was greater than that in Italy and Japan.

B) while the number of hours worked rose in the United Kingdom between 1950 and 2017, it declined in Germany, Italy, and Japan.

C) though the decline in number of hours worked in the United Kingdom was less than that in Germany and Japan, it was greater than that in Italy.

D) the percent decrease in hours worked was greater in the United Kingdom than it was in Germany, Italy, or Japan.

A report from an international organization that monitors the numbers of women serving as judges or magistrates on various nations’ highest courts, such as the Supreme Court in Sweden and the Supreme Court of Justice in Uruguay, indicates that among the countries that had a different number of women on these courts in 2013 than they had in 2009, the number increased in some countries but decreased in others. For instance, the number of women judges and magistrates on high courts in ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the example?

A) Sri Lanka was greater in 2013 than in 2009, whereas the number in Sweden was the same in 2013 as in 2009.

B) Uruguay was lower in 2013 than in 2009, whereas the number in Sweden was the same in 2013 as in 2009.

C) Sri Lanka was greater in 2013 than in 2009, whereas the number in Uruguay was lower in 2013 than in 2009.

D) Sweden was the same in 2013 as in 2009, but it had more women on its high courts than either Sri Lanka or Uruguay did in 2013.

Esther Sanyé-Mengual, Kathrin Specht, and their team surveyed three groups of people in Bologna, Italy—leaders of urban agriculture projects, stakeholders in urban agriculture (e.g., food researchers and urban farming associations), and the general public—to compare their views about the extent to which urban agriculture contributes to 25 social or ecological services that the team identified. The researchers used these ratings to rank the services for each group, with a ranking of 1 indicating that a group perceives that urban agriculture benefits that service the most. Using only the rankings shown in the table, a city planner in Bologna who is promoting a new urban agriculture project concludes that advertisements aimed at stakeholders should emphasize the project's benefit to the increase in global biodiversity.

Which choice best describes data in the table that support the city planner's conclusion?

A) The improvement of community building was ranked lower for stakeholders than it was for project leaders.

B) The increase in global biodiversity was ranked higher for the general public than it was for stakeholders.

C) The provision of medicinal plants was ranked higher for stakeholders than was the increase in global biodiversity.

D) The increase in global biodiversity was ranked higher for stakeholders than were the other four services.

Due to the Chorotega region's accessibility, various types of forested areas were converted to cattle pasture as rising international meat prices drove a cattle ranching boom in the 1960s and 1970s. Juan Pablo Arroyo-Mora and colleagues used historical aerial photography and remote sensing data to track fragmentation metrics across different land use capability classes (categories that indicate possible uses of forest land). One such metric, edge density, can be used to indicate the regularity of forest patch sizes, with decreases in edge density suggesting a trend towards uninterrupted forest patches with more regular shapes. The team found a range of edge density levels, from lows of around 80 meters per hectare or less in the 1960s and 1970s for all classes, to a high in 1986 of approximately ______ blank

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the assertion?

A) 140 for Class VII.

B) 160 for Class I-IV.

C) 60 for Class VII.

D) 50 for Class VI.

Sewing Technology Found at Pleistocene Sites, by Latitude

During the Pleistocene, people began using sharpened bone awls to make holes in hide and fur, through which cord was then strung to make clothing. Eventually, people made needles by perforating the end of a bone awl with an eye (hole) to hold the cord, thereby enabling the simultaneous performance of the previously separate actions of puncturing and threading. And once the needle was invented, artisans could use finer cord and smaller holes, resulting in tighter, more thermally efficient seams in their clothing. For example, all other things being equal, the clothing worn by inhabitants at Malaya Syia likely had less thermally efficient seams than the clothing worn by inhabitants at both ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the example?

A) Stajnia Cave and Yafteh Cave.

B) Yafteh Cave and Shizitan.

C) Khayrgas Cave and Yafteh Cave.

D) Khayrgas Cave and Shizitan.

To measure whether countries in free trade agreements (FTAs)--agreements among nations to reduce tariffs, duties, and other trade barriers--experience changes in total agricultural exports, economist Kayode Ajewole and colleagues calculated average export growth rates for several countries over the five years before and the five years after entering an FTA with the United States. The graph shows the results for three countries in the study. Consulting the graph, a student claims that joining an FTA increases the rate of growth of a country's total agricultural exports.

Which choice best describes data from the graph that weaken the student's claim?

A) Over the five years after El Salvador joined CAFTA-DR, agricultural exports from El Salvador grew at a rate of about 21.8 percent, which is higher than the rate over the five years before El Salvador joined the agreement.

B) Although agricultural exports from Nicaragua grew over the five years after Nicaragua joined CAFTA-DR, their growth rate was even higher in the five years before CAFTA-DR.

C) Although agricultural exports from Mexico decreased over the five years before NAFTA, a reversal in this trend was observed over the five years after Mexico joined NAFTA.

D) All the countries shown had positive growth in agricultural exports over the five years after joining their respective FTAs, but their rates of export growth varied.

Memoirs of Eleanor Eldridge is an 1838 historical account by Elleanor Eldridge and Frances Harriet Whipple Green. In the book, the authors suggest that many memoirs of renowned people aren't particularly straightforward or candid, writing, ________

Which quotation from Memoirs of Eleanor Eldridge most effectively illustrates the claim?

A) "There is often a kind of [deceptive] light, playing around such [famous] names, calculated to dazzle and mislead, by their false lustre, until the eye can no longer receive the pure light of Truth, or the mind appreciate real excellence, or intrinsic worth."

B) "It should not be considered essential to the interest and value of biography, that its subject be of exalted rank, or illustrious name."

C) "How careful ought we to be to speak nothing but the truth, even in regard to the most trifling circumstances; and not only so, but to be well assured that what we suppose to be true, is, truth, before we receive it as such."

D) "Blessed are the slumbers of the innocent! They are kindlier than balm, and they refresh and gladden the spirit of childhood, like ministerings from a better world."

*Referred to by the names of corresponding present-day nations

Relatively high average levels of lactase persistence (LP)—which preserves the ability to digest lactose, or milk sugar, into adulthood—have typically been found in past and present populations in which milk, kefir, and other dairy products are a major source of nutrition after infancy. Using genetic data from archaeological sites in Great Britain (such as St. Fagan's) and across continental Europe, David Reich, Ali Akbari, and colleagues studied average frequencies during Europe's Iron Age (700–1 BCE) of the allele that confers this trait in Europeans. The researchers concluded that during that period, dairy products were likely a more important part of people's diet in what is today Great Britain than they were in other parts of Europe.

Which choice best describes data from the table that support the researchers' conclusion?

A) The reported average frequency of the LP allele during the Iron Age is much higher for Great Britain than it is for other parts of Europe.

B) The reported average frequency of the LP allele is 73% for Great Britain during the Iron Age, whereas the highest reported average frequency in any of the other European countries shown is 48%.

C) The reported average frequency of the LP allele during the Iron Age for Great Britain is 50%.

D) For each region, the reported average frequency of the LP allele is notably higher for modern times than is it for the Iron Age.

As the second-most populous continent in the world, Africa was home to an estimated 1.186 billion people in 2015. In a paper for a social studies class, a student nonetheless notes that countries with very large populations may be less densely populated than are countries with much smaller populations, as can be seen by comparing ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the example?

A) Zambia, which has a low density, with Benin, which has a similar density despite both countries having different geographic sizes.

B) the geographic size of Mali (1,240,000 square kilometers) with its relatively high population of 17,600,000 inhabitants.

C) Mali, which has a high population of 17,600,000 inhabitants and a relatively low density of 14.2 inhabitants/square kilometer, with Lesotho, which has a much lower population and a higher density.

D) the populations of both Lesotho and Benin in 2015 with their populations in 2010.

To understand the extent of deforestation in the Chorotega region of Costa Rica, Juan Pablo Arroyo Mora and colleagues used historical aerial photography and remote sensing data to track changes in the total number of forest patches in areas of different land use capability classes (categories that indicate possible uses of forest land). Due to the Chorotega region's accessibility, various types of forested areas were converted to cattle pasture as rising international meat prices drove a cattle ranching boom in the 1960s and 1970s: this conversion is evident in the ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the assertion?

A) High number of patches in class VII and class VI in 1986.

B) difference between the number of patches in class VII and in class V in 2000.

C) increase in the number of patches for all classes from 1979 to 2000.

D) decrease in the number of patches for all classes from 1960 to 1979.

Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–1988) was a painter, sculptor, installation artist, and psychotherapist. In a paper for an art history class, a student claims that Clark's works are best seen in person, as they use space in a way that is not easily visible in two-dimensional reproductions.

Which quotation from a scholar describing Clark's work would best support the student's claim?

A) "Clark sought to redefine the medium by pushing the boundaries of traditional painting in what she called 'an experimental field.'"

B) "Clark's artistic investigations between art and architecture later evolved into easel paintings of flat, planar, and modular structures."

C) "In Cocoon no. 2 (1959), Clark abandons the flat, rectangular canvas support, instead offering an arrangement of black and white planes in space."

D) "Clark's commitment to understanding and transforming the relationship between art and viewer can be seen in the fundamentally empathetic nature of her work."

The Rarámuri language of northern Mexico has 20 vowel and consonant sounds. In contrast, the Taa language of southern Africa has over 100. Why would languages differ in this way? One researcher has claimed that when modern humans arose in Africa, they spoke a single language, but as humans gradually spread throughout Africa and then around the globe, that language developed into new languages. Those developed into still more languages as small bands of humans spread even farther, with each new language retaining fewer sounds from humanity's original language.

Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the researcher's claim?

A) A wider range of sounds is found across the languages of Africa as a whole than across the languages of South America as a whole.

B) Languages that emerged in Europe and Western Asia tend to have more sounds than languages that emerged in Africa do.

C) Languages that emerged in Central America tend to have fewer sounds than languages that emerged in Western Europe do, and Central America is farther away from Africa than Western Europe is.

D) The number of sounds is fairly consistent across the various languages that emerged in the last parts of Africa to be settled by humans.

The interiors of many temples in the ancient Middle East needed to satisfy a precise set of acoustic demands: the sounds of chants and hymns should travel with clarity, while profound silences should be fully felt and appreciated. In a research paper, a student claims that the users of one such temple were aware of how the materials were used within the structure could affect sound quality and that they deliberately applied this knowledge to influence how sound was experienced in the space.

Which quotation from a work by a historian would most directly support the student's claim?

A) "The acoustic environment of the temple was best suited for music that eschewed ornamentation in favor of simple melodies, harmonies, and rhythms."

B) "Many researchers believe that the central chamber of the temple had a high ceiling, a feature that has since become essential to the acoustic design of modern concert halls."

C) "During special occasions, curtains were placed inside the temple to minimize reverberation and confine the sound to designated locations."

D) "The innermost room of the temple was likely among the quietest spaces in the interior of the temple."

Assessing the role of forests as sinks for airborne microplastics that would otherwise continue to disperse in the atmosphere, Akane Miyazaki and her team measured concentrations of plastic particulates on leaves from konara oak trees in Japan. The team used three separate extraction methods; an ultrapure water rinse, a rinse combined with ultrasonic waves, and an alkaline solution treatment that removes epicuticular wax (a surface coating on most land plants to which particles can adhere). The concentrations of particulates recovered were 7.6 percent for water extraction, 38.4 percent for ultrasonic extraction, and 53.8 percent for alkaline extraction, leading the team to conclude that previous assessments have likely underestimated forest canopies' capacity as sinks.

Which detail, if true, would most directly support the team's conclusion?

A) Most studies of microplastic accumulation on leaves have utilized extraction methods that do not have a substantial effect on epicuticular wax.

B) Most studies of microplastic accumulation on leaves have focused on forests with diverse tree species that exhibit varying levels of epicuticular wax.

C) Most studies of microplastic accumulation on leaves have involved the application of alkaline treatments before water and ultrasonic treatments rather than after them.

D) Most studies of microplastic accumulation on leaves have found particulate concentrations that greatly exceeded 53.8 percent.

The 1980 production of Charlie and Algernon was the first Broadway show for which Jess Goldstein was credited as a costume designer. Goldstein was among the Broadway costume designers interviewed by Sara Jablon-Roberts and Eulanda A. Sanders for their study of historical accuracy in costume design. They argue that aesthetics often outweigh fidelity to the past among designers for shows with historical settings. In a paper for a theater class, a student claims that the costume design for a modern production of the musical Our Town (set in the early 1900s) exemplifies this tendency.

Which quotation from the costume designer for the modern production of Our Town would most effectively support the student's claim?

A) "Although historically accurate costumes would have added an air of authenticity to the Town, they have so many layers that costume changes would have been difficult."

B) "The clothing of the period of Our Town is aesthetically appealing but largely unfamiliar to today's audiences, so minor deviations from historical accuracy largely went unnoticed."

C) "For Our Town, I decided not to include the extra fabric that would have been typical of clothing in the period because it made the costumes unappealingly bulky."

D) "In trying to create the period look of Our Town, I had to make some practical compromises, such as substituting cooler modern fabrics for historically accurate woolens so that the actors didn't overheat."

Figure — Mean Adhesion Strength of Graphite and Acrylamide Gel, at Varying Voltages. Line graph; x-axis Voltage (V) values 0, 1, 2, 3; y-axis Adhesion strength (kPa) 0 to 45; single series "graphite–AAm pair". Data: 0 V ≈ 8 kPa, 1 V ≈ 8 kPa, 2 V ≈ 15 kPa, 3 V ≈ 40 kPa. (Source crop: intake/sources/figures/202511asiav2/202511-asia-v2-m1-q11.png)

Wenhao Xu and colleagues demonstrated that applying a low direct current electrical field to graphite (a conductor) and an acrylamide (AAm) gel can increase how strongly materials adhere to each other. At some voltages, adhesion strength—as measured in kilopascals (kPa) of stress needed to pull the materials apart—was high (more than 30 kPa). But the mere application of a direct current electrical field with positive voltage is not sufficient to cause increased adhesion, as evidenced by the fact that ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the statement?

A) at 0 V, mean adhesion strength was equal to 0 kPa.

B) at 3 V, mean adhesion strength reached its highest observed level at approximately 30 kPa.

C) at 2 V, mean adhesion strength was lower than it was at both 1 V and 3 V.

D) at 1 V, mean adhesion strength was approximately equal to adhesion strength at 0 V.

Drosophila (fruit flies) have generation times of 10–12 days, so seasonal changes in humidity and other environmental conditions can drive seasonal fluctuations in chromosome rearrangements in species such as D. robusta and D. subobscura. Drosophila body size (for which wing centroid size serves as a proxy measure) correlates with lifespan. Banu Sebnem Onder and Cansu Fidan Aksoy measured the wing sizes of members of a D. melanogaster population in Yesilöz, Turkey, that were collected monthly between May and October over three years. Their research suggests that Drosophila collected in relatively cooler months should tend to have a shorter life span, as is illustrated by the finding that ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the assertion?

A) the average male wing centroid size was consistently smaller than the average female wing centroid size in all four months in the table.

B) the average female wing centroid size was 2.02 mm in July but was 2.29 mm in October.

C) the average male wing centroid size was smaller in May than in July.

D) the average monthly low temperature was lower in May than in September.

Callie W. Babbitt, Hema Madaka, and colleagues assembled a database of materials used in consumer electronics by studying products in the lab and by gathering data from other similar product studies. The team rated each study on its level of detail (with a higher rating for reported data with more detail) and on its category consistency (with a higher rating for using materials categories more closely aligned with the categories in the team's database). Based on these ratings, a second research team concluded that the data in a study by Maria Leet Socolof and colleagues would need less adjustment to fit the classifications in the database than the data in a study by Martin Streicher-Porte and colleagues did.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the second research team's conclusion?

A) The study by Socolof and colleagues had a higher consistency rating than the study by Streicher-Porte and colleagues did.

B) The study by Socolof and colleagues had a high consistency rating and a medium detail rating.

C) The study by Socolof and colleagues had a higher detail rating than the study by Streicher-Porte and colleagues did.

D) The study by Streicher-Porte and colleagues had a medium consistency rating and a medium detail rating.

Veronica L. Bura, Akito Y. Kawahara, and Jayne E. Yack investigated the evolution and function of sound production in silk moth and hawk moth caterpillars. They found that during harmless simulated attacks on isolated caterpillars, 33% of the tested species produced sound, which ranged from clicks in Manduca pellenia to whistles in Rhodinia fugax. Although some insects use sound to communicate with members of the same species, the researchers claim that the caterpillar sounds recorded in their study are directed primarily at predators.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Bura and colleagues' claim?

A) None of the species that emitted sounds did so before the simulated attacks, and nearly all stopped emitting sounds within ten seconds after the attacks.

B) Caterpillar clicks were emitted in a frequency detectable by birds that prey on caterpillars, but caterpillar whistles were not.

C) Each caterpillar species tended to produce one sound during simulated attacks, although individuals occasionally made a variety of other sounds during simulated attacks as well.

D) In most cases, the sound that a caterpillar species produced during simulated attacks was not produced by other caterpillar species during simulated attacks.

Some researchers posit that species on the South Pacific island of Grande Terre are the surviving members of clades that inhabited other islands in the region before the complete emergence of Grande Terre 37 million years ago. In a 2012 study, however, Hervé Sauquet et al, found that the crown age (the age of the most recent common ancestor of all living and extinct species in the clade) of the clade of southern beeches on Grande Terre is 16.4 million years; Sauquet et al, further found that the crown age of the clade of southern beeches in the South Pacific generally is also approximately 16.4 million years.

As presented in the text, the findings of Sauquet et al, best support which statement?

A) The southern beeches found on Grande Terre are members of a clade that likely originated outside the South Pacific.

B) The most recent common ancestor of the southern beeches found on Grande Terre lived at least 37 million years ago.

C) The southern beeches found on Grande Terre are not members of a clade that existed before the island completely emerged.

D) The ancestors of most species found on Grande Terre arrived on the island earlier than did the most recent common ancestor of the island's southern beeches.

Water flowing around an obstruction creates vortices (patterns of swirls) of varying size; by detecting the vortices, fish can determine the size and position of the obstruction. Testing by Yuzo R. Yanagisuru, Otar Akanyeti, and James C. Liao using models of three head shapes—narrow (low ratio of width to length), intermediate, and wide (high ratio of width to length)—showed that for medium-sized vortices, fish with wide heads would be least able to distinguish between vortices and general turbulence in the water. A second research team has therefore hypothesized that in low-visibility conditions, wider-headed fish will be less likely than narrower-headed fish to detect obstructions.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the second research team's hypothesis?

A. A study using obstructions that created medium-sized vortices in low-visibility conditions found that the wide-headed bristlemouth (Chaetostoma yurubiense), which has a relatively wide head, bumped into more than half of the obstructions.

B. A study using obstructions that created medium-sized vortices in low-visibility conditions found that some specimens of dusky smooth-hound (Mustelus canis), which has a relatively narrow head, bumped into the obstructions more often than other specimens of the same fish did.

C. A study using obstructions that created medium-sized vortices in low-visibility conditions found that the wide-headed bristlemouth (Chaetostoma yurubiense) bumped into obstructions more often than the narrow-headed dusky smooth-hound (Mustelus canis) did.

D. A study using obstructions that created medium-sized vortices in low-visibility conditions found that the narrow-headed dusky smooth-hound (Mustelus canis) bumped into obstructions just as often as the wide-headed bristlemouth (Chaetostoma yurubiense) did.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in January 2024 found that three out of ten US adults make at least one New Year's resolution (a promise for the year ahead), while half of those who make a resolution make more than one. The survey asked participants what kinds of resolutions they made and separated them into several categories. The table presents percentages of people who make particular kinds of New Year's resolutions among those who choose to make them, indexed by age bracket.

Which choice best presents a conclusion about the habits of New Year's resolution makers that is best supported by information in the text and the table?

A) The majority of US adults who make resolutions related to health and exercise also make resolutions in multiple additional categories.

B) Resolution makers between the ages of 50 and 64 are more likely to make resolutions related to personal relationships and less likely to make resolutions related to finances than resolution makers between the ages of 30 and 49 are.

C) Among all US adults, people become less likely to make New Year's resolutions as they age, regardless of the type of resolution.

D) Resolution makers between the ages of 18 and 29 are more likely to make resolutions about health and exercise than resolution makers between the ages of 30 and 49 are.

Some pharmaceuticals contain titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂-NPs), which can leach into waterways and soils via wastewater. In a 2014 study, Cheng Tan and Wen-Xiong Wang found that TiO₂-NPs can accumulate in the bodies of water fleas (Daphnia magna). While bioaccumulation of manufactured nanoparticles may be inherently worrisome, it has been hypothesized that TiO₂-NP bioaccumulation in invertebrates like D. magna could serve a valuable proxy role, obviating the need for manufacturers to conduct costly and intrusive sampling of vertebrate species — such as Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), commonly used in regulatory compliance testing — for nanoparticle bioaccumulation, as environmental protection laws currently require.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the hypothesis presented in the text?

A) In comparable environments, D. magna and O. tshawytscha display comparable rates of TiO₂-NP uptake.

B) Compared with O. tshawytscha, D. magna can tolerate significantly higher TiO₂-NP concentrations without displaying any negative effects.

C) It is easier to detect low and harmless concentrations of TiO₂-NPs in D. magna than it is to detect high and harmful concentrations of TiO₂-NPs in O. tshawytscha.

D) TiO₂-NP concentrations in D. magna tend to vary more from individual to individual than do TiO₂-NP concentrations in O. tshawytscha when the species are exposed to similar levels of TiO₂-NPs.

Average Ratings of Perceived Personality Traits of Dogs and Human Willingness to Keep or Interact with Them

Dogs and modern gray wolves share a recent wolf ancestor from which dogs were domesticated. Noting that dogs tend to have darker irises than gray wolves do, Akitsugu Konno et al. presented facial images of dogs with a range of iris colors to human participants, who rated the dogs' personality traits and their own attitudes toward the dogs. On the basis of their findings, Konno et al. concluded that the dog-wolf iris pattern may be an effect of human selection for a positively perceived trait during domestication.

Which choice best describes data from the table that support Konno et al.'s conclusion?

A) Participants rated the dogs in images 3 and 6 as friendlier than the dogs in images 14 and 20 and indicated that they were more willing to interact with or keep the dogs in the former two images than the dogs in the latter two images.

B) Participants rated the dog in image 6 as friendlier than the dog in image 3 and rated the dog in image 14 as friendlier than the dog in image 20.

C) Participants rated the irises of the dogs in images 3 and 6 as darker than the irises of the dogs in images 14 and 20.

D) Participants rated the dogs in images 14 and 20 as more mature than the dogs in images 3 and 6 and indicated that they were more willing to interact with or keep the dogs in the former two images than the dogs in the latter two images.

Describing adverbs “as damaging to a writer,” novelist Graham Greene is one of several authors and literary critics who have recommended minimizing the use of adverbs, especially those ending in -ly (e.g., “soberly”), in works of fiction. To investigate the prevalence of -ly adverbs in novels, author and statistician Ben Blatt used natural language processing—machine learning technology that reads and interprets text—to calculate the rates at which these words occur in the novels of Ernest Hemingway, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Blatt concluded that in Hemingway’s oeuvre, there is a negative correlation between -ly adverb proliferation and perceived literary merit.

Which finding, if true, would most directly illustrate the pattern Blatt identified?

A) Whereas Hemingway’s acclaimed novel The Sun Also Rises has one of the lowest -ly adverb rates among Hemingway’s works, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby has the lowest -ly adverb rate among Fitzgerald’s novels.

B) Whereas Hemingway used on average 80 -ly adverbs per 10,000 words in the 10 novels of Hemingway’s that Blatt investigated, Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, used on average 76 -ly adverbs per 10,000 words in her novels.

C) In his celebrated novel A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway used 67 -ly adverbs per 10,000 words, whereas 67% of celebrated authors’ novels that have fewer than 50 -ly adverbs per 10,000 words have been classified as great by critics.

D) In The Sun Also Rises, which is widely recognized as a literary masterpiece, Hemingway used 63 -ly adverbs per 10,000 words, whereas in his less-acclaimed novel True at First Light, Hemingway used 102 -ly adverbs per 10,000 words.

Ratified in 2017 by two-thirds of World Trade Organization member nations, the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) is a trade-reform measure that aims to reduce redundant customs procedures and other costly aspects of international trade. In a 2021 report, economist Jayson Beckman modeled global market prices of several agricultural commodities under both the TFA and an alternative trade-reform scenario: removal of agricultural tariffs (taxes on imports that generally increase prices on imported goods). After reviewing data from the report, a student concludes that overall, consumers of the commodities listed in the table would likely benefit more from the TFA than they would from tariff removal.

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support the student's claim?

A) Under the tariff-removal scenario, the average prices of processed foods, wheat, and fruits and vegetables would decrease by more than 1%, while the average price of rice would decrease by less than 1%.

B) Under the tariff-removal scenario, the average price of processed foods would increase, but the average prices of wheat and rice would decrease.

C) Under the TFA scenario, the average prices of all four commodities would decrease, whereas under the tariff-removal scenario, only the average price of processed foods would decrease.

D) Under the TFA scenario, the average price of rice would decrease by a smaller amount than any of the other three commodities' prices would, whereas its average price would increase under the tariff-removal scenario.

In a college course on urban affairs, a student asserts that increased traffic congestion in the United States in the 1990s was present in very large cities such as New York City, and smaller ones such as Albany-Schenectady-Troy, New York, and Beaumont, Texas: though these cities range in size, all experienced rising traffic delays.

Which choice best describes data from the graph that support the student's claim?

A) In 1992, the amount of traffic delay in the New York City, New York, area was less than 30 hours per commuter per year.

B) In at least one of the three urban areas shown, the amount of traffic delay per commuter per year at one point between 1990 and 2000 was less than 20 hours per commuter per year.

C) While the annual number of hours of traffic delay per commuter was always lower in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy, New York, area than in the New York City, New York, area in each year between 1990 and 2000, traffic delay in both areas rose during this period.

D) Even though the amount of traffic delay per commuter per year was greater in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy, New York, area than in the New York City, New York, area for the period from 1990 to 2000, the amounts were nearly identical in 1990.

Jean-Bernard Caron and colleagues recently discovered a cache of jellyfish fossils in the Burgess Shale, a site in the Canadian Rockies that is rich in fossils from the Cambrian period (over 500 million years ago). Caron and colleagues claim that these are the oldest jellyfish fossils ever discovered. In the past twenty years, two sites in China and the United States have yielded fossils of a similar age that some experts believe are most likely jellyfish due to their shapes and the appearance of projecting tentacles. But Caron and colleagues argue that the apparent tentacles are in fact the comb rows of ctenophores, gelatinous animals that are only distantly related to jellyfish.

Which statement, if true, would most directly weaken the claim Caron and colleagues made about the fossils found in China and the United States?

A. Sites in the Canadian Rockies from later periods than the Cambrian period have yielded fossils that have been conclusively identified as ctenophore fossils.

B. The fossils found in China and the United States are so poorly preserved that though they cannot be conclusively identified as jellyfish, they cannot be conclusively identified as ctenophores either.

C. While ctenophore fossils have been discovered in China and the United States, they have never been discovered in the Burgess Shale.

D. The fossils discovered by Caron and colleagues in the Burgess Shale were better preserved than the fossils discovered by other researchers in China and the United States.

Psychologists Gregory Bryant, Dorsa Amir, and colleagues investigated cross-cultural perceptions of spontaneous (real) laughter and volitional (fake or forced) laughter. Study participants from 21 societies, including those in Japan and South Africa, listened to randomized recordings of 18 spontaneous laughs from natural conversations between pairs of women and 18 volitional laughs produced separately by 18 different women in response to an experimenter’s instruction to laugh. The participants’ evaluations of the laughs prompted the team to conclude that the ability to distinguish between spontaneous and volitional laughter appears to be universal across cultures.

Which quotation from a psychologist not involved in the team’s study would most directly weaken the team’s conclusion?

A) “When an individual chooses to produce volitional laughter in a natural social context, the laughter often shares certain acoustic qualities, such as pitch and fluctuation of intensity, with spontaneous laughter.”

B) “Although the team considered the average size of communities in each society in the study, that demographic factor was found to have no effect on listeners’ identifications of laughter as spontaneous or volitional.”

C) “Recent studies in communications have shown that certain acoustic features of spontaneous laughter, such as pitch and intensity, are consistent both within and across societies.”

D) “Judgments of spontaneous laughter are often associated with acoustic features such as greater intensity variability and higher pitch.”

Rafael Núñez and colleagues studied how members of the Yupno, an Indigenous group in Papua New Guinea, conceptualize time in both spoken language and gestures. The researchers recorded Yupno speakers explaining certain temporal words and phrases, such as omo-ropmo bilak, a past-oriented expression that translates to “a couple of years ago,” and coded each speaker’s manual gestures. Previous research has found a tendency in many cultures to make temporal distinctions along imagined linear axes: for instance, English speakers often refer to the front/back axis to describe events in time. Some researchers believe this tendency is universal, but Núñez and colleagues claim this is not the case.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Núñez and colleagues’ claim?

A) Yupno speakers typically use their left hand to make temporal gestures regardless of whether the gestures are past oriented or future oriented.

B) Some Yupno grammatical structures used when talking about time are also used in English.

C) Yupno speakers were observed making temporal gestures both indoors and outdoors, though with greater frequency when indoors.

D) Future-oriented gestures used by Yupno speakers do not, on average, point in the opposite linear direction of past-oriented gestures.

Alessandro Nai et al. presented study participants with vignettes about fictive political candidates, portraying them as embodying a personality trait widely considered admirable (e.g., agreeableness) or one considered ignoble (e.g., cynicism). A survey recorded participants' ratings of the candidates' likability and showed that across participants, ignoble-trait candidates were less likable than admirable-trait candidates. However, when the researchers factored in the participants' own personality trait scores, on a scale of 1 (least ignoble) to 7 (most ignoble), they concluded that this relative ranking of candidates persisted except among the participants with high ignobility scores.

Which choice best describes data from the graph that support the researchers' conclusion?

A) Overall, participants rated admirable-trait candidates as quite likable, and that rating was not significantly affected by the participants' ignobility scores.

B) Participants with an ignobility score of 5 or less rated admirable-trait candidates as more likable than ignoble-trait candidates, whereas participants with an ignobility score of 6 or more rated ignoble-trait candidates as equally likable as or even more likable than admirable-trait candidates.

C) Unlike participants with an ignobility score of 6, participants with an ignobility score either greater or less than 6 gave admirable-trait candidates and ignoble-trait candidates different likability ratings.

D) There was a strong positive correlation between participants' ignobility scores and admirable-trait candidates' likability ratings, but there was no correlation between participants' ignobility scores and ignoble-trait candidates' likability ratings.

In an international collaboration, Elaine Ostrander, Alan K. Outram, and other researchers probed the evolutionary history of size variation in modern dogs. Scientific consensus held that early dogs had large body mass and that a genetic driver of smaller size in some breeds (e.g., bulldogs) developed only within the last 20,000 years as a result of selective breeding for characteristics favored by humans. Ostrander et al. assert that this explanation is flawed, having discovered that a mutation responsible for variants of IGF1, a gene found in many mammals that regulates production of insulin-like growth factor 1, is ubiquitous in domestic dog breeds.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researchers' assertion?

A) The mutation related to IGF1 influences body size and is found in 53,000-year-old genetic material from fossils of Siberian wolves (Canis lupus campestris), an ancestor of dogs.

B) One variant of IGF1 is found only in smaller dog breeds like bulldogs and appears to have emerged no more than 20,000 years ago.

C) An additional mutation related to IGF1 affects the development of characteristics other than body size in smaller dog breeds like bulldogs.

D) IGF1 has been isolated in genetic material from fossils more than 20,000 years old of the red wolf (Canis rufus) and certain other species related to dogs.

Carolina chickadees are cavity nesting birds that initiate nest building at the same time of year as golden paper wasps, a species that also nests in enclosed spaces. Researchers observed that both species will settle in nesting boxes, but birds and wasps are not often observed co-occupying boxes, leading to the hypothesis that the two species compete for nesting sites. To test this hypothesis, the researchers installed nesting boxes throughout a nature preserve in the US state of North Carolina, manipulated some of the boxes to exclude birds, and then monitored the boxes for two years. Not only was the hypothesis validated, there was also a clear indication of competitive advantage for birds.

Which finding from the study, if true, would most directly support the text's characterization of the study's results?

A) Even though overall usage of the nesting boxes by wasps and birds was high throughout the study, 24% of the manipulated boxes remained vacant each spring, while less than 4% of the unmanipulated nesting boxes remained vacant.

B) Nest initiation by either birds or wasps but not both was observed in more than 90% of the unmanipulated boxes, but nest initiation by wasps was observed in less than 50% of the manipulated boxes.

C) Wasps initiated nesting in manipulated boxes much more often than in unmanipulated boxes, and 80% of initial co-occupations of unmanipulated boxes resulted in abandonment by wasps but not by birds.

D) Although only 15 instances of co-occupation of unmanipulated boxes by wasps and birds were observed over the course of the study, in a majority of those instances, wasps were already occupying the boxes when birds initiated nesting in them.

Throughout history, tall structures such as Ruwanwelisaya in Sri Lanka or the Minarets of Selimiye Mosque in Turkey have posed a challenge to their architects, since these structures are more susceptible to physical forces than smaller structures. For example, the lower floors of a building must be able to support the enormous weight of the upper floors. To test a hypothesis that steel is more suitable than concrete for construction of a tall building's lower floors, researchers created a computer model of two buildings that were identical except that one had concrete lower floors while one had steel lower floors, and simulated the effects of the forces of wind and gravity on those structures over the course of a century.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researchers' hypothesis?

A) At the end of the simulation, the structure with steel lower floors had slightly larger dimensions at its base than it did at the beginning of the simulation.

B) During the simulation, the structure with steel lower floors bent in high wind to a greater degree than did the structure with concrete lower floors.

C) During the simulation, when sudden forces caused vibrations in the structures, those vibrations took longer to disappear in the structure with steel lower floors than in the structure with concrete lower floors.

D) At the end of the simulation, the structure with concrete lower floors was several inches shorter than the structure with steel lower floors.

In subtropical Asia, Apis dorsata (giant honeybee) plays an essential role in pollinating a wide variety of crops and wild plants. To study how different agricultural land covers affect the species, Rika Raffiudin and colleagues monitored the foraging activity of the bees as well as the pollen content of the honey from A. dorsata colonies at two sites in Indonesia: Kampar, characterized by its surrounding monoculture farms (growing a single crop), and Kerinci, a forest-agriculture site where multiple crops, including hot peppers and coffee, are grown nearby. The researchers concluded that a lack of crop variety may reduce total pollen collection by A. dorsata.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researchers' conclusion?

A) Significantly fewer bees were observed engaging in foraging activities with the crops surrounding Kerinci than with the crops surrounding Kampar.

B) Honey samples from Kerinci bee colonies contained significantly higher concentrations of pollen than honey samples from Kampar bee colonies did.

C) Pollen in honey samples from Kampar bee colonies was predominantly sourced from a single plant species, whereas pollen in honey samples from Kerinci bee colonies was sourced from multiple different plant species.

D) In one Kerinci bee colony, a greater proportion of bees returned to their nests with pollen than returned without pollen, whereas the inverse was observed in a second Kerinci bee colony.

The presence of other individuals of the same species has been observed to mitigate stress in highly social mammals. To investigate whether this phenomenon, known as social buffering, also occurs in reptiles, researchers led by Chelsea E. Martin monitored stress responses in wild southern Pacific rattlesnakes (Crotalus helleri) in three experimental treatments: when alone, with a rope, and with a companion C. helleri. The researchers compared the percent change between baseline and peak heart rate in response to a (harmless) disturbance, with higher values indicating higher stress levels.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the idea that social buffering occurs among C. helleri?

A) Average peak heart rates were highest among solitary C. helleri, but no differences were observed in average peak heart rates between C. helleri with a companion and C. helleri with a rope.

B) C. helleri with a companion displayed a lower average baseline heart rate and lower average peak heart rate than did solitary C. helleri or C. helleri with a rope.

C) The average percent change in heart rate was lower among C. helleri with a companion than among solitary C. helleri and C. helleri with a rope.

D) Solitary C. helleri had higher average baseline heart rates than did C. helleri in the other treatments, but the average percent change in heart rate was smaller among solitary C. helleri than among C. helleri with a companion.

Archaeologist Weiwei Wang and her colleagues analyzed footed grinding slabs and other food-preparation tools excavated from Oc Eo, a Southeast Asian port city that flourished between the first and sixth centuries CE. Wang and colleagues recovered microscopic remnants of turmeric and other spices from the surfaces of the tools. Turmeric is native to South Asia, more than a thousand miles west of Oc Eo, and the researchers showed that the footed grinding slabs at Oc Eo are very similar to footed grinding slabs common throughout South Asia from around 500 BCE to 300CE. Wang and colleagues' findings therefore indicate that there must have been a trade link, whether direct or indirect, between the two regions.

Which finding, if true, would directly weaken the conclusion about Wang and her colleagues' findings that is presented in the text?

A) Other types of artifacts originating in South Asia and dating to the first through sixth centuries CE have been found throughout Southeast Asia.

B) In the first through third centuries CE, there was a significant migration of people from South Asia to Southeast Asia.

C) The people of Oc Eo and several communities in South Asia regularly traded with people in the region that is now the Southeast Asian country of Malaysia no later than the first century CE.

D) Some of the spices recovered from Oc Eo are native to the Maluku Islands, which are located approximately 2,000 miles southeast of Oc Eo.

Neurobiologists Laura Cuaya, Raúl Hernández-Pérez, and colleagues investigated the language detection abilities of eighteen dogs of various ages. The researchers monitored the brain activity of Maverick (a 117-month-old border collie), Mini (a 126-month-old mixed breed), and other dogs while the animals listened to three recordings: one of The Little Prince being read in Spanish, the second in Hungarian, and a third made up of short, randomly selected fragments of the first two, scrambled so that they didn't resemble human speech. Each of the dogs was familiar with either Spanish or Hungarian, but not both. The team concluded that the younger the dog, the worse it may be at differentiating between familiar and unfamiliar languages.

Which finding from the study, if true, would most directly support the team's conclusion?

A) As the age of the dog scanned decreased, so did the amount of brain activity in response to hearing the language the dog was accustomed to or the other language, but not in response to hearing the scrambled recording.

B) The similarity between the pattern of brain activity a dog showed in response to hearing the scrambled recording and the pattern it showed in response to hearing the language it was not accustomed to was lowest among younger dogs.

C) Dogs showed a different pattern of brain activity when hearing the language they were accustomed to than when hearing the other language, and the difference in brain activity decreased as the age of the dog scanned decreased.

D) Although the dogs' general hearing sensitivity declined with age, dogs of all ages showed more brain activity in response to hearing the language they were accustomed to than in response to hearing the other language.

Baltimore, Maryland, has installed shoreline-hardening structures—mainly jetties—along 71% of its shoreline to protect infrastructure from wave erosion and other hazards. To evaluate the responses of waterbirds at sites in the Chesapeake Bay on the US East Coast to shoreline hardening and other landscape alterations, Diann Prosser et al. surveyed waterbird communities consisting of sixty-four species, including the tundra swan and the great blue heron. Utilizing the Index of Waterbird Community Integrity (IWCI), on which a low score corresponds to low community integrity, the researchers concluded that shoreline hardening more negatively affects waterbirds than does land development for uses such as housing or agriculture.

Which finding, if true, would most directly challenge the researchers' conclusion?

A) Waterbird communities at Margothy, a site with a relatively low percentage of developed land and a relatively high percentage of hardened shoreline, had lower average IWCI scores than did waterbird communities at Back River, a site with a higher percentage of developed land and a lower percentage of hardened shoreline.

B) Waterbird communities at Stony and Curtis, two sites with relatively high percentages of developed land and hardened shoreline, had similar IWCI scores, whereas waterbird communities at Ware and Honga, two sites with relatively low percentages of developed land and hardened shoreline, had widely differing IWCI scores.

C) Waterbird communities at Mill, a site with a relatively low percentage of developed land and a relatively high percentage of hardened shoreline, had higher average IWCI scores than did waterbird communities at Langford, a site with a higher percentage of developed land and a lower percentage of hardened shoreline.

D) Waterbird communities at Old Road, a site with a relatively high percentage of developed land and hardened shoreline, had lower average IWCI scores than did waterbird communities at Onancock, a site with a relatively low percentage of developed land and hardened shoreline.

Creeping dogwood (Cornus canadensis) plants are native to Alaska, where harsh conditions have historically impeded potential invasive species. As the boreal climate has warmed in recent decades, however, common knotgrass (Polygonum aviculare) plants have established themselves in Alaska. It has been suggested that warming-induced delays in the onset of subfreezing temperatures in autumn can benefit invasives more than native species; to evaluate this possibility, biologists Christa Mulder and Katie Spellman tracked C. canadensis and P. aviculare, along with other native and invasive species, over several years, concluding that invasives are advantaged by delays in subfreezing temperature onset in Alaska.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Mulder and Spellman's conclusion?

A) Although C. canadensis and P. aviculare both tended to produce leaves later into autumn in years with late subfreezing temperature onset, the extension was much greater for P. aviculare than for C. canadensis.

B) Although C. canadensis and P. aviculare both tended to produce more leaves overall in years with late subfreezing temperature onset than they did in years with historically typical temperature patterns, the years with late subfreezing temperature onset also had early growing season onset in spring.

C) Although C. canadensis and P. aviculare tended to stop producing leaves at about the same time in years with historically typical temperature patterns, P. aviculare stopped producing leaves sooner than C. canadensis did in years with late subfreezing temperature onset.

D) Although significant interannual variations in subfreezing temperature onset were observed during the study, neither P. aviculare nor C. canadensis showed any significant interannual variation in the cessation of leaf production.

Paleontologist Amane Tajika and colleagues analyzed the shells of two marine mollusks called nautilids that were harvested from New Caledonia. The researchers found that samples from shell sections that formed before hatching, including sample F07, formed in 20–22°C water, whereas samples from sections that formed after hatching, including M13, formed in 13–15°C water. These findings are consistent with the temperatures Fijian nautilids encounter during their corresponding stages of development. Because water temperature varies with depth, a biology student hypothesized that the New Caledonian nautilids lay their eggs at approximately the same depth as Fijian nautilids do.

Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the student's hypothesis?

A) Fijian nautilids generally live at lower depths than New Caledonian nautilids do, though Fijian nautilids migrate to the typical depth of New Caledonian nautilids to lay their eggs.

B) Once a nautilid hatches, it is a very mobile animal, so the temperature values reported by Tajika and colleagues for the adult nautilids are averages over a potentially large range of depths.

C) The water temperature at a given depth tends to be lower in waters near New Caledonia than it is at that depth in waters near Fiji.

D) There are few locations near Fiji with water temperatures of 13–15°C that are suitable for nautilid eggs.

While most meteorites on Earth originate from the asteroid belt, some originate from the Moon or Mars. For example, the Nakhla meteorite was an igneous rock, which means it was formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. Therefore, this meteorite is a fragment of a larger parent body that experienced active volcanic activity. The meteorite is also 1.3 billion years old, while volcanism has not been present for 3 billion years on the Moon. Furthermore, volcanism has not been present in asteroids for over 4.4 billion years. A student reviewing the above table concludes that the Northwest Africa 11119 meteorite is significant in this data set because ________

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the claim?

A) it must have come from the moon rather than Mars.

B) it was found in a colder climate than other meteorites.

C) it helped confirm the ages of the previous meteorites.

D) it is the only meteorite that could have originated in an asteroid.

Some metals contain tungsten carbide nanoparticles (WC-NPs), which can leach into waterways and soils via wastewater. In a 2018 study, Mikael T. Ekvall and colleagues found that WC-NPs can accumulate in the bodies of water lice (Asellus aquaticus). While bioaccumulation of manufactured nanoparticles may be inherently worrisome, it has been hypothesized that WC-NP bioaccumulation in invertebrates like A. aquaticus could serve a valuable proxy role, obviating the need for manufacturers to conduct costly and intrusive sampling of vertebrate species --- such as Perez's frogs (Pelophylax perezi), commonly used in regulatory compliance testing --- for nanoparticle bioaccumulation, as environmental protection laws currently require.

Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the hypothesis presented in the text?

A) Compared with P. perezi, A. aquaticus can accumulate detectable WC-NP concentrations with significantly fewer negative effects.

B) The rate of WC-Np uptake in A. aquaticus differs from the rate of WC-Np uptake in P. perezi in a way that is not yet well understood by researchers.

C) A. aquaticus has been shown to accumulate several other types of manufactured nanoparticles in addition to WC NPs, whereas P. perezi has been shown to accumulate only WC-NPs.

D) When A. aquaticus and P. perezi are exposed to similar levels of WC-NPs, concentrations of WC-NPs in animals of both species show little variation from individual to individual.

In a series of experiments, Julio Sevilla and Claudia Townsend showed that manipulating the space between products in store displays can influence consumers' views of those products. Participants in several of the experiments regarded the same products in the same (generic) retail settings as significantly more valuable when the product-to-space ratio was low than when it was high. In one of the experiments, participants viewed jewelry at an expensive retailer (Tiffany & Co.) and a relatively inexpensive retailer (Forever 21). The experiment suggests that a store context associated with inexpensive products may moderate the effect Sevilla and Townsend observed in their other experiments.

Which finding from the experiment with Tiffany & Co. and Forever 21, if true, would most directly support the conclusion presented in the text?

A. At Tiffany & Co., participants judged jewelry spaced far apart to be substantially more valuable than jewelry placed close together, but at Forever 21, participants judged jewelry spaced far apart to be only slightly more valuable than jewelry placed close together.

B. At both Tiffany & Co. and Forever 21, participants judged jewelry spaced far apart to be less valuable than jewelry placed close together, but the difference in perceived value was significantly greater at Tiffany & Co. than at Forever 21.

C. Participants judged jewelry spaced far apart at Tiffany & Co. to be similar in value to jewelry spaced far apart at Forever 21, but more valuable than jewelry placed close together at either store.

D. When jewelry was spaced far apart, participants judged the jewelry at Tiffany & Co. to be more valuable than the jewelry at Forever 21, but more poorly spaced jewelry was judged similarly across stores.

Neurobiologists Laura Cuaya, Raúl Hernández-Pérez, and colleagues investigated the language detection abilities of eighteen dogs. The researchers monitored the brain activity of Joey (an Australian shepherd), Mini (a mixed breed), and other dogs while the animals listened to three recordings: one of The Little Prince being read in Spanish, the second in Hungarian, and a third made up of short, randomly selected fragments of the first two, scrambled so that they didn't resemble human speech. Each dog was familiar with either Spanish or Hungarian, but not both. The team concluded that differences in dogs' anatomical features may affect their ability to distinguish speech from nonspeech.

Which finding from the study, if true, would most directly support the team's conclusion?

A. Long-headed dogs accustomed to hearing Spanish tended to show more brain activity when hearing Spanish than long-headed dogs accustomed to hearing Hungarian showed when hearing Hungarian.

B. Compared with shorter-headed dogs, longer-headed dogs showed a greater difference in brain activity when hearing either Spanish or Hungarian than when hearing the scrambled recording.

C. The pattern of brain activity that long-headed dogs showed when hearing the scrambled recording was different from the pattern of brain activity that short-headed dogs showed when hearing the language they were accustomed to.

D. Compared with shorter-headed dogs, longer-headed dogs showed a greater difference in brain activity when hearing the language they were accustomed to than when hearing the other language.

The variety of species with adaptations to produce toxins is matched by the variety of uses of those toxins: northern stargazers, for example, use toxins for defense, whereas tiger snakes use toxins for predation and skeleton shrimp use toxins for intraspecific competition. In fact, a species may have adaptations enabling it to produce a toxin with multiple uses. Finding that the venom used by the Panamanian scorpion Centruroides granosus to subdue prey also inhibits growth of the pathogenic bacteria Escherichia coli, Dumas Gálvez and colleagues conclude that the particular form of venom production observed in C. granosus may have propagated through the species because it mitigates risk during feeding in addition to enhancing predation success.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Gálvez and colleagues' conclusion?

A. E. coli does not appear to be virulent for C. granosus even when transmitted from prey captured without the use of venom.

B. E. coli is frequently found in species preyed on by C. granosus and can survive exposure to the digestive juices of C. granosus.

C. C. granosus appears to be chemically sensitive to prey infected with E. coli and tends to favor uninfected individuals.

D. Exposure to C. granosus venom also inhibits the growth of nonpathogenic bacteria species common in the native environment of C. granosus.

Because water from natural, uncontaminated sources is less enriched with the stable nitrogen isotope ¹⁵N than wastewater from human activities is, the presence of such wastewater in nature can be detected by examining delta 15N values (a measure of the ratio of ¹⁵N to ¹⁴N) in plants. Karla A. Camacho-Cruz and colleagues assessed delta 15N values in the seagrass Thalassia testudinum from sites on Mexico's Yucatán peninsula with intermediate tourism development, including Akumal Bay and Tulum, and low tourism development, including Mahahual and Xahuayxol, throughout 2016 and 2017. The data suggest that the intermediate-tourism sites experienced influxes of human wastewater. However, the researchers concluded that this happened intermittently.

Which choice best describes data from the table that support the underlined conclusion?

A. Although delta 15N values were generally higher in Akumal Bay and Tulum than in Mahahual and Xahuayxol, the values were lower at Akumal Bay than at Mahahual and Xahuayxol in February 2017.

B. Delta 15-N values reached their lowest level in February 2017 in both Akumal Bay and Tulum, but no data were available for Akumal Bay in February 2016, when the values reached their highest level in Tulum.

C. Although all sites showed considerable variation in delta 15N values, the values remained relatively constant in Akumal Bay from October 2016 to February 2017 and in Tulum from February 2016 to October 2016.

D. In Akumal Bay and Tulum, delta 15N values fluctuated considerably across the three measurements made from October 2016 to October 2017.

Some climate models for the western United States predict that while total annual precipitation may remain unchanged from the present level, precipitation will become concentrated into fewer but more intense rain and snow events. University of Texas climate scientist Geeta Persad and her colleagues simulated how the amount of water entering aquifers and the amount being used for irrigation purposes would change if this were to occur. Persad and her colleagues concluded that concentration of precipitation into fewer events would result in a higher number of dry days, triggering more irrigation, but that this change in irrigation output is highly sensitive to the baseline concentration of precipitation that currently exists in an area.

Which choice best describes data from the table that support Persad and her colleagues’ conclusion?

A) If baseline precipitation is somewhat concentrated, the amount of water being used for irrigation will increase 0.4% for surface water and 0.9% for groundwater, whereas the amount of water entering aquifers will increase 11.0% if baseline precipitation is evenly distributed.

B) If baseline precipitation is somewhat concentrated, water use for irrigation will increase only slightly, whereas it will increase 9.0% for surface water and 7.9% for groundwater if baseline precipitation is evenly distributed.

C) If baseline precipitation is somewhat concentrated, the amount of water entering aquifers will increase 4.9%, while the amount being used for irrigation will increase 0.4% for surface water and 0.9% for groundwater.

D) If baseline precipitation is somewhat concentrated, water use for irrigation will decline by a small amount, whereas it will increase 11.0% for surface water and 9.0% for groundwater if baseline precipitation is evenly distributed.

Scholars cite One Hundred Years of Solitude, the 1967 novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, as a foundational text of magical realism, the Latin American style of fiction in which antirealistic plot devices—often borrowed from the spiritual and narrative traditions of Indigenous and colonial societies in the Americas—are deployed in an otherwise realistic mode of representation typical of the modern novel. This style has exerted a decisive influence on authors in the United States, including Toni Morrison, whose 1987 novel Beloved resembles classic magical realist novels in its juxtaposition of literary realism with long-established cultural traditions—namely, those of the Black American community.

Which quotation from a literary scholar would most directly support the claim in the underlined portion of the text?

A) "Much of the interest of Beloved derives from the productive tension between its competing influences—namely, Black American cultural traditions and the magical realism of Latin America."

B) "The cultural traditions of the Black American community, which figure so prominently in the magical realist tradition of Latin America, permit realistic as well as antirealistic scenarios—much as Beloved does."

C) "Even though Beloved alternates between realistic and antirealistic modes of representation, the influence of Black American cultural traditions remains constant throughout the novel."

D) "Although much of Beloved conforms to the conventions of realistic fiction, Toni Morrison also incorporates elements drawn from Black American cultural traditions that transcend and expose the limitations of realism."

Most Native languages belong to language families, or groups of languages whose similarities in vocabulary and grammar suggest shared descent from a single language spoken long ago. In contrast, the language spoken by the Esselen people in a mountainous area of Central California was an isolate, or a language with no demonstrated relationship to other languages. Isolates are more prevalent in mountainous regions than elsewhere, likely because challenging terrain inhibits the geographical expansion of language families. Yet it is clear that geographical barriers on their own cannot fully explain this aspect of the distribution of Indigenous languages in California and elsewhere in the present-day United States.

Which statement, if true, would most directly support the claim in the underlined sentence?

A) In mountainous regions of the western US, isolate-speaking peoples historically met most of their food needs through foraging, hunting, and fishing rather than intensive farming

B) Esselen and other isolates spoken in mountainous regions of California tend to contain many more terms describing features of mountainous terrain than nonisolate languages from relatively flat regions of California do.

C) Shoshone, a language in the Uto-Aztecan family, was originally spoken in a vast expanse of Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Wyoming — a region whose mountainousness rivals that of the homeland of the Esselen people.

D) Although Native languages in non-mountainous areas of California tend to belong to language families, those families do not necessarily share common linguistic ancestry.

Scholars cite Men of Maize as foundational to magical realism, which juxtaposes "antirealistic plot devices—often borrowed from folkloric traditions" with "otherwise realistic" representation. This influenced Pamuk, whose My Name Is Red "resembles classic magical realist novels in its juxtaposition of literary realism with folklore."

Which quotation from a literary critic best supports the underlined claim?

A) "My Name Is Red clearly shows the influence of Latin American magical realism and Turkish folklore traditions."

B) "The realistic plot of My Name Is Red is repeatedly and productively disrupted by imagery and situations borrowed from Turkish folklore."

C) "My Name Is Red is indebted to the antirealistic elements found in Turkish folklore, much as Latin American magical realism drew from indigenous traditions."

D) "My Name Is Red alternates between realistic and antirealistic narrative modes, with Turkish folklore appearing throughout."

Although Eastern North Pacific (ENP) gray whales generally migrate between their wintering waters along the coast of Mexico and their foraging waters in the Arctic, a subset of this population--known as the Pacific Coast Feeding Group (PCFG)--forages along the coastlines of Northern California (USA) and British Columbia (Canada) instead. Interestingly, individuals in this subset reach smaller maximum sizes than other ENP whales do, despite having similar pre-maximum growth rates. Researchers hypothesize that this difference may be an adaptation to distinct resource opportunities in the PCFG foraging range.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researchers' claim regarding the size of PCFG whales?

A) When present along the coasts of Northern California and British Columbia, PCFG whales tend to forage in rocky kelp beds at shallow depths inaccessible to whales as large as those in the ENP main group.

B) The average body size of PCFG whales observed along the coasts of Northern California and British Columbia has remained relatively steady in recent decades, while the average body size of ENP whales in the main group has slightly decreased.

C) When foraging along the coasts of Northern California and British Columbia, PCFG whales are in closer proximity to major ports and urban populations than ENP whales in the main group are when foraging in Arctic waters.

D) Certain crustacean prey species available along the coasts of Northern California and British Columbia where PCFG whales tend to forage are not available in the Arctic waters where ENP whales in the main group forage.

The prints in Images of Autonomous Matter, part of a traveling exhibition of innovative Japanese art from the 1960s and 1970s, exemplify the interest in creating minimalist images of stark materials, such as steel, that first emerged among Japanese printmakers in the mid-to-late twentieth century. Mitsuo Kano's close-up of a serrated metal fragment, Soldered Blue, and Tatsuo Kawaguchi's image of a single corroded staple, which belongs to his Relation — Quality series, are two such works in the exhibit. In their emphasis on the innate qualities of manufactured materials, both prints push traditional boundaries for figurative art.

Which statement about the prints by Kano and Kawaguchi in Images of Autonomous Matter is best supported by the text?

A) The portrayal of imperfection in the prints illustrates that the artists' goal was to disrupt the carefully curated nature of most art exhibitions.

B) The objects depicted and the manner of depiction render the prints distinct from more conventional works of art.

C) The prints showcase how different methods for printing images can offer unique perspectives on stark materials.

D) The prints emulate the style of an earlier artistic movement that used simplistic compositions and featured industrial objects.

Myoglobin (Mb) is a protein that primarily aids in oxygen storage and diffusion across the mitochondrial membrane in cardiac muscle cells, these are necessary functions in aerobic organisms, including teleost fish. Carrying out these functions typically requires Mb to be expressed at high levels, evidenced by red heart tissue. The table shows the average Mb levels and their standard deviations (indicating how dispersed the Mb levels of individual fish are in relation to the average) of three teleost fish species, as calculated by Daniel J. Macqueen et al. Based on the data, the researchers concluded that for some teleost species, oxygen storage and diffusion may occur with negligible assistance from Mb.

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support Macqueen et al.'s conclusion?

A) On average, A. anguilla had higher Mb levels in their cardiac tissue than S. salar and P. buchholzi had.

B) Greater average Mb levels in a certain species were associated with greater variance in Mb levels among individuals of that species.

C) Less variation in Mb levels was observed among P. buchholzi individuals than among A. anguilla and S. salar individuals.

D) P. buchholzi had very low Mb levels in their cardiac tissue.

Variously, researchers have closely examined obsidian artifacts to understand ancient social and economic structures, as in Raymond V. Sidrys's 1976 study, or to glean aspects of cultural identity, as in Dennis Ogburn and colleagues' 2009 study. Studies of the Malia archaeological site on the Mediterranean island of Crete have shown that significant changes to building styles—changes consistent with an influx of people from another culture elsewhere in the Mediterranean—occurred from the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age. In a 2022 study, however, Tristan Carter and Vassilis Kilikoglou found that obsidian-object production methods at Malia stayed remarkably consistent during this architectural transition, which they interpret as indicative of local cultural continuity in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.

Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken Carter and Kilikoglou's argument?

A) The obsidian used to produce objects at Malia was transported to Crete from the same source elsewhere in the Mediterranean throughout the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.

B) The methods used to produce obsidian objects at Malia during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages were also used by some other Mediterranean cultures in the period.

C) The obsidian-object production method that was most common among other Mediterranean cultures during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages was more efficient than the method used at Malia.

D) Changes to buildings like those that occurred at Malia have not been linked to changes in obsidian-object production methods in other Mediterranean cultures during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.

Marketers of goods often emphasize popularity or expert approval (e.g., “Japan’s best-selling car” or “gum preferred by dentists”). To assess the effects of these types of recommendations, Kamal Bookwala and her team asked consumers to choose between two cupcake flavors in several different scenarios: when neither flavor had a recommendation label (the baseline condition), when one flavor was labeled with either “most popular” or “baker’s choice” information and a thumbs-up approval symbol, and when one flavor was labeled with only a thumbs-up symbol (to control for the increased product prominence any recommendation label confers).

What does the text most strongly suggest would have been a limitation of the findings if Bookwala and her team had not included conditions with only a thumbs-up label?

A) The researchers wouldn’t have been able to determine whether differences in consumers’ choices between the baseline condition and the conditions with recommendation labels were caused by the content of the labels or the mere fact that labels were present.

B) The researchers wouldn’t have been able to exclude the possibility that any differences in consumers’ choices between the baseline condition and the conditions with recommendation labels were driven by visual characteristics of those specific labels rather than differences in consumers’ general cupcake preferences.

C) The researchers wouldn’t have been able to determine whether differences in consumers’ choices between the baseline condition and the conditions with recommendation labels were attributable to a positive effect of recognizing an indication of approval.

D) The researchers wouldn’t have been able to rule out the possibility that differences in consumers’ choices between the baseline condition and the conditions with recommendation labels were due to consumers’ awareness of an attempt to influence their decisions.

Neuroscientist Kiyohito Iigaya and colleagues developed a computational model to predict how much a person will enjoy a particular work of art on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 4 (very much). They then recruited participants to use the same scale to rate several sets of paintings in various styles and calculated the correlation between the ratings predicted by the model and those reported by the participants. Assuming participant P3 gave equal ratings to the abstract and cubist paintings, the data in the graph indicate the model predicted that ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the example?

A) P3 would derive more aesthetic pleasure from cubist paintings than from abstract paintings.

B) P3's rating for abstract and cubist paintings would equal one another.

C) P3 would derive less aesthetic pleasure from cubist paintings than from abstract paintings.

D) P3's ratings for abstract and cubist paintings would differ from one another.

It has been hypothesized that since birds can dissipate excess heat through their bills, bill size should increase with habitat temperature. To evaluate this hypothesis for a 2021 study, Charlotte Probst and colleagues gathered data on mean bill surface area of species of North American thrashers (genus Toxostoma) as well as on climate conditions of the birds' native habitats. Probst and colleagues concluded that the hypothesis was not fully supported.

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support Probst and colleagues' conclusion?

A. Although the Bendire's thrasher has one of the smallest mean bill surface areas of the birds included in the table, its habitat has one of the lowest mean maximum temperatures in the warmest month and one of the lowest mean minimum temperatures in the coldest month.

B. Although the Cozumel thrasher has the second greatest mean bill surface area of the birds included in the table, its habitat has the highest mean minimum temperature in the coldest month.

C. Of the birds included in the table, the brown thrasher has the smallest mean bill surface area and the habitat with the lowest mean minimum temperature in the coldest month, while the long-billed thrasher has the second-largest mean bill surface area and the habitat with the second-highest mean minimum temperature in the coldest month.

D. Of the birds included in the table, the ocellated thrasher has the largest mean bill surface area and the habitat with the lowest mean maximum temperature in the warmest month, while the Bendire's thrasher has the second smallest mean bill surface area and the habitat with the highest mean maximum temperature in the warmest month.

The ancient Greek concept of "mimesis," a term used in the works of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers in discussions of representational art—visual, performance, or literary art that aims to depict the real world—is a foundational concept of the Western philosophy of aesthetics. Mimesis is typically translated as "imitation" in modern editions of ancient Greek texts, but scholar Stephen Halliwell warns that this is overly reductive: "imitation" implies that art merely copies—and is thus by definition entirely derivative of—a reality that exists outside and prior to the work of art, and translating "mimesis" thusly obscures the multifaceted ways in which the ancient Greeks understood the relationship between art and reality.

Which statement, if true, would most directly support the claim that Halliwell presented in the text?

A. One of the earliest appearances of mimesis's root word, mimos, can be found in an ancient Greek tragedy in reference to dramatic impersonation, and the mim- root came to be generally associated with the musical and poetic arts by the fifth century BCE.

B. Both Plato's and Aristotle's theorizations of mimesis examine the psychological effects that works of art induce in the viewer or listener.

C. Although several of Plato's earliest philosophical works discuss aesthetic ideas, the term "mimesis" doesn't appear in any of them.

D. Although Plato's writings typically characterize representational art as an inferior reflection of the physical world, Aristotle suggests that mimesis can refer to art's capacity to envision hypothetical conditions that could, but don't yet, exist.

Chesapeake Bay seagrass meadows constitute crucial habitats for many aquatic species. Historically, eelgrass has been predominant, but widgeon grass is proving better suited to recent increases in sea temperature, tolerating heat better and growing faster than eelgrass does. Although the increase in widgeon grass has been associated with a substantial increase in total seagrass coverage in the bay, researchers caution that the latter change does not necessarily make the seagrass ecosystem as a whole more resilient to environmental shocks.

Which statement, if true, would account for data shown in the graph and would illustrate the point made by the researchers?

A) In early 2019, unusually heavy rains washed excessive nutrients into the bay, leading to algal blooms that prevented sunlight from reaching many seagrass species.

B) In early 2018, a fungal infection that affects widgeon grass and eelgrass but does not affect other types of seagrass spread through the bay.

C) Between 2012 and 2017, the total area covered by widgeon grass and the total area covered by all types of seagrass increased as water temperatures in the bay increased.

D) Water temperatures in the bay increased slowly from 2012 to 2018, but in early 2019 there was an unprecedentedly large increase in temperatures, which reached levels that can be tolerated by few seagrass species other than widgeon grass.

A tariff is a tax on imported goods intended to protect domestic producers of similar goods from international competition. Eliminating tariffs can lead to an influx of cheaper imported goods, lowering prices; in a place where domestic production is relatively expensive, this influx can suppress domestic production, as the country’s consumers favor more cheaply produced imported goods over domestically produced ones. A student consults a table showing projected changes in production and average market prices of agricultural commodities in four countries in a tariff-elimination scenario. Based on the data, the student claims that compared with India and Russia, agricultural production in Argentina and the United States is likely relatively inexpensive.

Which choice most effectively uses information from the text and data from the table to support the student’s claim?

A) Although agricultural production in India and Russia would likely decrease if tariffs were eliminated, it would likely increase in both Argentina and the United States.

B) Although eliminating tariffs would likely cause agricultural market prices to decrease in most locations, it would likely cause agricultural market prices to increase in both Argentina and the United States.

C) Argentina and the United States are the only countries shown that are projected to see both an increase in agricultural production and a reduction in agricultural prices in the absence of tariffs.

D) In the absence of tariffs, total agricultural production in Argentina and the United States would likely exceed that in India and Russia.

Baltimore, Maryland, has installed engineered structures along 71% of its shoreline to protect infrastructure from wave erosion and other hazards, a practice known as shoreline hardening. To evaluate the responses of waterbirds to two types of hardening structures—riprap and bulkheads—Diann Prosser et al. surveyed waterbird communities along the tundra swan, the great blue heron, and 62 other species at different sites in the Chesapeake Bay on the US East Coast. Utilizing the Index of Waterbird Community Integrity (IWCI), on which a high score corresponds to high community integrity, the researchers found that bulkheads are more strongly negatively correlated with waterbird community integrity than is riprap.

Which finding, if true, would most directly illustrate the researchers' finding?

A. The difference in average IWCI scores for waterbird communities at Stony and Old Road, two sites with a higher percentage of shoreline consisting of bulkheads than of riprap, was statistically insignificant.

B. Waterbird communities at Old Road, a site with a relatively high percentage of shoreline consisting of bulkheads, had lower average IWCI scores than did waterbird communities at Miles, a site with a relatively high percentage of shoreline consisting of riprap.

C. Waterbird communities at Curtis, a site with a high percentage of shoreline consisting of bulkheads and riprap, had lower average IWCI scores than did waterbird communities at Onancock, a site with a low percentage of shoreline consisting of bulkheads and riprap.

D. Waterbird communities at Curtis, a site with equal percentages of shoreline consisting of bulkheads and riprap, had higher average IWCI scores than did waterbird communities at Miles, a site with different percentages of shoreline consisting of bulkheads and riprap.

In tomato plants, herbivory induces defensive production of jasmonic acid, while microbial infection induces defensive production of salicylic acid; plants also emit airborne chemicals to initiate the appropriate defense in nearby tomato plants. Researchers investigated the poor resistance tomato plants show to whitefly herbivory by exposing some plants to airborne chemicals from whitefly-free plants and others to airborne chemicals from whitefly-infested plants, then infesting both groups of plants with whiteflies. The researchers concluded that whiteflies induce tomato plants to emit chemicals that cause other tomato plants to preferentially defend against microbial infection even when under herbivorous attack.

Which choice best describes data from the graph that support the researchers' conclusion?

A. When plants exposed to air from whitefly-free plants were infested, they produced more jasmonic acid than did control plants, whereas when plants exposed to air from whitefly-infested plants were infested, they produced less jasmonic acid and more salicylic acid than did control plants.

B. When plants exposed to air from whitefly-infested plants were infested, they produced less jasmonic acid than salicylic acid, whereas when plants exposed to air from whitefly-free plants were infested, they produced about the same amount of jasmonic acid and salicylic acid.

C. When plants exposed to air from whitefly-free plants were infested, they produced both jasmonic acid and salicylic acid, whereas when plants exposed to air from whitefly-infested plants were infested, they exclusively produced salicylic acid.

D. When plants exposed to air from whitefly-infested plants were infested, they produced less jasmonic acid than did control plants, whereas when plants exposed to air from whitefly-free plants were infested, they produced more jasmonic acid and salicylic acid than did control plants.

Studies have found that when looking at other people's eyes, humans tend to perceive dilated pupils positively and constricted pupils negatively. Noting that a dark iris-the colored portion surrounding the pupil-is hard to distinguish from the black of the pupil (and thereby affects the pupil's apparent size) and that many domestic dogs have dark irises, Akitsugu Konno et al. showed close-up images of dogs' faces to human participants and asked them to rate the dogs' traits and their own attitudes toward the dogs. Their findings suggest that ________

Table title: Average Ratings of Perceived Personality Traits of Dogs and Human Willingness to Keep or Interact with Them

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) iris color in domestic dogs may be an adaptation to elicit positive responses from humans, as participants responded more negatively to images of dogs whose iris colors can make pupils appear large than they did to images of dogs without such iris colors.

B) humans may not be as sensitive to pupil size in dogs as they are to pupil size in other people, as participants' responses to the images show no relationship to differences in the shade of dogs' irises that could affect how large the dogs' pupils appear to be.

C) humans' responses to pupil size in other people may extend to dogs, as participants responded more positively to images of dogs whose iris colors were likely to make their pupils appear large than they did to images of dogs whose iris colors were unlikely to have that effect.

D) differences in dogs' pupil size may elicit a stronger response in humans than do differences in dogs' iris color, as participants' responses to the images when dogs' pupils were actually large were indistinguishable from participants' responses when dogs' pupils only appeared to be large due to its iris color.

While US public charities, like Commonfund, must file Form 990 yearly with the IRS, private foundations, such as the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, must file a different form, 990-PF. In addition, foundations that engage in certain prohibited activities must also file Form 4720 and pay a penalty tax on the money involved. Private foundations are prohibited from holding excess interests in a business enterprise, “self-dealing” (conducting activities that benefit foundation insiders), making taxable expenditures such as outlays for lobbying, and failing to cross a required threshold in making charitable distributions from income. Out of the organizations that filed Form 990-PF in the years 2003–2005, ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the assertion?

A) a smaller percentage of those that also filed Form 4720 did so because they engaged in self-dealing than the percentage of those that filed Form 4720 because they did not meet the minimum charitable distribution requirement.

B) those that also filed Form 4720 paid a larger penalty for failing to meet a minimum charitable distribution requirement than those organizations that filed Form 990 but also filed Form 4720 for the same reason.

C) those that were also required to file Form 4720 because they had excess holdings in a business enterprise paid, on average, a larger penalty than those organizations that filed Form 4720 because they made taxable expenditures.

D) those that also filed Form 4720 collectively paid larger penalties for failing to meet the minimum charitable distribution requirement than for other reasons.

Soil thawing in Alaska has been accelerating as a result of climate changes, potentially enabling increased carbon dioxide (CO₂) absorption through greater productivity of arctic bramble (Rubus arcticus) plants and other vegetation, but also potentially enabling increased CO₂ output through greater heterotrophic respiration (CO₂ generated by the activity of soil microorganisms). Hydrologist Yonghong Yi and her colleagues developed a model incorporating numerous inputs --- years of soil temperature and snow cover data among them --- to evaluate the effects of climate changes on the CO₂ balance in Alaska, concluding that net CO₂ is likely to increase if seasonal snow cover arrives earlier relative to the onset of soil surface freezing.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researchers’ conclusion?

A) The effect of soil temperature on the growth of vegetation and on the rate of heterotrophic respiration is stronger during the period of seasonal snow cover than during the period without snow cover.

B) Relatively early snow cover reduces the amount of soil moisture available for the growth of plant species such as R. arcticus and lowers the rate of heterotrophic respiration.

C) Seasonal snow cover tends to persist longer in areas of relatively low vegetation growth and high heterotrophic respiration than in areas of relatively high vegetation growth and low heterotrophic respiration.

D) The soil insulation provided by snow cover enables heterotrophic respiration to continue during a period in which plant species such as R. arcticus are typically not growing.

The percent of cities and towns in a given period that persist from a prior period (backward continuity) and the percent that persist into a later period (forward continuity) are known to correlate positively with economic and political stability in a region. Researchers studying demographic trends in the Indigenous societies of ancient Mexico determined both continuity measures for the Yautepec Valley, which lay within the macroregional hegemony of the city-state of Teotihuacan from roughly 100 BCE until roughly 450 CE, after which point Teotihuacan declined. The team concluded that ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the text?

A) Teotihuacan's hegemony imposed stability on the Yautepec Valley, mitigating the decrease in the compound average annual growth rate of the valley's population as well as the decrease in the number of cities and towns there in the Early Classic and Middle Classic.

B) values for both backward and forward continuity in the Yautepec Valley were consistently higher during the centuries of Teotihuacan's hegemony than they were in the period following the collapse of the hegemony.

C) although the forward continuity data suggest that the decline of Teotihuacan occasioned economic and political instability in the Yautepec Valley, these developments were nonetheless associated with a net increase in the valley's population.

D) the marginal decrease in the compound average annual growth rate of the Yautepec Valley's population in the Early Classic was likely associated with the widespread abandonment of cities and towns established in the Terminal Formative.

In 2009, the US state of Montana enacted rate stability regulations (RSRs), constraining insurance companies' latitude to raise premiums (the recurring fees policyholders pay to maintain insurance policies) once policies are in effect. Although RSRs are intended to benefit consumers, Naoki Aizawa and Ami Ko note that RSRs could curtail insurers' profits to such a degree that insurers abandon the market, thereby reducing the competitive pressure that typically restrains premium prices for newly issued policies. To determine whether this occurred in Montana, students first collect data on the number of insurers in the state for a few years leading up to and following 2009 and the premium prices for new policies offered by those insurers.

Based on the text, what would be the most reasonable next step for the students to take to accomplish their goal?

A) Compare changes over time in the premium price data the students have collected with changes over time in premium prices for policies that were already in effect during the same period in an otherwise similar state that had not enacted RSRs

B) Compare changes over time within each of the two types of data the students have collected with changes over time in analogous data for the same period from an otherwise similar state that had not enacted RSRs

C) Compare changes over time within each of the two types of data the students have collected with changes over time in the same types of data from Montana for a period beginning several years after 2009

D) Compare changes over time in the insurer-number data the students have collected with changes over time in insurer-number data from another state that enacted RSRs but not during the same period

Global Strontium Seawater Curve

The late Hemphillian (Hh) North American Land Mammal Age includes the subdivisions Hh3, 6.8 million years ago (Ma) to 6 Ma, and Hh4, 6 Mato 4.75 Ma. While mammalian fossils have indicated that Florida's Montbrook Fossil Site (MFS) and Palmetto Fauna of the Bone Valley Region (PFBV) date to Hh4, a more precise determination of the sites' ages has proved challenging. Stephanie R. Killingsworth et al. compared average ratios of strontium-87 to strontium-86 (87Sr/86Sr) in fossil shark teeth from MFS and PFBV — 0.709000 and 0.709028, respectively — to 87Sr/86Sr ratios in the global strontium seawater curve, a record that shows how 87Sr/86Sr ratios in seawater correspond to numerical ages and that is used to date fossils and, by extension, fossil sites. The researchers concluded that _____

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?

A) mammalian fossil evidence offers less dating precision than do 87Sr/86Sr ratios in fossil shark teeth and that PFBV likely was deposited closer to the Hh3-Hh4 boundary than was MFS.

B) the average 87Sr/86Sr ratios in the fossil shark teeth from MFS and PFBV resolve previous uncertainty about the sites' relative ages by indicating that both sites were deposited contemporaneously during the late Hh.

C) the average 87Sr/86Sr ratios in the fossil shark teeth from MFS and PFBV only partially support the site age estimates previously established through mammalian fossil evidence.

D) the average 87Sr/86Sr ratios in the fossil shark teeth from MFS and PFBV corroborate that both MFS and PFBV fall within Hh4 but suggest that PFBV likely was deposited more recently than MFS