Inference

Geoglyphs are large-scale designs of lines or shapes created in a natural landscape. The Nazca Lines were created in the Nazca Desert in Peru by several Indigenous civilizations over a period of many centuries. Peruvian archaeologist Johny Isla specializes in these geoglyphs. At a German exhibit about the Nazca Lines, he saw an old photograph of a large geoglyph of a whalelike figure and was surprised that he didn't recognize it. Isla returned to Peru and used a drone to search a wide area, looking for the figure from the air. This approach suggests that Isla thought that if he hadn't already seen it, the whalelike geoglyph ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) must represent a species of whale that went extinct before there were any people in Peru.

B) is actually located in Germany, not Peru, and isn't part of the Nazca Lines at all.

C) is probably in a location Isla hadn't ever come across while on the ground.

D) was almost certainly created a long time after the other Nazca Lines geoglyphs were created.

In dialects of English spoken in Scotland, the "r" sound is strongly emphasized when it appears at the end of syllables (as in "car") or before other consonant sounds (as in "bird"). English dialects of the Upland South, a region stretching from Oklahoma to western Virginia, place similar emphasis on "r" at the ends of syllables and before other consonant sounds. Historical records show that the Upland South was colonized largely by people whose ancestors came from Scotland. Thus, linguists have concluded that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the English dialects spoken in the Upland South acquired their emphasis on the "r" sound from dialects spoken in Scotland.

B) emphasis on the "r" sound will eventually spread from English dialects spoken in the Upland South to dialects spoken elsewhere.

C) the English dialects spoken in Scotland were influenced by dialects spoken in the Upland South.

D) people from Scotland abandoned their emphasis on the "r" sound after relocating to the Upland South.

Red velvet cake has been a favorite dessert of many for years, but the recipe’s origins are unclear. A bakery in Dallas, Texas, argued that it created the first recipe for the cake when the bakery opened in the 1860s. The Adams Extract Co., which sells baking products, claims to have created the recipe in the 1930s to help market their red dye. A US hotel and a Canadian department store also publicly stated that the red velvet cake sold in each of their establishments in the 1930s was an original creation, each alleging that it was the recipe author. No clear evidence has emerged to favor one of these claims over the others, however. It thus seems that _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) red velvet cake was first baked sometime before the 1860s.

B) we cannot say at present who actually baked the first red velvet cake.

C) none of the supposed inventors of red velvet cake are likely to have invented it.

D) the bakery in Dallas, Texas, probably invented red velvet cake.

In the 1950s and ’60s, plant breeders created shorter varieties of wheat and rice plants with improved yields. Kelly Gillespie, Rex Bernardo, and other plant specialists are building on that work by exploring the development of shorter corn varieties. Greater height can allow individual plants to produce more ears of corn. However, greater height also makes the stalks more likely to snap or be uprooted in strong winds before the corn can be harvested. Because of this trade-off, some plant specialists suggest that shorter corn varieties will actually _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) help improve yields of harvested corn by being more likely to survive in severe winds.

B) be more likely to be uprooted due to the weight of the corn on the stalks.

C) require more land for planting than short varieties of wheat and rice typically do.

D) begin developing more ears of corn on each plant than the tallest variety of corn currently does.

Some businesses believe that when employees are interrupted while doing their work, they experience a decrease in energy and productivity. However, a team led by Harshad Puranik, who studies management, has found that interruptions by colleagues can have a social component that increases employees' sense of belonging, resulting in greater job satisfaction that benefits employees and employers. Therefore, businesses should recognize that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the interpersonal benefits of some interruptions in the workplace may offset the perceived negative effects.

B) in order to maximize productivity, employers should be willing to interrupt employees frequently throughout the day.

C) most employees avoid interrupting colleagues because they don't appreciate being interrupted themselves.

D) in order to cultivate an ideal workplace environment, interruptions of work should be discouraged.

In 2016 biological anthropologist Heather F. Smith and her team investigated the evolution of the appendix, an intestinal organ that is present in some mammals, including humans, but is generally thought to have no function. Studying 533 mammal species, the team found that the appendix has emerged independently across multiple lineages in separate instances and, significantly, hasn't disappeared after emerging in specific lineages. Moreover, the team determined that species with the organ tend to have higher concentrations of lymphoid tissue, which supports immune responses, in the cecum, the organ the appendix is attached to. Therefore, the team hypothesized that the appendix likely ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) was once present in many nonmammal species but has since disappeared from those lineages.

B) has been preserved in certain mammal species because it benefits their immune systems.

C) will emerge in a greater number of mammal species because it may serve a necessary function in the immune system.

D) produced higher concentrations of lymphoid tissue in mammals in the past than it does currently.

The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA) examines trends in economic well-being among 25,000 people in Australia unfolding over many years. As is true of most longitudinal studies, this need for years of data collection results in high costs. By contrast, a relatively straightforward fitness study, such as one that is merely trying to identify the percentage of regular exercisers in a city who do weight training, may not need a large budget because _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) longitudinal methods are probably suitable for the fitness study.

B) it would be easy for HILDA researchers to add questions to their economic well-being study.

C) 25,000 people is more than enough for HILDA to find trends in economic well-being.

D) the fitness study can be done well without years of data collection.

In Switzerland, the white fuzzy mountain flowers known as edelweiss are widely treated as a symbol of strength and courage. Although edelweiss can thrive in extreme conditions, they aren't notably tougher or harder to reach than other mountain flowers growing in the Swiss Alps. Historian Tobias Scheidegger has shown that the popular view of the flowers originated in the mid-1800s when mountain climbing became popular in Switzerland. Mountain climbers spread the idea that the flowers grew only in steep, icy terrains that were dangerous to climb to. Scheidegger says that these claims were self-interested. He suggests that mountain climbers presented edelweiss in this way in order to ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) share their observations about the unusual characteristics of edelweiss with scientists.

B) encourage more flower enthusiasts to explore the Swiss Alps.

C) make themselves appear brave and strong for being able to climb to difficult places where edelweiss supposedly grew.

D) prove that edelweiss were more common in the Swiss Alps than in other mountain regions in Europe.

Blue holes—large marine sinkholes, like Watling's Blue Hole near San Salvador Island—can be hundreds of meters deep and are sometimes part of widespread subterranean networks of passageways. In 2021, researchers conducted the first formal study of the Taam Ja' Blue Hole (TJBH), located in a bay of fresh water and salt water on Mexico's coast, and reported a maximum depth of 274 meters. Reyes-Mendoza and colleagues later reinvestigated the depth of the TJBH, determining that it exceeded 400 meters; additionally, they detected variations in characteristics across water layers. Layers more than 400 meters deep began to show density and salinity conditions akin to those of the nearby Caribbean Sea. Reyes-Mendoza and colleagues therefore suggest that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) there may be tunnels and caves that connect the TJBH and the waters of the Caribbean deep underground.

B) in the TJBH, there are greater differences between water layers less than 275 meters deep than there are between water layers greater than 400 meters deep.

C) researchers should reevaluate existing measurements of the depths of Watling's Blue Hole and other blue holes where the conditions in very deep waters are similar to those of waters in open seas.

D) the apparent relationship between depth and salinity level in the TJBH is the inverse of that found in the Caribbean Sea.

Neuroscientist Artin Arshamian and his team sought to determine what affects a person's perception of an odor as pleasant: is it culture, personal taste, or aspects of human anatomy? The team assessed odor preferences in ten groups of people with different modes of living (urban, agricultural, and hunter-gatherer) including the Maniq people from a small community in Thailand and urban dwellers from a large city in Mexico. The team observed that across cultures, people generally rated odors about the same: ethyl butyrate, which smells like peaches, was typically rated more pleasant than mushroom alcohol, which smells like fungus. The team's study thus undermined the idea that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) a person who perceives certain odors as pleasant will likely perceive the odors as roughly equal in pleasantness.

B) culture significantly influences whether a person perceives an odor as pleasant or unpleasant.

C) people agree in their perception of odors as pleasant or unpleasant regardless of where they live.

D) personal taste has little influence on whether odors are perceived as pleasant or unpleasant.

Mariana Lopes Barata and Pedro Simões Coelho collected data from 324 music-streaming service users to identify factors that influence users to opt for paid (premium) versions of music streaming services, like Apple Music. They hypothesized that hedonic motivation (the enjoyment that a consumer perceives to be associated with using a service) would be positively correlated with users' intentions to adopt premium versions. The researchers asked participants to rate statements such as "Using paid music streaming services is pleasant." They found that, indeed, hedonic motivation positively influences the intention to adopt premium streaming service versions, which suggests that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) it may be advantageous for music streaming companies to try to influence the extent to which potential users perceive the premium version as pleasant to use.

B) the statement "Using paid music streaming services is pleasant" is not a reliable measure of hedonic motivation.

C) users' intentions to pay for premium streaming services are probably unaffected by factors other than hedonic motivation.

D) participants who strongly agreed with the statement "Using paid music streaming services is pleasant" were more likely to express loyalty to Apple Music than to other streaming services.

Namibia has classified the house sparrow as an invasive species that could harm some of the country's native species. But researchers Alejandro Camacho and Jason McLachlan have pointed out that "invasive" and "native" are labels that describe temporary circumstances. Changes in Earth's climate may force animals from their current ranges. Climate changes may also create good habitats in areas where a species couldn't live previously. These observations suggest that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) changes in Earth's climate are likely to result in the house sparrow establishing itself as a native species in locations other than Namibia.

B) Namibia was previously home to some house sparrows but they were outcompeted by invading species.

C) it's appropriate for Namibia to designate certain species as invasive but the country should designate the house sparrow as native.

D) Namibia may eventually need to reexamine its designation of the house sparrow as invasive.

Over 600 languages are spoken in New York City in addition to English—one can find Amharic spoken in the neighborhood of Norwood, or Ilocano in Woodside. Most speakers of Chinese languages reside in the neighborhood of Flushing (part of New York City’s borough of Queens) and in Chinatown, in the borough of Manhattan. New immigrants from north China, where Mandarin is the primary first language, tend to settle in Queens, while new immigrants from south China, where many people speak Cantonese or Fuzhounese as a first language, tend to settle in Manhattan. It can therefore be inferred that _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) languages tend to change more rapidly in areas where many languages are spoken than in areas where few languages are spoken.

B) languages spoken by immigrant peoples can differ significantly in vocabulary and pronunciation from those same languages in their country of origin.

C) there is a positive correlation between the physical size of a country and the number of languages spoken in that country.

D) correlations in a country between languages and regions where they are spoken can replicate themselves in a new country to which the original country’s citizens emigrate.

Aerogels are highly porous foams consisting mainly of tiny air pockets within a solidified gel. These lightweight materials are often applied to spacecraft and other equipment required to withstand extreme conditions, as they provide excellent insulation despite typically being brittle and eventually fracturing due to degradation from repeated exposure to high heat. Now, Xiangfeng Duan of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues have developed an aerogel with uniquely flexible properties. Unlike earlier aerogels, Duan's team's material contracts rather than expands when heated and fully recovers after compressing to just 5% of its original volume, suggesting that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the aerogel's remarkable flexibility results from its higher proportion of air pockets to solidified gel as compared to other aerogels.

B) the aerogel's overall strength is greater than that of other insulators but its ability to withstand exposure to intense heat is lower.

C) the aerogel will be more effective as an insulator for uses that involve gradual temperature shifts than for those that involve rapid heat increases.

D) the aerogel will be less prone to the structural weakness that ultimately causes most other aerogels to break down with use.

The glossy ibis and the little blue heron are long-legged birds that live in wetlands, like the Everglades in Florida. Laura D'Acunto and colleagues wanted to know how these birds choose an area in which to live. They looked at features of the birds' habitats, such as the geographic location of the area and how deep the water is during breeding season. They found that although only glossy ibises prefer areas with deep water during breeding season, both glossy ibises and little blue herons prefer areas that have standing water for more than 60 days per year. The researchers therefore concluded that neither species is very drawn to areas where ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) species with breeding seasons longer than 60 days are likely to be present.

B) there is standing water for far fewer than 60 days per year.

C) there are any features that attract the other species.

D) there is relatively deep water during the breeding season.

Biochemists I. Sam Saguy and Eli J. Pinthus studied the mass and heat transfer processes that occur when foods, such as the Indian snacks batata vada and sabudana vada, are fried in oil. During frying, water in the crust evaporates, leaving voids that oil can fill, thereby increasing the food's fat content. As the process continues, water from the food's center moves to the crust as long as the crust remains permeable. Therefore, the more moisture a food loses during frying, _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the lower the temperature must be to fry the food.

B) the softer the crust will be when frying is completed.

C) the higher the fat content will be when frying is completed.

D) the quicker the crust will lose its permeability.

Indigenous songs are an important resource for ecological information. Songs of the Kwakwaka’wakw people in British Columbia, Canada, share vital information about clam gardens, and the songs of the Karen (hta) Hin Lad Nai people in Thailand offer detailed information about bees. There have been efforts made to preserve Indigenous languages over the years—e.g., the United Nations’ International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032). However, such attempts have typically focused on spoken language despite the fact that some expressions in these languages appear only in songs. Therefore, if those involved in such efforts want to ensure that a comprehensive range of information is secured, they must ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) analyze musical similarities in the songs of the Kwakwaka’wakw and Karen (hta) Hin Lad Nai people.

B) acknowledge that Indigenous songs are largely but not entirely composed using phrases taken from spoken language.

C) incorporate the preservation of songs into their broader efforts to protect Indigenous languages.

D) recognize that Indigenous languages likely have more unique expressions that represent ecological knowledge than represent other types of information.

British professional soccer team Manchester United Football Club, whose home uniform color is mainly red, won more than half its home matches between 1947 and 2003. This is a higher proportion of home matches than Watford Football Club, whose home uniform color is not red, won during the same period. According to a study by Martin J. Attrill and colleagues, the color red can cause people to respond with fear and hesitation, which the researchers think helps explain Manchester United’s success. Nadav Goldschmied and colleagues reanalyzed the published data from this study, however, and found no evidence that red-uniformed teams are more likely than other teams to win, suggesting that Manchester United’s red uniforms ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) negatively affected the performance of Manchester United’s opponents.

B) made the Manchester United players more nervous than they would have been if their uniforms had not been red.

C) did not affect the fans’ satisfaction with Manchester United’s performance.

D) did not provide Manchester United with any significant advantage.

Over 600 languages are spoken in New York City in addition to English—one can find Bambara spoken in the neighborhood of Kingsbridge, or Ghale in Jackson Heights. Most speakers of Chinese languages reside in the neighborhood of Flushing (part of New York City's borough of Queens), where the dominant Chinese language is Mandarin, and in Chinatown, in the borough of Manhattan, where the dominant Chinese languages are Cantonese and Fuzhounese. Mandarin is widely spoken in north China, while Cantonese and Fuzhounese are widely spoken in south China. It can therefore be inferred that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) Chinese immigrants who emigrated to New York City many years ago are more likely to speak several Chinese languages than are more recent Chinese immigrants.

B) Chinese immigrants regularly change their residences between Queens and Manhattan after they emigrate, rather than staying in one borough.

C) taken together, there are more Cantonese and Fuzhounese speakers among Chinese immigrants in New York City than there are Mandarin speakers.

D) people who emigrate from north China tend to settle in Queens, while people who emigrate from south China tend to settle in Manhattan.

Whereas Joan Lockard's 1984 study of captive gorillas reported more right-handedness than left-handedness, Jane Goodall's 1963 study of wild chimpanzees did not. According to a meta-analysis of studies of nonhuman primates, captive populations are more likely to be described as right-handed than wild populations are. Statistical analysis indicates a handedness study would need a minimum of 176 individuals to show a representative result; however, the study by Lockard included a total population of 8, and the study by Goodall included a total population of 8. This suggests that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) neither the study by Lockard nor the study by Goodall provides sufficient evidence to make a meaningful comparison about handedness in primates.

B) the study by Lockard reliably represents handedness in captive primates, but the study by Goodall likely does not reliably represent handedness in wild primates.

C) Goodall likely underestimated the prevalence of right-handedness among the wild chimpanzees in the study.

D) the study by Lockard reliably represents handedness in captive primates but not in wild primates.

Northeastern Kansas's Jefferson County is among the most rural counties in the United States: the US Census Bureau classified it as 98.8% rural in 2010. Researchers studying populations of counties like Jefferson often struggle to recruit and retain participants. Melissa Valerio and colleagues tested whether a method called snowball sampling could improve recruitment and retention. Working in two rural counties, the researchers identified a small number of people who had the characteristics desired for a proposed study and asked them to recruit additional participants from their social networks. Valerio and colleagues found that participants recruited via snowball sampling showed a much higher retention rate than did people recruited by strangers, suggesting that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) being recruited to participate in a study by someone with whom one is socially connected may impart a feeling of obligation to persist with participation in the study.

B) people with relatively small social networks are inherently less likely to be recruited to participate in a study via snowball sampling than are people with relatively large social networks.

C) snowball sampling is more likely to improve retention rates among rural participants than among nonrural participants.

D) social networks can become large enough that two people can share a network but nevertheless regard each other as strangers.

Consumers increasingly expect that goods they purchase online will be delivered rapidly, even as soon as the day of purchase. Although efficiencies in long-distance transport of parcels have greatly improved delivery times, last-mile logistics (the final step in deliver to consumers) present a bottleneck for delivery companies. Time pressure resulting from consumer expectations is not the only challenge: other obstacles, such as the increasing congestion of roadways, persist. While innovations to mitigate these challenges have been emerging --- the use of aerial drones, for instance --- success has been constrained due to the additional complications that arise (e.g., a lack of suitable drone landing sites in residential areas). Consequently, ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) in the near term, delivery companies are unlikely to overcome the impediments associated with last-mile logistics

B) innovations in last-mile logistics seem poised to increase consumers' expectations for rapid delivery

C) delivery companies should invest more funds in proven long-distance transport technologies than in untested last-mile solutions

D) the use of aerial drones may enable delivery companies to meet consumers' expectations now but likely is not viable as a permanent solution.

Studies have shown that when we listen to high-tempo music (songs with a high number of beats per minute, or bpm) during endurance exercise, we perceive our effort as lower than it really is, which leads to an increased pace and a higher heart rate. Researchers recently designed a follow-up study in which participants rode a bicycle for 30 minutes while listening to the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" (156 bpm) continuously. The next day, participants performed the same activity while listening to Vanessa Williams's "Colors of the Wind" (83 bpm). As expected, listening to that song resulted in participants _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) varying their riding pace more than they had the previous day.

B) riding a shorter distance in the 30 minutes than they had the previous day.

C) perceiving their effort as lower while riding than they had the previous day.

D) exhibiting a higher average heart rate while riding than they had the previous day.

Antonia Olivia Dolan and colleagues had musicians and nonmusicians with clinically average hearing listen to recordings of nature sounds and music in popular genres like acoustic folk and funk and adjust the volume to optimize their listening enjoyment. The researchers found that for a given recording that a musician and nonmusician identified as their favorite among those included in the study, optimal volume tended to be higher for the musician than for the nonmusician. Thus, if a musician and nonmusician both identified Jose Gonzalez's "Heartbeats" as their favorite recording and the musician preferred to listen to it at a volume of 82.2 decibels, the nonmusician would be expected to ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) find listening to "Heartbeats" at 82.2 decibels less enjoyable than listening to it at a lower volume.

B) prefer listening to other music at 82.2 decibels over listening to "Heartbeats" at that volume.

C) enjoy listening to the nature sounds at 82.2 decibels more than listening to "Heartbeats" at 82.2 decibels.

D) not find it enjoyable to listen to any recordings at a volume as low as 82.2 decibels.

The British Bronze Age began when sophisticated techniques for making tools, weapons, and other objects from metal were introduced to the British Isles around 2500 BCE, and it lasted until around 700 BCE. Collections of Bronze Age metal items (called hoards) have been found all over Britain, and while most of the objects found in these hoards are weapons or tools, some are purely decorative. For example, the Tisbury hoard included bronze tools, weapons, and jewelry, and the Urquhart hoard included gold jewelry. As ancient metalsmiths in Britain gained knowledge from working metals like bronze, they were able to apply those skills to work other metals as well, but gold was much rarer than bronze, so it's not surprising that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the Urquhart hoard contained jewelry made of gold.

B) some hoards were found as a result of artifacts being dug up by accident.

C) some hoards contained no gold, as was the case for the Tisbury hoard.

D) bronze was highly valued for its utility in making durable tools and weapons.

Pablo Picasso famously subverted the norms of traditional painting: in his cubist paintings he refused to let his expression be constrained, fragmenting objects and figures to present multiple perspectives simultaneously. Though less widely known, Picasso—who once lamented that writers of his time had “limited themselves to moving around words somewhat while respecting the syntax”—also wrote poetry that defied conventional grammar, semantic relationships, and text structure. Thus, the paintings and poems are linked in that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the poems are intended to be understood as explanations of the artistic inclinations reflected in the paintings.

B) both types of work are characterized by the simultaneous representation of multiple points of view that Picasso is known for.

C) the poems present many of the same subjects as the paintings but with different thematic approaches.

D) both exhibit Picasso’s prioritization of creative expression over the standard rules of the art forms.

There is a growing belief that teaching medical students about art alongside standard science and clinical coursework helps them become more observant, develop greater patient empathy, and strengthen their communication skills. But some medical program educators are skeptical, questioning if arts and humanities experiences can be clearly shown to have any worthwhile advantages for their students. Research into the effectiveness of arts programs for medical students by Neha Mukunda and her colleagues found that evidence is largely anecdotal and based on studies that were short in duration, limited to single institutions, or restricted to small numbers of students. To strengthen the evidence base in support of incorporating humanities into the coursework for medical students, then, _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) researchers must prove that scientific training alone is insufficient for developing clinical skills.

B) larger-scale, multi-institutional research studies tracking outcomes for medical students over longer periods are needed.

C) medical schools should highlight more student testimonials about how arts education benefits their clinical abilities.

D) institutions may need to provide medical students with exposure to larger numbers of artworks than have been used in previous studies.

With the ongoing expansion of e-commerce, consumers are expecting faster and faster delivery of goods, but delivery companies continue to struggle with last-mile logistics (the final step in delivery to consumers) due to challenges such as complex and inefficient delivery routes. Innovations to mitigate these challenges have been emerging—the use of aerial drones, for example—but these innovations tend to engender their own complications (e.g., regulations on the use of drones in residential airspace), leading researchers to conclude that _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) consumers’ expectations for reduced delivery times may be outstripping what is viable for delivery companies to provide.

B) a better understanding of consumers’ expectations for delivery is needed so that companies can better plan for fluctuations in delivery volume.

C) rapid delivery is a leading factor in consumer satisfaction, and therefore delivery companies would benefit from investing resources in reducing delivery times.

D) there may not be sufficient incentive for delivery companies to attempt to solve the problems associated with last-mile logistics.

Scholars are increasingly exploring the communication and preservation of ecological knowledge through Indigenous songs (e.g., Sakha songs about local ecosystems and those of the Kaluli people about rainforest sounds). In one study, ethnobiologist Dana Lepofsky et al. received insight from Kwaxsistalla Wathl’thla, a song keeper for the Kwakwaka’wakw people in Canada, into songs referencing the people’s use of terraced gardens in intertidal zones along the Pacific Northwest coast for the cultivation of clams for consumption. Archaeological evidence of significant increases in clam size and abundance in that area concurrent with the documented past implementation of the method described in the songs supports the conclusion that _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the practice used by ancestors of modern Kwakwaka’wakw people not only effectively maintained a food source but also promoted its robustness.

B) non-Indigenous people around the Pacific Northwest coast adopted the practice developed by the Kwakwaka’wakw people after observing its efficacy.

C) there is greater corroboration in the archaeological record of ecological practices described in Kwakwaka’wakw songs than of those described in Sakha and Kaluli songs.

D) although contemporary Kwakwaka’wakw people have a deep understanding of and appreciation for the fishing and farming practices used by their ancestors, they no longer implement those methods.

Zooarchaeologist Ophélie Lebrasseur and her team examined a fox skeleton discovered in 1991 at an archaeological site alongside artifacts of human habitation (like spear points) in central Argentina. Lebrasseur et al. determined that the fox was Dusicyon avus, an extinct species resembling a jackal, and radiocarbon dating placed the fox at the site at the same time as human inhabitants. (Indeed, the inhabitants may have deliberately buried the fox.) In addition, while wild foxes have a diet entirely made of meat, isotopic signatures of the skeleton's teeth indicated that the fox's diet, like that of the humans, was partly composed of plant material. Lebrasseur et al. therefore concluded that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the fox had a diet more similar to that of jackals than to that of wild foxes.

B) the humans who were alive at the same time as the fox hunted using the spears whose points were also found at the site.

C) the humans who were alive at the same time as the fox most likely ate more meat than the fox did.

D) the fox may have been a companion animal of the humans who inhabited the site at the same time.

In a 2017 article, historian Jasmine Kilburn-Toppin explains that in early modern London, members of the city’s guilds (trade and artisanal associations) were participants in a civic culture in which gift giving both signaled and conferred social status. Research on this phenomenon has tended to focus on philanthropic gifting by London’s largest guilds; for her part, Kilburn-Toppin focuses on the gifting of handmade objects and fixtures (such as decorative paneling or plasterwork) within the craft guilds, which were “composed of highly discerning producers and consumers of material cultures.” Given this characterization, it can reasonably be inferred that the gifting of such objects may have _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) ensured that knowledge of the materials and techniques used by members of the craft guilds stayed within the craft guilds.

B) emphasized ostentatious offerings in the case of the largest guilds and prosaic objects in the case of the craft guilds.

C) functioned as a way for craft guild members to maintain and enhance their professional reputations among their peers.

D) conferred greater social status when the recipient belonged to one of London’s largest guilds than when the recipient belonged to a craft guild.

The Mammillaria cactus M. boolii occurs naturally only in the state of Sonora in Mexico, and the smallness of its range makes it especially vulnerable to extinction. The traditional single-species approach to conservation emphasizes the need to focus on individual species most at risk, like M. boolii, but recently, conservationists have argued that an ecosystem-based approach that incorporates the many interactions between the climate, terrain, and various species of a given geographical area may lead to better outcomes for all the species in a given location. If this view is correct, the single-species approach to the conservation of M. boolii could thus _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) lead to a better understanding of how the distribution of Mammillaria species throughout Mexico has affected their survival.

B) allow conservationists to better consider how climatic changes affecting Sonora may reduce the number of species competing with M. boolii.

C) erroneously shift the focus of conservation efforts away from M. boolii itself.

D) fail to consider the ways in which the survival of M. boolii may be influenced by changes in the populations of other species that inhabit Sonora.

Many studies have found a positive association between levels of dissolved organic carbon and mercury in bodies of fresh water in North America. But Perri Porvari and Matti Verta did not find this correlation in a study conducted in Finland, leading some scientists to hypothesize that the association is particular to North America. However, several other studies conducted outside North America, such as one by Yao Luo and colleagues in China, showed similar results to the North American studies, while few have produced results similar to those of Porvari and Verta's study, suggesting that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) levels of dissolved organic carbon and mercury in bodies of fresh water are both much higher in Finland than elsewhere.

B) the hypothesis that the positive association is particular to North America is correct.

C) dissolved organic carbon and mercury levels do typically rise and fall together in fresh water.

D) there were circumstances unique to Luo and colleagues' study that impeded accurate measurements of mercury levels.

Quasars — such as the Markarian 231 quasar, located in Ursa Major — are extremely luminous galactic nuclei powered by supermassive black holes. Quasars range in age, with approximately 200 of them known to have developed within the first billion years of the formation of the universe. Cosmologists have long wondered how any quasars could have formed so early in the universe's evolution given that conditions are believed to have been ill-suited to their creation, which suggests that ____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the Markarian 231 quasar is likely less massive than quasars that formed more than a billion years after the beginnings of the universe.

B) quasars that formed in the early universe are likely not as luminous as those that formed later.

C) the Markarian 231 quasar is thought to have formed less than a billion years after the beginnings of the universe.

D) some aspect of the scientific understanding of quasar formation or the early universe may be incomplete.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline's 1932 novel Journey to the End of the Night is regularly described as autobiographical. That characterization is apt—there are many parallels between the experiences of the novel's protagonist, Ferdinand Bardamu, and those of Céline—but it should not be taken to mean that every person or event depicted in Journey to the End of the Night has a real-life analogue. Much of the novel is pure invention, and readers who neglect this fact and instead focus excessively on correspondences between the novel and Céline's life can thus ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) misrepresent Journey to the End of the Night as being more widely read than it actually is.

B) fail to appreciate how much creativity Céline shows in the book.

C) refuse to acknowledge that Céline drew on real-world material when writing Journey to the End of the Night.

D) overemphasize the extent to which Céline took inspiration from earlier writers.

Blue holes, such as the Far Side Blue Hole in the Abaco Islands, are large seawater sinkholes that tend to have varying water density and irregularities in their steep walls. In 2021, researchers studied the previously unexplored Taam Ja' Blue Hole (TJBH) in Chetumal Bay, Mexico; using echo sounder mapping, they determined its maximum depth to be about 274 meters. In the complex environments of blue holes, however, echo sounder mapping has limitations. So, in 2023, Joan A. Sanchez-Sanchez and colleagues employed a conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) profiler to remeasure the depth of the TJBH. The profiler recorded depths around 420 meters but was unable to confirm detection of the bottom of the hole, suggesting that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) although both echo sounder mapping and the CTD profiler have known limitations, they produce reliable estimations of the depth of blue holes when used together.

B) while the CTD profiler may be better suited than echo sounder mapping for measuring the depth of blue holes, another measurement approach is likely needed to ascertain the maximum depth of the TJBH.

C) although the maximum depth of the TJBH has yet to be conclusively detected, the bottom of the hole is most likely between 274 and 420 meters below sea level.

D) while the CTD profiler can discern the properties of underwater terrains more comprehensively than echo sounder mapping can, echo sounder mapping produces more accurate measurements at greater underwater depths.

Research such as the 2015 study of fish by Kirsty Elizabeth McLaughlin and Hansjoerg P. Kunc has shown that noise from human activity, like traffic on a busy highway, has various significant effects on animals, and many governments require studies of the potential noise effects on wildlife before approving highway construction projects. For one of these projects, a group of researchers suggested that, although there are both fish and birds in the area, taking actions to reduce the effects of noise on the fish will probably protect both types of animals because noise tends to affect fish more strongly than birds. Another group of researchers indicated that, although the effects are usually greater on fish, addressing only those effects won't reduce the potential harm to the birds in the area because ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the species of birds in the area experience different negative effects from noise than the species of fish in the area do.

B) the actions to reduce effects on the fish are significantly more robust than is needed to lessen the effects on the birds in the area.

C) the types of actions that are usually taken to lessen the effects of noise on birds can sometimes harm fish.

D) the effects of noise on birds have been more thoroughly studied than the effects on fish have.

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) capitalize on the ability of some species of bacteria to metabolize metal, liberating electrons. The bacteria form a dense biofilm on the surface of an electron-collecting anode, but moving the electrons from the bacterial cytoplasm to an external electrode requires that the electrons pass through a series of inefficient oxidation-reduction (redox) reactions. Accordingly, MFC power output rarely exceeds a density of 0.30 milliwatts per square centimeter (mW/cm2). In an experiment, researchers added silver nanoparticles to carbon paper covering the anode in an MFC. The resulting power density was 0.66 mW/cm2. Since metals such as silver exhibit high electrical conductivity, the researchers hypothesized that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) silver nanoparticles may increase the metabolic processes of the bacteria, thereby increasing the number of free electrons available to transfer to the electrode.

B) as the density of the biofilm increases, the series of redox reactions may accelerate independent of the presence of the silver nanoparticles,

C) electrons may be conducted directly to the electrode before the silver nanoparticles catalyze the redox reactions.

D) silver nanoparticles may allow electrons to bypass the series of redox reactions and transfer directly to the electrode

At Alligator Reef (Florida Keys), coral colonies experiencing degradation—a problem facing reefs globally—have been enhanced with transplanted fragments of elkhorn (a stony coral). This is a useful restoration approach but is challenging at scale since it involves cultivating and individually moving young stony coral pieces. In 2025, Samapti Kundu and her team announced a new approach: coating reef substrates with a simple-to-apply substance, made with inexpensive and abundant core ________.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) offers a means of reef restoration that likely allows much broader implementation than the approach used at Alligator Reef does.

B) is likely to require more costly components to ensure its stability when used for coral colonies as degraded as those at Alligator Reef.

C) should be most beneficial for restoring reefs that predominantly consist of elkhorn coral colonies.

D) should be able to simulate healthy reef signals even more closely when it is applied in combination with the existing transplant method.

Outi Tervo and team studied the effect of human-caused noise on narwhals (Monodon monoceros), arctic marine mammals that are sensitive to acoustic changes in their environment. Hypothesizing that elevated sound levels affect foraging among narwhals, Tervo's team compared narwhal diving behaviors in natural sound conditions with those behaviors in two human-caused sound exposure conditions—ship sounds and ship sounds coupled with sonic pulses. Both exposure conditions resulted in significant decreases in the number and target depth of deep dives (associated with foraging) relative to natural conditions. However, differences between diving behaviors in the two exposure types were negligible, a finding that could be attributed to the fact that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) narwhals forage at shallower depths in the presence of ship sounds alone than in the presence of ship sounds coupled with sonic pulses.

B) sonic pulses can be heard at significantly greater ocean depths than ship sounds can.

C) the narwhals weren't as sensitive to human-caused sounds as the researchers had predicted.

D) ship sounds contribute so much to the overall sound level that the addition of sonic pulses has little effect on the narwhals' auditory environment.

Studying animals in a laboratory allows variables to be systematically controlled, but removing animals from their wild habitats can affect their behavior and biology in unforeseen ways. Given this, biologists Rebecca M. Calisi-Rodríguez and George E. Bentley examined research on tucos and white-throated sparrows to see whether results from studies in the wild were consistent with the results of studies in the laboratory. Therefore, data showing that tucos tend to be most active during the daytime in the wild would be irrelevant to Calisi-Rodríguez and Bentley's investigation if ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) this behavior pattern has not been studied in the lab.

B) white-throated sparrows have low levels of corticosterone hormones outside of the breeding season in the wild.

C) they are more likely to become active at night in the lab.

D) such data have been collected for white-throated sparrows in laboratory settings but not in the wild.

The compositional strategy of Untitled, a 1955 work by Cherokee artist Edna Massey, is far more closely aligned with Abstract Expressionism --- a mid-twentieth-century school of painting dominated by European American artists-than with traditionally abstract forms of indigenous art, such as beadwork. Few viewers would infer from the stylistic attributes of Untitled that Massey was Indigenous. In this respect, the work typifies Indigenous painters' forays into abstraction during the period. In contrast, the contemporary Caddo artist Chad "Nish" Earles assembles abstract compositions out of motifs common in the traditional ceramics and graphic art of his tribe. Thus in Earles's work, abstraction has the effect of ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) rendering Indigenous identity more legible than it is in Untitled.

B) asserting the indigenous origins of motifs associated with Abstract Expressionism.

C) challenging the dominance of European American artists within Abstract Expressionism.

D) reconciling Indigenous and European American influences that coexist uneasily in Untitled.

Evan MacLean and colleagues evaluated behavioral and genetic data from over 14,000 dogs, representing more than 100 breeds, and found that genetic variations track to differing extents with behavioral variations between the breeds. This was the case for the behavioral categories of dog rivalry and excitability but was especially pronounced for attachment and attention-seeking, which can be seen when a dog solicits affection or attention. In another study, researchers found that the boxer and the Yorkshire terrier breeds exhibit very different levels of attachment and attention-seeking. When considered in light of the study by MacLean and colleagues, this finding suggests that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) boxers and Yorkshire terriers are more likely to share genes associated with attachment and attention-seeking than to share genes associated with dog rivalry or excitability.

B) there may be a greater tendency toward attachment and attention-seeking in boxers and Yorkshire terriers than in some other dog breeds.

C) there may be a substantial dissimilarity between boxers and Yorkshire terriers in the genes associated with attachment and attention-seeking.

D) individual boxers may display higher levels of attachment and attention-seeking than individual Yorkshire terriers do.

Accurately measuring the sizes of marine fish populations is challenging because predation, reproduction, and fishing are constantly affecting those populations' numbers. To avoid overfishing, many commercial fishers rely on complex computer models that estimate current and historical fish population sizes. These models incorporate various biological factors, such as fish size, age distribution, and reproductive rates. Recently, a team of researchers examined decades of modeled predictions for 230 major commercially fished species. They discovered that the models often overestimated fish population sizes. And contrary to their expectations, the researchers found that accuracy did not improve as the data grew overtime. The team's discovery most directly suggests that _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) it is important to incorporate more diverse data sources, including commercial fishers' observations, into population size models.

B) researchers should be cautious when considering findings about commercially fished populations that predate the development of the models.

C) some commercial fishers have likely been unknowingly overfishing and may need to decrease their catches going forward.

D) environmental factors, rather than commercial fishing, play a role in the population size models

Until the sixteenth century, the French kings who succeeded each other were not particularly colorful characters. There were some excellent rulers and one or two remarkable men—Philip Augustus, St. Louis, Philip the Fair perhaps, Louis XI certainly—but few to make the heart beat faster. To some extent this is due to the period in which they lived: the Middle Ages, dominated as they were by war and religion, were not, frankly, very much fun. Even so, it is hard to deny that England did rather better in this regard: Henry II, Edward II, Edward III, Henry V, Richard II—the last two admittedly much assisted by Shakespeare—may not have been better monarchs than their French counterparts, but as human beings, they were a good deal more interesting. Until we come to Francis I, who ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) was notable as a strong king and additionally had the traits of a great man.

B) hit France like a rocket: the country had never seen anything like him before.

C) seemed much more interesting, but he was less fun than his English counterpart.

D) ruled uneventfully for years, and his son followed peacefully in his mediocre footsteps.

As juveniles, all white-necked jacobin hummingbirds display vibrantly blue head plumage; when they enter adulthood, males retain these blue feathers and most females molt to a drab green hue. However, 28% of adult female jacobins remain identical in coloration to juveniles and adult males. Based on field observations in Panama, a team of researchers reports that while adult males show a clear preference in mate selection for adult females with drab green feathers, they also engage in more antagonistic behavior toward those adult females than toward blue-feathered adult females when competing for resources. Therefore, the team hypothesizes that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the percentage of blue-feathered females will increase until fewer than half of adult female jacobins are green-feathered.

B) the occurrence of blue head plumage in adult female jacobins is driven by one or more factors not associated with mate attraction.

C) coloration prevents green-feathered adult female jacobins from distinguishing between adult males and blue-feathered adult females.

D) adult male jacobins do not act antagonistically toward juvenile jacobins with blue head plumage when competing for resources.

Dai Sijie's 2000 novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress contains elements drawn from Sijie's own life—there are many parallels between the experiences of the novel's unnamed narrator and those of Sijie—and as a result Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is regularly described as an autobiographical novel. This characterization can be useful, but it also presents drawbacks in terms of how the work is perceived, given the high value placed on creativity and imagination in artistic endeavors. Readers who take this characterization to mean that Sijie merely fictionalized actual events may conclude that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the real-world counterparts of other characters in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress are hard to identify.

B) Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is not as worthy of praise as it might have been if it had no basis in fact.

C) critics disagree about whether Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress shows greater originality than works without autobiographical elements.

D) Sijie should not have claimed that Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is based on real events.

Saeed M.Z.A. Tarabieh conducted a study of consumer attitudes toward Jordanian food and beverage companies and found that for consumers who value environmental conservation, their likelihood of purchasing a product decreased when their perception of the product's risk of causing environmental harm increased. Subsequently, other researchers conducted a study of various demographic groups in Australia, investigating participants' intentions to purchase a new television, and found that, on average, middle-aged adults had the lowest perception among all the demographic groups in the study of the environmental risks of the TV. Assuming that the results of Tarabieh's study are broadly applicable this finding suggests that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) middle-aged adults likely prioritize other factors over a product's environmental sustainability when making purchasing decisions

B) middle-aged adults might be more likely than participants in the other demographic groups to purchase the TV.

C) the new TV is less appealing to middle-aged adults than other similar products on the market are.

D) there is not a meaningful difference in the average likelihood of purchasing environmentally friendly products among the demographic groups included in the study.

The Bronze Age in Britain lasted from around 2500 BCE to approximately 700 BCE. Collections of metal items (called hoards) from all periods of the Bronze Age have been found in Britain, including the Arreton Down hoard of artifacts from the 17th century BCE, unearthed around 1735, and the much later Hollingbourne hoard of artifacts from the 10th century BCE, unearthed around 2003. Sometime in the Middle Bronze Age (approximately from the 14th century BCE to the 10th century BCE), metalsmiths in Britain began to develop swords for the first time. This fact helps explain why, whereas evidence of sword production was found in ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) both the Arreton Down hoard and the Hollingbourne hoard, only the latter included evidence of more refined sword production.

B) hoards discovered before 2003, no such evidence was found in hoards that were discovered later.

C) the Arreton Down hoard, no intact swords were found among the items in the hoard.

D) the Hollingbourne hoard, no such evidence was found in the Arreton Down hoard.

The single origin hypothesis of iron metallurgy posits that the craft originated in Anatolia (West Asia) circa 2200-2000 BCE before diffusing to other parts of the world, including Africa. Some proponents of the hypothesis argue that iron production technologies first arrived in North Africa through Carthage, where the earliest evidence of ironworking dates to approximately 800-600 BCE, before these technologies spread to sub-Saharan Africa over the following centuries. However, excavation of multiple sites on the Adamawa plateau in Central Africa conducted by Etienne Zangato and Augustin Holl uncovered evidence of iron workshops that may have been in operation as late as 900-750 BCE in Gbabari and as early as 2300-1900 BCE in Oboui and Gbatoro. These findings suggest that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) iron production may have originated in Anatolia much earlier than the available evidence currently indicates.

B) iron production technologies were likely transmitted from Anatolia to Central Africa via an alternate route than the one suggested by some proponents of the single origin hypothesis.

C) iron production technologies found in Gbabari likely derived directly from technologies transmitted from Anatolia, but those found in Oboui and Gbatoro did not.

D) iron production may have developed independently and relatively simultaneously in Anatolia and parts of Central Africa.

Like many other genera of wild bees, bumblebees have in recent decades experienced population collapse caused by, among other factors, habitat destruction and climate variation. Bumblebees are also one of the most researched bee genera, second only to honeybees. As a result, ecologists have gained much of their insight about wild-bee declines from bumblebees. In a 2021 paper, zoologist Guillaume Ghisbain notes that bumblebees are among the relatively few wild-bee genera that display social behaviors and dietary generalism (ability to obtain nectar and pollen from a diversity of plant species), two traits that are associated with increased resilience to some specific environmental changes. Ghisbain therefore contends that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) although bumblebees have been more extensively studied than most wild bees, researchers should not use bumblebees to draw conclusions about the decline of other wild bees, even ones with feeding patterns and levels of sociability that are similar to those of bumblebees.

B) because bumblebees and other bees with generalist diets are less negatively affected by environmental stress than bees with specialized diets are, they are less likely to experience major population changes in the future than bees with specialized diets are.

C) because the responses of bumblebees and other wild bees to environmental threats are not always comparable, researchers need to exercise caution when extrapolating information about wild-bee population declines from bumblebees.

D) although bumblebees and many other wild bees have experienced similar population declines in the past, compared with bumblebees other wild bees have been studied relatively little.

There are over 150 species of the cactus genus Mammillaria throughout the Americas, but their survival can be threatened by high precipitation and dense vegetation that blocks sunlight. Researchers have located species from the genus in almost every state in Mexico, with several of them, like M. schumannii, restricted to only one state. The fact that this genus has not been observed in parts of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range has been attributed to a lack of appropriate habitat, but much of the landscape in this area is notoriously inaccessible, which suggests that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the current methods of collecting and tracking Mammillaria species throughout Mexico may cause an overestimation of the number of species in this genus.

B) M. schumannii may have been overlooked in parts of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range because of its similarity to another species.

C) the dense vegetation and high annual precipitation levels in parts of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range impede the ability of Mammillaria species to survive.

D) the perceived absence of Mammillaria in parts of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range may be due to insufficient exploration of the region.

Archaeologists assume that when a major demographic shift interrupts the intergenerational transmission of expertise, this manifests in the archaeological record in the form of simultaneous reductions in the complexity of multiple specialized crafting traditions. Inventories of excavation sites from the Alazani River valley and nearby areas dating from 4000 to 500 BCE show a steep drop occurring around 1500 BCE in the number of objects featuring gold filigree, an advanced technique in which fine threads of gold are arranged in intricate patterns. The inventories also indicate that advanced copper-alloy metallurgy and most other specialized crafting traditions continued to flourish during this period, a finding suggesting that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) disruptions around 1500 BCE in the utilization of gold filigree likely occurred in the context of demographic continuity among peoples of the Alazani River valley.

B) a sudden simultaneous decline in artifacts from multiple specialized crafting traditions is less likely than previously assumed to indicate that the transmission of expertise was disrupted by demographic changes.

C) peoples in the Alazani River valley continued to uphold multiple specialized crafting traditions, including goldsmithing and copper-alloy metallurgy, even as demographic shifts occurred.

D) cross-cultural transmission between distinct demographic groups in the Alazani River valley likely explains the expansion of copper-alloy metallurgy beginning around 1500 BCE.

Mariana Lopes Barata and Pedro Simões Coelho collected data from 324 music-streaming service users to identify factors that influence users to opt for paid (premium) versions of music streaming services, like Apple Music. They found that effort expectancy (the perceived ease with which a service can be used by a consumer) is positively correlated with users’ intentions to adopt premium versions. They also found that users’ intentions to purchase a premium service positively influence their intentions to recommend the premium service to others, which suggests that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) users’ intentions to pay for premium streaming services are probably unaffected by factors other than effort expectancy.

B) participants who strongly agreed with the statement “I find paid music streaming services easy to use” were more likely to express loyalty to Apple Music than to other streaming services.

C) if music streaming companies can increase the degree to which some potential users perceive the use of the premium version as effortless, they may be able to generate interest in their premium services from other potential users that they have not reached directly.

D) by encouraging existing users of premium services to recommend those services to nonusers, music streaming companies may be able to increase the extent to which their existing users perceive the use of the premium version as effortless.

Password strength meters (PSMs) provide real-time feedback to users during the password-creation process about how secure a potential password is. PSMs often include "nudges" — design elements meant to encourage the creation of robust passwords. Other PSMs provide direct guidance on how to create strong passwords. A research team found that the strongest passwords resulted from a combination of these approaches. The team also found that the specific type of nudge (reciprocity, compensation, etc.) did not significantly affect user behavior. It therefore follows that when creating passwords, users receiving ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) both compensation and reciprocity nudges would not be expected to create stronger passwords than users receiving reciprocity nudges only, although users receiving direct guidance would be expected to create stronger passwords than users receiving either type of nudge.

B) direct guidance would not be expected to create stronger passwords than users receiving compensation nudges, although users receiving compensation nudges would be expected to create stronger passwords than users receiving reciprocity nudges.

C) reciprocity nudges would not be expected to create stronger passwords than users receiving compensation nudges, although users receiving both direct guidance and reciprocity nudges would be expected to create stronger passwords than users receiving only reciprocity nudges.

D) both direct guidance and reciprocity nudges would not be expected to create stronger passwords than users receiving reciprocity nudges only, although users receiving this combination would be expected to create stronger passwords than users receiving both direct guidance and compensation nudges.

In 2003, the US state of Illinois enacted rate stability regulations (RSRs), constraining insurance companies’ latitude to raise premiums (the periodic fees policyholders pay to maintain insurance policies) after policies are in effect. RSRs are effective at protecting existing policyholders from price volatility, but Naoki Aizawa and Ami Ko note that since dynamic pricing of premiums is an important risk-mitigation tool for insurers, RSRs may lead some insurers to scale back or entirely cease selling new policies in the affected market, thereby reducing the competitive pressure that typically restrains premium prices for new policies. Thus, Illinois’s RSRs may ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) be more advantageous for insurers than they are for either current or prospective policyholders.

B) reduce premium price volatility once policies are in effect but increase risks for policyholders.

C) benefit policyholders at the expense of nonpolicyholders seeking to acquire policies.

D) prevent large increases in premium prices for new policies despite leading to fewer insurers offering such policies in the affected market.

The subscription economy has rapidly expanded to include a wide range of products — from books to cloud storage — in part because consumers appreciate the convenience of automatic payments. But as a study by Ben Klopack and team shows, consumers are typically inattentive to automatic payments and remain subscribed to services long after their value has worn off. The study also found that subscribers were much more likely to discontinue a service when they had to make an active renewal decision (for example, when they need to update payment information to remain subscribed) than at other times. The researchers therefore concluded that a regulation requiring all subscribers to complete payments manually would likely ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) deter attentive consumers from subscribing in the first place but would have little effect on whether inattentive consumers decide to subscribe.

B) decrease subscribers' valuation of the subscription services at a faster rate than if no such regulation were implemented.

C) enable dissatisfied subscribers to save more money than they would without such a regulation in place but at the expense of a feature that may have induced them to subscribe initially.

D) result in reduced average subscription durations, but the overall experience of the longest-subscribing consumers would improve.

In 1900, in collaboration with Cherokee cultural historian Will West Long, white ethnographer James Mooney assembled a collection of traditional oral stories related to him by Cherokee elders. Based on their content, Mooney categorized them into various genres: historical traditions, tales of animals, and so on. Noting that some stories feature detailed descriptions of geographic locations in the Cherokee homeland, Mooney demarcated those as a genre he referred to as "wonder stories." While Long and Mooney's collaboration proved valuable as an act of cultural preservation, it is important to bear in mind that Cherokee people are not known to have applied genre divisions to their stories before Mooney's work. There is, therefore, ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) some reason to think that other traditional stories that the Cherokee elders did not share with Mooney would not have met Mooney's criterion for classifying them as "wonder stories" despite including geographical information.

B) no evidence for Mooney's conclusion that the Cherokee elders who recounted the stories believed that the geographic details included in some stories were accurate descriptions of the Cherokee homeland.

C) considerable uncertainty about whether Mooney's classifications of the stories shared by the Cherokee elders were influenced by Long's views about which features of a story are most indicative of the genre to which the story belongs.

D) no reason to believe that the Cherokee elders who provided the stories would have agreed with Mooney that the inclusion of geographical specificity in some stories marked those stories as different in kind from other stories.

In a study of perceptions of listening ability, participants explained their position on a sociopolitical issue and then received a listener's written summary that expressed agreement or disagreement. Within selected summaries, researchers embedded markers of attentive listening (e.g., references to specific details), hypothesizing that such indications would positively influence perceptions of listening skill even in the context of disagreement. Instead, participants consistently rated listeners who expressed disagreement as less skilled, regardless of the other traits of the listeners' summaries.

What does the text most strongly imply about how participants responded to expressions of disagreement?

A) Although participants were critical of expressions of disagreement, they gave higher ratings to listeners whose summaries included markers of attentiveness than to listeners whose summaries did not include these markers.

B) Although participants maintained their positions regardless of a summary's level of detail, they tended to regard listeners who expressed disagreement as more attentive when these listeners provided more detailed summaries.

C) When participants felt personally invested in the topics they discussed, they were less likely to perceive listeners who expressed disagreement as attentive, regardless of evidence to the contrary in these listeners' summaries.

D) When participants encountered summaries from listeners who expressed disagreement with their views, participants tended to disregard evidence that the listeners had in fact been attentive.

Arthurian legends (tales related to the character of King Arthur) derive from many sources, such as Vita Sancti Cadoci, composed in the 11th century, and Culhwch and Olwen from the second half of the 12th century. One of the most significant sources, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, was written in the 1130s; some material from it was later adapted by the Norman poet Wace into the Roman de Brut in 1155. But Wace didn’t merely adapt History, he added to it as well, introducing the famous Round Table at which Arthur’s knights assembled, which suggests that _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) Roman de Brut is more historically accurate than History, because Culhwch and Olwen had not been written when Geoffrey of Monmouth was writing his work.

B) Geoffrey of Monmouth was unaware of stories of the Round Table when composing his History, though historians know that works containing such stories were available to him.

C) Geoffrey of Monmouth’s accounts of Arthurian legends in his History are more similar overall in content to the accounts in Culhwch and Olwen than they are to the accounts in Roman de Brut.

D) the Arthurian legends that the author of Vita Sancti Cadoci drew on would not have featured the Round Table.

Exclusively inhabiting tropical countries such as Sierra Leone, wild chimpanzees lack adaptations to seasonal variations in ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiance from sunlight; since UVB exposure enables vertebrates to synthesize vitamin D, this raises questions about how chimpanzees in mid-latitude zoos are affected by the lower and more variable UVB irradiance in those locations. In a study of zoo chimpanzees in Sweden and other mid-latitude countries, Sophie Moittié and colleagues found not only that chimpanzees’ vitamin D levels correlate with UVB irradiance but also that vitamin D levels show no evidence of plateauing as UVB irradiance reaches its highest local levels, suggesting that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) averaged across seasons, vitamin D levels in zoo chimpanzees in mid-latitude countries such as Sweden tend to be comparable to those in wild chimpanzees in tropical countries such as Sierra Leone.

B) adaptations to seasonal variations in UVB irradiance may be emerging in zoo chimpanzees in Sweden and other mid-latitude countries.

C) providing supplemental vitamin D to chimpanzees in zoos in Sweden and other mid-latitude countries would likely not be beneficial.

D) zoo chimpanzees in Sweden and other mid-latitude countries tend to synthesize less vitamin D than they are inherently capable of synthesizing.

Duckweed is a small freshwater plant that is often exposed to zinc pollution. Sofia Vámos and colleagues collected samples of four duckweed ecotypes (genetically and geographically distinct populations within a species), along with water from each ecotype's habitat. Hypothesizing that each ecotype is adapted to its local conditions in ways that bolster its growth and resistance to pollutants, the researchers grew each ecotype in all four water samples and with three levels of zinc (none, low, high). (The researchers did not replicate local differences in light or temperature.) They found that the ecotypes grew equally well in all four water samples and that adding zinc consistently enhanced growth, regardless of concentration, suggesting that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) if each ecotype is indeed locally adapted as the researchers hypothesized, those adaptations are to other environmental conditions than the water each ecotype inhabits.

B) while the ecotypes are genetically and geographically distinct, those differences do not represent adaptations to local environmental conditions.

C) there may not be significant differences in the water that each ecotype inhabits, but there are significant differences in each ecotype's resistance to zinc pollution.

D) although the researchers' hypothesis does not appear to be supported, this may be because the levels of zinc exposure the plants in the experiment received did not match their exposure in their natural environments.

One recognized social norm of gift giving is that the time spent obtaining a gift will be viewed as a reflection of the gift’s thoughtfulness. Marketing experts Farnoush Reshadi, Julian Givi, and Gopal Das addressed this view in their studies of norms specifically surrounding the giving of gift cards, noting that while recipients tend to view digital gift cards (which can be purchased online from anywhere and often can be redeemed online as well) as superior to physical gift cards (which sometimes must be purchased in person and may only be redeemable in person) in terms of usage, 94.8 percent of participants surveyed indicated that it is more socially acceptable to give a physical gift card to a recipient. This finding suggests that _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) gift givers likely overestimate the amount of effort required to use digital gift cards and thus mistakenly assume gift recipients will view them as less desirable than physical gift cards.

B) physical gift cards are likely preferred by gift recipients because the tangible nature of those cards offers a greater psychological sense of ownership than digital gift cards do.

C) physical gift cards are likely less desirable to gift recipients than digital gift cards are because of the perception that physical gift cards require unnecessary effort to obtain.

D) gift givers likely perceive digital gift cards as requiring relatively low effort to obtain and thus wrongly assume gift recipients will appreciate them less than they do physical gift cards.

From November 2002 to March 2003, oil prices rose 28%, creating what economists term an oil shock. Although oil shocks have occurred multiple times since 1945, a broadly applicable description of how oil shocks affect economies at the national level has proved elusive, a problem typically attributed to the fact that oil shocks' effects are substantially conditioned on country-specific characteristics (oil import-export ratios, most importantly). Recently, however, Gbadebo Oladosu et al. showed that economists' estimates of national economies' responsiveness to oil shocks are highly heterogeneous even within a given country and time frame — ranging by more than a factor of five in the case of China during a recent oil shock, for instance — suggesting that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) methodological discrepancies in studies of oil shocks may have contributed to economists' inability to provide a generalized model of oil shocks' effects on national economies.

B) controlling for variations in countries' oil import-export ratios may have obscured inconsistencies in economists' findings about the effects of oil shocks at national levels.

C) economists' conventional measures of national economic activity may be insufficiently sensitive to the effects of oil shocks.

D) differences in oil import-export ratios from one country to another may account for more of the differences in the effects of oil shocks on those countries' economies than economists previously believed.

Chelsea Wood et al. tracked temperature-driven changes in the abundance of Opechona sp. (a complex life cycle parasite, or CLP, that requires three host species throughout its lifecycle), Anthocotyle merlucci (a directly transmitted parasite, which requires only one host species), and 83 other parasite taxa found on eight fish species. CLPs are transmitted when an infected host is ingested by an individual of another species, typically shielding CLPs from the external environment, whereas directly transmitted parasites are exposed to external conditions during transmission. However, Wood et al. found that three-host CLP abundance decreased as sea temperatures rose, whereas directly transmitted parasite abundance was largely stable, suggesting that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) as the number of host species involved in a parasite's transmission increases, the parasite is better protected against rising temperatures.

B) any advantages that the transmission strategy used by three-host CLPs may have conferred did not completely offset the negative effects of other temperature-driven factors on CLP abundance.

C) CLPs primarily transmitted by ingestion were less dependent on host species adversely affected by warming temperatures than were CLPs that use other transmission strategies.

D) directly transmitted parasites identified in the study were more likely to use transmission strategies that shield them from warming temperatures than were three-host CLPs.

In an analysis of medieval urbanization in Pisa, Greifswald, and other European settlements, researchers drew on modern urban scaling theory, which posits that population density in core urban areas increases as a city grows larger. Hypothesizing that this typical relationship would have differed in medieval settlements because of the constraining influence of strong hierarchical social structures (which are much less pronounced in modern cities) on social networking and economic integration—drivers of urban agglomeration—the team created a model that accounted for the presence of restrictive institutions. They found that the typically expected density-size relationship held for each of the 173 medieval settlements whose growth they analyzed, suggesting that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) although there tends to be a positive relationship between population size and development of core urban areas for both medieval settlements and modern cities, social institutions likely limited the rate at which population density increased in medieval settlements.

B) despite a change in the role of social structures over time, there is likely a notable consistency between medieval settlements and modern cities in underlying elements of the social and economic interactions among individuals that shape the development of core urban areas.

C) the social and economic dynamics that affect urban agglomeration were likely much different in medieval settlements than in modern cities, despite the similarity across time in population density patterns.

D) the constraining influence of hierarchical medieval institutions likely had a significant effect on individuals in some social groupings but little to no effect on members of other social groupings.

Probabilistic models generate predictions based on outcomes of analogous past events, but even as these models project likely outcomes, they implicitly acknowledge that lower-frequency events may occur instead. Because they accommodate multiple potential outcomes, such models may seem incompatible with causal determinism — the view that particular outcomes are inevitable given certain preconditions. But complete foreknowledge of relevant conditions is generally unavailable, suggesting that a state of uncertainty ultimately prevails in which outcomes can be predicted but not definitively foretold.

What does the text most strongly imply about the relationship between probabilistic models and causal determinism?

A) The predictive use of probabilistic models can be reconciled with acceptance of causal determinism because causal determinism does not necessarily entail the existence of absolute certainty.

B) The predictive use of probabilistic models represents a rejection of causal determinism because such models associate a single event with multiple potential outcomes.

C) Probabilistic models reflect the influence of causal determinism because their predictions of future outcomes are informed by concrete information about past events.

D) Probabilistic models can be understood as compatible with causal determinism only when their predictions of future events overwhelmingly favor one potential outcome.

Interested in how the color of dogs' irises affects human responses to dogs, Akitsugu Konno et al. showed images of 12 dogs' faces to human participants and asked them to rate the dogs' kindness and trustworthiness as well as the likelihood that they would interact with or keep the dogs. The researchers had previously adjusted the images so that each dog was presented in two versions, one with light irises and one with dark irises. They distributed the images such that no participant saw both the light and dark versions of the same dog. Konno et al. found that participants responded more positively to the latter. The study's design allowed the researchers to exclude the possibility that the results ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) may have been different if participants had been able to see the dogs' irises in person instead of only seeing images that included the dogs' irises.

B) reflected a preference on the part of participants for facial features that happened to coincide with dark irises in the dogs depicted in the images.

C) were a function of participants emphasizing the colors of the dogs' irises over the dogs' kindness and trustworthiness when reacting to the images.

D) could be explained by participants having preexisting positive feelings about dogs with dark irises or preexisting negative feelings about dogs with light irises.

The Virgin Group's introduction of the Virgin Atlantic airline in 1984 is an instance of brand extension --- the company leveraged its brand recognition as a music retailer to enter a new product category. To investigate how market share affects consumers' likelihood of purchasing brand extensions, Allcia Grasby et al identified 30 extended brand pairs (e.g., the same brand of vacuum cleaner and microwave) in household purchasing data; for each pair, Grasby et al, calculated the branded products' market share and calculated the increase in probability of a brand in one category being purchased if the same brand was purchased in the other category. A broad inverse relationship between the two values emerged, which can most reasonably be attributed to the fact that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) the purchase probability of a brand is affected by the purchase probability of the particular product category to which it belongs, and thus brands in categories that are rarely purchased tend to have low purchase probabilities regardless of market share.

B) as a brand's market share increases, the number of competing brands in the same product category tends to decrease, and thus the rate of increase in market share tends to accelerate as a brand's market share grows.

C) brands with high market share have high purchase probability regardless of whether the other product in the pair is purchased and thus have less potential to increase in purchase probability than brands with low market share do.

D) consumers tend to be less familiar with brands with low market share than brands with high market share and thus may purchase both products in a pair with low market share without recognizing that the products are the same brand.

To combat predation by the big brown bat and other insectivorous bats, many moth species, including Xylophanes tersa, emit ultrasonic pulses that, in some cases, disrupt the echolocation bats rely on for foraging. Some scientists have hypothesized that this capability evolved because it imposes a lower metabolic cost than does the alternative mechanism of producing chemicals that render moths noxious to bats. Pablo Sebastian Padrón et al. investigated the acoustic properties of moths' ultrasonic responses to audio of bat echolocation and then assessed the palatability of the ultrasound-producing moths. They found that several moth genera that emit ultrasonic pulses capable of disrupting bat echolocation are unpalatable to bats, suggesting that ____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) further investigations into moths' ability to protect themselves by disrupting bat echolocation will likely find that moth genera relying on this mechanism are also generally inedible to bats.

B) most genera of moths that produce ultrasound capable of disrupting bat echolocation do so primarily for purposes other than evading capture by the big brown bat and other predators.

C) the hypothesis about the development of this ultrasonic defense likely does not account for all instances of the trait in moths.

D) although previous findings about Xylophanes tersa are consistent with the hypothesis about the low metabolic cost of producing noxious chemicals, the ability to disrupt bat echolocation and unpalatability are not mutually exclusive traits.

Exclusively inhabiting tropical countries such as Senegal, wild chimpanzees lack adaptations to seasonal variations in ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiance from sunlight; since UVB exposure enables vertebrates to synthesize vitamin D, Sophie Moittie and colleagues studied zoo chimpanzees in Italy and other mid-latitude countries to see how vitamin D levels are affected by the seasonal variations in UVB irradiance that occur in those locations. They found that chimpanzees' vitamin D levels were significantly lower in winter than in summer and appeared unaffected by oral supplementation of vitamin D administered by zookeepers. Moittie and colleagues point out, however, that supplementation was rare, highly varied, and poorly tracked, and therefore they caution against concluding that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) vitamin D levels among zoo chimpanzees in Italy and other mid-latitude countries likely show different seasonal patterns than do vitamin D levels among wild chimpanzees in Senegal and other tropical countries.

B) the lack of an observed effect of supplemental vitamin D on zoo chimpanzees in Italy and other mid-latitude countries may reflect shortcomings in the data rather than actual ineffectiveness.

C) providing zoo chimpanzees in Italy and other mid-latitude countries with supplemental vitamin D has no promise as a strategy for offsetting winter reductions in their vitamin D levels.

D) winter reductions in UVB irradiance in Italy and other mid-latitude countries can contribute to variations in zoo chimpanzees' vitamin D levels.

In the retina of the human eye, long (L), medium (M), and short (S) cone cells help process bright light and color by sending signals to the brain. M cones react to a range in the visible spectrum of light that completely overlaps with those L and S cones react to. As a result, ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) it is possible to study the roles of L, M, and S cones because each type of cone can be activated without activating the other types.

B) L cones react only to wavelengths associated with the color red, S cones react only to wavelengths associated with the color blue, and M cones react only to wavelengths associated with the color green.

C) the brain more easily interprets colors in the range both L and M cones react to than in the range both M and S cones react to.

D) it is difficult to exclusively study the role of M cones in human vision under natural conditions because M cones can't be activated without simultaneously activating the L and S cones.

Plants often reduce photosynthesis in undamaged parts of their leaves when other parts are being eaten by insects. It appears that feeding triggers the closure of stomata—tiny openings that allow carbon dioxide to enter the leaf—thereby limiting plants' ability to fix carbon (capture and convert it to carbohydrates during photosynthesis). In a study of genetically identical plants, those that were modified to emit an insect-deterring chemical compound experienced a smaller decline in photosynthesis under insect attack than those that did not emit the compound. Since the two types of plants showed no other differences, this finding suggests that ________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A) emitting the defensive compound enabled plants to keep their stomata open to a greater extent than they otherwise would have.

B) plants that emitted the defensive compound converted a greater proportion of captured carbon to carbohydrates than they otherwise would have.

C) emitting the defensive compound allowed plants to compensate for stomata closure by fixing carbon more efficiently.

D) there may have been underlying genetic differences between the plants that strengthened the correlation between compound emission and photosynthesis efficiency.