Form, Structure, and Sense

Question 1
The radiation that ______blank during the decay of radioactive atomic nuclei is
known as gamma radiation.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. occurs
B. have occurred
C. occur
D. are occurring

Question 2
Despite being cheap, versatile, and easy to produce, ______blank they are made
from nonrenewable petroleum, and most do not biodegrade in landfills.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. there are two problems associated with commercial plastics:
B. two problems are associated with commercial plastics:
C. commercial plastics’ two associated problems are that
D. commercial plastics have two associated problems:

Question 3
On April 5, 1977, Kitty Cone and 150 other disability rights activists entered a
San Francisco federal building. After pleading for years—to no effect—for the passage
of key antidiscrimination legislation, ______blank until their demands were addressed.
Finally, on April 28, the legislation was signed.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. pressure on lawmakers increased when the activists staged a sit-in protest
B. a sit-in protest staged by the activists increased pressure on lawmakers
C. lawmakers came under increased pressure when the activists staged a sit-in
protest
D. the activists increased pressure on lawmakers by staging a sit-in protest
Question 4
In recent years, economists around the world have created new tools that
quantify the overall well-being of a country’s citizens. Economists in India, for example,
use an Ease of Living Index. This tool ______blank economic potential, sustainability,
and citizens’ quality of life.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. measures
B. had measured
 C. would have measured
D. will have been measuring
Question 5
Mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz used the metaphor of the
“butterfly effect” to explain how seemingly minor events can have major impacts on
future weather. According to Lorenz’s metaphor, the wind from a butterfly
flapping ______blank in Brazil might eventually grow into a storm elsewhere across the
globe.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. its wings
B. its wings’
C. it’s wing’s
D. it’s wings

Question 6
Bonnie Buratti of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ______blank data about
Saturn’s rings collected by the Cassini spacecraft when she made an interesting
discovery: the tiny moons embedded between and within Saturn’s rings are shaped by
the buildup of ring material on the moons’ surfaces.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. studies
B. has been studying
C. will study
D. was studying
Question 7
Rabinal Achí is a precolonial Maya dance drama performed annually in Rabinal, a
town in the Guatemalan highlands. Based on events that occurred when Rabinal was a
city-state ruled by a king, ______blank had once been an ally of the king but was later
captured while leading an invading force against him.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Rabinal Achí tells the story of K’iche’ Achí, a military leader who
B. K’iche’ Achí, the military leader in the story of Rabinal Achí,
C. the military leader whose story is told in Rabinal Achí, K’iche’ Achí,
D. there was a military leader, K’iche’ Achí, who in Rabinal Achí
Question 8
During the American Civil War, Thomas Morris Chester braved the front lines as a
war correspondent for the Philadelphia Press. Amplifying the voices and experiences of
Black soldiers ______blank of particular importance to Chester, who later became an
activist and lawyer during the postwar Reconstruction period.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. were
B. have been
C. are
D. was

Question 9
In 1903, environmentalist John Muir guided President Theodore Roosevelt on a
scenic, sprawling trip through California’s Yosemite Valley. Upon returning from the
three-day excursion, Roosevelt ______blank to conserve the nation’s wilderness areas, a
vow he upheld for his remaining six years in office.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. is vowing
B. vowed
C. will vow
D. vows
Question 10
To survive when water is scarce, embryos inside African turquoise killifish
eggs ______blank a dormant state known as diapause. In this state, embryonic
development is paused for as long as two years—longer than the life span of an adult
killifish.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. enter
B. to enter
C. having entered
D. entering

Question 11
In 1637, the price of tulips skyrocketed in Amsterdam, with single bulbs of rare
varieties selling for up to the equivalent of $200,000 in today’s US dollars. Some
historians ______blank that this “tulip mania” was the first historical instance of an asset
bubble, which occurs when investors drive prices to highs not supported by actual
demand.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. claiming
B. claim
C. having claimed
D. to claim
Question 12
Professional American football player Fred Cox invented one of the world’s most
popular toys. In the 1970s, he came up with the idea for the Nerf football,
which ______blank of the harder and heavier regulation football.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. were a smaller, foam version
B. are smaller, foam versions
C. were smaller, foam versions
D. is a smaller, foam version
Question 13
Formed in 1967 to foster political and economic stability within the Asia-Pacific
region, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was originally made up of five
members: Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. By the end of
the 1990s, the organization ______blank its initial membership.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. has doubled
B. had doubled
C. doubles
D. will double
Question 14
Atoms in a synchrotron, a type of circular particle accelerator, travel faster and
faster until they ______blank a desired energy level, at which point they are diverted to
collide with a target, smashing the atoms.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. will reach
B. reach
C. had reached
D. are reaching

Question 15
Led by Syrian American astronomer Shadia Habbal, the Solar Wind Sherpas are
an intrepid team of scientists who travel the globe to study solar winds, the streams of
particles emanating from the Sun that are only visible from certain locations during a
total solar eclipse. When such an eclipse is imminent, the Sherpas pack up their
telescopes and ______blank ready.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. get
B. had gotten
C. got
 D. were getting
Question 16
Farouk El-Baz, a geologist and space scientist, ______blank part of the team that
selected the lunar landing sites for the Apollo program during the 1960s and 1970s.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. are
B. was
C. have been
D. were

Question 17
In the 1970s, Janaki Ammal, a prominent botanist, emerged as a powerful voice
in India’s environmental conservation movement. Her exhaustive chromosomal survey
of plants in Silent Valley, a pristine tropical forest in Kerala, India, that is home to
nearly 1,000 species of native flora (many of which are
endangered), ______blank instrumental in the government’s decision to preserve the
forest.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. are
B. were
C. have been
D. was

Question 18
Obsidian is a kind of volcanic glass formed when lava cools so quickly that the
atoms inside it cannot arrange themselves in a crystalline structure.
You ______blank more about obsidian’s structure, which is classified as amorphous, in a
later chapter.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. had learned
B. had been learning
C. will learn
D. have learned
Question 19
The artistic talents of Barbara Chase-Riboud, most known for her 1979 historical
novel Sally Hemings and the conversation it inspired, ______blank limited to the realm
of prose: she first excelled in sculpture, where her affinity for bronze—a material she
described as “timeless” due to its use across eras and cultures—became part of her
artistic identity.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. hasn’t been
B. wasn’t
C. isn’t
D. aren’t
Question 20
Public-awareness campaigns about the need to reduce single-use plastics can be
successful, says researcher Kim Borg of Monash University in Australia, when these
campaigns give consumers a choice: for example, Japan achieved a 40 percent
reduction in plastic-bag use after cashiers were instructed to ask customers
whether ______blank wanted a bag.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. they
B. one
C. you
D. it

Question 21
Midway through her 1968 jazz album A Monastic Trio, Alice Coltrane switches
instruments, swapping the piano for the harp. With the same fluid style that Coltrane
was famous for on piano, she ______blank her fingers across the harp strings and
creates a radiant sound.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. sweep
B. are sweeping
C. were sweeping
D. sweeps
Question 22
Working from an earlier discovery of Charpentier’s, chemists Emmanuelle
Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna—winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry—re-
created and then reprogrammed the so-called “genetic scissors” of a species of DNA-
cleaving bacteria ______blank a tool that is revolutionizing the field of gene technology.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. to forge
B. forging
C. forged
D. and forging

Question 23
 Objects ranging from the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle to the Yamaha VMAX
motorcycle to the Komachi bullet train ______blank designed by twentieth-century
industrial designer Kenji Ekuan.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. was
B. is
C. has been
D. were

Question 24
In the historical novel The Surrender Tree, Cuban American author Margarita
Engle uses poetry rather than prose ______blank the true story of Cuban folk hero Rosa
La Bayamesa.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. tells
B. told
C. is telling
D. to tell

Question 25
In assessing the films of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, ______blank have
missed his equally deep engagement with Japanese artistic traditions such as Noh
theater.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. many critics have focused on Kurosawa’s use of Western literary sources but
B. Kurosawa’s use of Western literary sources has been the focus of many critics,
who
C. there are many critics who have focused on Kurosawa’s use of Western literary
sources, but they
D. the focus of many critics has been on Kurosawa’s use of Western literary
sources; they

Question 26
Classical composer Florence Price’s 1927 move to Chicago marked a turning
point in her career. It was there that Price premiered her First Symphony—a piece that
was praised for blending traditional Romantic motifs with aspects of Black folk music—
and ______blank supportive relationships with other Black artists.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. developing
 B. developed
C. to develop
D. having developed

Question 27
Like other amphibians, the wood frog (Rana sylvatica) is unable to generate its
own heat, so during periods of subfreezing temperatures, it ______blank by producing
large amounts of glucose, a sugar that helps prevent damaging ice from forming inside
its cells.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. had survived
B. survived
C. would survive
D. survives
Question 28
While exploring Nevada’s Gypsum Cave in 1930, Seneca and Abenaki
archaeologist Bertha Parker made her most famous discovery: the skull of a now-
extinct ground sloth (Nothrotheriops shastensis) alongside human-made tools. Parker’s
crucial finding was the first ______blank humans in North America as far back as 10,000
years ago.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. places
B. placed
C. place
D. to place
Question 29
The sun never sets during the Arctic summer in the Far North. In response,
reindeer in this region must change their sleep habits. Instead of resting when it gets
dark, they rest when they need ______blank their food.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. digest
B. will digest
C. to digest
D. digesting

Question 30
British scientists James Watson and Francis Crick won the Nobel Prize in part for
their 1953 paper announcing the double helix structure of DNA, but it is misleading to
say that Watson and Crick discovered the double helix. ______blank findings were based
on a famous X-ray image of DNA fibers, “Photo 51,” developed by X-ray
crystallographer Rosalind Franklin and her graduate student Raymond Gosling.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. They’re
B. It’s
C. Their
D. Its
Question 31
In the 1950s, a man named Joseph McVicker was struggling to keep his business
afloat when his sister-in-law Kay Zufall advised him to repurpose the company’s
product, a nontoxic, clay-like substance for removing soot from wallpaper, as a
modeling putty for kids. In addition, Zufall ______blank selling the product under a child-
friendly name: Play-Doh.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. suggested
B. suggests
C. had suggested
D. was suggesting
Question 32
When they were first discovered in Australia in 1798, duck-billed, beaver-tailed
platypuses so defied categorization that one scientist assigned them the
name Ornithorhynchus paradoxus: “paradoxical bird-snout.” The animal, which lays
eggs but also nurses ______blank young with milk, has since been classified as
belonging to the monotremes group.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. they’re
B. their
C. its
D. it’s

Question 33
 Known as Earth’s “living skin,” biocrusts are thin layers of soil held together by
surface-dwelling microorganisms such as fungi, lichens, and cyanobacteria. Fortifying
soil in arid ecosystems against erosion, ______blank
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. a recent study’s estimate is that these crusts reduce global dust emissions by 60
percent each year.
B. an estimated 60 percent reduction in global dust emissions each year is due to
these crusts, according to a recent study.
C. these crusts reduce global dust emissions by an estimated 60 percent each year,
according to a recent study.
D. a recent study has estimated that these crusts reduce global dust emissions by
60 percent each year.

Question 34
In order to prevent nonnative fish species from moving freely between the
Mediterranean and Red Seas, marine biologist Bella Galil has proposed that a saline
lock system be installed along the Suez Canal in Egypt’s Great Bitter Lakes. The lock
would increase the salinity of the lakes and ______blank a natural barrier of water most
marine creatures would be unable to cross.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. creates
B. create
C. creating
D. created

Question 35
The African Games Co-production Market, one of over 180 annual international
conferences supporting video game development, ______blank the growth of the African
gaming industry by helping start-up studios in Africa find partners.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. promote
B. are promoting
C. promotes
D. have promoted

Question 36
The African Games Co-production Market, one of over 180 annual international
conferences supporting video game development, ______blank the growth of the African
gaming industry by helping start-up studios in Africa find partners.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. promote
B. are promoting
C. promotes
D. have promoted

Question 37
The classic children’s board game Chutes and Ladders is a version of an ancient
Nepalese game, Paramapada Sopanapata. In both games, players encounter “good” or
“bad” spaces while traveling along a path; landing on one of the good
spaces ______blank a player to skip ahead and arrive closer to the end goal.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. allows
B. are allowing
C. have allowed
D. allow

Question 38
Literary agents estimate that more than half of all nonfiction books credited to a
celebrity or other public figure are in fact written by ghostwriters, professional authors
who are paid to write other ______blank but whose names never appear on book covers.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. people’s stories
B. peoples story’s
C. peoples stories
D. people’s story’s
Question 39
Based on genetic evidence, archaeologists have generally agreed that reindeer
domestication began in the eleventh century CE. However, since uncovering fragments
of a 2,000-year-old reindeer training harness in northern Siberia, ______blank may have
begun much earlier.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. researcher Robert Losey has argued that domestication
B. researcher Robert Losey’s argument is that domestication
C. domestication, researcher Robert Losey has argued,
D. the argument researcher Robert Losey has made is that domestication
Question 40
In the early twentieth century, Joseph Kekuku and other Hawaiian ______blank in
the mainland United States to the bright and lilting sound of the kīkā kila, or Hawaiian
steel guitar. The instrument soon became a fixture in American blues and country
music.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. musicians introduced audiences
B. musicians’ introduced audiences’
C. musician’s introduced audience’s
D. musicians’ introduced audiences

Question 41
Ten of William Shakespeare’s plays are classified as histories. Although each one
of these plays, which include Henry V and Richard III, ______blank on a single historical
figure (specifically, an English king), some, such as Henry VI Part One and Henry VI Part
Two, feature different episodes from the same monarch’s life.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. focuses
B. focus
C. are focused
D. were focused

Question 42
Smaller than poppy seeds, tardigrades are tiny, but they are tough. These
minuscule animals can survive for thirty years without food or water,
and ______blank can withstand extreme temperatures as low as minus 328 degrees and
as high as 304 degrees Fahrenheit.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. that
B. it
C. they
D. he

Question 43
African American Percy Julian was a scientist and entrepreneur whose work
helped people around the world to see. Named in 1999 as one of the greatest
achievements by a US chemist in the past hundred years, ______blank led to the first
mass-produced treatment for glaucoma.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Julian synthesized the alkaloid physostigmine in 1935; it
B. in 1935 Julian synthesized the alkaloid physostigmine, which
C. Julian’s 1935 synthesis of the alkaloid physostigmine
D. the alkaloid physostigmine was synthesized by Julian in 1935 and
Question 44
The US Geological Survey wants to map every human-made structure in the
United States, and it is asking volunteers to help. Cassie Tammy Wang and Ashish
D’Souza are just two of the many volunteer map editors who ______blank to the project
since it began in 2012.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. contribute
B. will contribute
C. have contributed
D. will be contributing

Question 45
Far from being modern inventions, ______blank more than 5,000 years ago.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia used drinking straws
B. drinking straws were used by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia
C. the use of drinking straws by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia happened
D. ancient Mesopotamia was home to Sumerians who used drinking straws

Question 46
Cheng Dang and her colleagues at the University of Washington recently ran
simulations to determine the extent to which individual snow ______blank affect the
amount of light reflecting off a snowy surface.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. grain’s physical properties’
B. grains’ physical properties
C. grains’ physical property’s
D. grains physical properties

Question 47
In his groundbreaking book Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian
America, Vivek Bald uses newspaper articles, census records, ships’ logs, and memoirs
to tell the ______blank who made New York City their home in the early twentieth
century.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. story’s of the South Asian immigrants
B. story’s of the South Asian immigrants’
C. stories of the South Asian immigrants
D. stories’ of the South Asian immigrant’s

Question 48
In the canon of North African literature, Moroccan author Driss Chraïbi’s 1954
novel The Simple Past (Le Passé simple) looms large. A coming-of-age story, a social
meditation, and a sober gaze into the dark maw of French
colonialism, ______blank interrogates systemic power with memorable intensity.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Morocco gained its independence two years before the publication of Chraïbi’s
debut novel, which
B. Chraïbi’s debut novel, published two years before Morocco gained its
independence,
C. Chraïbi wrote a debut novel that, published two years before Morocco gained its
independence,
D. published two years before Morocco gained its independence, Chraïbi wrote a
debut novel that

Question 49
When writing The Other Black Girl (2021), novelist Zakiya Dalila Harris drew on
her own experiences working at a publishing office. The award-winning book is Harris’s
first novel, but her writing ______blank honored before. At the age of twelve, she
entered a contest to have a story published in American Girl magazine—and won.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. were
B. have been
C. has been
D. are

Question 50
In winter, the diets of Japanese macaques, also known as snow monkeys, are
influenced more by food availability than by food preference. Although the monkeys
prefer to eat vegetation and land-dwelling invertebrates, those food sources may
become unavailable because of extensive snow and ice cover, ______blank the monkeys
to hunt for marine animals in any streams that have not frozen over.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. forces
B. to force
C. forcing
D. forced

Question 51
Planetary scientist Briony Horgan and her colleagues have determined that as
much as 25 percent of the sand on Mars is composed of impact spherules. These
spherical bits of glass form when asteroids collide with the planet, ejecting bits of
molten rock into the atmosphere that, after cooling and solidifying into
glass, ______blank back onto Mars’s surface.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. to rain
B. raining
C. having rained
D. rain

Question 52
Compared to that of alumina glass, ______blank silica glass atoms are so far apart
that they are unable to re-form bonds after being separated.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. silica glass is at a significant disadvantage due to its more dispersed atomic
arrangement:
B. silica glass has a more dispersed atomic arrangement, resulting in a significant
disadvantage:
C. a significant disadvantage of silica glass is that its atomic arrangement is more
dispersed:
D. silica glass’s atomic arrangement is more dispersed, resulting in a significant
disadvantage:

Question 53
Food and the sensation of taste are central to Monique Truong’s novels. In The
Book of Salt, for example, the exiled character of Bình connects to his native Saigon
through the food he prepares, while in Bitter in the Mouth, the character of
Linda ______blank a form of synesthesia whereby the words she hears evoke tastes.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
 A. experienced
B. had experienced
C. experiences
D. will be experiencing

Question 54
Earth is not a perfect sphere. Due to the ______blank gravitational pull, Earth
bulges out on the sides closest to and farthest from the Moon. This distorting pull is
known as a tidal force, and it is responsible for the changes in water levels that are
called high and low tides.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Moon’s
B. Moons
C. Moons’
D. Moon
Question 55
In Death Valley National Park’s Racetrack Playa, a flat, dry lakebed, are 162
rocks—some weighing less than a pound but others almost 700 pounds—that move
periodically from place to place, seemingly of their own volition. Racetrack-like trails in
the ______blank mysterious migration.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. playas sediment mark the rock’s
B. playa’s sediment mark the rocks
C. playa’s sediment mark the rocks’
D. playas’ sediment mark the rocks’

Question 56
The human brain is primed to recognize faces—so much so that, due to a
perceptual tendency called pareidolia, ______blank will even find faces in clouds,
wooden doors, pieces of fruit, and other faceless inanimate objects. Researcher Susan
Magsamen has focused her work on better understanding this everyday phenomenon.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. she
B. they
C. it
D. those
Question 57
In 2016, engineer Vanessa Galvez oversaw the installation of 164 bioswales,
vegetated channels designed to absorb and divert stormwater, along the streets of
Queens, New York. By reducing the runoff flowing into city sewers, ______blank
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. the mitigation of both street flooding and the resulting pollution of nearby
waterways has been achieved by bioswales.
B. the bioswales have mitigated both street flooding and the resulting pollution of
nearby waterways.
C. the bioswales’ mitigation of both street flooding and the resulting pollution of
nearby waterways has been achieved.
D. both street flooding and the resulting pollution of nearby waterways have been
mitigated by bioswales.

Question 58
Official measurements of the Mississippi River’s length vary: according to the US
Geologic Survey, the river is 2,300 miles long, whereas the Environmental Protection
Agency records its length as 2,320 miles. This disparity can be explained in part by the
fact that rivers such as the Mississippi expand and contract as ______blank sediment.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. they accumulate
B. one accumulates
C. it accumulates
D. we accumulate

Question 59
Richard Spikes was a prolific African American inventor known for his
contributions to automotive engineering. Between 1907 and 1946, he patented many
inventions, ______blank an automobile turn signal, a safety brake, and—most famously
—the first automatic gearshift.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. included
 B. includes
C. including
D. will include

Question 60
Even though bats prefer very sweet nectar, the plants that attract them have
evolved to produce nectar that is only moderately sweet. A recent
study ______blank why: making sugar is energy-intensive, and it is more advantageous
for plants to make a large amount of low-sugar nectar than a small amount of high-
sugar nectar.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. explains
B. explaining
C. having explained
D. to explain

Question 61
In the late 1960s, inspired in part by the sight of laundry hanging on a
clothesline, African American abstract painter Sam Gilliam began to create his iconic
“Drape” paintings. He applied bold, saturated hues to large canvases
and ______blank them from ceilings or walls, causing the drooping fabric to cascade in
dramatic loops and curves.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. to have suspended
B. suspending
C. to suspend
D. suspended

Question 62
Slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo’s debut novel The Poet X, winner of the 2018
National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, is composed
of ______blank protagonist, fifteen-year-old Xiomara Batista.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. poems putatively written by the novel’s
B. poem’s putatively written by the novel’s
C. poem’s putatively written by the novels’
D. poems putatively written by the novels’
Question 63
Author Madeline L’Engle, ______blank to create a suspenseful tone that draws the
reader in, begins her novel A Wrinkle in Time with descriptions of “wraithlike shadows”
and “the frenzied lashing of the wind.”
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. looked
B. looks
C. is looking
D. looking

Question 64
The Progressive Era in the United States witnessed the rise of numerous Black
women’s clubs, local organizations that advocated for racial and gender equality.
Among the clubs’ leaders ______blank Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, founder of the
Women’s Era Club of Boston.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. was
B. were
C. are
D. have been

Question 65
American poet Emily Dickinson wrote many of her poems on scraps of paper, but
she also took steps to collect these works. From 1858 to around 1864, for example, she
copied more than 800 of ______blank into forty homemade booklets (known as
fascicles).
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. them
B. this
C. that
D. it

Question 66
American poet Emily Dickinson wrote many of her poems on scraps of paper, but
she also took steps to collect these works. From 1858 to around 1864, for example, she
copied more than 800 of ______blank into forty homemade booklets (known as
fascicles).
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. them
B. this
C. that
D. it

Question 67
Occupying a significant part of modern-day Nigeria, the Kingdom of Benin was
one of the major powers in West Africa between the thirteenth and nineteenth
centuries. It ______blank ruled by Oba Ewuare I from 1440 to 1473.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. is
B. will be
C. has been
D. was

Question 68
In the 2011 documentary The Barber of Birmingham, civil rights activist James
Armstrong recounts how his barbershop in Birmingham, Alabama, ______blank as a
political hub for members of the Black community during the 1950s.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. serving
B. having served
C. served
D. to serve

Question 69
Former First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt and Indian activist and
educator Hansa Mehta were instrumental in drafting the United Nations’ Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, a document that ______blank the basic freedoms to which
all people are entitled.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. have outlined
B. were outlining
C. outlines
D. outline
Question 70
In many of her landscape paintings from the 1970s and 1980s, Lebanese
American artist Etel Adnan worked to capture the essence of California’s fog-shrouded
Mount Tamalpais region through abstraction, using splotches of color to represent the
area’s features. Interestingly, the triangle representing the mountain
itself ______blank among the few defined figures in her paintings.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. are
B. have been
C. were
D. is
Question 71
A second-generation Japanese American, Wataru Misaka ______blank in World
War II (1941-45) and won two amateur national basketball championships at the
University of Utah when he joined the New York Knicks for the 1947-48 season,
becoming the first non-white basketball player in the US’s top professional league.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. already served
B. was already serving
C. already serves
D. had already served

Question 72
In 1930, Japanese American artist Chiura Obata depicted the natural beauty of
Yosemite National Park in two memorable woodcuts: Evening at Carl Inn and Lake
Basin in the High Sierra. In 2019, ______blank exhibited alongside 150 of Obata’s other
works in a single-artist show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. it was
B. they were
C. this was
D. some were
Question 73
If simple sugars such as ribose and glycolaldehyde ______blank Earth from
elsewhere and survived impact—a possibility astrophysicist Nicolle Zellner outlined in a
2020 study—the sugars could have reacted with other molecules that were already
present on the planet to form the nucleotides that are the structural components of
RNA and DNA.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. reach
B. had reached
C. will reach
D. are reaching

Question 74
Inventor John Friedman created a prototype of the first flexible straw by inserting
a screw into a paper straw and, using dental floss, binding the straw tightly around
the ______blank When the floss and screw were removed, the resulting corrugations in
the paper allowed the straw to bend easily over the edge of a glass.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. screw’s thread’s.
B. screws’ threads.
C. screw’s threads.
D. screws threads’.

Question 75
Photographer Ansel Adams’s landscape portraits are iconic pieces of American
art. However, many of the ______blank of landscapes were intended not as art but as
marketing; a concessions company at Yosemite National Park had hired Adams to take
pictures of the park for restaurant menus and brochures.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. photographer’s early photo’s
B. photographers early photo’s
C. photographer’s early photos
D. photographers early photos

Question 76
Each year in the fall, when the weather starts to cool in the northern hemisphere,
millions of North American monarch butterflies journey south. Searching for food and
warmer habitats, they ______blank thousands of miles—from as far north as Canada all
the way down to Mexico—on this annual migration.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. flew
B. were flying
C. had flown
D. fly

Question 77
Oglala Lakota poet Layli Long Soldier’s star quilt poems offer an unusually open-
ended reading experience. With ______blank eight panels of text stitched together in
the shape of a traditional eight-pointed Lakota star quilt, the poems present viewers
with a seemingly infinite number of ways to read them.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. their
B. it’s
C. they’re
D. its
Question 78
“Praise Song for the Day,” Elizabeth Alexander’s 2009 inaugural poem, asserts
that “We cross dirt roads and highways…to see what’s on the other side.” Alexander’s
use of “we” ______blank Americans’ collective efforts and shared desire to seek new
opportunity.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. evokes
B. are evoking
C. have evoked
D. evoke

Question 79
By the time Hawaiian king Kamehameha III ______blank the throne, the number
of longhorn cattle, first introduced to the islands in 1793, had drastically increased, and
so too had the need for paniolo (Hawaiian cowboys) to manage the wild herds that then
roamed throughout the volcanic terrain.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. ascended
B. will ascend
C. ascends
D. is ascending
Question 80
Wanda Diaz-Merced is an astrophysicist who lost her sight when she was young.
Diaz-Merced’s condition inspired her to develop software that can translate scientific
data into sound. Sound-based tools ______blank scientists to detect subtle patterns in
data. Such patterns may not be evident in traditional graphs.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. has enabled
B. enable
C. is enabling
D. enables
Question 81
Nuhād al-Ḥaddād, known as Fairuz, was one of the most beloved Lebanese
singers of the twentieth century. Her broad singing repertoire—which included
traditional forms, such as the Arabic qasida and maqam, alongside modern pop and
jazz styles—lent Fairuz a timeless, cross-generational appeal, ______blank her the
moniker “the soul of Lebanon.”
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. earned
 B. had earned
C. earning
D. earn

Question 82
Bengali author Toru Dutt’s A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1876), a volume of
English translations of French poems, ______blank scholars’ understanding of the
transnational and multilingual contexts in which Dutt lived and worked.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. has enhanced
B. are enhancing
C. have enhanced
D. enhance
Question 83
If you try on one of artist Nick Cave’s signature Soundsuits, you can expect to
swish, rustle, or clang every time you move. Cave makes his suits out of found objects,
everything from ceramic birds to broken record players. He carefully considers the
sound an object makes before using ______blank in a suit.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. this
B. that
C. these
D. it
Question 84
In 1899, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius developed an equation to answer a
long-standing question: why do chemical reactions speed up at higher temperatures?
The Arrhenius equation, named for its creator, ______blank an important concept in
modern chemistry.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. have remained
B. remain
C. remains
D. are remaining

Question 85
In 1994, almost 200 years after the death of Wang Zhenyi, the International
Astronomical ______blank the contributions of the barrier-breaking 18th-century
astronomer and author of “Dispute of the Procession of the Equinoxes,” naming a
crater on Venus after her.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Union would finally acknowledge
B. Union to finally acknowledge
C. Union, having finally acknowledged
D. Union, finally acknowledging

Question 86
In 2015, a team led by materials scientists Anirudha Sumant and Diana Berman
succeeded in reducing the coefficient of friction (COF) between two surfaces to the
lowest possible level—superlubricity. A nearly frictionless (and, as its name suggests,
extremely slippery) state, ______blank
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. when their COF drops below 0.01, two surfaces reach superlubricity.
B. two surfaces, when their COF drops below 0.01, reach superlubricity.
C. reaching superlubricity occurs when two surfaces’ COF drops below 0.01.
D. superlubricity is reached when two surfaces’ COF drops below 0.01.
Question 87
he violins handmade in the seventeenth century by Italian craftsman Antonio
Stradivari have been celebrated as some of the finest in the world. In close
collaboration with musicians, Stradivari introduced changes to the shape of a traditional
violin, flattening some of the instrument’s curves and making ______blank lighter
overall.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. those
B. one
C. them
D. it

Question 88
In his 1963 exhibition Exposition of Music—Electronic Television, Korean
American artist Nam June Paik showed how television images could be manipulated to
express an artist’s perspective. Today, Paik ______blank considered the first video artist.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. will be
B. had been
C. was
D. is
Question 89
 Known for her massive photorealistic paintings of African American figures
floating or swimming in pools, Calida Garcia ______blank was the logical choice to
design the book cover for Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, a novel about an
African American man who can travel great distances through water.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Rawles—
B. Rawles:
C. Rawles
D. Rawles
Question 90
Researchers studying the “terra-cotta army,” the thousands of life-size statues of
warriors found interred near the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang of China, were
shocked to realize that the shape of each statue’s ears, like the shape of each person’s
ears, ______blank unique.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. are
B. is
C. were
D. have been

Question 91
A member of the Cherokee Nation, Mary Golda Ross is renowned for her
contributions to NASA’s Planetary Flight Handbook, which ______blank detailed
mathematical guidance for missions to Mars and Venus.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. provided
B. having provided
C. to provide
D. providing

Question 92
In 1453, English King Henry VI became unfit to rule after falling gravely ill. As a
result, Parliament appointed Richard, Third Duke of York, who had a strong claim to the
English throne, to rule as Lord Protector. Upon recovering two years
later, ______blank forcing an angered Richard from the royal court and precipitating a
series of battles later known as the Wars of the Roses.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Henry resumed his reign,
B. the reign of Henry resumed,
 C. Henry’s reign resumed,
D. it was Henry who resumed his reign,
Question 93
Botanists recognize over fifty different species of sunflower. One species, the
silverleaf sunflower, ______blank both an early-flowering ecotype that tends to grow in
coastal areas and a late-flowering ecotype that grows inland.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. having included
B. including
C. to include
D. includes

Question 94
In 1990, California native and researcher Ellen Ochoa left her position as chief of
the Intelligent Systems Technology Branch at a NASA research center ______blank the
space agency’s astronaut training program.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. to join
B. is joining
C. joined
D. joins

Question 95
Why are Rome’s famous concrete structures, such as the Colosseum, still
standing after 2,000-plus years, when modern concrete may not even last for fifty?
Scientists ______blank that the secret to Roman concrete’s durability was its unique
blend of ingredients, which included volcanic ash and seawater.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. explain
B. having explained
C. explaining
D. to explain
Question 96
A model created by biologist Luis Valente predicts that the rate of speciation—
the rate at which new species form—on an isolated island located approximately 5,000
kilometers from the nearest mainland ______blank triple the rate of speciation on an
island only 500 kilometers from the mainland.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
 A. being
B. to be
C. to have been
D. will be

Question 97
For thousands of years, people in the Americas ______blank the bottle gourd, a
large bitter fruit with a thick rind, to make bottles, other types of containers, and even
musical instruments. Oddly, there is no evidence that any type of bottle gourd is native
to the Western Hemisphere; either the fruit or its seeds must have somehow been
carried from Asia or Africa.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. to use
B. have used
C. having used
D. using
Question 98
In 1881, French chemist Camille Faure redesigned the rechargeable lead-acid
battery. Faure’s design greatly increased the amount of electricity that the original
battery, which the French physicist Gaston Planté ______blank fifteen years earlier,
could hold.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. is inventing
B. will invent
C. invents
D. had invented
Question 99
A pioneer in the field of taphonomy (the study of how organic remains become
fossils), ______blank may be just as prevalent in the fossil record as those of thick-
shelled organisms.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. fossils of thin-shelled organisms, Anna Behrensmeyer demonstrated in a 2005
analysis,
B. Anna Behrensmeyer demonstrated in a 2005 analysis that fossils of thin-shelled
organisms
C. it was demonstrated in a 2005 analysis by Anna Behrensmeyer that fossils of
thin-shelled organisms
D. a 2005 analysis—by Anna Behrensmeyer—demonstrated that fossils of thin-
shelled organisms

Question 100
 Because a cycle of lunar phases ______blank 29.5 days to complete, it’s possible
to observe two full moons in a single month, one at the beginning and one at the end.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. are taking
B. have taken
C. take
D. takes

Question 101
The alga species Chlorella vulgaris is very efficient at making oxygen. For this
reason, scientists are currently exploring ways to use this species in space. C.
vulgaris might be used, for example, to build future biological air exchange systems
that ______blank oxygen for astronauts.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. are producing
B. produced
C. produce
D. have produced
Question 102
With its towering, six-spired exterior of granitelike quartz monzonite, the Salt
Lake Temple is one of the most instantly recognizable structures in the state of Utah.
However, many people do not know that ______blank built over the course of forty
years, with construction beginning in 1853 and ending in 1893.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. it was
B. one was
C. they were
D. both were

Question 103
After winning the 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln appointed Edward
Bates, Salmon P. Chase, and William H. Seward to his cabinet. Lincoln’s decision was
surprising, since each of these men had run against him, but historians have praised it,
noting that Lincoln ______blank his rivals’ diverse talents to strengthen his
administration.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. has leveraged
B. is leveraging
C. will leverage
D. leveraged
Question 104
Dr. Rocío Paola Caballero-Gill is a paleoceanographer. This means that Dr.
Caballero-Gill doesn’t just study oceans as they are today. She uses chemistry and
fossil evidence ______blank oceans as they were in the past.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. has studied
B. to study
C. studied
D. studies

Question 105
French philosopher René Descartes doubted whether he could prove his own
existence. Eventually, he found proof in his famous phrase “I think, therefore I am.”
The ______blank complexity: only those who exist would be able to ponder their
existence.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. phrases’ simplicity masks its
B. phrases simplicity masks their
C. phrase’s simplicity masks their
D. phrase’s simplicity masks its

Question 106
What is the correct pronunciation of Kiribati? In the Gilbertese language spoken
by residents of the island nation, the letter combination -ti makes the -s sound; as a
result, the country’s name ______blank pronounced “Kiribas.”
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. are
B. have been
C. are being
D. is

Question 107
American abstract artist Richard ______blank his installations to make passersby
keenly aware of how one’s movements are affected by the physical features of one’s
environment, assembles large-scale steel plates into sculptures that dominate the
outdoor spaces they occupy.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Serra is intending
 B. Serra, intends
C. Serra, intending
D. Serra intends

Question 108
Entomologists Yash Sondhi and Samuel Fabian have tried to explain why moths
fly erratically around light sources at night. Knowing that flying insects keep their backs
pointed toward sunlight during the day, ______blank
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. the researchers theorize that moths, mistaking nighttime lights for the Sun,
continually try to reorient their bodies while flying near such lights.
B. the researchers’ theory is that moths mistake nighttime lights for the Sun,
continually trying to reorient their bodies while flying near such lights.
C. moths mistake nighttime lights for the Sun and continually try to reorient their
bodies while flying near such lights, the researchers theorize.
D. moths continually try to reorient their bodies while flying near nighttime lights,
the researchers theorize, mistaking such lights for the Sun.

Question 109
In her 1983 book The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling,
sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild first explored at length her conception of a
“sociology of emotions”—the idea that the various cultural and ideological frameworks
a person has internalized (class, gender, political affiliation, etc.) ______blank each
emotional reaction that person has within a situation.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. underlies
B. is underlying
C. underlie
D. has been underlying

Question 110
Each night in Gijón, Spain, a section of the city’s marina is bathed in a soft green
glow. The source of the glow is the Árbol de la Sidra, a large sculpture made up of
3,200 recycled glass bottles. A lamp inside the tree-shaped structure ______blank the
green glass.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. will be illuminating
B. illuminates
C. would illuminate
D. illuminated
Question 111
According to the traditional RYB (red-yellow-blue) color model, yellow is a
complementary color to purple. However, yellow ______blank considered
complementary to blue in modern color theory.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. is
B. having been
C. to be
D. being
Question 112
According to linguist Martin Joos, speakers of the English
language ______blank five main registers—frozen, formal, consultative, casual, and
intimate—which they rotate between depending on the situation.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. use
B. is using
C. uses
D. has used

Question 113
When they were first introduced to western Europe from Byzantium in the
eleventh century, table forks were met with much resistance. The Bishop of Ostia, St.
Peter Damian, condemned the eating utensils because he
considered ______blank dangerous and unnecessary luxury items.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. them
B. this
C. that
D. it

Question 114
In 1929, Edwin Herbert Land invented a polarizing filter that was featured in a
number of products, from sunglasses to 3D movies. A decade later,
Land ______blank his technology to invent the world’s first instant camera, the Polaroid
Land camera.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. used
B. to have used
C. to use
D. using

Question 115
Water in the North Atlantic Ocean is pushed eastward by powerful winds, but the
rotation of Earth and interference from nearby landmasses together
cause ______blank to swirl into a massive, churning whirlpool—also called the North
Atlantic Gyre—that spins clockwise.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
 A. these
B. those
C. them
D. it

Question 116

The soundtrack to Mira Nair’s 1991 film Mississippi Masala expressively captures the
clashing of cultures that happens when ______blank (a young Indian woman from
Uganda and a young African American man from Mississippi) meet. Featured
throughout the film are songs from Uganda’s Afrigo Band, the Indian composer L.
Subramaniam, and the Mississippi blues musician Sam Chatmon.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. it’s two protagonists
B. its two protagonist’s
C. it’s two protagonist’s
D. its two protagonists
Question 117
It can take time for proposed amendments to the US Constitution to become law.
For example, the Twenty-Second Amendment, which limits the number
of ______blank can serve, was first proposed in 1947 but wasn’t approved by the
required three-fourths majority of state legislatures until 1951.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. terms presidents
B. term’s presidents
C. term’s president’s
D. terms president’s

Question 118
Solarpunk is an art movement that imagines renewable energy–powered
technology infused complementarily into nature. In Paolo Bacigalupi’s solarpunk short
story “Efficiency,” an artificial intelligence that absorbs sustainable energies,
redistributing them through intricate networks of weights and
generators, ______blank Chicago’s energy grid.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. have been powering
B. power
C. powers
D. are powering
Question 119
One of the few African American global explorers during the turn of the 20th
century, ______blank
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Matthew Henson made several treks across Greenland between 1891 and 1909.
B. 1891 and 1909 were the years between which Matthew Henson made several
treks across Greenland.
C. Greenland was where Matthew Henson made several treks between 1891 and
1909.
D. several treks across Greenland were made by Matthew Henson between 1891
and 1909.
Question 120
An online content creator who uses copyrighted songs without permission risks
being demonetized (prohibited from including paid advertisements in content). The
best way to avoid demonetization is to choose music from the public domain. Using one
of these noncopyrighted songs ______blank a creator won’t lose advertising revenue.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
 A. are ensuring
B. have ensured
C. ensure
D. ensures

Question 121
Several advantages—the ability to react strongly with chip components, to avoid
interference from other waves, and to be confined within tiny circuits—
______blank acoustic waves as a promising alternative to electrical waves for
transmitting data on computer chips; as a result, researchers are invested in
developing more acoustic wave–based chips.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. have positioned
B. positioning
C. by positioning
D. having positioned
Question 122
Tortoises can be found in many works of literature. For example, in Tom
Stoppard’s 1993 play Arcadia, there is a tortoise that ______blank by two names
(Plautus and Lightning) and appears in both of the play’s parallel timelines. As a
character, the tortoise symbolizes the connection between the past and present.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. goes
B. will have gone
C. went
D. had gone
Question 123
Woven from recycled yarn and hand tufted using a carpet weaving technique
passed down by the artist’s Turkish grandmother, ______blank so lush and tactilely
inviting that you are tempted to reach out and touch them.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. the topological tapestries of Argentine textile artist Alexandra Kehayoglou are
B. the Argentine textile artist Alexandra Kehayoglou creates topological tapestries
that are
C. when she creates her topological tapestries, Argentine textile artist Alexandra
Kehayoglou makes them
D. Alexandra Kehayoglou is an Argentine textile artist whose topological tapestries
are

Question 124
To illustrate Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity, picture two jugglers: one
juggling on a steadily moving parade float, the other juggling while standing still on a
sidewalk. The laws of physics are identical for both ______blank motion relative to each
other. But what, Einstein wondered, about the speed of light?
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. jugglers’, regardless of they’re
B. jugglers, regardless of there
C. juggler’s, regardless of their
D. jugglers, regardless of their
Question 125
Félix González-Torres debuted his sculpture “Untitled” (USA Today) in New York
City in 1990. The work consists of piled candy, a material González-Torres became
known for. ______blank created additional installations using a variety of sweets, like
bubblegum, lollipops, and chocolates.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. They all
B. Those
C. Both
D. He

Question 126
How did whales, once no bigger than seals, evolve to become the largest animals
on Earth? Brazilian biologist Mariana Nery believes the answer might be found in
whales’ DNA. In January 2023, Nery and her colleagues ______blank a study showing
changes over time in four whale genes associated with body size.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. published
B. publishing
C. having published
D. to publish

Question 127
What makes the theremin a unique musical instrument? You play it without
touching it. When you place your ______blank the pitch will shift as your hands move
through the air.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. hand’s between the two antenna’s,
B. hands between the two antennas,
C. hands’ between the two antennas’,
D. hands’ between the two antennas,
Question 128
With residents from Mexico, China, El Salvador, and many other countries, Los
Angeles has long been a city of cultural diversity. Even back in the 1860s, nearly 30%
of the city’s population ______blank from outside the United States.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. is being
B. was
C. is
 D. will be

Question 129
Novelist Jane Austen greatly admired the work of Fanny Burney, a popular
English author. In fact, scholars believe that a passage from the last chapter of Cecilia,
a 1782 novel by Burney, likely inspired the title of one of ______blank Pride and
Prejudice.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Austen’s most famous novels,
B. Austens’ most famous novels’,
C. Austens most famous novels,
D. Austen’s most famous novel’s,

Question 130
Multiple newspapers ______blank the Spanish-speaking population of Washington,
DC, including El Tiempo Latino and Washington Hispanic.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. serve
B. having served
C. to serve
D. serving

Question 131
Lê Lương Minh became the thirteenth secretary-general of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in January 2013, making ______blank the first time the
organization would appoint a Vietnamese leader.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. these
B. those
C. this
D. some

Question 132
The First Folio, published in 1623, is the first collection of William Shakespeare’s
plays. The collection ______blank 18 plays that might otherwise have been lost, such
as Julius Caesar and Macbeth.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
 A. to be including
B. including
C. to include
D. includes

Question 133
Light of Truth is a bronze and marble sculpture by artist Richard Hunt. It honors
civil rights icon Ida B. Wells. The sculpture ______blank in a tree-lined plaza in Chicago,
just a few blocks from where Wells lived.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. are standing
B. have been standing
C. stands
D. were standing

Question 134
Oyster mushrooms typically get their nutrients from the damp logs on which they
grow, but the fungi are also carnivorous, with the ability to kill and consume
microscopic worms known as nematodes. As researcher Yen-Ping Hsueh has shown, the
mushrooms release a toxin that is deadly to nematodes that ______blank in contact with
it.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. has come
B. comes
C. is coming
D. come

Question 135
In knot theory (the mathematical study of curved, closed loops), knots are
characterized by their crossing numbers—that is, the number of times the knotted
thread crosses over itself. The trefoil knot and the figure-eight knot, each with a
crossing number below five, ______blank among the simplest possible knots with the
fewest number of crossings.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. was
B. are
C. has been
D. is
Question 136
In a rural area along the border between Oklahoma and Texas, amateur
astronomers gather each year to observe the night sky at the Okie-Tex Star Party. Like
most star parties, Okie-Tex takes place in an area with low light
pollution, ______blank dark skies and ideal stargazing conditions.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. ensuring
B. this will ensure
C. ensures
D. it ensures
Question 137
“He was just the man for such a place, and it was just the place for such a man.”
This line is from Frederick Douglass’s autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass (1845). It’s an example of antimetabole, a writing technique
that ______blank emphasis by repeating a statement in a reversed order.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. create
B. are creating
C. have created
D. creates

Question 138
In the Inca Empire (1438–1533), ayllus ______blank family clans that ranged in
size from small groups to thousands of people.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. is
B. was
C. has been
D. were

Question 139
From 1912 to 1951, Charlotta Bass owned and operated the newspaper The
California Eagle. While it was under Bass’s leadership, The Eagle ______blank one of the
US’s most influential Black-owned newspapers.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. will become
B. became
C. is becoming
D. to become
Question 140
The Boston Saloon was one of the most popular African American–owned
establishments in nineteenth-century Nevada. ______blank by businessman William A.G.
Brown, the saloon was known to offer elegant accommodations and an inclusive
environment.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. Created
B. Creates
C. Creating
D. Create

Question 141
A species of Byropsis algae produces toxins to avoid being eaten by predators.
However, in some cases, the toxins the organism uses to protect itself from predation
actually ______blank its attractiveness to predators. The Hawaiian sea slug, for
example, not only tolerates Byropsis toxins but actually uses them for protection in the
same way the algae does.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A. is increasing
B. increase
C. increases
D. has increased