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The general store was essential to daily life in the For painter Jacob Lawrence, being _______ was an
rural United States during the 1800s because it important part of the artistic process. Because he
provided the supplies that the people living in nearby paid close attention to all the details of his Harlem
communities needed. Also, the store was a _______ neighborhood, Lawrence’s artwork captured nuances
of information. People socializing at the general store in the beauty and vitality of the Black experience
would share news and help spread it throughout during the Harlem Renaissance and the
their communities. Great Migration.
Which choice completes the text with the most Which choice completes the text with the most
logical and precise word or phrase? logical and precise word or phrase?
A) source A) skeptical
B) rival B) observant
C) condition C) critical
D) waste D) confident

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Former astronaut Ellen Ochoa says that although she Barring major archaeological discoveries, we are
doesn’t have a definite idea of when it might happen, unlikely to ever have _______ account of ancient
she _______ that humans will someday need to be Egypt under the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, as
able to live in other environments than those found much of the evidence of her reign was deliberately
on Earth. This conjecture informs her interest in destroyed by her successors.
future research missions to the moon.
Which choice completes the text with the most
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
logical and precise word or phrase?
A) an imaginative
A) demands B) a superficial
B) speculates C) an exhaustive
C) doubts D) a questionable
D) establishes

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Jazz tap is a dance form that was first developed in
The parasitic dodder plant increases its reproductive African American communities. Jazz tap was heavily
success by flowering at the same time as the host influenced by jazz music, which became widely
plant it has latched onto. In 2020, Jianqiang Wu and popular in the United States in the 1920s. Tap
his colleagues determined that the tiny dodder dancers were inspired by jazz music’s quick rhythms
achieves this _______ with its host by absorbing and and by the way jazz musicians would make up
utilizing a protein the host produces when it is about melodies as they played. As jazz music continued to
to flower. develop in the 1930s and 1940s, jazz tap evolved with
it. Because of jazz music’s influence, jazz tap quickly
Which choice completes the text with the most
developed into a dance form that was very different
logical and precise word or phrase?
from earlier kinds of tap dance.
A) synchronization
Which choice best states the main purpose of
B) hibernation the text?
C) prediction A) It explains why audiences prefer some kinds of
D) moderation music over others.
B) It discusses the development of a dance form.
C) It describes how to play a musical instrument.
D) It emphasizes the popularity of a famous dancer.

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The north celestial pole (NCP)—the fixed point The following text is adapted from Zora Neale
around which stars in the Northern Hemisphere Hurston’s 1921 short story “John Redding Goes to
(including the Sun) appear to rotate—is discernible Sea.” John is a child who lives in a town in the woods.
only at night. Inspired by the navigational strategies
Perhaps ten-year-old John was puzzling to the
of some insects and birds, researchers devised a
folk there in the Florida woods for he was an
method for locating the NCP in daytime using
imaginative child and fond of day-dreams. The
skylight polarization, which occurs as atmospheric
St. John River flowed a scarce three hundred feet
particles scatter sunlight. A polarimetric camera
from his back door. On its banks at this point
captures images of polarization patterns, which
grow numerous palms, luxuriant magnolias
rotate as the Sun’s position in the sky changes;
and bay trees. On the bosom of the stream
temporal variances across images can then be used to
float millions of delicately colored hyacinths.
determine an observer’s latitude and bearing relative
[John Redding] loved to wander down to the
to the NCP.
water’s edge, and, casting in dry twigs, watch
Which choice best describes the overall structure of them sail away down stream to Jacksonville, the
the text? sea, the wide world and [he] wanted to follow
them.
A) It illustrates how most navigational tools utilize
the NCP, recounts how researchers discovered Which choice best describes the function of the
that certain animals are able to navigate without underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
using the NCP, and then proposes that this
A) It provides an extended description of a location
discovery could be used to avoid problems in
that John likes to visit.
navigation associated with reliance on the NCP.
B) It reveals that some residents of John’s town are
B) It presents a celestial-based method of
confused by his behavior.
navigation, enumerates the comparative benefits
of an alternative method used by certain animals C) It illustrates the uniqueness of John’s
that is based on an unrelated natural occurrence, imagination compared to the imaginations
and then indicates how researchers assessed the of other children.
relative accuracy of the two methods. D) It suggests that John longs to experience a larger
C) It explains how the NCP is typically located, life outside the Florida woods.
emphasizes a key difference between how
humans and certain animals use the NCP for
navigation, and then suggests an alternative way
of using the NCP to improve existing
navigational instruments.
D) It notes an obstacle to observing an astronomical
phenomenon, mentions a navigational ability of
certain animals that inspired a solution to that
obstacle, and then explains how researchers used
an optical device to mimic that ability.

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Astronomers are confident that the star Betelgeuse Text 1
will eventually consume all the helium in its core and Astronomer Mark Holland and colleagues examined
explode in a supernova. They are much less four white dwarfs—small, dense remnants of past
confident, however, about when this will happen, stars—in order to determine the composition of
since that depends on internal characteristics of exoplanets that used to orbit those stars. Studying
Betelgeuse that are largely unknown. Astrophysicist wavelengths of light in the white dwarf atmospheres,
Sarafina El-Badry Nance and colleagues recently the team reported that traces of elements such as
investigated whether acoustic waves in the star could lithium and sodium support the presence of
be used to determine internal stellar states but exoplanets with continental crusts similar to Earth’s.
concluded that this method could not sufficiently
Text 2
reveal Betelgeuse’s internal characteristics to allow its
Past studies of white dwarf atmospheres have
evolutionary state to be firmly fixed.
concluded that certain exoplanets had continental
Which choice best describes the function of the crusts. Geologist Keith Putirka and astronomer
second sentence in the overall structure of the text? Siyi Xu argue that those studies unduly emphasize
atmospheric traces of lithium and other individual
A) It describes a serious limitation of the method
elements as signifiers of the types of rock found on
used by Nance and colleagues.
Earth. The studies don’t adequately account for
B) It presents the central finding reported by Nance different minerals made up of various ratios of those
and colleagues. elements, and the possibility of rock types not found
C) It identifies the problem that Nance and on Earth that contain those minerals.
colleagues attempted to solve but did not. Based on the texts, how would Putirka and Xu
D) It explains how the work of Nance and (Text 2) most likely characterize the conclusion
colleagues was received by others in the field. presented in Text 1?
A) As unexpected, because it was widely believed at
the time that white dwarf exoplanets lack
continental crusts
B) As premature, because researchers have only just
begun trying to determine what kinds of crusts
white dwarf exoplanets had
C) As questionable, because it rests on an
incomplete consideration of potential sources
of the elements detected in white dwarf
atmospheres
D) As puzzling, because it’s unusual to successfully
detect lithium and sodium when analyzing
wavelengths of light in white dwarf atmospheres

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The following text is from David Barclay Moore’s The following text is adapted from Oscar Wilde’s
2022 novel Holler of the Fireflies. The narrator has 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray
just arrived at summer camp, which is far away from is taking his first look at a portrait that Hallward has
his home. painted of him.
This place was different than I thought it would Dorian passed listlessly in front of his picture
be. I’d never been somewhere like this before. I and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew
did feel scared, but also excited. back, and his cheeks flushed for a moment with
©2022 by David Barclay Moore pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he
According to the text, how does the narrator feel had recognized himself for the first time. He
about being at summer camp? stood there motionless and in wonder, dimly
conscious that Hallward was speaking to him,
A) He feels overjoyed. but not catching the meaning of his words. The
B) He feels peaceful. sense of his own beauty came on him like a
revelation. He had never felt it before.
C) He feels both scared and excited.
D) He feels both angry and jealous. According to the text, what is true about Dorian?
A) He wants to know Hallward’s opinion of the
portrait.
B) He is delighted by what he sees in the portrait.
C) He prefers portraits to other types of paintings.
D) He is uncertain of Hallward’s talent as an artist.

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Choctaw/Cherokee artist Jeffrey Gibson turns O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by Willa Cather. In the
punching bags used by boxers into art by decorating novel, Cather portrays Alexandra Bergson as having
them with beadwork and elements of Native a deep emotional connection to her natural
dressmaking. These elements include leather fringe surroundings: _______
and jingles, the metal cones that cover the dresses
Which quotation from O Pioneers! most effectively
worn in the jingle dance, a women’s dance of the
illustrates the claim?
Ojibwe people. Thus, Gibson combines an object
commonly associated with masculinity (a punching A) “She had never known before how much the
bag) with art forms traditionally practiced by women country meant to her. The chirping of the insects
in most Native communities (beadwork and down in the long grass had been like the sweetest
dressmaking). In this way, he rejects the division of music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding
male and female gender roles. down there, somewhere, with the quail and the
plover and all the little wild things that crooned
Which choice best describes Gibson’s approach to
or buzzed in the sun. Under the long shaggy
art, as presented in the text?
ridges, she felt the future stirring.”
A) He draws from traditional Native art forms to B) “Alexandra talked to the men about their crops
create his original works. and to the women about their poultry. She spent
B) He has been influenced by Native and a whole day with one young farmer who had
non-Native artists equally. been away at school, and who was experimenting
C) He finds inspiration from boxing in designing with a new kind of clover hay. She learned a
the dresses he makes. great deal.”
D) He rejects expectations about color and pattern C) “Alexandra drove off alone. The rattle of her
when incorporating beadwork. wagon was lost in the howling of the wind, but
her lantern, held firmly between her feet, made a
moving point of light along the highway, going
deeper and deeper into the dark country.”
D) “It was Alexandra who read the papers and
followed the markets, and who learned by the
mistakes of their neighbors. It was Alexandra
who could always tell about what it had cost to
fatten each steer, and who could guess the weight
of a hog before it went on the scales closer than
John Bergson [her father] himself.”

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The novelist Toni Morrison was the first Black Archaeologist Petra Vaiglova, anthropologist
woman to work as an editor at the publishing Xinyi Liu, and their colleagues investigated the
company Random House, from 1967 to 1983. A domestication of farm animals in China during the
scholar asserts that one of Morrison’s likely aims Bronze Age (approximately 2000 to 1000 BCE). By
during her time as an editor was to strengthen the analyzing the chemical composition of the bones of
presence of Black writers on the list of Random sheep, goats, and cattle from this era, the team
House’s published authors. determined that wild plants made up the bulk of
sheep’s and goats’ diets, while the cattle’s diet
Which finding, if true, would most strongly support
consisted largely of millet, a crop cultivated by
the scholar’s claim?
humans. The team concluded that cattle were likely
A) The percentage of authors published by Random raised closer to human settlements, whereas sheep
House who were Black rose in the early 1970s and goats were allowed to roam farther away.
and stabilized throughout the decade.
Which finding, if true, would most strongly support
B) Black authors who were interviewed in the 1980s the team’s conclusion?
and 1990s were highly likely to cite Toni
Morrison’s novels as a principal influence on A) Analysis of the animal bones showed that the
their work. cattle’s diet also consisted of wheat, which
humans widely cultivated in China during the
C) The novels written by Toni Morrison that Bronze Age.
were published after 1983 sold significantly
more copies and received wider critical acclaim B) Further investigation of sheep and goat bones
than the novels she wrote that were published revealed that their diets consisted of small
before 1983. portions of millet as well.
D) Works that were edited by Toni Morrison C) Cattle’s diets generally require larger amounts of
during her time at Random House displayed food and a greater variety of nutrients than do
stylistic characteristics that distinguished them sheep’s and goats’ diets.
from works that were not edited by Morrison. D) The diets of sheep, goats, and cattle were found
to vary based on what the farmers in each
Bronze Age settlement could grow.

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