All practice questions

Passage

For centuries, materials scientists have marveled at the durability of ancient Roman concrete, which has survived for two millennia in harsh marine environments where modern concrete degrades in decades. A key breakthrough came when researchers analyzed the mineralogical composition of mortar samples from the ancient harbor of Caesarea. They discovered the presence of a rare mineral, aluminous tobermorite, which crystallizes within the concrete. The researchers hypothesized that this crystallization process is actively triggered by the percolation of seawater through the concrete's pores. Rather than damaging the structure, the mineral growth reinforces it over time, filling microscopic cracks and increasing the concrete's overall tensile strength. To support this claim, scientists conducted laboratory simulations exposing Roman-style volcanic ash mortar to saline solutions. Over several months, they observed a significant increase in the concentration of tobermorite crystals alongside a measurable decrease in mortar permeability. This finding suggests that the ancient builders intentionally designed a material that relies on environmental interactions to achieve long-term structural integrity.

Question

Based on the passage, match each of the researchers' claims about ancient Roman concrete with the specific evidence or findings used to support it.

Passage A
The standard narrative of the Industrial Revolution emphasizes the sudden, transformative impact of steam power and mechanized factories in late eighteenth-century Britain. This view, championed by early economic historians, posits a sharp rupture with the agrarian past, wherein technological breakthroughs rapidly rearranged social and economic structures. Within a few decades, traditional cottage industries were swept away, replaced by urban factories that vastly increased production capacity. This dramatic transition is presented as a technological triumph that unilaterally initiated modern economic growth, establishing a clear line of demarcation between the pre-industrial and industrial eras. Under this model, the steam engine was the prime mover, a sudden catalyst that dragged a stagnant, traditional society into the modern age.

Passage B
To understand the rise of modern industry, we must look beyond the dramatic narrative of steam and iron. The roots of industrialization were planted centuries earlier in the slow, incremental expansion of domestic trade networks and commercial agriculture. Long before the widespread adoption of the steam engine, British society was undergoing a gradual reorganization. Innovations in canal transport, regional specialization, and agricultural techniques created a highly integrated market economy that laid the necessary groundwork for later factory systems. Mechanization was not a sudden catalyst that disrupted a stagnant agrarian world, but rather the logical culmination of a long-term evolutionary process of commercial development that was already well underway.

Based on the passages, the authors of Passage A and Passage B disagree most directly about which of the following aspects of the Industrial Revolution?

For decades, archaeologists debated the primary function of the massive 'Great Houses' of Chaco Canyon, built by the Ancestral Puebloans between 900 and 1150 CE. Early theories posited that these structures, which contain hundreds of rooms, served as densely populated urban centers or residential hubs. However, recent architectural and taphonomic analyses have cast doubt on this domestic hypothesis. Critics point out that Chacoan Great Houses show surprisingly little evidence of daily habitation; excavation sites reveal a notable dearth of domestic hearths, cooking vessels, and organic refuse heaps compared to contemporary residential villages nearby. Furthermore, the rooms within the Great Houses are exceptionally large and organized in formal, highly planned layouts with restricted access points, suggesting administrative or ritual usage rather than flexible family quarters. Instead, many researchers now argue that the Great Houses functioned primarily as ceremonial centers and regional storehouses, designed to host periodic gatherings and manage agricultural surpluses. Under this view, Chaco Canyon was a pilgrimage site, occupied intensively only during ritual cycles.

According to the passage, the claim that the Great Houses did not serve as densely populated residential hubs is supported by which of the following pieces of evidence?

To its detractors, Brutalism is an architectural blight—a collection of cold, imposing concrete monoliths that alienate the public and disfigure the urban landscape. Yet, this view overlooks the profound social idealism that animated the movement. Far from seeking to intimidate, mid-century Brutalist architects aimed to create democratic, functional spaces that celebrated raw materials and rejected the superficial ornamentation of the past. The massive concrete structures were intended as monuments to civic life, housing schools, libraries, and public housing in structures that wore their structural integrity on their sleeves. To view these buildings merely as grim monuments of authoritarian design is to misread their creators' earnest, if sometimes overbearing, commitment to egalitarian progress.

Based on the passage, which of the following best describes the author’s attitude toward the creators of Brutalist architecture?

This passage explores the historical debate surrounding the origins of Proto-Indo-European languages.

For decades, historical linguists and archaeologists have debated the origins of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language family. In the mid-twentieth century, archaeologist Marija Gimbutas proposed the Kurgan hypothesis, which posits that PIE speakers were pastoral nomads residing in the Pontic-Caspian steppe. According to Gimbutas, these pastoralists expanded rapidly in several waves during the fourth and third millennia BCE, fueled by a key technological package: horse domestication and wheeled vehicles. This expansion, she argued, disseminated PIE across Europe and parts of Asia, replacing or merging with indigenous, non-Indo-European cultures.

Gimbutas constructed her argument by first establishing the archaeological footprint of the Kurgan culture. She highlighted the sudden appearance of distinctive burial mounds, or kurgans, containing weapons and horse remains in regions far from the steppe. This initial archaeological evidence was subsequently bolstered by comparative linguistics. Linguists noted that widely separated Indo-European languages shared cognates for words related to metallurgy, wheeled transport, and equestrianism. Since these technologies only emerged in the archaeological record around 4000 BCE, the linguistic commonality suggested that the undivided parent language could not have split before this period, aligning perfectly with the timeline of Kurgan expansion.

However, the argument encountered opposition. Proponents of the Anatolian hypothesis, introduced in the late 1980s, argued instead that Indo-European languages spread peacefully from agricultural Anatolia starting around 7000 BCE. To defend the Kurgan model against this early-expansion alternative, modern researchers have integrated ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis. Recent paleogenomic studies have revealed a massive genetic turnover in central Europe during the early Bronze Age, with a vast majority of the male lineage tracing back to the Yamnaya culture (successors to the Kurgan culture). By placing this genetic evidence at the culmination of the argument, proponents of the Kurgan model did not merely add another dataset; they effectively bridged the gap between archaeological speculation and linguistic reconstruction, establishing a biological link that correlates precisely with the hypothesized migration routes and timeline.

Based on the passage, what is the primary function of sequencing the archaeological and linguistic evidence before the introduction of ancient DNA analysis?

For centuries, cartography was as much an exercise in artistic imagination as it was in geographical measurement. Mapmakers of the Renaissance filled the vast, unexplored spaces of the oceans with detailed illustrations of mythical sea monsters and elaborate wind roses, signaling not a lack of scientific rigor to their contemporaries, but rather a holistic view of the cosmos where art and science were inextricably linked. However, by the mid-eighteenth century, the rise of systematic triangulation and the demands of imperial navigation ushered in an era of austere precision. To these new, mathematically minded surveyors, the decorative embellishments of their predecessors were not merely superfluous; they were a dangerous distraction, a cluttering of the state's geopolitical reality with whimsical falsehoods. Yet, in their rush to strip the map of its monsters, these modern cartographers also stripped it of its narrative, transforming the map from a storytelling canvas into a sterile instrument of control.

Which of the following best describes the author's attitude toward the transition from Renaissance cartography to modern surveying methods?

Passage A
For decades, the prevailing explanation for the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction has centered on the Chicxulub asteroid impact. The physical evidence is formidable: a global layer of iridium-rich clay, shocked quartz, and a massive impact crater in the Yucatán Peninsula. The immediate consequence of this collision was a catastrophic "impact winter"—a dense shroud of dust and sulfur aerosols that blocked sunlight for years, halting photosynthesis and collapsing food webs globally. This sudden environmental shock explains the rapid disappearance of approximately 75 percent of all species, including non-avian dinosaurs, making the asteroid the definitive catalyst of the extinction event.

Passage B
While the Chicxulub impact is a dramatic historical marker, it was likely a secondary contributor to an extinction process already in motion. Long before the asteroid struck, massive volcanic eruptions in India's Deccan Traps were releasing trillions of tons of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. This sustained outgassing caused severe, multi-millennial global warming episodes followed by rapid cooling, severely stressing Late Cretaceous ecosystems. Fossil records reveal that species diversity was already in steep decline prior to the impact. The asteroid did not initiate the ecological collapse; rather, it struck a biosphere already pushed to its absolute limits by long-term volcanic climate disruption.

Based on the passages, the authors of Passage A and Passage B disagree most strongly about which of the following aspects of the Chicxulub asteroid impact?

Although the scribe's handwriting remained legible throughout the parchment, centuries of exposure to damp conditions had rotted the lower margins of the manuscript. Historians attempting to reconstruct the treaty found themselves halted by a frustrating lacuna where the signatures and terms of alliance should have been. Fortunately, by cross-referencing a contemporaneous diary from a foreign diplomat, they managed to piece together the missing details of the agreement.

As it is used in the passage, the underlined word lacuna most nearly means which of the following?

Read the following passage and match each theoretical claim regarding the self-domestication model of dogs with the specific textual excerpt from the passage that serves as its direct supporting evidence.

Passage

For decades, evolutionary biologists have debated the mechanisms underlying the transition from wild wolves to domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). The traditional 'active taming' hypothesis suggests that Upper Paleolithic hunters actively captured wolf pups, hand-reared them, and selectively bred those with desirable traits. However, recent fossil evidence from archaeological sites in Siberia and Europe has challenged this view, prompting the development of the 'self-domestication' or 'commensal scavenger' model. Proponents of this theory argue that wolves initiated contact by scavenging around human hunter-gatherer camps. Wolves with shorter flight distances (less fear of humans) were more successful at accessing human food refuse. Over generations, these bolder wolves reproductively isolated themselves from wild populations, leading to anatomical and behavioral changes. While critics point out that early human waste heaps were likely insufficient to sustain a wolf subpopulation, defenders of the self-domestication model cite isotopic analyses of Paleolithic canine bones. These analyses reveal a distinct diet rich in human-provided food scraps rather than the large game typically hunted by wild wolves. Thus, rather than active human intervention, dog domestication may have begun as an evolutionary response to a new ecological niche created by human settlements.

Passage A
Ecological research has been revolutionized by citizen science—the participation of volunteers in data collection. Projects like the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count generate vast datasets covering entire continents over decades, a feat impossible for isolated professional teams. While critics express skepticism regarding the accuracy of volunteer observations, studies show that with structured protocols and rigorous statistical validation, citizen-submitted data is highly reliable. Ultimately, understanding macro-ecological patterns, such as shifts in migratory paths due to climate change, requires the sheer scale of observation that only citizen science can provide.

Passage B
The enthusiasm for citizen science in ecological research overlooks a fundamental scientific problem: systematic sampling bias. Unlike professional researchers who follow randomized sampling designs, volunteers typically gather data near roads, urban centers, or in pleasant weather. This geographical and temporal clustering makes volunteer datasets highly skewed. Furthermore, the misidentification of rare or cryptic species by non-experts introduces noise that can mask actual ecological trends. Rather than attempting to correct these deep-seated biases with complex post-hoc statistical modeling, ecology should prioritize smaller, standardized studies executed by trained professionals.

Based on the passages, the authors of Passage A and Passage B disagree on which of the following aspects of citizen science?

Passage

For decades, archaeologists studying pre-Columbian Andean civilizations focused on the contrasted agricultural strategies of the Tiwanaku state and the Wari Empire. While the Tiwanaku, situated in the high-altitude Lake Titicaca basin, relied heavily on *waru waru*—raised fields surrounded by canals that buffered crops against nighttime frosts—the Wari, operating in steeper terrain, pioneered extensive stone-walled terracing systems. Some scholars have argued that the Wari’s reliance on terracing was not merely an ecological adaptation to steep slopes, but a deliberate tool of imperial expansion and centralized political control. Proponents of this view point out that Wari terraces required highly standardized engineering techniques and massive communal labor inputs, both of which were organized directly by state administrators residing in regional administrative hubs like Pikillacta. Furthermore, excavation data from these terraced sites consistently reveals a monoculture of maize, a prestige crop used to brew chicha for state-sponsored feasts, rather than the diverse subsistence crops grown on traditional, non-terraced family plots. By controlling the production of this politically significant crop, the Wari elite secured the loyalty of local populations, using the agricultural infrastructure to bind peripheral regions to the imperial center.

According to the passage, which of the following details from Wari terraced sites best supports the claim that the terracing system was a tool of centralized political control rather than simply an ecological adaptation?

In sociological analysis, scholars must guard against the error of reification. This occurs when abstract social structures, such as the market or the state, are treated as if they were physical entities with independent wills and desires. For instance, stating that 'the market demands lower interest rates' attributes human agency to a conceptual framework. By treating a human-created relation as an objective, concrete thing, researchers obscure the actual human choices and power dynamics that shape economic policy.

Based on the passage, the word reification most nearly means which of the following?

The following passage traces the scientific reevaluation of Neanderthal cognitive capabilities.

For over a century after their initial discovery in the Neander Valley in 1856, Neanderthals were depicted in both popular culture and scientific literature as cognitive failures—brutish, stooped creatures incapable of abstract thought, symbolic communication, or complex planning. This view was reinforced by early anatomical reconstructions of Neanderthal skeletal remains, which mistakenly emphasized arthritic deformities as typical species-wide traits rather than individual pathologies. However, in the late twentieth century, this long-standing paradigm began to shift as new archaeological discoveries challenged the assumption of cognitive inferiority.

First, archeologists uncovered compelling evidence of intentional burials, most notably at the Shanidar Cave site in Iraq, where pollen analysis initially suggested that colorful flowers had been deliberately placed on Neanderthal graves. While the specific 'flower burial' interpretation was later debated by skeptics who attributed the pollen to burrowing rodents, the physical discovery of systematically buried, intact skeletons remained undisputed, pointing to structured social behavior and a potential awareness of mortality.

The argument for Neanderthal cognitive sophistication deepened with the discovery of non-utilitarian, symbolic artifacts. In various European cave sites, researchers found pierced animal teeth and marine shells stained with red ochre pigment, dating to long before modern Homo sapiens arrived in those regions. These items served no practical utility for hunting or shelter, indicating that Neanderthals engaged in symbolic and decorative practices. Critics initially argued these items were either scavenged from early modern humans or represented stratigraphic mixing of soil layers, but subsequent high-resolution radiocarbon dating confirmed their Neanderthal origin.

The final pillar of the modern consensus emerged from paleogenetics. In 2010, the successful sequencing of the Neanderthal genome revealed that they shared the FOXP2 gene—associated with speech and language development in Homo sapiens—and that they interbred with early modern humans. This genetic evidence suggests that communication between the two species was complex enough to facilitate social integration, effectively dismantling the primitive narrative and leaving researchers to debate not whether Neanderthals possessed symbolic thought, but how closely their minds mirrored our own.

Based on the passage, in what order does the author introduce the evidence and arguments to trace the transition from viewing Neanderthals as primitive to recognizing their cognitive sophistication?

Biologists studying the estuary noticed that the water near the river mouth was highly turbid, filled with suspended silt and organic debris washed down from recent storms. While upstream waters remained clear and allowed sunlight to reach aquatic plants, this downstream zone blocked light penetration, severely limiting photosynthesis. Consequently, only species adapted to low-light conditions could thrive in these murky waters.

Based on the context of the passage, the word turbid most nearly means which of the following?

The following passage is adapted from an essay on industrial history.

During the late nineteenth century, manufacturing plants relied on a centralized steam engine to power their machinery. This system required a complex network of overhead line shafts, belts, and pulleys to distribute mechanical energy throughout the factory. While functional, it was highly inefficient: if the main steam engine failed, the entire factory ground to a halt. Furthermore, the layout of the machines was strictly dictated by their proximity to the overhead shafts, resulting in cramped, poorly lit working environments and significant energy loss through friction.

The introduction of the electric motor in the late 1880s promised a revolution, but its initial implementation did little to alter factory design. Initially, managers simply replaced the central steam engine with a single, large electric motor, leaving the inefficient system of shafts and belts intact. This transitional phase, known as the "group drive" system, failed to deliver the expected productivity gains. Many industrialists concluded that electrification was an overhyped, costly endeavor.

It was not until the early twentieth century that engineers pioneered the "unit drive" system, in which each machine was equipped with its own individual electric motor. This shift was catalytic. By eliminating overhead shafts, factory designers were suddenly free to organize machines according to the logical flow of production. This spatial reorganization reduced material handling costs, improved safety, and allowed for taller, cleaner buildings with natural lighting.

To support the superiority of the unit drive system over the group drive system, historians of technology often point to productivity data from the 1910s and 1920s. During this period, US manufacturing output soared even as total energy consumption grew at a much slower rate. This divergence provides strong evidence that the main benefit of electrification lay not in the cheapness of the power itself, but in the organizational flexibility it enabled, allowing factories to be arranged for maximum operational efficiency.

In the context of the passage, the author's reference to the divergence between US manufacturing output and energy consumption in the 1910s and 1920s primarily serves to achieve which of the following goals?

The solubility of oxygen ($O_2$) in water at various temperatures is recorded in the table below:

Based on the data table, determine whether the following statement is true or false: A line graph representing these data would feature a line or curve with a negative slope, showing that dissolved oxygen solubility decreases as water temperature increases.

Passage A

The transition from oral culture to written literacy was the single most important catalyst for human intellectual development. By externalizing thought, writing freed the human mind from the laborious task of sheer memorization. Instead of dedicating cognitive resources to retaining vast epics or historical genealogies, individuals could engage in critical analysis and abstract speculation. Writing allowed ideas to be frozen in time, scrutinized, and systematically built upon across generations. Without this external storage system, the cumulative growth of scientific knowledge and complex philosophical systems would have been structurally impossible, as oral memory is inherently limited in its capacity and stability.

Passage B

While writing is often celebrated as an unalloyed cognitive advancement, it fundamentally altered—and in some ways degraded—human mental faculties. In oral traditions, knowledge was not merely stored; it was lived, requiring deep internalization and active, dynamic recollection. The reliance on written texts replaced this active mental synthesis with a passive dependence on external records. As a result, the capacity for robust natural memory withered. Furthermore, reading written signs creates an illusion of wisdom; it allows individuals to receive information without undergoing the rigorous intellectual discipline required to truly understand and integrate it. Thus, writing did not expand the mind so much as it provided a crutch that weakened our innate intellectual capacities.

Based on the passages, on which of the following issues do the authors of Passage A and Passage B disagree most directly?

Read the passage below:

For three weeks, the studio had smelled of linseed oil and turf smoke, a workspace where I labored to capture the elusive contour of the judge’s mouth. My brush hovered, searching for the line where sternness yielded to fatigue. Surely, a man who had sent dozens to the gallows possessed some hidden reservoir of regret, and I was determined to find it. I watched his eyes, hoping for a flicker of vulnerability, a momentary lapse in his severe composure that I could translate into paint.

But the judge himself sat perfectly still, his mind elsewhere. He was not thinking of the portraitist, nor of the damp Dublin afternoon pressing against the windowpane. Instead, his thoughts drifted back to the dry summer of 1882, to the dusty road outside Pretoria where he had made a decision he could never undo. The courtroom had always been a theater of distant facts, but that road was a vivid, burning reality. He could still feel the grit in his throat and hear the quiet plea of the accused man. The paint on the canvas would dry, the likeness would be hung, but the judge knew that no oil could cover the color of that particular dust.

Which of the following best describes the shift in narrative perspective that occurs between the first and second paragraphs?

The idea that the language we speak influences how we perceive the world is a captivating concept that has occupied philosophers, anthropologists, and linguists for centuries. Known formally as linguistic relativity, this concept suggests that the structure of a language affects its speakers' cognition and world view. The roots of this theory trace back to the nineteenth-century German thinker Wilhelm von Humboldt, who argued that language was the very fabric of thought itself. However, it was not until the early twentieth century that the idea was formalized into a distinct academic hypothesis. The American anthropologist Franz Boas laid the groundwork by demonstrating that different languages classify human experience in unique ways, showing that grammatical categories do not limit intellectual capacity but do direct attention to certain aspects of reality.

Boas’s student, Edward Sapir, took these observations a step further, arguing that language and thought are inextricably linked. Sapir proposed that humans do not live in an objective world alone, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It was Sapir’s student, Benjamin Lee Whorf, who popularized the concept in the 1930s. Whorf, a chemical engineer and insurance inspector turned linguist, conducted comparative studies of European languages and indigenous American languages, such as Hopi. He observed that Hopi grammar lacks tenses corresponding to past, present, and future, focusing instead on whether an event can be experienced now, is expected, or belongs to a subjective realm. From this, Whorf formulated the strong version of the hypothesis: linguistic determinism, which posits that language strictly determines the cognitive categories available to a speaker.

By the mid-twentieth century, however, the academic tide shifted dramatically. The rise of cognitive science and generative grammar, spearheaded by Noam Chomsky in the late 1950s, pushed linguistic relativity to the margins of academia. Chomsky argued that all human languages share a universal underlying structure, an innate "universal grammar" hardwired into the human brain. According to this universalist view, language is merely a translation system for pre-existing, universal thoughts. Since the cognitive architecture of the mind is biologically determined and identical across species, variations in vocabulary or grammar are superficial. For decades, Whorf's deterministic ideas were dismissed as unscientific and logically flawed, with critics pointing out that if language strictly determined thought, translation between languages would be impossible, and learning new concepts would be precluded.

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the debate entered a new phase characterized by empirical rigor and a rejection of extreme determinism. Modern cognitive psychologists and linguists revived the inquiry under a "weak" version of linguistic relativity. Instead of claiming that language limits what we can think, contemporary researchers investigate how language influences where we direct our attention. Landmark studies by researchers such as Lera Boroditsky have provided empirical support for this softer version. For instance, in languages like Kuuk Thaayorre, an Australian Aboriginal language, speakers use absolute cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) instead of relative terms (left, right). Studies showed that Kuuk Thaayorre speakers possess an extraordinarily precise spatial awareness, far exceeding that of English speakers. Similarly, experiments on color perception revealed that speakers of languages with distinct terms for light and dark blue (such as Russian) are faster at distinguishing shades of blue than English speakers.

Ultimately, the trajectory of linguistic relativity illustrates a common pattern in the history of science: the swing of a pendulum between two opposing extremes before settling into a nuanced synthesis. The early, sweeping claims of linguistic determinism were rightly corrected by the universalist insistence on shared human biology. Yet, the universalist assertion that language has no bearing on thought has been disproven by modern empirical research. Today, linguistic relativity is understood not as a rigid cage that confines our minds, but as a subtle lens that gently shapes our habitual ways of thinking. By studying how different languages guide our attention, researchers continue to uncover the intricate ways in which culture, biology, and language intertwine to produce the rich tapestry of human consciousness.

Which of the following best describes the overall organizational pattern of the passage?

Read the following passage and match each of the researcher's theoretical claims regarding the mycorrhizal network (listed on the left) with the specific textual evidence that supports it (listed on the right).

Passage
For years, popular science writers have championed the 'Wood Wide Web' hypothesis, which posits that mycorrhizal fungi networks facilitate a cooperative, altruistic exchange of nutrients between mature trees and struggling seedlings. However, plant ecologist Dr. Elena Vance argues that these underground networks are sites of resource competition rather than community aid. According to Vance, mature trees use the fungal connections to actively suppress the growth of understory competitors by absorbing disproportionate amounts of soil phosphorus, effectively starving nearby seedlings. Vance's team monitored phosphorus-32 isotopes in a mixed temperate forest and found that oak seedlings connected to mature oak networks exhibited a 40% reduction in phosphorus uptake compared to isolated seedlings. Furthermore, Vance points out that the carbon transferred from mature trees to seedlings via these networks is negligible—accounting for less than 1% of the seedlings' daily carbon requirements. Critics of Vance's model suggest that the reduced phosphorus levels are merely a byproduct of soil saturation, but Vance counter-argues that the isotopic tracing showed direct transport paths leading away from seedling root zones toward mature trees. Ultimately, Vance contends that mycorrhizal networks are best understood as biological conduits exploited by dominant species to maintain canopy supremacy.