Topic Development

The following sentences are from a draft of an essay about forest ecology. To ensure that the paragraph logically builds its claim that mycorrhizal networks facilitate active cooperation among trees, in what order should the sentences be arranged?

In 1968, Dr. Spencer Silver, a chemist at 3M, developed a "low-tack" adhesive that stuck lightly to surfaces and could be easily removed without leaving residue. For years, Silver promoted his invention within the company, but no one could find a practical use for it. The breakthrough came in 1974 when colleague Art Fry used the adhesive to keep bookmarks from falling out of his hymnal during choir practice. Fry realized that the sticky paper was perfect for leaving temporary notes on documents. [1]

The writer wants to conclude the paragraph at point [1] with a sentence that highlights the subsequent commercial success and global popularity of the invention. Which option best achieves this goal?

Marie Clark Taylor, a pioneering botanist in the late 1940s, investigated how plants respond to changes in light exposure. At the time, scientific understanding of photoperiodism was limited, and many researchers struggled to cultivate specimens under controlled indoor environments. [1] Taylor, however, successfully developed new methods for growing plants under artificial light, which allowed her to study their development with unprecedented precision.

The writer wants to add a detail at point [1] that highlights the specific challenges and limitations of the laboratory equipment available to researchers during this period. Which choice best fulfills this goal?

The Antikythera Puzzle

[1]
In 1901, divers salvaging an ancient Roman shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera recovered a corroded, lumpish bronze artifact. For decades, the calcified object remained largely ignored in the storerooms of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, appearing to be little more than a formless mass of metal and stone. It was not until the mid-twentieth century, when researchers began using X-ray imaging, that the artifact's true nature began to emerge. Beneath its encrusted exterior lay a complex system of dozens of interlocking bronze gears, precisely cut and arranged with mathematical precision.

[2]
This device, now known as the Antikythera Mechanism, is widely considered the world's oldest known analog computer. Dating back to the second century BCE, it was designed to calculate and display astronomical positions, the phases of the moon, and the timing of eclipses with astonishing accuracy. It even tracked the four-year cycle of the ancient Olympic Games. The sophistication of its gear trains, particularly its use of a differential gear to calculate the synodic month, represents a level of mechanical engineering that would not reappear in European clockmaking for another fifteen hundred years.

[3]
The discovery fundamentally challenged long-held historical assumptions about the technological capabilities of ancient Greek civilization. Before the mechanism was fully analyzed, historians generally believed that complex geared technology arose only in the late Middle Ages. The Antikythera Mechanism proved that ancient mechanics had already mastered advanced gearing principles, showing that technological progress is not always a linear, continuous march forward, but can instead be lost to time and subsequently reinvented.

Suppose the writer's goal had been to write an essay that outlines the timeline of the Antikythera Mechanism's investigation and explains how its mechanical complexity challenged prevailing historical narratives regarding ancient engineering. The writer successfully achieved this goal.

[1]
For decades, the clay tablets unearthed at the ancient palace of Knossos on Crete remained an inscrutable enigma. Discovered by archaeologist Arthur Evans in 1900, the script—dubbed "Linear B"—defied translation. Evans believed that the tablets recorded a non-Greek Minoan language, and his towering authority in the field led most scholars to follow his lead, searching in vain for connections to ancient languages of the Near East.

[2]
Enter Michael Ventris, an English architect who had been obsessed with the mystery since hearing Evans speak about it during his schooldays. Unlike academic linguists who worked within rigid paradigms, Ventris approached the script as a cryptanalyst. He began by meticulously constructing grids that mapped the relationships between different signs, noting which symbols appeared together and how word endings changed depending on context.

[3]
In 1952, Ventris made a breakthrough. By analyzing place names on the tablets, he realized that the phonetic values of the symbols aligned perfectly with archaic Greek nouns and verbs. Working alongside classical scholar John Chadwick, Ventris proved that Linear B was not a foreign tongue at all, but rather the earliest written form of Greek, dating back some five centuries before Homer.

[4]
The decipherment revolutionized our understanding of the Bronze Age Aegean. It revealed that the Mycenaeans, not the Minoans, ruled Knossos in its final phase and showed that their society was highly bureaucratic, keeping detailed inventories of sheep, oil, and bronze. Ventris’s outsider status and grid-based methodology had unlocked a civilization's voice.

Suppose the writer’s goal had been to write an essay that demonstrates how Michael Ventris’s cryptanalytic methodology successfully challenged Arthur Evans’s theory about the linguistic origin of the Knossos tablets. Is the statement that the essay successfully achieves this goal True or False?

______ In 1943, marine engineer Richard James was working in a shipyard, trying to develop springs that could support and stabilize sensitive marine instruments. After accidentally knocking one of the steel springs from a shelf, he watched in amazement as it did not merely fall, but rather "stepped" down from a stack of books, to a tabletop, and then to the floor, where it coiled itself back up. James immediately saw the toy's potential, and his wife, Elizabeth, named it the "Slinky" after searching the dictionary for a word that described the spring's sleek, fluid movement.

Which choice most effectively introduces the paragraph?

[1] In 1912, geophysicist Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift, claiming that Earth's continents were once united as a single supercontinent. [2] To support this claim, Wegener pointed to matching geological formations and fossil records on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. [3] For instance, fossils of the freshwater reptile Mesosaurus are found only in southern Africa and eastern South America. [4] The writer wants to add a sentence after sentence 3 to provide specific, concrete geological evidence that supports the claim that these two continents were once physically connected.

Which of the following sentences best achieves this goal?

The following sentences, when ordered correctly, form a cohesive paragraph that supports a claim about Sequoyah's writing system. Arrange the sentences in the most logical order to construct a paragraph where supporting evidence and details logically follow the claim.

In 1930, Ruth Wakefield was preparing cookies at the Toll House Inn when she decided to chop up a bar of semi-sweet chocolate and add it to her dough. She expected the chocolate to melt completely, but instead, the small pieces retained their shape, [blank].

The writer wants to complete the sentence by choosing an option that emphasizes that the new cookies were immediately popular among the inn's visitors. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?

The QWERTY Legacy

[1]
Walk into any modern office or open a laptop, and you will find the same arrangement of letters on the keyboard: Q, W, E, R, T, and Y in the top-left row. This layout, known as QWERTY, is so ubiquitous that it seems like a natural law of technology. However, its origins lie in the mechanical limitations of the nineteenth century rather than any modern ergonomic design.

[2]
In the 1870s, Christopher Latham Sholes, a newspaper editor and printer from Milwaukee, developed the first commercially successful typewriter. His early prototypes had keys arranged alphabetically, but this setup caused a major problem. When typists typed rapidly, the typebars—the metal arms holding the letters—would swing up and collide, jamming the machine. To solve this, Sholes rearranged the keyboard layout.

[3]
A common myth is that Sholes designed QWERTY to deliberately slow down typists. In reality, he positioned frequently used letter pairs, such as 'TH' or 'HE,' on opposite sides of the keyboard. This separation ensured that the typebars would not strike in rapid succession and jam. The layout was not meant to hinder typing speed, but rather to allow for a continuous, jam-free typing rhythm.

[4]
Despite the rise of electronic keyboards and alternative layouts like the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, which places the most common letters on the home row to reduce finger movement, QWERTY remains the global standard. Path dependency—the tendency of users to stick with an established technology because it is too costly or difficult to retrain—has cemented QWERTY’s position, proving that history often triumphs over efficiency.

Suppose the writer’s goal had been to write an essay that explains the mechanical necessity that led to the QWERTY layout and argues for its replacement by more modern, efficient keyboard layouts. Based on the passage, is the statement that the writer successfully achieved this goal true or false?

Brunelleschi’s Dome

[1] __________________________________________________ In the early fifteenth century, the city of Florence faced a seemingly intractable architectural dilemma: the great cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore had been built with a massive octagonal opening for a dome, but no one knew how to construct a vault of such immense proportions without it collapsing under its own weight. The traditional method of using temporary wooden scaffolding, or centering, was impossible because the Tuscan forests could not provide timbers long or strong enough to span the 143-foot gap at a height of 180 feet.

Filippo Brunelleschi, a goldsmith and clockmaker by training rather than a traditional mason, proposed a radical solution: a double-walled dome built without scaffolding. By arranging the bricks in a herringbone pattern and incorporating a series of interlocking stone and iron chains to counteract the outward tension, he successfully completed the dome in 1436. His triumph not only redefined the Florentine skyline but also marked the transition from medieval craftsmanship to modern engineering, demonstrating that mathematical precision and innovative design could overcome physical limitations previously deemed absolute.

Given that all the choices are true, which choice most effectively introduces the passage by establishing its central thesis?

Honeybees have developed a sophisticated method of communication known as the waggle dance. When a scout bee finds a rich source of nectar, she returns to the hive and performs a series of figure-eight movements. By angling her body relative to the sun and varying the duration of the central 'waggle' run, she tells her hive mates both the direction and the distance to the flower patch.

The writer wants to add a concluding sentence to the paragraph that summarizes the paragraph's main focus on the honeybees' communication method. Which of the following sentences best achieves this goal?

In 1856, eighteen-year-old chemist William Henry Perkin was attempting to synthesize quinine, a treatment for malaria, in his home laboratory. His experiments did not produce quinine; instead, they yielded a dark, sticky sludge. Perkin noticed that this sludge left a vibrant purple residue on the glass of his beaker. Purple has historically been associated with royalty due to the rarity of natural purple dyes. By diluting the residue with alcohol, Perkin isolated a substance he named mauveine, which became the world’s first synthetic organic dye.

The writer is considering deleting the underlined sentence. Should the sentence be kept or deleted?

Passage:

For centuries, the periodic emergences of Magicicada species—commonly known as periodical cicadas—have fascinated and bewildered biologists. Emerging from their subterranean habitats in massive swarms only once every 13 or 17 years, these insects overwhelm predators through sheer volume. In mathematical biology, researchers have long hypothesized that the prime-numbered lengths of these cycles prevent synchronization with the shorter, cyclical life stages of avian predators. By emerging at prime intervals, the cicadas minimize the frequency of overlapping years with predators whose populations fluctuate on 2-, 3-, or 4-year cycles.

To test this evolutionary hypothesis, computer models have simulated interactions between cicadas and hypothetical predators over tens of thousands of evolutionary generations. The simulations consistently demonstrate that cicada populations with non-prime cycles are rapidly driven to extinction by predators that adapt to their predictable cycles, whereas those with prime cycles survive. This computational evidence supports the theory that numerical primes act as an evolutionary shield, ensuring the cicadas' long-term survival.

Given that all the choices are true, which choice provides the most effective concluding sentence for the paragraph and the passage?

[1]
For decades, marine biologists assumed that the coelacanth, a prehistoric fish with limb-like lobed fins, had gone extinct approximately 66 million years ago. However, in 1938, a museum curator named Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered one among a local fisherman's catch in South Africa. This astonishing find shocked the scientific community, proving that these ancient creatures were still swimming in the deep ocean.

[2]
__________________________________________________ Before this discovery, scientists could only study the coelacanth through fossilized remains. Courtenay-Latimer's finding allowed researchers to examine a living specimen, leading to groundbreaking insights into the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods. Today, the coelacanth remains a living testament to the mysteries that still lie hidden in the ocean depths.

Which of the following sentences, if added at the beginning of Paragraph 2, would provide the most effective introduction and transition to the paragraph's discussion of the discovery's scientific impact?

Passage:

[1] In the mid-twentieth century, geologist Marie Tharp revolutionized our understanding of the ocean floor. [2] Working with sonar data collected by her colleague Bruce Heezen, Tharp meticulously plotted the topography of the Atlantic Ocean. [3] Her detailed mapping revealed a massive, continuous underwater mountain range with a rift valley running down its center. [4] This discovery provided critical support for the controversial theory of continental drift.

Question:

The writer wants to revise the bolded portion of Sentence 2 ('sonar data') to provide the most specific and concrete detail that emphasizes the immense volume of information Tharp analyzed. Given that all the choices are true, which one best accomplishes this goal?

Passage

[1] In the early twentieth century, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton led several daring expeditions to the Antarctic, earning a reputation for his extraordinary leadership under pressure. [2] During the ill-fated *Endurance* expedition, when the ship was crushed by pack ice, Shackleton prioritized the survival of his crew above all else. [3] He led his men across hundreds of miles of ice and water, maintaining high morale despite the desperate circumstances. [4] To illustrate his commitment, historical accounts often highlight the specific sacrifices Shackleton made to ensure his crew's comfort.

The writer wants to revise Sentence 4 to provide the most specific, concrete visual detail that supports the claim that Shackleton made personal sacrifices for his crew's comfort. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?

During the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, concession stands were bustling with visitors from all over the world. Among these vendors was Arnold Fornachou, who sold ice cream. On a particularly hot day, Fornachou ran out of paper bowls to serve his popular treats.

Ernest Hamwi, a Syrian immigrant, was operating a waffle booth next to Fornachou's stand. Hamwi noticed his neighbor's predicament. Quickly rolling one of his thin, warm waffles into a cone shape, Hamwi handed it to Fornachou, who placed a scoop of ice cream on top. The customer was delighted, and a legendary combination was born.

This simple act of quick thinking changed the history of dessert. Soon, ice cream cones were being manufactured nationwide, turning a temporary solution into a beloved global tradition.

Suppose the writer's goal had been to write an essay that describes how a challenge faced by a vendor at the 1904 World's Fair led to a popular culinary invention. Would this essay successfully fulfill that goal?

[1] In the pitch-black depths of the Mariana Trench, hydrothermal vents spew superheated, mineral-rich water into the freezing ocean. [2] For decades, scientists assumed these abyssal zones were barren deserts, devoid of life due to the crushing pressure and lack of sunlight. [3] However, recent expeditions have revealed thriving ecosystems clustered around these vents, sustained not by photosynthesis, but by chemosynthesis. [4] These organisms rely on specialized metabolic pathways to convert inorganic chemicals into energy, demonstrating a remarkable adaptation to an environment once thought entirely uninhabitable. [5] Specifically, certain species of bacteria form the foundation of this food web by extracting energy from the chemical bonds of hydrogen sulfide.

The writer wants to add a sentence after Sentence 1 that provides the most specific, concrete evidence of the extreme physical conditions under which these extremophiles survive. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?

The following passage is about Mary Anning, a nineteenth-century fossil collector.

[1]
Mary Anning was born in 1799 in Lyme Regis, a coastal town in Dorset, England. Her father, a cabinetmaker, frequently took Mary and her brother Joseph to the nearby cliffs to search for fossils to sell to tourists. This family trade, initially born of economic necessity, soon became Mary's lifelong passion. Despite her lack of formal education in science, Anning possessed an extraordinary eye for detail and an unmatched persistence, which would lead her to some of the most significant paleontological discoveries of the nineteenth century.

[2]
In 1811, when Mary was only twelve years old, she and Joseph discovered the skeleton of what was later named an Ichthyosaurus, a giant marine reptile that lived during the Jurassic period. A few years later, Mary discovered the first complete Plesiosaurus skeleton, a creature so bizarre that many scientists of the era initially believed it to be a fake. These findings, along with her discovery of the first pterosaur skeleton outside of Germany, challenged existing scientific theories about the history of the Earth and the extinction of species, providing crucial evidence for the emerging field of geology.

[3]
Despite her monumental contributions, Anning was largely excluded from the male-dominated scientific community. The Geological Society of London refused to admit her, and male scientists often published papers about her discoveries without giving her any credit. Nevertheless, her expertise was widely recognized by leading geologists of the day, who frequently visited Lyme Regis to consult with her. Today, Anning is celebrated not only for her groundbreaking discoveries but also as a pioneer who broke down barriers for women in science.

Suppose the writer's primary goal had been to write an essay focusing on the challenges Mary Anning faced as a female scientist in nineteenth-century England. Would this essay fulfill that goal?