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For the first half of the twentieth century, Mayanist studies were dominated by the imposing figure of J. Eric S. Thompson, a British archaeologist whose views on the ancient Maya achieved the status of virtually unquestioned dogma. Thompson portrayed the Maya as a peaceful, deeply philosophical people governed by a priestly elite who were singularly obsessed with time, astronomy, and the cosmos. In Thompson’s view, the monumental stone carvings scattered across the jungles of Central America were not records of historical events or political dynasties, but rather mystical markers of calendar cycles and cosmic contemplations. Central to this interpretation was Thompson’s conviction regarding the nature of the Mayan hieroglyphic script: he argued that the writing system was purely ideographic, consisting of symbols that represented abstract concepts rather than the sounds of a spoken language.

Thompson’s insistence that Mayan writing was non-phonetic created a formidable intellectual bottleneck. Because he believed the glyphs could not be read phonetically, he argued that they could never be deciphered in the way Egyptian hieroglyphs or cuneiform had been. Under his influence, generations of Western scholars focused almost exclusively on the calendrical and mathematical aspects of the inscriptions, resigning themselves to the idea that the non-calendrical glyphs were beautiful but ultimately unreadable artistic embellishments. The decipherment of Mayan writing thus ground to a near-halt, paralyzed by the assumption that the script lacked a phonetic component.

The first major challenge to this orthodoxy came from an unlikely source. In 1952, Yuri Knorozov, a young Soviet linguist working in Leningrad, published a groundbreaking paper proposing that the Mayan script was, in fact, logo-syllabic. Knorozov analyzed the sixteenth-century manuscript of Bishop Diego de Landa, which contained a controversial "Mayan alphabet." While earlier researchers had dismissed Landa’s alphabet as a confusing muddle because it did not correspond to European letters, Knorozov realized that Landa had asked Mayan scribes for the glyphs representing the names of Spanish letters (for example, "b" is pronounced "beh" in Spanish). Knorozov reasoned that the glyphs Landa recorded were not letters, but syllabic signs. By combining these signs, Knorozov demonstrated that Mayan words were spelled phonetically, combining consonant-vowel syllables to match spoken Mayan words.

Knorozov’s discovery was met with fierce hostility in the West, led by Thompson himself. Thompson launched a series of vitriolic academic attacks, dismissing Knorozov’s methodology as flawed and his findings as ideologically motivated communist propaganda. Given the geopolitical tensions of the Cold War, Western academics readily accepted Thompson's dismissals, and Knorozov’s work was ignored or ridiculed for decades. The field remained entrenched in the belief that the glyphs were ideographic, and the romanticized view of the peaceful, calendar-obsessed Maya persisted.

The consensus finally began to fracture in the 1970s, as a new generation of epigraphers, including Linda Schele and Peter Mathews, began applying Knorozov’s phonetic principles to the inscriptions at Palenque. They found that by reading the glyphs syllabically, they could identify verbs, nouns, and names. The breakthrough culminated in the 1980s with the work of David Stuart, who demonstrated that Mayan scribes could write the same word in multiple ways using different combinations of logographs and phonetic syllables.

As the glyphs were read, the mythical Maya of Thompson’s imagination vanished. The texts did not record abstract cosmic concepts; instead, they narrated the history of real people—kings and queens, military conquests, dynastic successions, and royal rituals. The inscriptions revealed a complex geopolitical landscape of warring city-states, shifting alliances, and ritualized warfare. The decipherment did more than translate a language; it restored historical agency to the Maya, transforming them from passive subjects of archaeological speculation into active historical actors. Ultimately, the history of Mayan decipherment serves as a cautionary tale of how academic authority and ideological bias can obscure empirical truth, and how the synthesis of linguistics and archaeology can shatter long-held cultural myths.

Based on the passage, which of the following best describes the author's primary purpose?

Read the passage below:

In pre-industrial Europe, time was experienced as fluid and task-oriented. Peasants worked from sunrise to sunset, their daily schedules dictated by natural rhythms and agricultural demands rather than rigid hours. The invention of the mechanical clock in fourteenth-century monasteries, however, initiated a profound conceptual shift. Initially designed to coordinate precise times for prayer, the clock soon escaped monastic walls and entered the urban marketplace. In doing so, it transformed time from a subjective experience tied to human activity into an objective, independent commodity that could be measured, divided, and sold.

This synchronization of human labor was not merely a technological change, but a psychological and socioeconomic revolution. By dividing the day into equal, abstract units, the clock laid the groundwork for modern industrial capitalism. Labor was no longer valued by the completion of a task, but by the duration of time spent working. Employers could now buy and control a worker's hours, leading to the strict time-discipline that characterizes modern offices and factories. Furthermore, this shift altered the human psyche; people began to view time as a scarce resource that could be 'wasted' or 'spent,' fostering an anxiety unknown to pre-modern societies. Ultimately, the mechanical clock did not just measure time—it systematically restructured human consciousness to align with the demands of synchronization.

Based on the passage, in what order does the author develop the sub-arguments that build toward the central thesis regarding the impact of the mechanical clock?

For decades, astronomers searched for planets outside our solar system, hoping to find worlds that might support life. In 1995, researchers discovered 51 Pegasi b, a massive planet orbiting extremely close to its host star. This discovery was a watershed moment in astrophysics, proving that other suns indeed harbored planetary systems and fundamentally altering our understanding of planetary formation.

As it is used in the passage, the word "watershed" most nearly suggests that the discovery was which of the following?

When Dr. Sandra Chen first documented the anomalous growth patterns in the ancient cedars of the Pacific Northwest, she was a newly minted graduate student in 1998, focused on climate variability. It was not until six years later, while comparing her dendrochronological data with historical Japanese harbor logs from the Edo period, that the chronological puzzle of the Cascadia subduction zone began to resolve. The Japanese records described an unexplained 'orphan tsunami' that had devastated coastal villages, a mystery that had long puzzled historians because no local earthquake had preceded it. Chen realized that the cedar rings showed a sudden growth halt in the spring of 1700, aligning precisely with the January 1700 harbor logs. Although her synthesis offered an elegant explanation, her colleagues initially greeted the hypothesis with profound skepticism. This academic resistance persisted until 2012, when marine geologist Kenji Sato retrieved deep-sea sediment cores that confirmed massive underwater landslides dating to that exact winter, providing the physical evidence needed to validate Chen’s timeline.

According to the passage, which of the following events occurred after Chen compared her tree-ring data with historical Japanese records but before Sato gathered deep-sea sediment cores?

During the initial planning phase of the transcontinental railroad, the engineering team was repeatedly forced to negotiate the rugged, unpredictable terrain of the Sierra Nevada range. The construction crews, working with primitive equipment and highly volatile explosives, had to carve stable pathways directly out of steep granite cliffs and erect wooden trestles over deep chasms. Rather than seeking to bypass these formidable geological barriers, the chief architect insisted that the line proceed directly through the mountain passes, a decision that pushed nineteenth-century construction techniques to their absolute limits.

As it is used in the first sentence, what does the word *negotiate* most nearly mean?

This passage is adapted from an essay exploring the debates surrounding nineteenth-century architectural restoration in Europe.

[Paragraph 1]
During the early 1800s, Europe experienced a romantic resurgence of interest in its medieval past. Writers like Victor Hugo drew public attention to the dilapidated state of Gothic structures, which had suffered decades of neglect, vandalism, and poorly executed modifications. This cultural shift sparked a widespread consensus that these monumental structures must be saved, yet it also raised a contentious question: how should architects approach the physical renewal of these historic buildings?

[Paragraph 2] (lines 11–24)
In mid-nineteenth-century France, the restoration of medieval monuments became a battleground between historic preservation and creative reconstruction. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the architect charged with restoring Notre-Dame de Paris, championed a philosophy that went beyond mere stabilization. He famously asserted that to restore a building is not to preserve it, but to reinstate it in a state of completeness that may never have existed at any given time. Consequently, he did not hesitate to add features—such as the cathedral's iconic chimera statues and a towering new spire—that were entirely his own nineteenth-century inventions. While critics decried these additions as historical fabrications, Viollet-le-Duc argued that they fulfilled the stylistic ideal of the original Gothic builders, prioritizing aesthetic unity over archaeological accuracy.

Which of the following statements best describes the main idea of Paragraph 2 (lines 11–24)?

Historians of science frequently contrast the intellectual foundations of the scientific revolution by examining the methodologies of Francis Bacon and René Descartes. Bacon championed an inductive approach, arguing that true knowledge must be constructed from the systematic accumulation of empirical data. For Bacon, the human mind was an instrument prone to bias and illusion, requiring the strict discipline of sensory observation to reveal the truths of the natural world. Conversely, Descartes pioneered a deductive methodology. Skeptical of the physical senses, which he argued were inherently deceptive, Descartes asserted that scientific inquiry must begin with self-evident, rational premises—axioms derived from pure reason—and proceed logically to specific conclusions. Thus, while Bacon sought to understand nature by looking outward at the physical world, Descartes sought absolute certainty by looking inward at the logical structure of the intellect.

Based on the passage, which of the following statements best characterizes the difference between Bacon's and Descartes's approaches to obtaining scientific knowledge?

Passage:

In temperate marine ecosystems, giant kelp forests play a crucial role by providing food and shelter for a diverse array of species. However, these productive habitats are highly vulnerable to shifts in predator-prey dynamics. Under normal conditions, sea otters feed heavily on herbivorous sea urchins, keeping the urchin population in check. When sea otter populations decline—often due to historical hunting or changes in killer whale feeding habits—the lack of predation allows sea urchin populations to swell dramatically. With their numbers unchecked, the urchins consume kelp holdfasts, the root-like structures anchoring the giant algae to the seafloor, at an unsustainable rate. Consequently, the kelp drifts away, leaving behind a barren rocky expanse known as an 'urchin barren.' This ecological shift not only eliminates the physical structure of the kelp forest but also causes a collapse in the populations of fish and invertebrates that rely on the kelp canopy for protection, illustrating how a disruption in one trophic level can dismantle an entire ecosystem.

According to the passage, the kelp drifts away from the seafloor as a direct result of which of the following events?

During the Italian Renaissance, wealthy patrons did not merely fund painters; they actively shaped the subjects of the artwork to reflect their own social and political ambitions. For instance, Cosimo de' Medici commissioned grand chapel frescoes that depicted sacred biblical events, but he explicitly insisted that members of the Medici family be painted alongside the holy figures. In this transactional arrangement, the patron's essential financial backing was strictly contingent upon the artist elevating the family's public prestige. While the painter received the security and materials needed to practice their craft, they were forced to surrender their creative independence, bending their artistic vision to serve the ruler's political agenda.

Which of the following situations is most analogous to the relationship between the Renaissance patrons and the painters described in the passage?

### Passage

The Wheel of Change: How the Safety Bicycle Reshaped Late-Nineteenth-Century Society

In the early 1880s, the visual landscape of American and European roads was punctuated by a peculiar contraption: the high-wheel bicycle, or "ordinary." Sporting an enormous front wheel and a tiny rear wheel, this machine was both difficult to mount and highly dangerous to ride. A sudden stop or a small pebble could pitch the rider forward over the handlebars in a perilous fall known as a "header." Consequently, bicycling during this era was almost exclusively the domain of wealthy, athletic young men who had the leisure time to master the machine and the financial means to purchase it. However, the introduction of the safety bicycle in the late 1880s fundamentally transformed this dynamic. Featuring two equal-sized wheels, a chain drive, and pneumatic rubber tires, this new design was stable, accessible, and easy for almost anyone to ride. Ultimately, the safety bicycle was not merely a mechanical innovation or a passing recreational fad; it functioned as a primary engine of late-nineteenth-century social reform by democratizing personal mobility, accelerating the women's rights movement, and instigating the modernization of public roads.

Prior to the safety bicycle, personal mobility was strictly bound by social class and geography. The working-class citizens of rapidly industrializing cities were largely confined to their immediate neighborhoods, relying on expensive horse-drawn streetcars or their own feet to travel. The safety bicycle changed this entirely. As manufacturers streamlined production, the price of these machines plummeted, making them accessible to clerks, factory workers, and artisans. For the first time, ordinary citizens possessed a cheap, reliable, and independent means of travel. Workers could live further from their factories in cleaner suburban environments, commuting to work on two wheels. On weekends, urban laborers escaped the soot and congestion of the city to enjoy the fresh air of the countryside. This newfound freedom of movement broke down rigid geographical barriers, fostered social integration, and provided a sense of autonomy that had previously been the exclusive privilege of the wealthy elite.

The impact of the safety bicycle was perhaps most revolutionary for women, serving as an unprecedented instrument of personal liberation. In the Victorian era, respectable middle- and upper-class women were expected to operate within the "private sphere" of the home, their movements outside closely monitored and restricted. The bicycle shattered these social chaperonage systems. Riding a bicycle allowed women to travel long distances unsupervised, fostering a spirit of self-reliance and independence. Furthermore, the practical demands of riding a bicycle forced a revolution in women's fashion. The heavy, restrictive layers of Victorian clothing—including corsets, hoop skirts, and long trains—were dangerous and nearly impossible to manage on a bicycle. In response, women championed "rational dress," embracing bloomers, split skirts, and shorter hemlines. Activist Susan B. Anthony famously remarked in 1896 that bicycling "has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world," noting that it gave women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance.

Beyond its social effects, the bicycle also drove physical changes in the environment, laying the groundwork for the modern transportation network. In the late nineteenth century, roads outside major cities were notoriously poor, consisting of dirt tracks that turned into impassable rivers of mud during the spring rains and choked travelers with dust during the dry summer months. Frustrated by these conditions, bicycle enthusiasts organized the League of American Wheelmen in 1880. This organization launched the "Good Roads Movement," a powerful lobbying effort that petitioned local, state, and federal governments to improve and pave public roads. The movement argued that well-maintained roads were vital for economic development and civic unity. Their efforts were wildly successful, leading to the creation of the first state highway commissions and the widespread paving of roads with asphalt and macadam. When the automobile emerged at the turn of the century, it did not create the paved road network; rather, it inherited a system already established by the political activism of bicyclist organizations.

By the dawn of the twentieth century, the initial bicycle craze had subsided as the automobile began to capture the public imagination. Yet, the legacy of the safety bicycle was firmly cemented in the fabric of modern life. It had proved that affordable, individualized transportation could redefine social boundaries. By granting working-class citizens unprecedented physical freedom, facilitating dress reform and autonomy for women, and establishing the physical infrastructure of paved roads, this simple two-wheeled machine permanently altered the social and geographical landscape of the modern world.

Which of the following statements best summarizes the central thesis of the passage?

Passage

When the Soviet linguist Yuri Knorozov published his landmark paper on Mayan writing in 1952, he was working in near-total isolation from the Western archaeological establishment. Decades earlier, during the chaos of the Second World War, Knorozov had allegedly rescued a single volume containing reproductions of three Mayan codices from the flames of a library. This book became his obsession. While Western scholars like Eric Thompson dogmatically insisted that Mayan glyphs were purely ideographic representations of mystical concepts, Knorozov compared the codices with Diego de Landa’s sixteenth-century manuscript, *Relación de las cosas de Yucatán*. He realized that Landa’s "alphabet" was actually a list of phonetic syllables. By matching these syllables to modern Mayan spoken words, Knorozov began to read the ancient texts aloud. It was only after Tatiana Proskouriakoff’s later discovery that the monuments recorded the actual historical biographies of kings—rather than astronomical tables—that Knorozov’s phonetic approach gained widespread acceptance. The Western consensus did not shift overnight, but the path to understanding had been quietly paved in a Leningrad study long before the walls of the Cold War began to crack.

Based on the implicit chronological cues and details in the passage, in what chronological order did these events occur, from earliest to latest?

To the residents of High Wycombe, Alistair Finch was a fixture as immutable as the town hall obelisk. For forty years, he sat behind the leaded glass of his shop, his magnifying loupe affixed to his brow like a third eye. While the townspeople regarded his meticulous restoration of antique timepieces with a mixture of awe and impatience, Finch himself remained entirely indifferent to their opinions. He did not work to please the local gentry, nor did he seek the validation of the clockmakers' guild in London, which had twice denied him membership on account of his unorthodox escapement designs. Instead, Finch was driven by an unyielding, almost adversarial relationship with time itself. He viewed every rusted gear and warped mainspring not as a mechanical failure, but as a personal insult leveled by the universe. His daughter, Clara, often observed that her father approached a broken carriage clock with the same grim hostility a general might reserve for a besieging army, refusing to rest until the mechanism surrendered to his demands.

According to the passage, Alistair Finch’s attitude toward the opinions of the townspeople is characterized by which of the following traits?

Many species of nocturnal insects exhibit phototactic behavior; that is, they are automatically drawn toward artificial light sources. While biologists still debate the complex evolutionary mechanism behind this nocturnal flight pattern, the immediate behavioral response is undeniable. These insects will fly directly toward a campfire or streetlamp, demonstrating a clear movement toward light even when doing so increases their vulnerability to nearby predators.

As it is used in the passage, what is the most accurate meaning of the word phototactic?

The cello had sat in the corner of the living room for as long as Clara could remember, a silent sentinel of polished maple and dust. It had belonged to her grandfather, a man whose hands had once coaxed warm, resonant melodies from its strings, filling the house with music that felt like a thick wool blanket on a winter evening. Since his passing, however, the instrument had remained mute, a monument to a talent Clara feared was lost forever.

When Clara finally gathered the courage to lift the bow, she did so with a strict sense of duty. She wanted to play the Bach suite her grandfather had loved, and she wanted to play it perfectly. For months, her life was governed by the metronome. Tick, tack, tick, tack. She practiced scales for hours, her fingers pressing down on the fingerboard until they were calloused and sore. She memorized the sheet music, noting every dynamic marking, every crescendo, and every staccato dot.

Yet, when she played, the music sounded flat. It was technically precise—every note was in tune, every beat held for its exact duration—but it lacked the warmth she remembered. Her mother would listen from the doorway, offering a polite, encouraging smile, but Clara knew something was missing. The metronome felt less like a tool and more like a cage.

One rainy afternoon, frustrated by a recurring mistake in the third movement, Clara threw her hands up in defeat. The metronome clicked mockingly on the stand. She shut her eyes, thinking of her grandfather. She recalled the way he used to play, his eyes closed, his body swaying slightly as if he were listening to a voice only he could hear. He had never used a metronome. He had always told her, "Music isn't on the page, Clara. The page is just the map. The music is the journey."

Clara reached out and turned the metronome off. The sudden silence in the room was heavy, filled only with the steady drumming of rain against the windowpane. She picked up the bow again, but this time, she didn't look at the sheet music. She closed her eyes and let her fingers find the strings by feel. She began to play the suite from memory, not thinking about the tempo or the exact placement of her fingers, but of the rain outside, the warmth of the living room, and the memory of her grandfather's laughter.

At first, her notes wavered, and she missed a shift in the second bar. But instead of stopping to correct it as she normally would, she kept playing. She let the notes swell and fade naturally, guided by her own breathing. The cello seemed to respond, its body vibrating against her chest, releasing a rich, deep tone that she hadn't been able to produce before. The music filled the room, no longer stiff and mechanical, but alive and fluid. When she finally drew the bow across the string for the last note, letting it fade into the quiet of the room, she looked up. Her mother was standing in the doorway, tears glistening in her eyes. Clara realized then that the beauty of the music lay not in its perfection, but in the feeling it carried.

Based on the passage, is the statement that the central theme of the narrative is that true artistic expression comes from emotional connection rather than rigid technical perfection true or false?

Passage

During the late Miocene epoch, approximately 5.96 million years ago, the Mediterranean Sea underwent a dramatic transformation known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Tectonic uplift in the Gibraltar region, combined with a global drop in sea levels driven by Antarctic glaciation, restricted the inflow of Atlantic water through the Betic and Rifian corridors. Deprived of its primary water source, the Mediterranean Sea, which lies in an arid climate zone, experienced evaporation rates that far exceeded precipitation and river runoff. Consequently, the sea levels plummeted, leaving behind a desiccated basin covered with salt deposits up to three kilometers thick. This massive accumulation of salt withdrew roughly six percent of the oceans' salt content, which directly lowered the salinity of the remaining global oceans. As a result, the freezing point of water in high-latitude regions rose, facilitating the rapid expansion of sea ice around Antarctica and further accelerating global cooling. While tectonic isolation initiated this regional crisis, the resultant global oceanic changes subsequently reinforced the glacial processes that had partially driven the sea-level drop in the first place.

Based on the passage, the rapid expansion of sea ice around Antarctica was directly facilitated by which of the following environmental changes?

For a long time, biology textbooks taught that all life on Earth was ultimately powered by the sun. Through photosynthesis, plants and algae convert sunlight into chemical energy, forming the foundation of every food web. In this view, the dark, freezing depths of the ocean floor were assumed to be barren wastes, populated only by sparse scavengers feeding on organic debris drifting down from the sunlit surface.

However, in 1977, oceanographers exploring the Galápagos Rift made a startling discovery: deep-sea hydrothermal vents teeming with diverse biological communities, including giant tube worms, ghost fish, and blind crabs. Located miles below the ocean's surface, these ecosystems exist in perpetual darkness under crushing pressure. Instead of relying on solar energy, the primary producers in these environments are specialized bacteria that utilize a process called chemosynthesis. These organisms harness the chemical energy stored in hydrogen sulfide and other minerals spewed from the vents to produce organic matter, which in turn supports a complex web of larger organisms. This ground-breaking discovery revealed that complex life can thrive entirely independent of solar energy, fundamentally expanding our understanding of biology and the environmental conditions necessary to sustain life throughout the universe.

Which of the following statements best expresses the main idea of the passage?

Read the passage below and fill in the blank with the single word that best completes the author's metaphorical description of the clock's anatomy.

Unlike typical land plants that perish when exposed to high levels of salt, the halophyte thrives in coastal marshes. These specialized species have evolved unique cellular mechanisms to filter out excess sodium from their root systems, allowing them to flourish in highly saline environments where other vegetation would quickly wither. Consequently, these salt-tolerant plants play a vital role in stabilizing shoreline ecosystems against erosion.

As it is used in the passage, what does the underlined word halophyte most nearly mean?

The following passage is adapted from an essay on the history of ancient writing systems.

Line
1 For centuries in ancient Mesopotamia, writing was a highly
2 specialized craft born out of economic necessity. The earliest clay
3 tablets, dating to the late fourth millennium BCE in the city of Uruk,
4 contain simple pictographs used to record transactions of grain, livestock,
5 and manufactured goods. This proto-cuneiform served primarily as an
6 administrative accounting tool for temple officials and merchants who
7 needed to track resources in rapidly growing urban centers. The writing
8 was not designed to replicate spoken language, but rather to serve as a
9 visual ledger for physical commodities.
10
11 Over the subsequent millennium, however, the scribes of Mesopotamia
12 expanded the utility of the script. By simplifying the pictographs into
13 wedge-shaped cuneiform signs, they began to represent phonetic syllables
14 rather than just physical objects. This linguistic adaptation allowed writers
15 to move beyond inventories and record spoken language, opening the door
16 for the preservation of oral epics, legal codes, and historical chronicles.
17 Consequently, a technology that began as a bookkeeping method evolved into
18 a medium for intellectual expression and statecraft, permanently altering the
19 preservation of cultural knowledge.

Based on the passage, which of the following statements best describes the primary focus of Paragraph 2 (lines 11–19)?

Passage

In the early 1840s, Anna Atkins began her meticulous work compiling *British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions*, a landmark project that would become the first book illustrated with photographs. Utilizing the newly invented cyanotype process developed by her family friend Sir John Herschel, Atkins captured the intricate structures of marine plants with striking precision. At the time, the botanical world relied heavily on hand-drawn illustrations, which, while beautiful, were often subject to the artistic license—and inaccuracies—of the illustrator. Atkins’s father, John George Children, a prominent chemist and member of the Royal Society, had long encouraged her scientific pursuits in an era when women were largely excluded from formal scientific institutions. Rather than seeking public acclaim, Atkins quietly distributed her self-published installments to close colleagues and libraries. Her work was initially categorized by contemporaries as an elegant hobby rather than a rigorous taxonomic contribution. Yet, by bypassing the traditional, drawing-based printing methods, Atkins had inadvertently established a new standard for scientific objectivity. The deep Prussian blue prints did not just document specimens; they removed the human hand from the act of representation, challenging the very definition of empirical evidence in natural history.

Based on the passage, which of the following statements best describes the implicit relationship between Atkins's cyanotypes and the hand-drawn botanical illustrations of her era?