Points of Agreement

Passage A
The ascendance of rigid textualism—the doctrine that statutory and constitutional interpretation must be confined exclusively to the public semantic meaning of the words at the time of their enactment—represents a profound impoverishment of legal epistemology. Its proponents frequently champion this method as an indispensable, objective bulwark against judicial overreach, arguing that it prevents unelected judges from imposing their personal policy preferences under the guise of interpretation. Yet, this approach assumes a deeply flawed and static model of language, presuming that semantics remain perfectly crystallized and unambiguously decipherable over the span of centuries. More crucially, strict textualism ignores the documented historical reality of the founding era: the constitutional architects deliberately employed expansive, open-ended terminology—such as "equal protection," "due process," and "unreasonable searches"—precisely to accommodate the inevitable normative evolution of a rapidly developing republic. They understood that no single generation could anticipate the myriad technological and social transformations that would subsequently reshape the nation. To bind contemporary jurisprudence strictly to eighteenth-century semantic constraints is, therefore, not merely to misread the document's inherent structural flexibility, but to actively subvert the framers’ conscious design of a living, adaptable framework. Ultimately, if the constitutional project is to remain a legitimate instrument of governance, judicial interpretation must necessarily incorporate an evolving understanding of societal values rather than remaining imprisoned in a lexical time capsule.

Passage B
Textualism’s primary appeal among modern legal theorists lies in its purported guarantee of objectivity; by tethering constitutional interpretation strictly to the lexicon and linguistic conventions of the founding era, the methodology claims to definitively strip the judiciary of subjective, ad hoc policymaking. However, this methodological conceit relies on an anachronistic and fundamentally flawed historiography of American legal origins. The framers themselves were deeply steeped in a robust natural law tradition, an intellectual paradigm that presupposed the existence of unwritten, universal moral imperatives which were universally expected to guide and constrain judicial reasoning. Within this eighteenth-century epistemological framework, the drafters did not view the written text as the exhaustive, self-contained repository of all legal meaning. Rather, the Constitution was conceived as a formalized, though necessarily incomplete, reflection of deeper, antecedent rights that existed independent of their codification. By elevating the dictionary definitions of isolated clauses above all other jurisprudential considerations, modern textualists engage in a bizarre historical projection. They retroactively impose a mechanical, sterile formalism upon a generation of jurists and philosophers who would have viewed such semantic obsession not as a virtue, but as a severe dereliction of the court’s fundamental duty. To the founders, the highest calling of the judiciary was the exercise of reasoned moral judgment in the application of the law, a task that inherently demands looking beyond the mere ink on the parchment.

Both authors would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements regarding the original drafters of the Constitution?

The following dual passages discuss the historical performance movement in classical music.

Passage A
The quest for "authentic" historical performance—the practice of playing Baroque and Classical music on period instruments utilizing reconstructed historical stylistic conventions—has fundamentally reshaped modern concert life over the last half-century. Its proponents typically champion this approach as a rigorous, objective restoration, seeking to strip away the thick accretion of 19th-century Romantic indulgences, such as heavy continuous vibrato and massive orchestral forces, to finally reveal the composer’s unvarnished intentions. However, the theoretical foundation of this movement is inherently compromised by epistemological limits. We can neither fully reconstruct the unrecorded performance nuances of the past nor, more crucially, resurrect the historical ear. A contemporary listener inevitably brings a cognitive framework irrevocably saturated with post-tonal harmonics and recorded media, rendering the original psychological and emotional impact of a Beethoven symphony entirely irrecoverable. Yet, acknowledging this fundamental epistemological failure does not invalidate the movement's artistic worth. By demanding leaner textures, brisk tempi, and incisive articulation, the historical performance movement has paradoxically generated a vibrant, distinctly modernist aesthetic. Its true triumph lies not in functioning as an acoustic time machine, but in cultivating an interpretive style that caters seamlessly to contemporary aesthetic preferences for structural transparency and emotional restraint over the perceived interpretive excesses of the preceding era.

Passage B
In evaluating the historical performance movement, musicological critics routinely fixate on the practical impossibility of absolute historical accuracy. They rightly point to the fragmented, often contradictory nature of historical treatises, the physical evolution of acoustic spaces, and the incomplete preservation of early instruments. While these practical criticisms are certainly valid, they overlook a far more profound deception resting at the ideological heart of the enterprise. Performers of early music frequently characterize themselves as neutral vessels, claiming to diligently apply historical rules merely to channel the composer’s uncontaminated voice without interference. This stance implicitly, and erroneously, equates historical distance with interpretive objectivity. In reality, what we recognize today as the "authentic" style is a highly creative, decidedly modern invention. The strict avoidance of tempo fluctuation, the preference for sharp, rhythmic attacks, and the general purging of subjective emotionalism are not immutable historical truths handed down intact; rather, they are deliberate stylistic choices that directly mirror modernism’s broader cultural pivot away from 19th-century Romantic subjectivity. When today’s period-instrument ensembles perform Bach or Handel, they are not recovering a pristine, lost acoustic world. Instead, they are actively projecting contemporary sensibilities—an aversion to sentimentalism and a fetishization of objective clarity—backward onto the historical canon. The illusion of historical fidelity thus merely serves as a convenient intellectual alibi for enacting a thoroughly modern interpretative paradigm.

Based on the passages, the authors share which of the following perspectives regarding the historical performance movement? (Select all that apply)

The following dual passages discuss theories regarding the formation of early agrarian states.

Passage A
The genesis of the archaic state remains one of anthropology's most contentious and heavily debated problems. For decades, the dominant paradigm in the field was the "hydraulic hypothesis," which posited that the immense administrative demands of designing, constructing, and maintaining large-scale irrigation systems necessitated the rapid development of centralized, hierarchical bureaucracies. While this particular theory has faced legitimate scrutiny in recent years regarding the precise chronological sequencing of irrigation infrastructure and the onset of formal statehood, it nevertheless correctly recognizes a fundamental truth: the transition from egalitarian kin-based groups to highly stratified societies was driven fundamentally by the urgent need for ecological management, rather than by any sort of voluntary social contract. The historical record strongly suggests that early state subjects did not willingly cede their political autonomy in exchange for the supposed benefits of state protection; rather, their integration into complex state structures was inherently coercive, driven by the inescapable need to centrally coordinate agricultural production in harsh, arid environments. Proponents of the alternative, purely militaristic "conquest theory" argue that states formed exclusively through the violent subjugation of one indigenous group by another invading group. Yet, this view is overly reductive. It completely fails to account for why successful conquerors would deliberately seek to establish permanent, complex administrative and taxation apparatuses rather than merely extracting temporary tribute and departing. The state, therefore, must be understood as an ecologically adaptive, albeit profoundly oppressive, mechanism for sustainable resource management.

Passage B
The emergence of early agrarian states was neither a voluntary agreement among equals nor a triumph of cooperative human ingenuity, as Enlightenment thinkers might have romantically posited. However, it was also not primarily a response to the managerial requirements of large-scale agricultural infrastructure, as hydraulic theorists have long stubbornly maintained. The expanding archaeological record increasingly demonstrates that complex, centralized irrigation networks typically postdate the emergence of centralized political authority, rather than causing it. Instead, the primary catalyst for the original formation of the state was the phenomenon of environmental circumscription. When relentless population growth eventually exhausted the available arable land in a geographically bounded area—such as a fertile desert valley surrounded by uninhabitable mountains—fissioning into new territories became impossible. Conflict over steadily diminishing resources inevitably ensued, and defeated groups, unable to flee across the geographic barriers, were forcibly incorporated as subordinate, tribute-paying classes within a nascent political hierarchy. Thus, while state formation undeniably involved systemic coercion and the stark, irreversible loss of individual autonomy, its root cause was demographic pressure interacting with geography, not the administrative foresight required for managing water resources. Furthermore, while warfare was undeniably the immediate physical mechanism of subjugation, theories relying entirely on isolated instances of military conquest completely miss the broader ecological context. Conquest only leads to permanent state formation when environmental barriers prevent the physical dispersal of the vanquished populations. Consequently, early states should properly be viewed as a forced evolutionary adaptation to severe ecological constraints.

Based on the passages, match each concept regarding state formation (Left) with the perspective that both authors share regarding it (Right).

Passage A
In the philosophy of science, the problem of underdetermination posits that for any finite body of observational data, there exist infinitely many mutually incompatible theoretical frameworks capable of accommodating that data. Faced with such empirically equivalent models, practicing scientists invariably invoke extra-empirical aesthetic criteria—such as theoretical simplicity, mathematical elegance, or conceptual symmetry—to adjudicate between rival hypotheses. Without these supplementary criteria, scientific consensus would be paralyzed. However, epistemologists must be careful not to conflate this methodological utility with ontological truth. The preference for "beautiful" or parsimonious theories functions essentially as a pragmatic heuristic. Simpler theories are mathematically more tractable, computationally less expensive, and practically easier to subject to rigorous falsification, making them highly efficient instruments for driving scientific progress. Yet, the seductive assumption that the universe itself operates according to the aesthetic sensibilities of the human mind is a subtle form of anthropocentric hubris. The undeniable historical success of deploying aesthetic criteria in theory selection does not furnish proof that the cosmos is fundamentally "elegant." Rather, it merely demonstrates that prioritizing conceptually manageable frameworks systematically accelerates the pace of our empirical investigations. Thus, aesthetic judgments in scientific methodology remain indispensable, but strictly as procedural conveniences. They are devoid of any metaphysical guarantee that human notions of beauty align with the objective fabric of reality.

Passage B
A recurring and dominant theme in the historical development of theoretical physics is the profound conviction among practitioners that mathematical beauty serves as a reliable harbinger of scientific truth. Luminaries from Paul Dirac to Albert Einstein have frequently subordinated immediate empirical corroboration to the pursuit of formal elegance, operating under the deep-seated assumption that a truly beautiful theory must necessarily mirror nature's underlying architecture. Contemporary critics often dismiss this reliance on aesthetic criteria as a mere psychological bias, or, at best, a pragmatic sorting mechanism for navigating overwhelmingly complex data sets when empirical evidence is inconclusive. But this skeptical reduction fundamentally fails to account for the "unreasonable effectiveness" of such criteria. Time and again, physical theories pursued primarily for their internal structural harmony—such as gauge symmetry formulations or the general theory of relativity—have subsequently yielded startlingly accurate empirical predictions that were entirely unanticipated by their creators. This consistent pattern of predictive triumph strongly implies that the correlation between human aesthetic intuition and physical law is far more than a coincidental heuristic. Instead, it suggests a profound ontological resonance: the fundamental structure of the universe is inherently ordered, logically pristine, and mathematically harmonious. Consequently, when scientists employ aesthetic criteria to resolve theoretical gridlock, they are not merely adopting an arbitrary procedural convenience; they are actively leveraging a fundamental congruence between human rational architecture and the cosmos.

While presenting contrasting philosophical interpretations of scientific methodology, both authors find common ground on certain descriptive facts. Which of the following principles regarding theory selection are endorsed by BOTH Passage A and Passage B? (Select all correct options)

The following dual passages discuss the history and nature of early cinema.

Passage A
The conventional history of film often portrays the medium's first decade as a primitive, transitional era characterized by fumbling steps toward the classical narrative feature film. However, this inherently teleological approach fundamentally misrepresents the true nature and cultural function of early motion pictures. Before roughly 1907, cinema was fundamentally an exhibitionist medium—what scholars have aptly termed a "cinema of attractions." Its primary objective was almost never storytelling; rather, it was the presentation of visual shocks, novelties, and marvels. The camera directly confronted the audience, enthusiastically breaking the so-called "fourth wall" to display technological wonders, acrobatic feats, elaborate stage illusions, or exotic locales. When narratives did exist in these early reels, they were merely thin, disposable pretexts designed specifically to string together these moments of sheer spectacle. The relationship between the spectator and the screen was thus characterized by direct visual astonishment and physiological thrill rather than psychological immersion in a self-contained diegetic world. The subsequent historical shift toward the classical narrative style of the 1910s—with its invisible editing and character-driven plots—was not a natural, inevitable evolution of these early practices. Instead, it was a distinct rupture, a deliberate domestication of a wilder medium intended to court a more respectable, bourgeois audience by aligning film with the established traditions of the theatrical play and the novel. Critics who view early film solely through the lens of modern narrative conventions fail to appreciate the unique, visceral thrills it offered to its original patrons.

Passage B
Recent film scholarship has heavily popularized the concept of the "cinema of attractions," positing a strict, almost unbridgeable dichotomy between early film's emphasis on pure visual spectacle and the sophisticated narrative integration that dominated later eras. Yet, this rigid theoretical division significantly obscures the structural complexities and narrative ambitions of the very earliest motion pictures. Even the briefest, seemingly most spectacular actualities and trick films of the late 1890s possessed inherent, albeit rudimentary, narrative trajectories. The cinematic spectacle was rarely an isolated, plotless phenomenon; rather, it was typically woven into a nascent storytelling fabric from the outset. The famous visual shocks of the era—a locomotive rushing toward the camera, or a magician's sudden, smoke-filled transformation—functioned within a developing, coherent narrative logic that actively guided the viewer's attention from beginning to end. To claim that these early filmmakers were entirely indifferent to story is to ignore the historical evidence of their increasingly complex cinematic choices. Nevertheless, one must acknowledge that the dominant mode of engaging the spectator in these formative years relied overwhelmingly on overt visual stimulation and immediate sensory impact, differentiating it from the deep psychological character development and emotional absorption that would come to define the classical Hollywood era a decade later. Early filmmakers undoubtedly prioritized the immediate thrill of the moving image, even as they experimented with narrative frameworks.

Which one of the following expresses a view held by the authors of both passages?

Passage A

For generations, the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture was depicted by historians as a remarkable triumph of human ingenuity—a so-called "Neolithic Revolution" in which humans deliberately discovered farming techniques and enthusiastically abandoned their ostensibly arduous foraging lifestyles for the security and comfort of settled life. However, modern archaeological and anthropological evidence flatly contradicts this triumphalist narrative. The transition to agriculture was in no way a voluntary step up the ladder of cultural progress, but rather a necessary, and perhaps inevitable, adaptation to relentless demographic pressures. As human populations expanded slowly but steadily during the early Holocene epoch, the natural carrying capacity of local environments for nomadic foragers was gradually stretched to its absolute limits. Faced with dwindling wild resources per capita, these groups were essentially forced to intensify their exploitation of specific plant species, a process that eventually and inadvertently led to full-scale domestication. Far from immediately improving the human condition, the adoption of early agriculture was a desperate measure. Bioarchaeological studies consistently reveal that early agriculturalists actually suffered from substantially narrower diets, more frequent periods of acute starvation, and significantly higher rates of infectious disease compared to their immediate foraging ancestors. Thus, farming was not a brilliant discovery to be universally celebrated, but rather a highly burdensome necessity driven primarily by the inexorable mathematics of population growth.

Passage B

The traditional historical view that agriculture was primarily an intellectual breakthrough—a sudden realization that planted seeds reliably grow into food-producing plants, thereby leading to an immediate and voluntary lifestyle upgrade—is simply no longer tenable in light of modern scientific research. Instead, the origins of agricultural domestication must be fundamentally understood through the complex lens of environmental constraint and climatic instability. During the Younger Dryas, a well-documented period of abrupt global cooling and drying, wild food resources became increasingly scarce and highly unpredictable in pivotal regions such as the Levant. Hunter-gatherer societies, who had previously enjoyed abundant stands of wild cereals in a relatively stable climate, were suddenly forced to cluster tightly around shrinking oases and a few reliable water sources. To merely maintain their baseline food supply in these geographically restricted territories, they had no choice but to begin actively cultivating and managing the wild grasses they had previously only gathered. The long-term consequences of this dramatic shift were biologically profound and largely detrimental. Skeletal remains dating from this specific transition period consistently show clear markers of severe physiological stress, including stunted skeletal growth, pervasive dental caries, and bone lesions indicative of severe nutritional deficiencies and the effects of dense crowding. Agriculture was therefore not a conscious choice for a demonstrably better life, but a reluctant, albeit necessary, coping mechanism deployed in response to profound ecological degradation. This climatic pressure, rather than any intrinsic desire for agrarian life, explains the simultaneous emergence of farming in multiple isolated regions.

Based on the passages, which of the following statements represent a perspective shared by both authors? Select all that apply.

The following dual passages discuss theories regarding the performance of historical musical repertoire.

Passage A
The movement toward historical performance practice (HPP) emerged in the twentieth century as a necessary corrective to the excessive romanticization of earlier music. By that time, Baroque and Classical repertoire had become smothered beneath heavy vibrato, massive orchestral forces, and highly subjective tempos that reflected the modern performer's ego rather than the original composer's design. HPP advocates argue that our primary ethical duty in performance is to the composer. To honor their vision accurately, performers must meticulously consult historical treatises, employ period-appropriate instruments, and strip away centuries of accumulated interpretive habits. It is true, as critics of the movement frequently point out, that standard musical notation from these eras is frustratingly imprecise. A manuscript from the eighteenth century routinely omits crucial details regarding articulation, ornamentation, and phrasing, leaving a considerable amount of information to be deduced. Nevertheless, this inherent ambiguity does not grant modern performers a license to invent or to substitute their own emotional inclinations for historical reality. Rather, it compels them to become musical archaeologists, relying on rigorous academic scholarship to fill the gaps left by the composer's incomplete manuscript. While achieving absolute historical fidelity may ultimately be a distant horizon we can approach but never fully cross, striving for it remains the only objective and defensible standard by which to judge the merit of a performance. Without this anchor, classical music risks devolving into a mere vehicle for contemporary vanity.

Passage B
The growing insistence on strict historical authenticity in musical performance rests upon a fundamental misunderstanding of what the art of music actually entails. A piece of music is not a fragile museum artifact meant to be preserved in a vacuum; it is a dynamic, living dialogue between the past and the present. Those who demand we play Mozart exactly as his contemporaries did willfully ignore the fact that modern audiences possess vastly different auditory expectations, having been shaped by centuries of subsequent musical evolution and acoustic innovation. More importantly, treating the written score as an inviolable sacred text ignores the very nature of musical notation itself. Master composers have always understood that a written score is merely an outline, a pragmatic shorthand that relies entirely upon the interpreting musician to breathe life into it. The composer provides the underlying structural architecture, but the performer must provide the visceral soul. Therefore, an interpreter's primary responsibility is not to subserviently execute a set of antique, skeletal instructions, but rather to translate the emotional core of the historical work for contemporary ears. If a performance fails to resonate emotionally with the modern listener, it has failed entirely in its artistic mission, regardless of how historically accurate the gut strings on the violins or the tuning of the harpsichord might be. The true essence of a composition survives not through sterile replication, but through continuous, imaginative reinvention.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses a principle regarding musical scores that is endorsed by the authors of both passages?

Passage A
The Classic Maya collapse, which occurred over the course of the 9th century CE, is best understood through the lens of environmental determinism and ecological overshoot. In recent decades, paleoclimatological records—specifically data extracted from lake sediment cores and stalagmites in the Yucatán Peninsula—have revealed a series of severe, multi-decadal droughts that precisely track the chronological timeline of urban abandonment. However, climate alone does not fully explain the collapse; rather, the extreme drought acted as the final catalyst that pushed an already deeply strained system over the precipice. By the late Classic period, the Maya had arguably reached the absolute carrying capacity of their fragile tropical environment. Extensive deforestation, conducted to clear land for agriculture and to harvest wood for the massive quantities of quicklime plaster used in their monumental architecture, had not only degraded soil quality but also inadvertently exacerbated local drying trends by reducing evapotranspiration. The tragedy of the Maya was that their brilliant adaptations for managing a challenging rainforest environment ultimately allowed their population to grow so large that they became hyper-dependent on uninterrupted rainfall. When the seasonal rains ultimately failed, the rigid, elite-dominated sociopolitical structure could not effectively pivot. The legitimacy of Maya kings relied heavily on their perceived ability to ensure agricultural fertility through complex rituals. When crops failed repeatedly, rulers lost their divine mandate, leading to a catastrophic breakdown of social order and the depopulation of major urban centers.

Passage B
While it is increasingly popular to point to the weather as the primary culprit for the Classic Maya collapse, attributing the fall of a complex civilization primarily to climate oversimplifies the archaeological record. A closer reading of Maya hieroglyphic texts, alongside physical evidence of rapidly constructed defensive fortifications, suggests that the fatal blow was largely self-inflicted through endemic, escalating warfare. In the centuries preceding the collapse, the fundamental nature of Maya conflict shifted drastically—from highly ritualized skirmishes aimed at capturing high-status hostages, to devastating wars of territorial conquest. This political fragmentation and relentless, violent competition drained crucial resources and manpower. It is demonstrably true that this volatile period coincided with environmental perturbations, and there is little doubt that diminished agricultural yields inflamed existing geopolitical tensions among rival city-states. Moreover, the historically dense populations of the era meant there was virtually no margin for error regarding food security. Yet, the inability to manage these cascading stresses was fundamentally a political failure. This failure was rooted in an inflexible elite class that obstinately prioritized monumental construction and inter-polity warfare over practical infrastructural adaptation, even as their resource base dwindled. Rather than viewing the collapse as a simple story of ecological suicide, we must recognize it as a geopolitical implosion fueled by a competitive arms race for prestige.

Despite their differing primary emphases, the authors share several foundational assumptions about the conditions that led to the Classic Maya collapse. Which assertion from Passage B correctly corresponds to each assertion from Passage A to demonstrate a point of mutual agreement between the two authors?

Passage A
The integration of algorithmic risk assessment tools into criminal sentencing marks a crucial step toward fairer judicial outcomes. For centuries, human judges have operated as legal "black boxes," issuing decisions without providing a truly transparent account of their internal reasoning. A judge's sentencing rationale is inherently subjective, vulnerable to implicit biases, cognitive fatigue, and arbitrary personal heuristics that can lead to wildly disparate sentences for similar crimes. While critics correctly point out that current algorithmic models often reproduce historical biases embedded in their training data, this flaw is a temporary engineering challenge rather than an insurmountable fundamental defect. Unlike the opaque cognitive processes of a human judge, an algorithm's underlying code and data inputs can be mathematically audited, explicitly identified, and eventually corrected by developers. By transitioning to machine-assisted sentencing, the justice system can establish a baseline of quantifiable consistency. Furthermore, algorithms possess the capability to process vast, complex datasets regarding recidivism factors that no human mind could meaningfully synthesize during a trial. As these predictive tools are continually refined, tested, and stripped of their legacy biases, they will inevitably provide a more objective, uniform standard for determining sentences. Doing so will mitigate the capricious nature of purely discretionary human judgment and move the legal system closer to the ideal of blind, impartial justice.

Passage B
The contemporary rush to adopt algorithmic risk assessments in criminal sentencing represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what constitutes justice. Proponents of these systems often argue that computational tools will successfully eliminate the well-documented subjective biases and cognitive opacity that frequently plague human judicial decision-making. Indeed, no serious legal scholar can claim that human judges are perfectly objective; their vulnerabilities to prejudice and inconsistency are a matter of public record. However, replacing the human element with statistical algorithms merely trades the pursuit of individual justice for the cold mechanics of group probability. Algorithmic tools evaluate a defendant not as a unique, autonomous individual, but as a composite of demographic and socioeconomic data points, effectively punishing people based on the statistical behavior of others who happen to share their traits. Moreover, because these machine-learning tools are trained on historically biased arrest and conviction records, they inevitably launder deeply rooted systemic prejudices into a false veneer of mathematical objectivity. Even if these data biases could be perfectly scrubbed by programmers—a highly dubious proposition given the structural realities of the legal system—the core philosophical problem remains unresolved. A human judge, despite their inherent flaws and lack of absolute transparency, uniquely possesses the capacity for moral reasoning. Only a human has the ability to weigh the qualitative, highly specific, and often tragic circumstances of a defendant's life. Algorithms optimize entirely for systemic efficiency and risk management, but true justice requires an individualized moral assessment that no machine can provide.

Both authors would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements regarding algorithmic risk assessments in criminal sentencing?

The following dual passages discuss the historical impact of photography on painting.

Passage A
Before the invention of photography in the 19th century, portrait painting served primarily a documentary function. The wealthy commissioned painters to create accurate visual records of their likenesses, families, and estates. When the daguerreotype and subsequent photographic processes emerged, they offered a level of precise, objective realism that no human hand could perfectly replicate, and at a fraction of the cost. However, rather than destroying the art of painting, this technological disruption ultimately liberated it. Freed from the mandate to produce strict physical likenesses, painters were forced to reevaluate the purpose of their medium. This led directly to the rise of movements like Impressionism and Expressionism, where artists prioritized the capture of light, emotion, psychological depth, and subjective experience. Because a camera could perfectly record the external reality of a subject, the painter was now free to explore the internal reality. Thus, photography did not render painting obsolete; instead, it pushed painting to evolve into a more profoundly expressive art form.

Passage B
The introduction of commercial photography in the mid-1800s sent shockwaves through the established artistic community, particularly among traditional portrait painters. For centuries, artists had painstakingly developed techniques to capture the exact features and proportions of their sitters. Suddenly, a mechanical device could accomplish in minutes what took a master painter weeks to achieve, and with an undeniable mechanical precision. Consequently, the livelihood of thousands of mid-tier portraitists vanished almost overnight. The middle class, who previously might have saved for years to commission a painted portrait, flocked to photographic studios for cheap, exact reproductions of their faces. While some art historians argue that this shift gracefully pushed painters toward modern abstract movements, this view glosses over the immediate economic devastation experienced by the artistic working class. Many painters were forced to abandon their brushes altogether and find new professions, or ironically, become photographers themselves. The camera undeniably assumed the societal role of exact visual documentation, displacing the craftsmen who had formerly monopolized that essential service.

Which one of the following expresses a point of agreement between the authors of the two passages?

The following dual passages discuss the philosophical and legal justifications for patent systems.

Passage A
The justification for patent systems has long been debated among legal scholars, but the utilitarian perspective offers the most practical and historically accurate framework. Under this view, intellectual property protections are not inherent natural rights that exist independent of the state. Rather, they are deliberate, state-granted monopolies designed to serve a specific socioeconomic function: the incentivization of innovation and industrial progress. Without the temporary market protection afforded by a patent, inventors and corporations would struggle to recoup their substantial research and development costs, as competitors could simply reverse-engineer and copy successful inventions without bearing any of the initial risks. By ensuring a structured period of market exclusivity, the patent system stimulates economic growth and encourages the public disclosure of new, groundbreaking technologies, which ultimately benefits society as a whole by adding to the collective body of knowledge. The success of intellectual property law, therefore, should be measured entirely by its economic utility, its impact on market competition, and its ability to maximize societal welfare, rather than being weighed down by abstract philosophical concepts of inherent creator rights.

Passage B
While modern legal discourse often reduces intellectual property to a mere statutory tool designed for economic efficiency, this purely utilitarian approach severely overlooks the fundamental moral dimension of patent rights. The true ethical foundation of a patent system is the natural right of inventors to own and control the fruits of their intellectual labor. Just as an individual has an undeniable right to the physical property they build with their own hands, a creator has an inherent, natural moral claim to their novel ideas and inventions. It is undoubtedly true, of course, that legally recognizing and enforcing these rights provides a necessary and powerful stimulus for economic growth and broader technological advancement. When inventors feel secure in their property rights, they are far more likely to invest time and resources into commercializing their work, which undeniably benefits the broader economy. However, this widespread economic benefit must be understood as a welcome secondary effect, not the primary justification for the system's existence. Denying an inventor a patent for a genuinely novel creation is not merely an economic miscalculation or a failure to optimize market dynamics; it is a profound violation of their fundamental moral rights as a creator.

Based on the two passages, match each statement regarding patent systems to the correct author attribution.

Passage A

The debate surrounding the extinction of large mammals, or megafauna, at the end of the Pleistocene epoch has long centered on the role of human expansion. Proponents of the "overkill hypothesis" argue that as modern humans migrated into the Americas and Australia, their advanced hunting technologies decimated megafauna populations that had completely failed to evolve behavioral defenses against such novel and efficient predators. The fossil record demonstrates a compelling and undeniable chronological correlation: the sudden, catastrophic disappearance of dozens of large mammalian species closely tracks the established arrival dates of human hunters in these pristine regions. While it is undeniable that the global climate was rapidly warming during this transitional period, causing significant ecological shifts and putting natural stress on these large mammals, climate change alone simply cannot account for the sheer speed, severity, and selectivity of the extinctions. After all, previous interglacial periods featured remarkably similar climatic warming without triggering massive, worldwide die-offs. Instead, the warming climate likely fragmented megafauna habitats, making the animals highly vulnerable and geographically isolated. The decisive blow, however, was delivered by human hunters who exploited these concentrated, environmentally stressed populations. The archaeological evidence of butchered mammoth bones and specialized stone projectile points leaves absolutely no doubt that humans actively and successfully hunted these giant mammals, pushing them irrevocably over the brink of extinction. The widespread nature of this phenomenon across varied continents strongly suggests a biological driver—our ancestors—rather than a purely environmental one.

Passage B

For decades, the popular assumption that early human hunters caused the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions has overshadowed a far more scientifically sound culprit: profound and rapid environmental transformation. At the close of the last ice age, the earth experienced violent, unprecedented fluctuations in temperature and atmospheric moisture. These drastic climatic upheavals caused the complete collapse of the highly diverse "mammoth steppe" ecosystem, replacing it with lower-nutrient tundra and dense, impassable forests. Megafauna, which fundamentally required vast quantities of specific, high-quality forage to sustain their massive body sizes, simply starved as their traditional habitats vanished beneath their feet. The fact that human populations were migrating into the Americas around this same time is largely a coincidence of geological timing rather than a causal smoking gun. While archaeological sites undeniably confirm that early human populations did occasionally hunt megafauna—as evidenced by sparsely scattered, localized kill sites—the demographic scale of early human populations was mathematically far too small to single-handedly eradicate entire species across massive continental landmasses. Furthermore, it is a crucial piece of evidence that many species of megafauna that were rarely or never hunted by human populations also went totally extinct during this exact same chronological window. Therefore, while humans were certainly present as active components of the Late Pleistocene landscape and occasionally utilized megafauna for survival, they were primarily witnesses to an ecologically driven mass extinction event, not its primary biological architects.

Which one of the following expresses a view about the Late Pleistocene period that is shared by the authors of both passages?

Passage A
The reintroduction of apex predators into ecosystems from which they have been eradicated is widely considered one of the most effective tools in modern conservation biology. Top-down regulation, often referred to in scientific literature as a trophic cascade, is absolutely crucial for maintaining long-term ecological balance. When a top predator is returned to its historical range, it naturally regulates the population of large herbivores, which in turn prevents the severe overgrazing of native vegetation. This cascading effect effectively promotes biodiversity throughout the entire habitat, allowing various plant and smaller animal species to thrive and reclaim their niches. Critics of reintroduction initiatives often point to the undeniable challenges these predators pose to local agriculture, particularly regarding the very real threat of livestock predation. While these economic concerns are undeniably valid and require the implementation of robust mitigation strategies—such as comprehensive financial compensation programs for affected farmers and ranchers—they should not paralyze broad conservation efforts. The long-term ecological benefits of restoring natural food webs, enhancing habitat resilience, and promoting a diverse array of flora and fauna far outweigh the localized agricultural risks. A truly healthy ecosystem requires the presence of its historical apex predators, even if their return requires careful management and ongoing dialogue with the communities living near these restored wild spaces.

Passage B
Conservationists frequently champion the reintroduction of apex predators as a universal panacea for degraded ecosystems, yet this aggressive approach is fraught with significant ecological and economic uncertainties. The concept of trophic cascades, while undeniably elegant in theoretical models, often fails to accurately account for the unpredictable dynamics of a heavily altered modern environment. Ecosystems that have adapted for decades or even centuries without a specific apex predator may not seamlessly or predictably revert to their historical states upon its sudden return. Furthermore, the romanticized vision of wilderness restoration championed by many advocates often dismisses the severe, practical realities faced by rural communities. The reintroduction of large carnivores invariably leads to increased livestock predation, inflicting significant and sometimes devastating economic hardship on local agriculture and family-owned farms. These agricultural conflicts are not merely minor inconveniences to be managed away; they represent a fundamental clash between abstract conservation ideals and tangible human livelihoods. Instead of focusing heavily on risky, unpredictable predator reintroductions that alienate rural populations, conservation resources would be much better spent on habitat protection, pollution reduction, and community-based conservation initiatives. These alternative strategies can effectively preserve biodiversity without actively threatening local agricultural economies and generating the fierce political opposition that typically accompanies the release of large predators into shared landscapes.

Both Passage A and Passage B provide information that strongly suggests the authors would agree with which one of the following statements regarding apex predator reintroduction?

The following dual passages discuss the protection of intellectual property in the digital age. Based on the arguments presented, match each statement regarding copyright and media distribution to the correct description of the authors' viewpoints.

Passage A
The rapid expansion of the digital age has fundamentally altered the landscape of intellectual property, bringing unprecedented challenges to the creative industries globally. At the core of the ongoing debate concerning copyright lies an undisputed moral principle: creators inherently deserve fair financial compensation for the art, literature, music, and software they produce. This fundamental right to benefit financially from one's own labor is the essential bedrock of our modern cultural economy. However, the frictionless ease of digital reproduction and decentralized peer-to-peer sharing networks directly threaten this basic right. To secure the livelihood of working artists and guarantee the continued production of high-quality cultural works, the widespread implementation of robust Digital Rights Management (DRM) software is not just a commercial option, but an absolute necessity. By encrypting digital files and strictly locking them to authorized users or specific hardware devices, DRM actively prevents unauthorized distribution. It ensures that creators are paid for every single copy enjoyed by the public. Critics often argue that DRM can be occasionally cumbersome, yet they fail to offer a viable alternative that actually prevents mass piracy. Without such rigorous technological protections firmly in place, the financial incentive to create will inevitably collapse, leaving society with a barren cultural void. Protecting intellectual property through robust technological means is the only practical way to uphold the moral rights of creators in a fully digital ecosystem.

Passage B
While no one seriously questions the foundational premise that artists, musicians, and authors ought to be fairly paid for their original creations, the specific methods society employs to enforce this right must be carefully scrutinized and frequently reevaluated. The recent industry push toward aggressive Digital Rights Management (DRM) tools represents a significant and harmful misstep. These technological locks frequently punish legitimate consumers by artificially restricting how, when, and where they can use media they have legally purchased, effectively treating every paying customer as a potential thief. Furthermore, the broader copyright regime governing our media is deeply flawed. Our current copyright terms, which often extend many decades beyond the actual lifespan of the creator, do not effectively protect working artists; rather, they serve primarily to stifle new innovation and lock culture away from the public domain. We must also reject the extreme rhetoric of corporate industry lobbyists who suggest that every instance of unauthorized digital sharing should be criminalized with harsh penal sanctions. Instead of relying on restrictive DRM technologies and draconian legal punishments, we should explore forward-thinking alternative compensation models. Voluntary patronage platforms, direct artist-to-fan subscription services, and collective licensing agreements offer promising paths forward. These modern, adaptable models respect both the creator's undeniable need to earn a living wage and the public's right to freely access and participate in an open, vibrant cultural landscape.

Passage A
The concept of Art Brut, or "Outsider Art," as originally articulated by the French artist Jean Dubuffet in the mid-twentieth century, relies on a strict dichotomy between the pure, untutored creative impulse and the stifling conformity of the mainstream art establishment. For Dubuffet, true, authentic artistic expression could only be found among those entirely isolated from cultural conditioning—such as psychiatric patients, extreme recluses, and spiritual visionaries. Because these unique creators operate strictly outside the boundaries of official culture, lacking formal training and remaining happily ignorant of art history, their work represents a spontaneous, unadulterated manifestation of the human psyche. The defining characteristic of Outsider Art is, therefore, its absolute independence from the entrenched conventions, critical frameworks, and commercial pressures of the institutional art world. By existing in a state of profound cultural quarantine, the outsider artist inherently avoids the rigid intellectualization and derivative practices that Dubuffet believed calcify traditional academic art. Consequently, the intrinsic value of Outsider Art lies not merely in its startling aesthetic novelty or raw visual power, but fundamentally in its status as a radical, uncorrupted antithesis to the academic tradition. It is art that springs directly from the mind, completely unfiltered by societal expectations.

Passage B
The contemporary art market’s enduring fascination with "Outsider Art" rests heavily on a romanticized, largely fictional myth of the uncontaminated creator. In reality, the absolute cultural isolation demanded by purists and early theorists of the genre is a sociological impossibility; no individual, regardless of their institutional alienation, exists hermetically sealed from pervasive societal influence, popular media, or shared visual culture. Furthermore, the very act of discovering and labeling a marginalized creator as an "outsider" is, in itself, an undeniable exercise of institutional power. The mainstream art establishment selectively curates, contextualizes, and ultimately commodifies these idiosyncratic works, thereby neutralizing their purported subversiveness. When prestigious galleries exhibit the work of a marginalized individual, the artist immediately ceases to be a true outsider, having been inextricably assimilated into the very cultural and economic apparatus they supposedly circumvent. However, while the idealized archetype of the pure, culturally untouched outsider is a convenient fiction, the utility of the category strongly persists. It remains a critically necessary taxonomy for the art establishment, serving primarily as a conceptual boundary marker that precisely defines the center by actively demarcating the periphery. The continued application of the label reveals significantly less about the creators' intrinsic psychological states or isolated conditions, and far more about the institutional art world’s structural need to maintain a strict dichotomy between trained professionalism and naive idiosyncrasy in order to consistently validate its own parameters.

Based on the arguments presented in both texts, the authors would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements regarding Outsider Art?

The following dual passages discuss horizontal gene transfer in evolutionary biology.

Passage A
For decades, the neo-Darwinian synthesis relied on a singular, elegant metaphor: the Tree of Life. In this paradigm, genetic material flows strictly vertically from parent to offspring, with speciation represented by continuously branching, divergent lineages. However, rapid advancements in genomic sequencing have revealed that horizontal gene transfer (HGT)—the lateral sharing of DNA across distinct species boundaries—is not merely a bacterial idiosyncrasy but a pervasive, driving force in eukaryotic evolution. The sheer volume of exogenous DNA found in complex organisms dictates that the Tree of Life is no longer a tenable conceptual model. When genes are routinely acquired from distant relatives, viruses, and even environmental interactions, the concept of a neatly branching, isolated lineage inherently breaks down. We must discard the arboreal metaphor entirely in favor of a "web" or "net" of life. This conceptual overhaul is biologically necessary because acknowledging that eukaryotic genomes are profound, interconnected mosaics fundamentally alters our understanding of evolutionary novelty. Adaptation in complex organisms is frequently driven not by the slow, gradual accumulation of vertical mutations, but by the rapid, disruptive assimilation of pre-tested genetic packages from entirely different branches of the biosphere. To pretend that a few horizontal lines on a traditional diagram can capture this complexity is to willfully ignore the reality of genomic fluidity. The architectural foundation of modern evolutionary biology must be rebuilt from the ground up to center lateral assimilation.

Passage B
The recent deluge of genomic data has undoubtedly complicated our traditional understanding of evolutionary history. The discovery that horizontal gene transfer (HGT) occurs in multicellular eukaryotes—providing them with crucial adaptive traits, such as novel metabolic enzymes or pest resistance—has rightfully challenged the strict verticality of the classical evolutionary tree. Some researchers now argue this necessitates abandoning the tree metaphor altogether in favor of network-based models. Such a radical discarding, however, is premature and ultimately counterproductive to the study of biology. While it is undeniably true that the classic neo-Darwinian model failed to predict the extent to which eukaryotic genomes incorporate foreign DNA, vertical descent with modification remains the overwhelmingly dominant mechanism of inheritance for the vast majority of traits in complex, multicellular organisms. HGT events, though evolutionarily significant when they occasionally confer a massive selective advantage, represent a comparatively small fraction of the overall genetic architecture in most eukaryotes. Therefore, the Tree of Life remains an indispensable scaffolding for mapping macroscopic diversity. We should certainly update our models to reflect the reality that genetic material can occasionally cross lineage boundaries, perhaps by drawing lateral connecting vines between the robust branches of our phylogenetic trees. However, recognizing the existence of these lateral transfers does not negate the fundamental utility of tracing the primary, vertical pathways of evolutionary descent. Abandoning the tree framework would plunge comparative genomics into chaos, removing the very baseline required to identify when horizontal transfers have actually occurred. The tree provides the necessary context; without it, the web becomes an unreadable tangle.

Which one of the following statements most accurately expresses a view shared by the authors of both passages regarding horizontal gene transfer and evolutionary frameworks?

The following dual passages discuss the relationship between language and human cognition.

Passage A
The initial formulation of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggested that language completely determines thought—a strict deterministic view implying that speakers of different languages inhabit fundamentally different, incommensurable cognitive worlds. Under this rigid paradigm, the grammatical structures of one's native tongue were thought to place absolute boundaries on what could be conceptualized. Today, the field of cognitive linguistics has largely and rightfully rejected this strong version of the hypothesis. Extensive cross-cultural psychological testing has yielded no evidence that the absence of a specific grammatical category prevents a speaker from ultimately grasping or expressing a particular concept. The human mind is remarkably flexible. However, a "weaker" form of linguistic relativity has recently found robust, measurable empirical support. We now understand that language routinely and obligatorily directs our attention to specific aspects of experience during the act of communication. For instance, if a given language requires speakers to specify the spatial location of an object or the exact source of their knowledge (evidentials) in every sentence, its speakers must habitually attend to these environmental details. Thus, while a language does not build an inescapable cognitive prison that precludes novel thoughts, it undeniably forges well-worn neural and cognitive pathways. These linguistic habits subtly but pervasively influence downstream cognitive processes, such as memory retention and visual perception, by dictating what information is most salient in daily life.

Passage B
For decades, the pendulum of theoretical linguistics swung dramatically away from Benjamin Lee Whorf’s theories, driven by the Chomskyan search for universal, innate cognitive structures underlying all human language. These universalists correctly pointed out that human beings are universally capable of learning any secondary language and understanding any translated concept, dealing a fatal blow to the notion that our native tongue strictly dictates our conceptual limits or acts as an impermeable barrier to cross-cultural understanding. We are unequivocally not trapped by the structural confines of our grammar. Yet, the complete dismissal of Whorfian concepts by late-twentieth-century linguists was ultimately premature and overly broad. Recent, highly controlled cross-linguistic psychological studies reveal that the structural idiosyncrasies of a language can indeed exert a profound effect on supposedly non-linguistic cognitive tasks. When speakers of languages with fundamentally different color terminologies or absolute spatial coordinate systems (e.g., using cardinal directions rather than left/right) are tested on non-verbal memory and matching tasks, their performance reliably aligns with their native linguistic categories. This empirical data suggests that language acts as an ever-present cognitive tool that biases how we parse and process sensory information. The architecture of a language does not rigidly define our overarching cognitive capacity, but it does serve as a continuous framing mechanism, subtly shaping how we automatically categorize and remember the world around us.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses a view held by both of the authors regarding the relationship between language and cognition?

The two passages below present differing perspectives on the language used in the legal profession.

Passage A
The movement to eradicate specialized legal jargon in favor of "plain language" is well-intentioned but fundamentally misguided. Proponents of plain language argue that the law should be accessible to everyone, yet they fail to appreciate the essential function of legal terminology. Everyday language is replete with polysemy and syntactic ambiguity, which, if employed in contracts or statutes, would inevitably lead to endless litigation over interpretation. Legal jargon, or "legalese," has evolved over centuries as a highly calibrated instrument designed to eliminate this ambiguity. While it is undeniable that this specialized vocabulary creates a barrier to entry for the uninitiated layperson, this alienation is the necessary cost of legal certainty. To substitute precise terms of art with colloquial equivalents is to trade rigorous enforceability for a superficial illusion of accessibility.

Passage B
The persistence of archaic and opaque language within the legal profession is often defended as a necessary bulwark against ambiguity, but this defense obscures a more cynical reality. In truth, the dense thicket of legal jargon functions primarily as a gatekeeping mechanism. By monopolizing a specialized dialect, lawyers ensure that the public remains dependent on their expensive interpretive services. It is true that colloquial speech often harbors multiple meanings and requires careful contextualization to avoid misunderstanding. However, the assertion that legal concepts are inherently too complex or precise to be articulated in standard, accessible prose is demonstrably false. Numerous jurisdictions have successfully mandated plain-language disclosures without sacrificing legal rigor. The resistance to plain language is not about protecting the integrity of the law, but rather about preserving the economic privileges of the legal guild.

Based on the passages, which of the following statements represent points of agreement between the author of Passage A and the author of Passage B? Select all that apply.

Passage A
The sweeping urban renewal initiatives of the mid-twentieth century, heavily influenced by high-modernist architectural philosophies, represent one of the most profound miscalculations in the history of civic planning. Proponents of this model championed the wholesale demolition of what they summarily dismissed as "slums," replacing dense, organically evolved neighborhoods with towering concrete residential edifices set amidst vast, empty plazas. While the architects and bureaucrats who spearheaded these projects were undoubtedly animated by a utopian desire to eradicate the squalor, disease, and crippling congestion of the industrial city, their implemented solutions betrayed a fundamental, fatal misunderstanding of how human settlements actually function. By prioritizing vehicular thoroughfares and geometric visual order from a detached, bird's-eye perspective, the planners systematically dismantled the intricate, street-level social networks that sustain urban life. Furthermore, the rigid zoning doctrines that strictly separated commercial, residential, and industrial activities eradicated the spontaneous, multi-use vibrancy of traditional neighborhoods. Consequently, the residents who were relocated to these supposedly enlightened, sterile superblocks experienced profound psychological alienation and social isolation. The planners’ top-down, rationalist methodology treated the city as a machine to be optimized rather than a complex, fragile ecosystem to be gently nurtured. By imposing an abstract vision of order upon the messy reality of human habitation, the high-modernist experiment ultimately replaced organic, thriving communities with monumental but socially desolate landscapes.

Passage B
Contemporary architectural critics frequently demonize the architects of mid-century urban renewal, painting them as arrogant, out-of-touch technocrats who gleefully bulldozed vibrant, working-class communities. However, this retrospective condemnation often ignores the dire historical context in which these urban planners actually operated. In the immediate post-war era, civic leaders were confronted with genuine, existential crises: rampant tuberculosis, crippling residential overcrowding, and rapidly decaying municipal infrastructure. The high-modernist paradigm, with its uncompromising emphasis on abundant sunlight, open green space, and the hygienic separation of distinct urban functions, was embraced by policymakers not out of malice, but as a desperately needed, progressive public health intervention. It is essential to recognize the ameliorative impulses that originally drove the era's massive slum clearance programs. Nevertheless, acknowledging the planners' genuinely benevolent motivations does not somehow absolve their enduring structural legacy. The architectural emphasis on monumental scale, combined with strict functional zoning, inadvertently severed the vital, informal ties that bind city dwellers together. By eliminating the mixed-use thoroughfares and pedestrian-scaled public squares where daily, serendipitous civic interactions naturally occur, these sprawling developments bred a deep-seated alienation among residents. The well-intentioned effort to sanitize, streamline, and rationalize the urban environment ultimately ended up hollowing out the very civic vitality it initially sought to preserve, proving unequivocally that abundant sunlight and geometric open space cannot compensate for the loss of cohesive, intertwined neighborhood bonds.

Based on the dual passages provided, which one of the following statements represents a view unequivocally shared by both authors regarding mid-century urban renewal projects?

Passage A
The advent of linear perspective in early Renaissance Italy represented far more than a mere stylistic evolution; it was a profound scientific breakthrough that fundamentally altered the trajectory of Western art. Prior to this innovation, the depiction of space in painting was largely intuitive and hierarchically organized, with figures sized according to their spiritual or social importance rather than their physical distance from the viewer. The codification of linear perspective by thinkers like Brunelleschi and Alberti changed this by marrying the laws of optics with Euclidean geometry. By establishing a fixed viewing point, a horizon line, and a central vanishing point, this system allowed artists to project a mathematically accurate, proportional analog of three-dimensional reality onto a flat, two-dimensional surface. Critics who reduce perspective to a culturally specific aesthetic convention ignore its empirical foundations. It was, in essence, a discovery of the objective principles governing how light arrays reach the eye from physical objects. This demonstrable correspondence between the painted surface and physical reality confirms that the Renaissance pioneers did not invent a new visual language, but rather discovered the underlying mathematical syntax of vision itself.

Passage B
The enduring myth of Renaissance linear perspective is that it constitutes a neutral, objective recording of natural reality—a triumph of science over medieval naivety. However, this view fundamentally misapprehends the nature of visual representation. As art historian Erwin Panofsky argued, perspective is not an absolute truth but a "symbolic form," a cultural convention uniquely tailored to the intellectual climate of Renaissance humanism. To construct a perspectival image, the artist must submit to a highly artificial set of constraints. The system dictates that the visual world be apprehended by a single, perfectly immobile eye located at a fixed distance from the picture plane. This rigidly monocular and static condition bears little resemblance to actual human perception, which is inherently binocular, fluid, and psychological. Cultures operating outside this paradigm have historically employed entirely different, yet equally valid, spatial systems—such as the shifting viewpoints in traditional Chinese landscape painting—to convey complex relational truths that linear perspective obscures. Ultimately, the geometric rigor of the Renaissance canvas was less about discovering the physical properties of light than it was about visually manifesting the era's supreme confidence in human reason and spatial mastery.

The authors of both Passage A and Passage B share which one of the following perspectives regarding the structural mechanics of Renaissance linear perspective?