Craft & Structure (Vocabulary)

1- Although the knowledge of the Pleistocene epoch and the lives of the hominids
during this time was once ……………, recent analyses of fossils like that of the
individual known as Misliya -1, discovered in Israel in 2002, have sharpened our
picture of what a day in the life of Misliya-1 may have looked like.

a) intricate
b) unprecedented
c) concrete
d) nebulous

2- Whether the reign of French monarchs such as Louis Philippe I or Philip II was
considered historically significant or, conversely, relatively ……………, its
trajectory was shaped by question of legitimacy and therefore cannot be understood
without a corollary understanding of the factors that allowed the monarch to assert a
claim to the throne successfully.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
a) benevolent
b) momentous
c) inconsequential
d) genuine

3- Dance choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar aims to give people the opportunity to
be ______ her creative process. For example, live performances of her dance HairStories, which
debuted in 2001, featured videos of people across the United States talking about their hair
and audience members sharing pictures of their interesting hairstyles.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A. nervous about
B. completed by
C. delayed by
D. involved in
4- Researchers and conservationists stress that biodiversity loss due to invasive species
is ______. For example, people can take simple steps such as washing their footwear after
travel to avoid introducing potentially invasive organisms into new environments.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. preventable
B. undeniable
C. common
D. concerning

5- In the 1960s, Sam Gilliam, a Black painter from the southern United States, became the first
artist to drape painted canvases into flowing shapes. He later explored a different
style, ______ quilt-like paintings inspired by the patchwork quilting tradition of Black
communities in the South.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. predicting
B. refusing
C. hiding
D. creating

6- The following text is adapted from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland.
“The second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best
plan.” It sounded like an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged;
the only difficulty was, that Alice had not the smallest idea how to set about it.
As used in the text, what does the word “simply” most nearly mean?
A. Faintly
B. Hastily
C. Easily
D. Foolishly
7- Archaeologists studying an ancient amphitheater in Switzerland believe that it dates back
to the fourth century CE. Their discoveries of a coin made between 337 and 341 CE and era-
appropriate building materials ______ evidence for this theory.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. dismiss
B. provide
C. regulate
D. refuse

8- As a young photographer in the 1950s, William Klein ______ the conventions of

photography by creating images that were high contrast and included blurred and distorted
elements—features generally seen as flaws. So unorthodox was Klein’s work that he had
difficulty finding a publisher for his now-iconic 1956 photo book Life is Good & Good for You
in New York.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. reviewed
B. defied
C. respected
D. prevented

9- The following text is adapted from Amy Lowell’s 1912 poem “Summer.”
It is summer, glorious, deep-toned summer,
The very crown of nature’s changing year
When all her surging life is at its full.
To me alone it is a time of pause,
A void and silent space between two worlds,
When inspiration lags, and feeling sleeps,
Gathering strength for efforts yet to come.
As used in the text, what does the phrase “a void” most nearly mean?
A. A useless
B. An empty
C. A forgotten
D. An incomplete
10- The following text is from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel The Secret Garden. Mary,
a young girl, is outside trying her new jump rope.
The sun was shining and a little wind was blowing—not a rough wind, but one which
came in delightful little gusts and brought a fresh scent of newly turned earth with it.
She skipped round the fountain garden, and up one walk and down another.
As used in the text, what does the word “rough” most nearly mean?
A. Harsh
B. Scratchy
C. Basic
D. Vague

11- The following text is from Booth Tarkington’s 1921 novel Alice Adams.
Mrs. Adams had always been fond of vases, she said, and every year her husband’s
Christmas present to her was a vase of one sort or another—whatever the clerk showed
him, marked at about twelve or fourteen dollars.
As used in the text, what does the word “marked” most nearly mean?
A. Staged
B. Priced
C. Stained
D. Watched

12- The artisans of the Igun Eronmwon guild in Benin City, Nigeria, typically ______ the
bronze- and brass-casting techniques that have been passed down through their families
since the thirteenth century, but they don’t strictly observe every tradition; for example, guild
members now use air-conditioning motors instead of handheld bellows to help heat their
forges.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. experiment with
B. adhere to
C. improve on
D. grapple with
13- For a 2020 exhibition, photographer and neurobiologist Okunola Jeyifous ______ a series
of new images based on a series of alphabet posters from the 1970s known as the “Black
ABCs,” which featured Black children from Chicago. Jeyifous photographed the now-adult
models and layered the photos over magnified images of the models’ cells, resulting in what
he called “micro and macro portraiture.”
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. validated
B. created
C. challenged
D. restored

14- Rydra Wong, the protagonist of Samuel R. Delany’s 1966 novel Babel-17, is a poet, an
occupation which, in Delany’s work, is not ______: nearly a dozen of the characters that
populate his novels are poets or writers.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. infallible
B. atypical
C. lucrative
D. tedious

15- Novelist N. K. Jemisin declines to ______ the conventions of the science fiction genre in
which she writes, and she has suggested that her readers appreciate her work precisely
because of this willingness to thwart expectations and avoid formulaic plots and themes.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. question
B. react to
C. perceive
D. conform to
16- In addition to being an accomplished psychologist himself, Francis Cecil Sumner was
a ______ increasing the opportunity for Black students to study psychology, helping to found
the psychology department at Howard University, a historically Black university, in 1930.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. proponent of
B. supplement to
C. beneficiary of
D. distraction for

17- Mineralogical differences are detectable in samples collected from two locations on the
near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, but such differences may not indicate substantial compositional
variations in the asteroid. Cosmochemist Kazuhide Nagashima and colleagues note that at the
small scale of the samples, the distribution of minerals is unlikely to be ______.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. neglected
B. redundant
C. ongoing
D. uniform

18- Set in a world where science fiction tropes exist as everyday realities, Charles Yu’s 2010
novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe traces a time traveler’s quest to find his
father. Because the journey at the novel’s center is so ______, with the protagonist ricocheting
chaotically across time, the reader often wonders whether the pair will ever be reunited.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. haphazard
B. premeditated
C. inspirational
D. fruitless

19- Business researcher Melanie Brucks and colleagues found that remote video conference
meetings may be less conducive to brainstorming than in-person meetings are. The
researchers suspect that video meeting participants are focused on staring at the speaker on
the screen and don’t allow their eyes or mind to wander as much, which may
ultimately ______ creativity.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
 A. recommend
B. criticize
C. impede
D. construct

20- Like the 1945 play it reimagines—Federico García Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba—
Marcus Gardley’s 2014 play The House That Will Not Stand prominently features women. In
both plays, the all-female cast ______ an array of female characters, including a strong mother
and several daughters dealing with individual struggles.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. engulfs
B. encourages
C. comprises
D. provokes

21- The province of Xoconochco was situated on the Pacific coast, hundreds of kilometers
southeast of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire. Because Xoconochco’s location
within the empire was so ______, cacao and other trade goods produced there could reach the
capital only after a long overland journey.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. unobtrusive
B. concealed
C. approximate
D. peripheral

22- Within baleen whale species, some individuals develop an accessory spleen—a seemingly
functionless formation of splenetic tissue outside the normal spleen. Given the formation’s
greater prevalence among whales known to make deeper dives, some researchers
hypothesize that its role isn’t ______; rather, the accessory spleen may actively support diving
mechanisms.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. replicable
B. predetermined
C. operative
D. latent
23- According to a US tax policy expert, state taxes are ______ other factors when considering
an interstate move. Even significant differences in state taxation have almost no effect on
most people’s decisions, while differences in employment opportunities, housing availability,
and climate are strong influences.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. consistent with
B. representative of
C. overshadowed by
D. irrelevant to

24- Some scientists have suggested that mammals in the Mesozoic era were not a
very ______ group, but paleontologist Zhe-Xi Luo’s research suggests that early mammals
living in the shadow of dinosaurs weren’t all ground-dwelling insectivores. Fossils of various
plant-eating mammals have been found in China, including species like Vilevolodon
diplomylos, which Luo says could glide like a flying squirrel.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. predatory
B. obscure
C. diverse
D. localized

25- New and interesting research conducted by Suleiman and Moath is inspired by their
observation that though studies of the effect of high altitude on blood chemistry are
_______, the effect on blood chemistry of living in locations below sea level, such as
the California towns of Salton City and Imperial, has received comparatively little
notice.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
a) equivocal
b) copious
c) sporadic
d) preliminary