ID: 89fbc3eb

The Mission 66 initiative, which was approved by Congress in 1956, represented a major investment in the infrastructure
of overburdened national ______ it prioritized physical improvements to the parks’ roads, utilities, employee housing, and
visitor facilities while also establishing educational programming for the public.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. parks and

B. parks

C. parks;

D. parks,
 ID: 7f226b4b
In a 2023 study, researchers documented a fascinating behavior in the aquatic plant Elodea densa. When exposed to low
levels of light, the plant’s ______ the cellular organs that generate energy from light—reshuffled to form a tightly packed,
glass-like surface ideal for collecting more light.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. chloroplasts

B. chloroplasts;

C. chloroplasts,

D. chloroplasts—
 ID: 74ce2f05
A study led by scientist Rebecca Kirby at the University of Wisconsin–Madison found that black bears that eat human
food before hibernation have increased levels of a rare carbon isotope, ______ due to the higher 13C levels in corn and
cane sugar. Bears with these elevated levels were also found to have much shorter hibernation periods on average.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. carbon-13, (13C)

B. carbon-13 (13C)

C. carbon-13, (13C),

D. carbon-13 (13C),
 ID: 7f48b098
Photosynthesis, the mechanism by which plants use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into ______ is fueled in part
by an enzyme called Photosystem II that harvests energy-giving electrons from water molecules.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. nutrients

B. nutrients and

C. nutrients,

D. nutrients—
 ID: 0f39b19c
After a spate of illnesses as a child, Wilma Rudolph was told she might never walk again. Defying all odds, Rudolph didn’t
just walk, she ______ the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, she won both the 100- and 200-meter dashes and clinched
first place for her team in the 4x100-meter relay, becoming the first US woman to win three gold medals in a single
Olympics.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. ran—fast—during

B. ran—fast during

C. ran—fast, during

D. ran—fast. During
 ID: ac5536c1
Beatrix Potter is perhaps best known for writing and illustrating children’s books such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902),
but she also dedicated herself to mycology, the study of ______ more than 350 paintings of the fungal species she
observed in nature and submitting her research on spore germination to the Linnean Society of London.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. fungi; producing

B. fungi. Producing

C. fungi producing

D. fungi, producing
 ID: a153ad6a
While light is known as one of the fastest-moving substances, it slows down when passing through some types of
matter. One such type of matter is a form of cooled, condensed gas called a Bose-Einstein condensate ______ Dutch
physicist Lene Hau famously used a BEC to slow a beam of light to a complete halt.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. (BEC),

B. (BEC) and

C. (BEC);

D. (BEC)
 ID: 77e06a09
Between 322 and 184 BCE, the Maurya Empire established a complex economic system that, through trade and
centralized ______ funded major infrastructure projects throughout the Indian subcontinent. This included the building of
many roads, canals, and hospitals.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. taxation:

B. taxation,

C. taxation—

D. taxation
 ID: cdbbbf94
As British scientist Peter Whibberley has observed, “the Earth is not a very good timekeeper.” Earth’s slightly irregular
rotation rate means that measurements of time must be periodically adjusted. Specifically, an extra “leap second” (the
86,401st second of the day) is ______ time based on the planet’s rotation lags a full nine-tenths of a second behind time
kept by precise atomic clocks.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. added, whenever

B. added; whenever

C. added. Whenever

D. added whenever
 ID: a3e87535
Julia Alvarez’s 1994 novel In the Time of the Butterflies, a fictionalized account of the lives of the Mirabal ______ can
serve as a starting point for those wanting to explore how the rule of dictator Rafael Trujillo has been represented in
Dominican American literature.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. sisters, and

B. sisters and

C. sisters,

D. sisters
 ID: 083a35dc
Po’Pay was a Tewa leader from Ohkay Owingeh, a pueblo located about twenty-five miles north of present-day Santa Fe,
New Mexico. He was instrumental in organizing the Pueblo Revolt of ______ as a result of his leadership, the Spanish
colonizers were expelled from the region for a time.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. 1680

B. 1680 and

C. 1680,

D. 1680, and
 ID: 145d5ca7
Gathering accurate data on water flow in the United States is challenging because of the country’s millions of miles of
______ the volume and speed of water at any given location can vary drastically over time.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. waterways and the fact that,

B. waterways, and the fact that,

C. waterways, and, the fact that

D. waterways and the fact that

 ID: be34a3df
In 2008, two years after the death of science fiction writer Octavia Butler, the Huntington Library in ______ received a
collection of more than 8,000 items, including Butler’s private notes, research materials, manuscripts, photos, and
drawings. Today, the Octavia E. Butler Collection is one of the most researched archives at the library.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. California,

B. California:

C. California—

D. California
 ID: 8f6d6ae6
Archaeologists have estimated that the pre-Columbian Native American city of Cahokia, located across the Mississippi
River from modern-day St. Louis, Missouri, had as many as 20,000 inhabitants in the year 1150 ______ it one of the largest
cities in North America at the time.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. CE making

B. CE. Making

C. CE, making

D. CE; making
 ID: 2b512e65
Eli Eisenberg, a genetics expert at Tel Aviv University in Israel, recently discovered that ______ have a special genetic
ability called RNA editing that confers evolutionary advantages.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. cephalopods, ocean dwellers that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish

B. cephalopods—ocean dwellers—that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish,

C. cephalopods, ocean dwellers that include: the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish,

D. cephalopods—ocean dwellers that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish—
 ID: 870ae7ec
Detroit natives Timothy Paule and Nicole Lindsey have combined their two passions, Detroit and beekeeping, to improve
the health of their city’s flowers and other vegetation. In 2017, the couple converted a vacant lot in the city into an ______
in the years that followed they acquired nine additional lots and established more than 35 hives.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. apiary,

B. apiary, and

C. apiary and

D. apiary
 ID: fcaff694
The city of Pompeii, which was buried in ash following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, continues to be studied
by archaeologists. Unfortunately, as ______ attest, archaeological excavations have disrupted ash deposits at the site,
causing valuable information about the eruption to be lost.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. researchers, Roberto Scandone and Christopher Kilburn,

B. researchers, Roberto Scandone and Christopher Kilburn

C. researchers Roberto Scandone and Christopher Kilburn

D. researchers Roberto Scandone, and Christopher Kilburn

 ID: b0a525be
Santa Clara Pueblo artist Roxanne Swentzell’s sculpture Mud Woman Rolls On consists of five human figures made of
clay and plant fiber and arranged in descending size; each figure holds the smaller one in front of it. The arrangement of
the figures, according to ______ represents her idea that “we all come from the Earth, generation after generation.”

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. Swentzell

B. Swentzell,

C. Swentzell:

D. Swentzell—
 ID: eef91a50
Nine months before Rosa Parks made history by refusing to comply with the segregated seating policy on a Montgomery,
Alabama, bus, a fifteen-year-old Montgomery girl named Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same ______ to some
historians, Colvin’s arrest led to Parks’s action and eventually to the desegregation of Montgomery’s bus system.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. offense. According

B. offense, according

C. offense according

D. offense and according

 ID: 01a32c84
The first computerized spreadsheet, Dan Bricklin’s VisiCalc, improved financial recordkeeping not only by providing users
with an easy means of adjusting data in spreadsheets but also by automatically updating all calculations that were
dependent on these ______ to VisiCalc’s release, changing a paper spreadsheet often required redoing the entire sheet by
hand, a process that could take days.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. adjustments prior

B. adjustments, prior

C. adjustments. Prior

D. adjustments and prior

 ID: 267a13e2
In 2010, archaeologist Noel Hidalgo Tan was visiting the twelfth-century temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia when he
noticed markings of red paint on the temple ______ the help of digital imaging techniques, he discovered the markings to
be part of an elaborate mural containing over 200 paintings.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. walls, with

B. walls with

C. walls so with

D. walls. With
 ID: 432b1ede
The forty-seven geothermal springs of Arkansas’ Hot Springs National Park are sourced via a process known as natural
groundwater recharge, in which rainwater percolates downward through the earth—in this case, the porous rocks of the
hills around Hot ______ collect in a subterranean basin.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. Springs to

B. Springs: to

C. Springs—to

D. Springs, to
 ID: b6560e5a
Materials scientist Marie-Agathe Charpagne and her colleagues believed they could improve on the multicomponent alloy
NiCoCr, an equal-proportions mixture of nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co), and chromium (Cr), by replacing chromium with
ruthenium ______ the alloy that resulted, NiCoRu, turned out to be an unsuitable replacement for NiCoCr.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. (Ru)

B. (Ru) but

C. (Ru),

D. (Ru), but
 ID: 36868920
Increasing the heat on an uncovered boiling pot of water does not increase the temperature of the water. What increases
is the rate at which the water turns to ______ a pressure cooker pot, though, an airtight seal traps the vapor in the pot,
creating pressure that allows the temperature of the water to increase past its boiling point.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. vapor. With

B. vapor with

C. vapor, with

D. vapor and with

 ID: 67667d72
Humans were long thought to have begun occupying the Peruvian settlement of Machu Picchu between 1440 and 1450
CE. However, a team led by anthropologist Dr. Richard Burger used accelerator mass spectrometry to uncover evidence
that it was occupied ______ 1420 CE, according to Burger, humans were likely inhabiting the area.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. earlier. In

B. earlier, in

C. earlier, which in

D. earlier in
 ID: 6df020e6
A study showed that a solar park caused nearby land to cool, though the ecological impact of this temperature decrease
isn’t yet known. Before the park’s construction, the surface temperature 30 meters outside of the park boundary was
0.1°C cooler than that of a control ______ construction, the temperature 30 meters outside of the boundary was 1.7°C
cooler than that of the control area.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. area after

B. area after,

C. area. After

D. area, after
 ID: ace95f84
By analyzing the level of radioactive decay within a fossil specimen, scientists can establish the age of that fossil with a
high degree of precision. When radioactive elements aren’t present, scientists turn to ______ analysis of Earth’s sediment
layers (strata)—to estimate how old a fossil is based on the age of the strata in which the fossil is found.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. stratigraphy—the

B. stratigraphy (the

C. stratigraphy: the

D. stratigraphy, the
 ID: 4ba99a6f
Seneca sculptor Marie Watt’s blanket art comes in a range of shapes and sizes. In 2004, Watt sewed strips of blankets
together to craft a 10-by-13-inch ______ in 2014, she arranged folded blankets into two large stacks and then cast them in
bronze, creating two curving 18-foot-tall blue-bronze pillars.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. sampler later,

B. sampler;

C. sampler,

D. sampler, later,
 ID: 2c84f96a
In 2017, artists Isabel and Ruben Toledo redesigned the costumes and sets for The Miami City Ballet’s production of The
______ to reviewers, the Toledos’ designs helped infuse the production with elements of Miami’s Latin American culture.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. Nutcracker according,

B. Nutcracker, according

C. Nutcracker according

D. Nutcracker. According
 ID: 548f4956
It is generally true that technological change is a linear process, in which once-useful technologies are replaced by new
and better ______ the reawakening of interest in the steam engine (from advocates of carbon-neutral rail travel) reminds
us that ostensibly obsolete technologies may be brought back into service to address society’s changing needs.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. ones, even so;

B. ones even so,

C. ones; even so,

D. ones, even so,

 ID: 403d7bb5
According to Naomi Nakayama of the University of Edinburgh, the reason seeds from a dying dandelion appear to float in
the air while ______ is that their porous plumes enhance drag, allowing the seeds to stay airborne long enough for the
wind to disperse them throughout the surrounding area.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. falling,

B. falling:

C. falling;

D. falling
 ID: fcab3630
In his Naturalis historia, Pliny the Elder praised Hipparchus’s star catalog, a second-century BCE list of roughly 850
different stars’ celestial positions. For centuries, scholars dreamed about locating a copy of this legendary lost ______
fantasy (partially) became reality in 2022, when researchers uncovered traces of the star catalog on a palimpsest, a
reused parchment.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. work, that

B. work that

C. work. That

D. work and that

 ID: 6b49f5f1
In 1727, dramatist Lewis Theobald presented a new play, Double Falsehood, at a London theater. Theobald claimed that
his drama was based on a little-known play by William Shakespeare, Cardenio. Many, including poet Alexander Pope,
were ______ historians have determined that Shakespeare’s company did perform a play called Cardenio in 1613.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. skeptical but

B. skeptical, but

C. skeptical,

D. skeptical
 ID: 83c9c503
Nigerian American artist Toyin Ojih Odutola uses black-ink pens to create highly detailed drawings of human figures. Her
portrait of novelist Zadie ______ is displayed in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. Smith:

B. Smith—

C. Smith

D. Smith,
 ID: 5cc85f01
A conceptual artist and designer embraced by both the art world and the fashion ______ Mary Ping was chosen to curate
the exhibition Front Row: Chinese American Designers for the Museum of Chinese in America.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. world

B. world:

C. world;

D. world,
 ID: 40c3589d
Luci Tapahonso is the inaugural poet laureate of the Navajo Nation. Her book Sáanii Dahataal/The Women Are Singing—
a combination of fiction and memoir, poetry and ______ serves as a testament to her versatility as a writer.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. prose;

B. prose

C. prose,

D. prose—
 ID: c8540a5b
Swedish scientists Eva Engvall and Peter Perlmann developed a method for measuring the concentration of different
proteins in a biological sample. Their ______ ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), is used to detect and measure
proteins that indicate the presence of certain diseases.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. method (called

B. method—called

C. method, called

D. method called
 ID: c101fc44
How do scientists determine what foods were eaten by extinct hominins such as Neanderthals? In the past, researchers
were limited to studying the marks found on the fossilized teeth of skeletons, but in 2017 a team led by Laura Weyrich of
the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA tried something ______ the DNA found in Neanderthals’ fossilized dental plaque.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. new: sequencing

B. new; sequencing

C. new, sequencing:

D. new. Sequencing
 ID: ad046778
To humans, it does not appear that the golden orb-weaver spider uses camouflage to capture its ______ the brightly
colored arachnid seems to wait conspicuously in the center of its large circular web for insects to approach. Researcher
Po Peng of the University of Melbourne has explained that the spider’s distinctive coloration may in fact be part of its
appeal.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. prey, rather,

B. prey rather,

C. prey, rather;

D. prey; rather,
 ID: a5079e0d
Horsepower is a unit of measurement used to determine how much power a vehicle produces. The measurement is
based on how much and how quickly weight can be ______ one unit of mechanical horsepower is equivalent to the
amount of power it takes to lift 550 pounds one foot off the ground in one second.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. moved, for example,

B. moved,

C. moved; for example,

D. moved
 ID: 3ed5ebb4
In her analysis of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth (1905), scholar Candace Waid observes that the novel depicts the
upper classes of New York society as “consumed by the appetite of a soulless ______ an apt assessment given that The
House of Mirth is set during the Gilded Age, a period marked by rapid industrialization, economic greed, and widening
wealth disparities.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. materialism”; and

B. materialism” and

C. materialism,”

D. materialism”
 ID: 8790d061
While constructing the Limyra Bridge, ancient Roman builders relied on temporary wooden beams to support the stone
and brick structure. These temporary supports, a construction system known as ______ were removed when the bridge
was completed.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. falsework;

B. falsework

C. falsework,

D. falsework:
 ID: fe41f258
In ancient Greece, an Epicurean was a follower of Epicurus, a philosopher whose beliefs revolved around the pursuit of
pleasure. Epicurus defined pleasure as “the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the ______ that all life’s virtues
derived from this absence.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. soul,” positing

B. soul”: positing

C. soul”; positing

D. soul.” Positing
 ID: c04e9136
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three pioneers in the field of click chemistry: two-time Nobel laureate
Barry Sharpless, who coined the term “click chemistry” in 1998; Carolyn Bertozzi, founder of the Bertozzi Group at ______
and Morten Meldal, a professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. Stanford

B. Stanford,

C. Stanford:

D. Stanford;
 ID: a12e3b8a
Customers who are satisfied with how a company resolves a service issue may regard that company more positively
than they would if no such issue had occurred. This idea is known as the service recovery ______ research suggests that
it has important implications for customer loyalty and retention.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. paradox,

B. paradox

C. paradox, and

D. paradox and,
 ID: a427a52c
The Lion Light system, developed by Kenyan inventor Richard Turere, consists of LED lights installed around the
perimeter of livestock pastures. Powered with ______ the blinking LEDs keep lions away at night, thus protecting the
livestock without risking harm to the endangered lions.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. energy collected, by solar panels, during the day

B. energy collected by solar panels during the day

C. energy collected by solar panels during the day,

D. energy, collected by solar panels during the day,

 ID: da53d726
In February 1919, following the end of the First World War, women from ten countries around the world convened the
Inter-Allied Women’s Conference in Paris. The conference’s goals were ______ ensure women’s participation in the
proceedings of the Paris Peace Conference, to secure the right of women to serve in the League of Nations, and to
advocate for human rights.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. threefold: to

B. threefold. To

C. threefold to

D. threefold; to