Text 1

A team led by Bernardo Strassburg has found that rewilding farmland (returning the land to its natural state) could help preserve biodiversity and offset carbon emissions. The amount of farmland that would need to be restored, they found, is remarkably low. Rewilding a mere 15% of the worldʼs current farmland would prevent 60% of expected species extinctions and help absorb nearly 299 gigatons of carbon dioxide—a clear win in the fight against the biodiversity and climate crises.

Text 2

While Strassburgʼs teamʼs findings certainly offer encouraging insight into the potential benefits of rewilding, itʼs important to consider potential effects on global food supplies. The researchers suggest that to compensate for the loss of food-producing land, remaining farmland would need to produce even more food. Thus, policies focused on rewilding farmland must also address strategies for higher-yield farming.

Which choice best describes a difference in how the author of Text 1 and the author of Text 2 view Strassburgʼs teamʼs study?

A. The author of Text 2 approaches the studyʼs findings with some caution, whereas the author of Text 1 is optimistic about the reported potential environmental benefits.

B. The author of Text 2 claims that the percentage of farmland identified by Strassburgʼs team is too low for rewilding to achieve meaningful results, whereas the author of Text 1 thinks the percentage is sufficient.

C. The author of Text 2 believes that the results described by Strassburgʼs team are achievable in the near future, whereas the author of Text 1 argues that they likely arenʼt.

D. The author of Text 2 focuses on rewildingʼs effect on carbon emissions, whereas the author of Text 1 focuses on its effect on biodiversity

Text 1

Flamingos are known for their vibrant pink coloring, but they’re actually born with gray feathers. Their pink color comes from eating brine shrimp, but brine shrimp aren’t naturally pink either. Animals can’t produce carotenoids, the pigments that provide the pink hue. The algae that brine shrimp feed on, however, can produce these pigments. Thus, the pinker the flamingo, the more shrimp it has eaten.

Text 2

Ecologist Juan Amat has found that flamingos apply a kind of makeup to make themselves appear pinker. A gland near their tail contains pigments that come from the food they eat. When the amingos groom themselves using the pigments, their feathers become pinker. Flamingos may do this to improve their success during mating season, when they would benefit from looking pinker.

Based on the texts, how would the ecologist in Text 2 most likely respond to the author’s conclusion in Text 1?

A. By emphasizing that flamingos’ tail feathers are pinker than their other feathers are

B. By claiming that the coloring of flamingos’ feathers doesn’t change significantly enough for most observers to notice

C. By pointing out that the amount of shrimp eaten isn’t the only thing that influences flamingos’ coloring

D. By arguing that flamingos’ diet doesn’t include much shrimp except during mating season

Text 1

It seems clear that emotional contagion (the unintentional transfer of an emotional state from one person to another) requires physical interaction and the observation of body language. After all, research shows that talking to someone who is smiling and expressing positive feelings often causes people to respond in a comparably positive way. Similarly, displays of nervous fidgeting have been found to prompt others to begin behaving more nervously, too.

Text 2

In an experiment using a social networking service, Zeyao Yang and Emilio Ferrara found evidence of emotional contagion in text-based online interactions. The researchers discovered that reading social media posts that expressed a positive outlook led people to make more positive posts themselves, while posts with a negative emotional tone led people to make more negative posts.

Based on the texts, what would the researchers in Text 2 most likely say about the claim underlined in Text 1?

A. It perpetuates a flawed understanding of emotional contagion, because there isn’t enough evidence to suggest that smiling is a sign of emotional contagion.

B. It reects an incomplete view of emotional contagion, because this phenomenon can occur even without in-person interaction.

C. It’s fairly persuasive, because studies attempting to identify emotional contagion in situations without in-person interaction have thus far yielded unclear results.

D. It’s mostly accurate, because the social networking study conrmed that emotional contagion primarily occurs in response to negative emotions like nervousness.

Text 1

Graphic novels are increasingly popular in bookstores and libraries, but they shouldn’t be classied as literature. By denition, literature tells a story or conveys meaning through language only; graphic novels tell stories through illustrations and use language only sparingly, in captions and dialogue. Graphic novels are experienced as series of images and not as language, making them more similar to lm than to literature.

Text 2

Graphic novels present their stories through both language and images. Without captions and dialogue, readers would be unable to understand what is depicted in the illustrations: the story results from the interaction of text and image. Moreover, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and many other graphic novels feature text that is as beautifully written as the prose found in many standard novels. Therefore, graphic novels qualify as literary texts.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the overall argument presented in Text 1?

A. By asserting that language plays a more important role in graphic novels than the author of Text 1 recognizes

B. By acknowledging that the author of Text 1 has identified a flaw that is common to all graphic novels

C. By suggesting that the story lines of certain graphic novels are more difficult to understand than the author of Text 1 claims

D. By agreeing with the author of Text 1 that most graphic novels aren’t as well crafted as most literary works are

Text 1

The fossil record suggests that mammoths went extinct around 11 thousand years (kyr) ago. In a 2021 study of environmental DNA (eDNA)—genetic material shed into the environment by organisms—in the Arctic, Yucheng Wang and colleagues found mammoth eDNA in sedimentary layers formed millennia later, around 4 kyr ago. To account for this discrepancy, Joshua H. Miller and Carl Simpson proposed that arctic temperatures could preserve a mammoth carcass on the surface, allowing it to leach DNA into the environment, for several thousand years.

Text 2

Wang and colleagues concede that eDNA contains DNA from both living organisms and carcasses, but for DNA to leach from remains over several millennia requires that the remains be perpetually on the surface. Scavengers and weathering in the Arctic, however, are likely to break down surface remains well before a thousand years have passed.

Which choice best describes how Text 1 and Text 2 relate to each other?

A. Text 1 discusses two approaches to studying mammoth extinction without advocating for either, whereas Text 2 advocates for one approach over the other.

B. Text 1 presents findings by Wang and colleagues and gives another research teamʼs attempt to explain those findings, whereas Text 2 provides additional detail that calls that explanation into question.

C. Text 1 describes Wang and colleaguesʼ study and a critique of their methodology, whereas Text 2 offers additional details showing that methodology to be sound.

D. Text 1 argues that new research has undermined the standard view of when mammoths went extinct, whereas Text 2 suggests a way to reconcile the standard view with that new research.

Text 1

Dominique Potvin and colleagues captured five Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen) to test a new design for attaching tracking devices to birds. As the researchers fitted each magpie with a tracker attached by a small harness, they noticed some magpies without trackers pecking at another magpieʼs tracker until it broke off. The researchers suggest that this behavior could be evidence of magpies attempting to help another magpie without benefiting themselves.

Text 2

It can be tempting to think that animals are deliberately providing help when we see them removing trackers and other equipment from one another, especially when a species is known to exhibit other cooperative behaviors. At the same time, it can be difficult to exclude the possibility that individuals are simply interested in the equipment because of its novelty, curiously pawing or pecking at it until it detaches.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the researchersʼ perspective in Text 1 on the behavior of the magpies without trackers?

A. That behavior might have been due to the novelty of the magpiesʼ captive setting rather than to the novelty of the tracker.

B. That behavior likely indicates that the magpies were deliberately attempting to benefit themselves by obtaining the tracker.

C. That behavior may not be evidence of selflessness in Gymnorhina tibicen because not all the captured magpies demonstrated it.

D. That behavior might be adequately explained without suggesting that the magpies were attempting to assist the other magpie.

The following text is adapted from Jason Reynolds’s 2016 novel Ghost. The narrator, who is in middle school, is at a bus stop.

I just go there [to the bus stop] to look at the people working out. See, the gym across the street has this big window— like the whole wall is a window—and they have those machines that make you feel like you walking up steps and so everybody just be facing the bus stop, looking all crazy like they’re about to pass out. And trust me, there ain’t nothing funnier than that. So I check that out for a little while like it’s some kind of movie: The About to Pass Out Show, starring stair-stepper person one through ten.

©2016 by Jason Reynolds

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. To give a reason why the narrator is excited to start middle school

B. To describe an activity that the narrator finds amusing

C. To explain a problem that the narrator has overcome

D. To discuss a movie that the narrator saw in a theater

Were penguins always flightless? Theresa Cole and her team argue that penguins could y at some point, but that they lost that ability more than 60 million years ago as they adapted to marine life. After examining various penguin fossils and genetic information, the researchers concluded that over time penguins developed underwater vision, blood oxygenation, and bone density better suited for swimming than ying. Thus, environmental conditions might have driven penguins to change from yers to swimmers.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?

A. It defines a scientific term used in the sentence that follows.

B. It contradicts a description in the sentence that follows.

C. It provides an answer to the question in the previous sentence.

D. It notes that the question in the previous sentence has not been researched.

The following text is adapted from Louise Erdrich’s 2020 novel The Night Watchman. Louis Pipestone is collecting signatures for a petition from fellow members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa on the tribe’s reservation in North Dakota.

Louis Pipestone tended the petition like a garden. He kept it with him at all times. In town, his eyes sharpened when he noticed a tribal member who hadn’t yet signed. Wherever they were—at the gas pump, mercantile [general store], at Henry’s [Café], on the road, or outside the clinic and hospital—Louis cornered them. If they were waiting for a baby to be born, he’d have them sign. If they were laughing, if they were arguing. If they were taking a child home from school, they signed.

©2020 by Louise Erdrich

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. To suggest that some tribal members refuse to sign the petition because they dislike Louis Pipestone

B. To show that attitudes toward the petition within the tribal community change over time

C. To demonstrate that most tribal members are enthusiastic about signing the petition

D. To portray Louis Pipestone’s strong commitment to collecting signatures for the petition

Very little is known about the role nocturnal insects, such as moths, play in ower pollination because it is difficult to monitor insects at night. To address this problem, a team of scientists used time-lapse cameras to record pollinator visits to red clover all day and night. The recordings showed that while most pollinator visits were by bumblebees, one-third of visits were by moths. Additionally, owers that were visited by both moths and bees produced more seeds than owers that were only visited by bees.

Which choice best states the function of the underlined sentence? 

A. To describe an approach a team of scientists used to study pollinators 

B. To question a claim scientists make about pollinators 

C. To explain why moths prefer red clover to other flowers

D. To announce an unexpected research finding about red clover