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The following text is adapted from Karel Capek's 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), translated by Paul Selver and Nigel Playfair in 1923. Fabry and Busman are telling Miss Glory why their company manufactures robots. FABRY: One Robot can replace two and a half workmen. The human machine, Miss Glory, was terribly imperfect. It had to be removed sooner or later. BUSMAN: It was too expensive. FABRY: It was not effective. It no longer answers the requirements of modern engineering. Nature has no idea of keeping pace with modern labor. As used in the text, what does the word "answers" most nearly mean? ### Explains B. Rebuts C. Defends D. Fulfills

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Text 1: Despite its beautiful prose, The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's 1962 analysis of the start of World War I, has certain weaknesses as a work of history. It fails to address events in Eastern Europe just before the outbreak of hostilities, thereby giving the impression that Germany was the war's principal instigator. Had Tuchman consulted secondary works available to her by scholars such as Luigi Albertini, she would not have neglected the influence of events in Eastern Europe on Germany's actions. Text 2: Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August is an engrossing if dated introduction to World War I. Tuchman's analysis of primary documents is laudable, but her main thesis that European powers committed themselves to a catastrophic outcome by refusing to deviate from military plans developed prior to the conflict is implausibly reductive. Which choice best describes a difference in how the authors of Text 1 and Text 2 view Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August?

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Like the 1945 play it reimagines--Federico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bemarda Alba--Marcus Gardiey'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?

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Some foraging models predict that the distance bees travel when foraging will decline as floral density increases, but biologists Shalene Jha and Claire Kremen showed that bees' behavior is inconsistent with this prediction if flowers in dense patches are : bees will forage beyond patches of low species richness to acquire multiple resource types. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

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Raymond Antrobus, an accomplished poet and writer of prose, recently released his debut spoken word poetry album, The First Time I Wore Hearing Aids, in collaboration with producer lan Brennan. The album contains both autobiographical and reflective pieces combining Antrobus's spoken words with Brennan's fragmented audio elements and pieces of music to convey how people who are deaf may experience sound, both its presence and absence. Some critics suggest that the album questions the function of sound in the world, highlighting that the experience of sound is multifaceted. Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

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The following text is adapted from Sadakichi Hartmann's 1894 short story "Magnolia Blossoms." The narrator is standing on the deck of a boat. What a night it was! My soul had left its body to lose itself in the wild unrestrained beauty around me--from where it came--and only left a trembling suggestion of its existence within me. The other passengers moved around me like shadows, and again and again my eyes drank in all the glory and wealth of that night. As used in the text, what does the word "suggestion" most nearly mean?

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Space scientists Anna-Lisa Paul, Stephen M. Elardo, and Robert Ferl planted seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana in samples of lunar regolith--the surface material of the Moon--and, serving as a control group, in terrestrial soil. They found that while all the seeds germinated, the roots of the regolith-grown plants were stunted compared with those in the control group. Moreover, unlike the plants in the control group, the regolith-grown plants exhibited red pigmentation, reduced leaf size, and inhibited growth rates--indicators of stress that were corroborated by postharvest molecular analysis. Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

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The following text is adapted from Zora Neale Hurston's 1921 short story "John Redding Goes to Sea." John wants to travel far beyond the village where he lives near his mother, Matty. [John] had on several occasions attempted to reconcile his mother to the notion, but found it a difficult task. Matty, always took refuge in self-pity and tears. Her son's desires were incomprehensible to her, that was all. As used in the text, what does the phrase "reconcile his mother to" most nearly mean?

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Some people have speculated that two helmets with attached horns discovered in Denmark in 1942 belonged to Vikings, but scholars have long been skeptical. Archaeologist Helle Vandkilde and colleagues recently provided radiocarbon dates for the helmets, and their findings scholars' skepticism: the helmets date to the Nordic Bronze Age, centuries before the Vikings existed. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

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When Mexican-American archaeologist Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall published her 1886 research paper on sculptures found at the ancient Indigenous city of Teotihuacan in present-day Mexico, other researchers readily her work as groundbreaking; this recognition stemmed from her convincing demonstration that the sculptures were much older than had previously been thought. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

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The following text is adapted from Mohsin Hamid's 2017 novel Exit West. Saeed lives with his mother and father. On cloudless nights after a daytime rain, Saeed's father would sometimes bring out the telescope, and the family would slip green tea on their balcony, enjoying a breeze, and take turns to look up at objects whose light, often, had been emitted before any of these three viewers had been born--light from other centuries, only now reaching Earth. (c)2017 by Mohsin Hamid As used in the text, what does the word "reaching" most nearly mean?

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Streams and rivers carry soil and rocks from one location to another. But there is another way for these geological materials to move. Scientists call this process "aeolian transport." In aeolian transport, winds move small particles of soil or rock over potentially great distances. Geologist Melisa Diaz and her team studied dust in Antarctica to find out if it was moved by aeolian transport. They discovered that the dust matched geological material in Australia. Aeolian transport had carried it from one continent to another, across thousands of miles of open ocean. Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?

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Researchers have struggled to pinpoint specific causes for hiccups, which happen when a person's diaphragm contracts , However, neuroscientist Kimberley Whitehead has found that these uncontrollable contractions may play an important role in helping infants regulate their breathing. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

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For painter Jacob Lawrence, being -- was an important part of the artistic process. Because he paid close attention to all the details of his Harlem neighborhood, Lawrence's artwork captured nuances in the beauty and vitality of the Black experience during the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

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Handedness, a preferential use of either the right or left hand, typically is easy to observe in humans. Because this trait is present but less in many other animals, animal-behavior researchers often employ tasks specially designed to reveal individual animals' preferences for a certain hand or paw. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

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The following text is adapted from Jane Austen's 1814 novel Mansfield Park. The speaker, Tom, is considering staging a play at home with a group of his friends and family. We mean nothing but a little amusement among ourselves, just to vary the scene, and exercise our powers in something new. We want no audience, no publicity. We may be trusted, I think, in choosing some play most perfectly unexceptionable; and I can conceive no greater harm or danger to any of us in conversing in the elegant written language of some respectable author than in chattering in words of our own. Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

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Researcher Haesung Jung led a 2020 study showing that individual acts of kindness can prosocial behavior across a larger group. Jung and her team found that bystanders who witness a helpful act become more likely to offer help to someone else, and in doing so, can inspire still others to act. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

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Jackie Ormes's Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem (1937-38) was the first comic strip by a Black woman to appear in a widely read newspaper. The strip tells the story of Torchy, a young woman who leaves Mississippi to become a performer in New York City. Torchy's story reflects the experience of the Great Migration (1910-1970), when millions of Black Americans left the South in search of opportunities in other parts of the United States. Torchy Brown thus shows how Ormes used comics to comment humorously on issues affecting Black Americans, which she continued to do throughout her career. Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

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Text 1 Literary scholars have struggled with the vastness of Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka's collective works of drama (spanning over 20 plays in total). It is best, however, to understand Soyinka's body of work as a dramatist chronologically. Soyinka's progression as a playwright can be considered to fall into three periods, with each one representing a particular thematic and stylistic cohesion: the 1960s, the two decades between 1970 and 1990, and lastly, from roughly 1990 onwards. Text 2 It is tempting to impose a linear sense of order on the expanse of Wole Soyinka's body of work as a dramatist. However, critics who have considered Soyinka's plays to fit neatly into three phases overlook potential commonalities in Soyinka's work that span across these phases. Additionally, this view may discount significant differences in the styles and content of plays written around the same time. Which choice best describes a difference in how the author of Text 1 and the author of Text 2 view the study of Soyinka's works of drama?

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When ancient oak planks were unearthed during subway construction in Rome, Mauro Bernabei and his team examined the growth rings in the wood to determine where these planks came from. By comparing the growth rings on the planks to records of similar rings in oaks from Europe, the team could trace the wood to the Jura region of France, hundreds of kilometers from Rome. Because timber could only have been transported from distant Jura to Rome by boat, the team's findings suggest the complexity of Roman trade routes. Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?

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Text 1 When companies in the same industry propose merging with one another, they often claim that the merger will benefit consumers by increasing efficiency and therefore lowering prices. Economist Ying Fan investigated this notion in the context of the United States newspaper market. She modeled a hypothetical merger of Minneapolis-area newspapers and found that subscription prices would rise following a merger. Text 2 Economists Dario Focarelli and Fabio Panetta have argued that research on the effect of mergers on prices has focused excessively on short-term effects, which tend to be adverse for consumers. Using the case of consumer banking in Italy, they show that over the long term (several years, in their study), the efficiency gains realized by merged companies do result in economic benefits for consumers. Based on the texts, how would Focarelli and Panetta (Text 2) most likely respond to Fan's findings (Text 1)?

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Arturo

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Some researchers believe that the genes that enable groundhogs and certain other mammals to hibernate through the winter by slowing their breathing and heart rates and lowering their body temperature may be in humans: present yet having essentially no effect on our bodily processes. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

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Studying how workload affects productivity, Maryam Kouchaki and colleagues found that people who chose to do relatively easy tasks first were less compared to those who did hard tasks first. Finishing easy tasks gave participants a sense of accomplishment, but those who tackled hard tasks first actually became more skilled and productive workers over time. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

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Scientists previously thought that all electric eels belong to a single species, but a team of researchers led by zoologists. C. David de Santana proved this idea wrong by that there are in fact three distinct species of electric eels. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

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