Informat… | SAT The Reading and Writing Section

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Mar 23, 2024

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The increased integration of digital technologies throughout the process of book creation in the late 20th and early 21st centuries lowered the costs of book production, but those decreased costs have been most significant in the manufacturing and distribution process, which occurs after the authoring, editing, and design of the book are complete. This suggests that in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, _________Which choice most logically completes the text?

Difficulty: Hard

digital technologies made it easier than it had been previously for authors to write very long works and get them published.

customers generally expected the cost of books to decline relative to the cost of other consumer goods.

publishers increased the variety of their offerings by printing more unique titles but also printed fewer copies of each title.

the costs of writing, editing, and designing a book were less affected by the technologies used than were the costs of manufacturing and distributing a book.

Biological Valentina Gomez-Bahamon and her team have investigated two subspecies of the fork-tailed flycatcher bird that live in the same region in Colombia, but one subspecies migrates south for part of the year, and the other doesn't. The researchers found that, due to slight differences in feather shape, the feathers of migratory forked-tailed flycatcher males make a sound during flight that is higher pitched than that made by the feathers of nonmigratory males. The researchers hypothesize that fork-tailed flycatcher females are attracted to the specific sound made by the males of their own subspecies, and that over time the females' preference will drive further genetic and anatomical divergence between the subspecies. Which finding, if true, would most directly support Gomez-Bahamon and her team's hypothesis?

Difficulty: Hard

The feathers located on the wings of the migratory fork-tailed flycatchers have a narrower shape than those of the nonmigratory birds, which allows them to fly long distances.

Over several generations, the sound made by the feathers of migratory male fork-tailed flycatchers grows progressively higher pitched relative to that made by the feathers of nonmigratory males.

Fork-tailed flycatchers communicate different messages to each other depending on whether their feathers create high-pitched or low-pitched sounds.

The breeding habits of the migratory and nonmigratory fork-tailed flycatchers remained generally the same over several generations.

Xin Wang and colleagues have discovered the earliest known example of a flower bud in a 164-million-year-old plant fossil in China. The researchers have named the new species Florigerminis jurassica. They believe that the discovery pushes the emergence of flowering plants, or angiosperms, back to the Jurassic period, which occurred between 145 million and 201 million years ago. According to the text, how old was the fossil that Wang and colleagues discovered?

Difficulty: Easy

150 million years old

145 million years old

164 million years old

201 million years old

NASA's Aspera mission, led by Carlos Vargas, will investigate the circumgalactic medium (CGM), the huge swaths of low-density gas that fill and surround galaxies. Specifically, the team will focus on portions of the gas that exist in a "warm-hot" phase: these portions haven't previously been observable but are thought to fuel new star formation and hold most of the mass that makes up a galaxy. Using a telescope capable of revealing these parts of the CGM, the Aspera mission should help answer long-standing questions about how galaxies emerge, change, and even interact. Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

Difficulty: Medium

As the leader of NASA's Aspera mission, Vargas will be the first person to investigate the makeup of the CGM.

Although galaxies that are surrounded by the CGM have been studied, researchers have been unable to directly observe low-density gas in the CGM in the "warm-hot" phase.

Researchers don't yet have a complete understanding of the process of galaxy evolution but have raised the possibility that galaxies interact with each other at times.

The Aspera mission is expected to produce the first direct observations of CGM gas in the "warm-hot" phase, which likely has an important role in the evolution of galaxies.

"When Dawn Comes to the City" is a 1922 poem by Claude McKay, who immigrated to the United States from the island, nation of Jamaica as an adult. The poem conveys McKay's contrasting feelings about New York City--his adopted home in the US--and his home country: _________Which quotation from "When Dawn Comes to the City" most effectively illustrates the claim?

Difficulty: Medium

"A lonely newsboy hurries by, / Humming a recent ditty; / Red streaks strike through the gray of the sky, / The dawn comes to the city [New York City]."

"Dark figures start for work; / ! watch them sadly shuffle on, / "Tis dawn, dawn in New York. / But I would be on the island of the sea, / In the heart of the island of the sea."

"And the shaggy Nannie goat is calling, calling, calling / From her little trampled corner of the long wide lea / That stretches to the waters of the hill-stream falling / Sheer upon the flat rocks joyously!"

"The tired cars go grumbling by, / The moaning, groaning cars, / And the old milk carts go rumbling by / Under the same dull stars."

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