Question 1.

In 2018, Kurt Luther and Vikram Mohanty created the web-based tool Civil
War Photo Sleuth (CWPS). A user uploading an unknown Civil War soldier’s
photograph to CWPS first tags the photo with all known information. ______
CWPS’s facial recognition software analyzes twenty-seven different physical features
and looks for matches to tagged images already in the database.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Then,
B. In fact,
C. Likewise,
D. For example,

Question 2. Arkansas aviator Louise Thaden was already a record breaker when she
won the inaugural National Women’s Air Derby, a race from California to Ohio, in
August of 1929. ______ in December of 1928, Thaden had set an aviation record
when she reached an altitude of 20,269 feet in a Travel Air biplane.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Earlier,
B. However,
C. Next,
D. As a result,

Question 3. With darkness falling, a mother elephant loses sight of her calf and wants
to make sure it is safe. ______ she releases an infrasonic call for the calf to hear.
Infrasonic sound is below the range of human hearing, but many animals can hear
these sounds from several miles away.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. For example,
B. For this reason,
C. Nowadays,
D. Similarly,

Question 4. The number of dark spots that appear on the Sun, known as sunspots, can
vary greatly. For example, there were about 180 sunspots in November 2001.
______ there were only about 2 sunspots in December 2008.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. In other words,
B. Similarly,
C. Therefore,
D. By comparison,

Question 5. “O2 Arena,” an award-winning science fiction story by Nigerian author

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, takes place in an alternate version of Nigeria where
breathable air is a rare commodity that is owned and sold by companies. ______
people must purchase it with currency called O2 credits.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. As a result,
B. In any case,
C. Nevertheless,
D. Earlier,

Question 6. In 1891, dancer and choreographer Loie Fuller first performed her
celebrated Serpentine Dance, artfully twirling her long, flowing skirt to create striking
visual effects. ______ in 1896, cinema pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière made a
groundbreaking short film of Fuller’s dance.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. However,
B. In conclusion,
C. Later,
D. In other words,

Question 7. Riley Black—the author of critically acclaimed books such as My Beloved

Brontosaurus (2013)—is best known for writing about dinosaurs, but she has also
conducted hands-on fieldwork. ______ her fieldwork has included paleontological
digs in Utah, Montana, and Wyoming, and her dinosaur fossil discoveries can be seen
at places such as the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A. Regardless,
B. Subsequently,
C. Specifically,
D. Conversely,

Question 8. Jhumpa Lahiri’s story collection Interpreter of Maladies features multiple

stories about romantic relationships. In “This Blessed House,” newlyweds argue over
whether to replace items left by the previous owners of their new home. ______ in
“A Temporary Matter,” a husband and wife attempt to rekindle their relationship
during a four-night blackout.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Granted,
B. For example,
C. Likewise,
D. Hence,

Question 9. Establishing Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is no easy task. Each

month, readings of a single second from atomic clocks around the world are taken and
sent to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in France. ______
BIPM metrologists perform the meticulous work of assembling these minutely
disparate readings into a globally shared time standard.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. There,
B. In particular,
C. For example,
D. Conversely

Question 10. The chemical trimethylamine N-oxide not only gives fish their fishy
smell but also protects them from crushing hydrostatic pressure in deep waters.
Trimethylamine N-oxide strengthens the bonds between water molecules in a fish’s
body. ______ these water molecules maintain their linked structure at extreme
depths, thus preventing pressure-related damage.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Nevertheless,
B. As a result,
C. However,
D. For instance,

Question 11. “Wishcycling”—putting nonrecyclable items into recycling bins under

the mistaken belief that those items can be recycled— ultimately does more harm
than good. Nonrecyclable items, such as greasy pizza boxes, can contaminate
recyclable materials, rendering entire batches unusable. ______ nonrecyclable
products can damage recycling plants’ machinery.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Fittingly,
B. On the contrary,
C. Moreover,
D. Nevertheless,

Question 12. To discover which fruit varieties were grown in Italy’s Umbria region
before the introduction of industrial farming, botanist Isabella Dalla Ragione often
turns to centuries-old lists of cooking ingredients. ______ she analyzes
Renaissance paintings of Umbria, as they can provide accurate representations of
fruits that were grown there long ago.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. In sum,
B. Instead,
C. Thus,
D. Additionally,

Question 13. Iraqi artist Nazik Al-Malaika, celebrated as the first Arabic poet to write
in free verse, didn’t reject traditional forms entirely; her poem “Elegy for a Woman of
No Importance” consists of two ten-line stanzas and a standard number of syllables.
Even in this superficially traditional work, ______ Al-Malaika was breaking new
ground by memorializing an anonymous woman rather than a famous man.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. therefore,
B. in fact,
C. moreover,
D. though,

Question 14. A 2017 study of sign language learners tested the role of iconicity—the
similarity of a sign to the thing it represents—in language acquisition. The study
found that the greater the iconicity of a sign, the more likely it was to have been
learned. ______ the correlation between acquisition and iconicity was lower than
that between acquisition and another factor studied: sign frequency.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. In fact,
B. In other words,
C. Granted,
D. As a result,

Question 15. “Tulip mania”—the rapid rise and sudden fall of the price of tulip bulbs
in seventeenth-century Amsterdam—is often cited as an example of the perils of
rampant market speculation. However, recent research has demonstrated that the
episode was neither as frenzied nor as disastrous as has been thought. The popular
myth surrounding it, ______ should be regarded with some skepticism.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. for example,
B. by contrast,
C. nevertheless,
D. therefore,

Question 16. Seismologists Kaiqing Yuan and Barbara Romanowicz have proposed
that the magma fueling Iceland’s more than 30 active volcano systems emerges from
deep within Earth. The great depths involved—nearly 3,000 km—mark Iceland’s
volcanoes as extreme outliers; ______ many of Earth’s volcanoes are fed by shallow
pockets of magma found less than 15 km below the surface.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. indeed,
B. nevertheless,
C. in addition,
D. consequently,

Question 17. With its clichéd imagery of suburban lawns and power lines, John
Ashbery’s 2004 poem “Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse” may seem barren terrain
for critical analysis. ______ cultural critic Lauren Berlant finds fertile ground in
just its first two stanzas, devoting most of a book chapter to deciphering the “weight
of the default space” Ashbery creates in this poem.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Likewise,
B. Nonetheless,
C. In turn,
D. That is,

Question 18. The Sun and other stars are powered by nuclear fusion reactions, in
which two atoms collide to form a single heavier atom, releasing energy. Scientists
have long believed that fusion has the potential to meet humanity’s clean energy
needs. ______ prior to December 2022, no fusion reaction in a laboratory setting
had ever generated a net energy gain.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. For this reason,

B. Moreover,
C. Specifically,
D. That said,

Question 19. The more diverse and wide ranging an animal's behaviors are, the larger
and more energy demanding the animal's brain tends to be. _______ from an
evolutionary perspective, animals that perform only basic actions should allocate
fewer resources to growing and maintaining brain tissue. The specialized subtypes of
ants within colonies provide an opportunity to explore this hypothesis.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Subsequently,
B. Besides,
C. Nevertheless,
D. Thus,
Question 20. Every chemical compound has a spectroscopic fingerprint, a pattern of
reflected light unique to that compound. ____ upon analyzing the light reflected by
the bright region on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres, Maria Cristina De Sanctis of
Rome’s National Institute of Astrophysics was able to determine that the regions
contain large amounts of the compound sodium carbonate.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Regardless,
B. Meanwhile,
C. Thus,
D. In comparison,

Question 21. A firefly uses specialized muscles to draw oxygen into its lower abdomen
through narrow tubes, triggering a chemical reaction whereby the oxygen combines
with chemicals in the firefly’s abdomen to produce a glow. ____ when the fire stops
drawing in oxygen, the reacti0n and the glow cease.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. For instance,
B. By contrast,
C. Specifically,
D. In conclusion,

Question 22. A 2017 study of sign language learners tested the role of iconicity-the
similarity of a sign to the thing it represents-in language acquisition. The study found
that the greater the iconicity of a sign, the more likely it was to have been learned.
____ the correlation between acquisition and iconicity was lower than that between
acquisition and another factor studied: sign frequency.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. In fact,
B. In other words,
C. Granted,
D. As a result,
Question 23. Neuroscientist Karen Konkoly wanted to determine whether individuals
can understand and respond to questions during REM sleep. She first taught
volunteers eye movements they would use to respond to basic math problems while
asleep ( a single left-right eye movement indicated the number one). ________
she attached electrodes to the volunteers’ faces to record their eye movements during
sleep.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Specifically,
B. Next,
C. For instance,
D. In sum,

Question 24. Ecologists like Michelle Evans-White use trophic pyramids to illustrate
the food chain within a given ecosystem. At a typical pyramid's base are primary
producers, like algae, followed by herbivores at the second trophic level, then
omnivores and carnivores at the third. ____ at the fourth, highest trophic level are
apex predators, like sharks, that feed on the animals below.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. In fact,
B. For example,
C. Besides,
D. Lastly,

Question 25. In the early 1970s, Albert Popa took up graffiti art, spraying his work
onto what was at the time an unconventional surface: concrete. ____ Albert’s son
David has chosen an unusual canvas for his new art project, Fractured. In this
remarkable work, the artist draws charcoal faces onto fragmented ice floes in Finland,
creating the visual effect of a face slowly fracturing.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. However,
B. Indeed,
C. Second,
D. Likewise,
Question 26. With many elements, like lutetium, scientists were able to isolate a
relatively pure sample of the substance shortly after discovering its existence-but this
wasn’t the case with all elements. ____ the isolation process took years. The element
magnesium, for instance, was discovered in 1755 but not isolated until 1808.

A. Thus,
B. Sometimes,
C. Moreover,
D. However,

Question 27. A band might choose a name that is as unique and original as possible.
____ they might name themselves after a recognizable song by a favorite band. This
is what the Australian rock band Hunters and Collectors did when they named
themselves after the song “Hunters and Collectors” by Can.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Alternatively,
B. For instance,
C. In other words,
D. Thus,

Question 28. To guarantee the validity of experimental results, scientists rely on

precise, unchanging standards of measurements. ______ metrologists (scientists
who study measurement) developed the SI, or International System of Units. The SI’s
units of measurement are based on unchanging values in nature, such as the mass of
an electron or the speed of light.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. In contrast,
B. Regardless,
C. In addition,
D. For this reason,

Question 29. In his essay “Of Coaches,” French philosopher Michel de Montaigne
explores a relatively light subject, but he expresses heavier fare in “Of the
Inconvenience of Greatness.” Regardless of subject matter, Montaigne works to
question his own perspective throughout his essay. _____ his personal motto was
“What do I know?”
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Still,
B. Conversely,
C. Fittingly,
D. Nowadays,

Question 30. With their distinctive cone shapes and steeply sloping sides, the
volcanoes Maungarei (New Zealand) and Harunasan (Japan) may look similar from
afar. Tehnuka Ilanko and other volcanologists, ____ can tell by how each was
formed that Maungarei is a cinder cone volcano, while Harusan is a composite
volcano.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. in addition,
B. therefore,
C. for example,
D. though,