Reading and Writing
33 QUESTIONS
. .1. .
With the death in 1798 of his great-uncle, the “Wicked” fifth Lord Byron, George became the
sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale, heir to Newstead Abbey, the family _______ in
Nottinghamshire. He enjoyed the role of landed nobleman, proud of his coat of arms with its
mermaid and chestnut horses surmounting the motto “Crede Byron” (“Trust Byron”).
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. place
B. seat
C. center
D. location
. .2. .
In the summer of 1803 he fell so deeply in love with his distant cousin, the beautiful-and
engaged-Mary Chaworth of Annesley Hall, that he _______ his education for a term to be near
her. Years later he told Thomas Medwin that all his “fables about the celestial nature of
women” originated from “the perfection” his imagination created in Mary Chaworth.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. disturbed
B. disrupted
C. cut in
D. interrupted
. .3. .
Early in 1804 he began an intimate correspondence with his half sister, Augusta, five years his
senior. He asked that she consider him “not only as a Brother” but as her “warmest and most
_______ Friend.” As he grew apart from his capricious, often violent, mother, he drew closer
to Augusta.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. tender
B. affectionate
C. devoted
D. passionate
. .4. .
Byron attended Trinity College, Cambridge, intermittently from October 1805 until July 1808,
when he received a MA degree. During “the most romantic period of [his] life,” he experienced
a “violent, though pure, love and passion” for John Edleston, a choirboy at Trinity two years
younger than he. Intellectual pursuits interested him less than such London diversions as
fencing and boxing lessons, the theater, demimondes, and gambling. Living extravagantly, he
began to _______ the debts that would bedevil him for years. In Southwell, where his mother
had moved in 1803, he prepared his verses for publication.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. amass
B. suffer
C. gather
D. collect
. .5. .
Turning southward, he and Hobhouse journeyed through Missolonghi and rode into Athens on
Christmas night 1809. They _______ at the foot of the Acropolis with Mrs. Tarsia Macri,
widow of a Greek who had been British vice consul. Byron soon fell in love with her three
daughters, all under the age of 15, but especially with Theresa, only 12, his “Maid of Athens."
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. rented
B. stayed
C. hid
D. lodged
. .6. .
Excursions in January 1810 to Cape Sounion, overlooking the islands of the Cyclades, and to
Marathon, where the Athenians defeated the invading Persians in 490 B.C., reinforced for him
the appalling _______ between the glory and might of ancient Greece and its contemporary
disgrace. He movingly evoked these scenes and sentiments a decade later in the often-quoted
stanzas on “The Isles of Greece” and on Marathon in Don Juan.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. connection
B. difference
C. relation
D. contrast
. .7. .
Michelene Pesantubbee, a historian and citizen of the Choctaw Nation, has identified a
dilemma inherent to research on the status of women in her tribe during the 1600s and 1700s:
the primary sources from that era, travel narratives and other accounts by male European
colonizers, underestimate the degree of power conferred on Choctaw women by their
traditional roles in political, civic, and ceremonial life. Pesantubbee argues that the Choctaw
oral tradition and findings from archaeological sites in the tribe's homeland supplement the
written record by providing crucial insights into those roles.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
A. It details the shortcomings of certain historical sources, then argues that research should
avoid those sources altogether.
B. It describes a problem that arises in research on a particular topic, then sketches a historian's
approach to addressing that problem.
C. It lists the advantages of a particular research method, then acknowledges a historian's
criticism of that method.
D. It characterizes a particular topic as especially challenging to research, then suggests a
related topic for historians to pursue instead.
. .8. .
The following text is adapted from Oscar Wilde's 1897 nonfiction work De Profundis.
People whose desire is solely for self-realisation never know where they are
going. They can't know. In one sense of the word it is of course necessary to
know oneself: that is the first achievement of knowledge. But to recognise that
the soul of a man is unknowable, is the ultimate achievement of wisdom. The
final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and
measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star,
there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined question in the text as a whole?
A. It cautions readers that the text's directions for how to achieve self-knowledge are hard to
follow.
B. It concedes that the definition of self-knowledge advanced in the text is unpopular.
C. It reinforces the text's skepticism about the possibility of truly achieving self-knowledge.
D. It speculates that some readers will share the doubts expressed in the text about the value of
self-knowledge.
. .9. .
Researchers have found a nearly 164,000-year-old molar from a member of the archaic human
species known as Denisovans in a cave in Laos, suggesting that Denisovans lived in a wider
range of environments than indicated by earlier evidence. Before the discovery, Denisovans
were thought to have lived only at high altitudes in relatively cold climates in what are now
Russia and China, but the discovery of the tooth in Laos suggests that they may have lived at
low altitudes in relatively warm climates in Southeast Asia as well.
Which choice best states the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
A. It defines a term used in the description that follows in the rest of the sentence.
B. It emphasizes the main goal of the research introduced in the previous sentence.
C. It provides context that clarifies the significance of the information that follows in the rest
of the sentence.
D. It dismisses as untrue the research presented in the previous sentence.
. .10. .
Artist Justin Favela explained that he wanted to reclaim the importance of the piñata as a
symbol in Latinx culture. To do so, he created numerous sculptures from strips of tissue paper,
which is similar to the material used to create piñatas. In 2017, Favela created an impressive
life-size piñata-like sculpture of the Gypsy Rose lowrider car, which was displayed at the
Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California. The Gypsy Rose lowrider was
famously driven by Jesse Valadez, an early president of the Los Angeles Imperials Car Club.
According to the text, which piece of Favela's art was on display in the Petersen Automotive
Museum in 2017?
A. A painting of Los Angeles
C. A sculpture of Jesse Valadez
B. A painting of a piñata
D. A sculpture of a lowrider car
. .11. .
In many agricultural environments, the banks of streams are kept forested to protect water
quality, but it's been unclear what effects these forests may have on stream biodiversity. To
investigate the issue, biologist Xingli Giam and colleagues studied an Indonesian oil palm
plantation, comparing the species richness of forested streams with that of nonforested streams.
Giam and colleagues found that species richness was significantly higher in forested streams,
a finding the researchers attribute to the role leaf litter plays in sheltering fish from predators
and providing food resources.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
A. It explains the differences between stream-protection strategies used in oil palm plantations
and stream-protection strategies used in other kinds of agricultural environments.
B. It presents a study that addresses an unresolved question about the presence of forests along
streams in agricultural environments.
C. It discusses research intended to settle a debate about how agricultural yields can be
increased without negative effects on water quality.
D. It describes findings that challenge a previously held view about how fish that inhabit
streams in agricultural environments attempt to avoid predators.
. .12. .
A researcher conducted an experiment inspired by studies suggesting that people may benefit
from feeling frightened in certain circumstances, such as when watching scary movies or
visiting haunted attractions. The researcher recruited several participants and had them walk
through a local haunted house attraction. Immediately after exiting the attraction, each
participant completed a survey about their experience. Based on the survey responses, the
researcher claims that feeling frightened in controlled situations can boost a person’s mood and
confidence.
Which quotation from a participant would best illustrate the researcher’s claim?
A. My friends kept laughing as we were walking through the haunted house.
B. The haunted house was scary at first, but I knew everyone was just acting, so I felt less
scared after a few minutes.
C. The sense of relief I felt at the end of the haunted house was similar to the feelings I have
when I finish a scary movie.
D. After I came out of the haunted house, I felt very accomplished and less stressed.
. .13. .
Many governments that regularly transfer money to individuals—to provide supplemental
incomes for senior citizens, for example—have long done so electronically, but other countries
typically have distributed physical money and have only recently developed electronic transfer
infrastructure. Researchers studied the introduction of an electronic transfer system in one such
location and found that recipients of electronic transfers consumed a different array of foods
than recipients of physical transfers of the same amount did. One potential explanation for this
result is that individuals conceive of and allocate funds in physical money differently than they
conceive of and allocate funds in electronic form.
Which finding from the study, if true, would most directly weaken the potential explanation?
A. Recipients of electronic transfers typically spent their funds at a slower rate than recipients
of physical transfers did.
B. Some recipients of physical transfers received small amounts of money relatively frequently,
while others received large amounts relatively infrequently.
C. Recipients of physical transfers tended to purchase food about as frequently as recipients of
electronic transfers did.
D. Nearly every recipient of an electronic transfer withdrew the entire amount in physical
money shortly after receiving the transfer.
. .14. .
Correlations Between Congestion Ratings and Features of the Crowd in Raters' Immediate
Vicinity
Researcher Xiaolu Jia and colleagues monitored individuals' velocity and the surrounding
crowd density as a group of study participants walked through a space and navigated around
an obstacle. Participants rated how congested it seemed before the obstacle, after the obstacle,
and overall, and the researchers correlated those ratings with velocity and density. (Correlations
range from ?1 to 1, with greater distance from 0 indicating greater strength). The researchers
concluded that the correlations with velocity are stronger than those with density.
Which choice best describes data from the table that support the researchers' conclusion?
A. The correlation between congestion ratings before the obstacle and density is further from
0 than the correlation between overall congestion rating and velocity is.
B. The correlation between congestion ratings before the obstacle and velocity is further from
0 than the correlation between congestion overall and velocity is.
C. For each of the three ratings, the correlation with velocity is negative while the correlation
with density is positive.
D. For each of the three ratings, correlations with velocity are further from 0 than the
corresponding correlations with density are.
. .15. .
Average Nitrate and Phosphate Concentrations in Seawater after Volcanic Eruption
After a volcanic eruption spilled lava into North Pacific Ocean waters, a dramatic increase of
diatoms (a kind of phytoplankton) near the surface occurred. Scientists assumed the diatoms
were thriving on nutrients such as phosphate from the lava, but analysis showed these nutrients
weren't present near the surface in forms diatoms can consume. However, there was an
abundance of usable nitrate, a nutrient usually found in much deeper water and almost never
found in lava. Microbial oceanographer Sonya Dyhrman and colleagues believe that as the lava
plunged nearly 300 meters below the surface it dislodged pockets of this nutrient, releasing it
to float upward, given that ______
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?
A. at 5–45 meters below the surface, the average concentration of phosphate was about the
same in the seawater in the lava-affected area as in the seawater outside of the lava-affected
area.
B. for both depth ranges measured, the average concentrations of nitrate were substantially
higher in the seawater in the lava-affected area than in the seawater outside of the lava-affected
area.
C. for both depth ranges measured in the seawater in the lava-affected area, the average
concentrations of nitrate were substantially higher than the average concentrations of
phosphate.
D. in the seawater outside of the lava-affected area, there was little change in the average
concentration of nitrate from 75–125 meters below the surface to 5–45 meters below the
surface.
. .16. .
The Milky Way galaxy is composed of millions of stars in a relatively flat structure containing
a thin disk and a thick disk. Based on computer simulations and analysis of data on the
brightness, position, and chemical composition of about 250,000 stars in the thick disk
(collected from two telescopes, one in China and one orbiting in space), astrophysicists
Maosheng Xiang and Hans-Walter Rix claim that the thick disk of the Milky Way formed in
two distinct phases rather than a single one.
Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researchers’ claim?
A. There's an age difference of about 2 billion years between certain stars in the thick disk.
B. The stars in the Milky Way tend to have very similar chemical compositions.
C. The thin disk contains about twice as many stars that can be seen from Earth as the thick
disk does.
D. The telescopes used by the researchers have detected stars of similar ages in galaxies other
than the Milky Way.
. .17. .
Adaptations to cold temperatures have high metabolic costs. It is expensive, in terms of energy
use, for land plants and animals to withstand very cold temperatures, and it gets more expensive
the colder it gets, which means that the lower the air temperature, the fewer species have
evolved to survive it. This factor, in conjunction with the decline in air temperature with
increasing elevation, explains the distribution of species diversity in mountain ecosystems: you
find fewer species high up a mountain than at the mountain's base because ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. there are relatively few environments hospitable to species that are adapted to live in low
air temperatures.
B. there are relatively few species with the adaptations necessary to tolerate the temperatures
at high elevations.
C. adaptations that allow plants and animals to survive in rocky environments are metabolically
costly.
D. some mountain environments are at elevations so high that no plants or animals can survive
them.
. .18. .
Many animals, including humans, must sleep, and sleep is known to have a role in everything
from healing injuries to encoding information in long-term memory. But some scientists claim
that, from an evolutionary standpoint, deep sleep for hours at a time leaves an animal so
vulnerable that the known benefits of sleeping seem insufficient to explain why it became so
widespread in the animal kingdom. These scientists therefore imply that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. it is more important to understand how widespread prolonged deep sleep is than to
understand its function.
B. prolonged deep sleep is likely advantageous in ways that have yet to be discovered.
C. many traits that provide significant benefits for an animal also likely pose risks to that
animal.
D. most traits perform functions that are hard to understand from an evolutionary standpoint.
. .19. .
Byron signed the final deed of separation on April 21, 1814, _______ to go abroad with the
completion of this formality. On the 25th, they sailed from Dover bound for Ostend. Byron
would never see England again.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. decided
C. had deciding
B. have decided
D. having decided
. .20. .
The party reached Geneva on May 25, 1816. Byron was unaware that waiting for him were
Claire _______ his child, Shelley, and Mary Godwin. They passed the time agreeably by
boating on Lake Leman and conversing at the Villa Diodati, which Byron had rented, with its
commanding view of the lake and the Juras beyond. In this environment Mary
wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Clairmont pregnant with
C. Clairmont; pregnant for
B. Clairmont, pregnant with
D. Clairmont, pregnant
. .21. .
In June Byron and Shelley sailed to the Château de Chillon. The story of François _______
Swiss patriot and political prisoner in the château’s dungeon, inspired Byron to compose one
of his most popular poems, The Prisoner of Chillon.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Bonivard a 16th centuries
C. Bonivard, a 16th-century
B. Bonivard - a 16th century
D. Bonivard; a 16th-centuries
. .22. .
The simplicity and directness of Bonivard’s dramatic monologue throw into relief the powerful
theme of political tyranny. In Bonivard, Byron created a protagonist free from the traits of the
typical “Byronic hero,” one who possessed greater credibility and maturity than his
predecessors. The _______ deeper human understanding and advances more positive values
than earlier works.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. poem, in turn, expresses
C. poem in turn expresses
B. poem, turn, expresses
D. poem, turn out, expresses
. .23. .
On July 4, three days after returning from his boat tour of Lake Leman, Byron completed the
third canto of Childe Harold. Its framework is a poetic travelogue based on his journey from
Dover to Waterloo, then along the Rhine and into Switzerland. _______ to maintain a
convincing distinction between himself and his hero in the previous cantos, Byron drops the
pretense and speaks in his own right. Harold becomes a shadowy presence who disappears in
the middle of the canto, absorbed into the narrator. The new protagonist, a Hero of Sensibility,
expresses the melancholy, passion, and alienation of the original Harold, as well as Byronic
liberalism, sensitivity, and meditation.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Having fail
B. Had failed
C. Having failed
D. Has failed
. .24. .
Rousseau, and _______ campaigns doomed the hopes born of that struggle, relate directly to
the canto’s theme of war. Byron despised wars of aggression waged for personal gain while
championing as honorable those conflicts that defended freedom, such as the battles of
Marathon and Morat and the French Revolution. Bravura rhetoric animates the stanzas on
Waterloo, from the memorable recreation of the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Brussels on
the night before the battle, to Byron’s grim evocation of war—a contemplation of the futility
of bravery and of the blood shed in purposeless slaughter.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Napoleon, whose
C. Napoleon, who
B. Napoleon: whom
D. Napoleon that
. .25. .
But Byron’s affinity with reality prevented him from “Spurning the clay-cold bonds which
round our being cling.” Nature would provide him with no permanent escape from himself, no
remedy for his suffering.
Near the end he returns to his first theme, of personal sorrow defiantly borne by
a
Promethean rebel:
I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow’d
To its idolatries a patient knee [.]
He closes the canto as he began it, with an apostrophe to his _______
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. daughter, “The child of love."
C. daughter, "The child of love".
B. daughter "The child of love"
D. "daughter - The child of love"
. .26. .
When a tour of the Bernese Alps with Hobhouse failed to “lighten the weight” on his heart or
enable him to lose his “own wretched identity,” Byron turned, as usual, to poetry to purge his
broodings and guilt over the separation, Augusta, and his exile. The catharsis assumed a form
new to _______ drama. He would write, “not a drama properly—but a dialogue,” set in the
high Alps he had recently visited.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. he: blank-verse
C. his - blank verse
B. him—blank-verse
D. him: blank verse
. .27. .
Murray published Childe Harold, _______ November 18, and The Prisoner of Chillon, and
Other Poems on December 5. Within a week of publication, 7,000 copies of each volume had
been sold. Reviewing these works in the December 1816 number of the Edinburgh Review,
Jeffrey proclaimed that “in force of diction, and inextinguishable energy of sentiment,” Byron
took “precedence of all his distinguished contemporaries.”
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Canto III,
B. Canto III - at
C. Canto III in
D. Canto III, on
. .28. .
Byron set out _______ 1817 to join Hobhouse in Rome. In Ferrara, his visit to the cell where
the 16th-century poet Torquato Tasso had been confined for madness inspired an impassioned
dramatic monologue, The Lament of Tasso.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. on midApril
B. at mid April
C. mid-April,
D. in mid-April
. .29. .
Byron settled in mid-June at the Villa Foscarini at La Mira on the Brenta, seven miles from
Venice. _______, he began to distill his memories of Rome into poetry. Composing rapidly,
he had completed the first draft for 126 stanzas of Childe Harold, Canto IV, by mid-July, but
he revised and expanded the manuscript for the rest of the year.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A. However
B. Since
C. Here
D. To illustrate
. .30. .
Melancholy colors the farewell; Byron knew that the Childe Harold theme had “died into an
echo.” _______ life in Venice had lifted his spirits. Before he finished this canto, he had begun
the spritely Beppo, with which he returned to satire and prepared the way for Don Juan.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A. But
B. However
C. In spite of
D. Yet
. .31. .
The story Byron tells is slight. Beppo, a Venetian merchant, returns home during Carnival after
years of Turkish captivity, to discover that his wife, Laura, has taken a count for her lover.
_______ the three pleasantly discuss the amatory triangle, the husband and wife reunite, and
Beppo befriends the count.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A. However
B. Instead
C. Indeed
D. After
. .32. .
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
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Muslins are woven cotton fabrics with a variety of uses.
Dhaka muslin is a handmade fabric produced in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
It has an extremely fine weave and is primarily used to make luxury clothing.
Sheeting muslin is a machine-made fabric produced in factories.
It has a coarse weave and is primarily used to upholster furniture and create backdrops
for theater sets.
The student wants to emphasize a difference between the two muslins. Which choice most
effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
A. Muslins can be used in a variety of ways, from making luxury clothing to upholstering
furniture and creating backdrops for theater sets.
B. Sheeting muslin is machine made, has a coarse weave, and is used for furniture and theater
sets.
C. Dhaka muslin is a handmade fabric with an extremely fine weave, while sheeting muslin is
machine made with a coarse weave.
D. Dhaka muslin and sheeting muslin are two different types of woven cotton fabrics.
. .33. .
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
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A thermal inversion is a phenomenon where a layer of atmosphere is warmer than the
layer beneath it.
In 2022, a team of researchers studied the presence of thermal inversions in twenty-five
gas giants.
Gas giants are planets largely composed of helium and hydrogen.
The team found that gas giants featuring a thermal inversion were also likely to contain
heat-absorbing metals.
One explanation for this relationship is that these metals may reside in a planet's upper
atmosphere, where their absorbed heat causes an increase in temperature.
The student wants to present the study's findings to an audience already familiar with thermal
inversions. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to
accomplish this goal?
A. Gas giants were likely to contain heat-absorbing metals when they featured a layer of
atmosphere warmer than the layer beneath it, researchers found; this phenomenon is known as
a thermal inversion.
B. The team studied thermal inversions in twenty-five gas giants, which are largely composed
of helium and hydrogen.
C. Researchers found that gas giants featuring a thermal inversion were likely to contain heatabsorbing metals, which may reside in the planets' upper atmospheres.
D. Heat-absorbing metals may reside in a planet's upper atmosphere.
REFERENCES
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lord-byron
https://www.cracksat.net/digital/reading-writing/test12.html
https://www.cracksat.net/digital/reading-writing/test17.html
https://www.cracksat.net/digital/reading-writing/test3.html
https://www.cracksat.net/digital/reading-writing/test6.html
https://www.cracksat.net/digital/reading-writing/test2.html
https://www.cracksat.net/digital/reading-writing/test7.html
ANSWER KEYS
1.
4.
7.
10.
13.
16.
19.
22.
25.
28.
31.
B
A
B
D
D
A
D
A
A
D
D
2.
5.
8.
11.
14.
17.
20.
23.
26.
29.
32.
D
D
C
B
D
B
B
C
B
C
C
3.
6.
9.
12.
15.
18.
21.
24.
27.
30.
33.
B
D
C
D
B
B
C
A
D
A
C