When Spanish explorers first brought tomatoes to Europe in the sixteenth century, the fruit was met with widespread suspicion. Many Europeans believed tomatoes were poisonous because they belonged to the nightshade family, which includes several toxic plants. ______ Italian cooks began incorporating tomatoes into their cuisine, eventually transforming them into a staple ingredient in dishes like pasta sauces and pizzas that would later become synonymous with Italian food.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Several varieties of aerogel ______ among the lightest solid materials ever created, with some forms weighing only three times more than air while still being strong enough to support thousands of times their own weight.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

The following text is adapted from a 1905 speech by L.L. Zamenhof, creator of the Esperanto language.

We are assembled here today not as members of different nations, but as human beings sharing a common purpose. The walls that divide our peoples—walls of language, of custom, of ancient suspicion—these we seek to dismantle. A neutral language, belonging to no single nation yet accessible to all, offers a bridge across these chasms.

As used in the text, what does the word “dismantle” most nearly mean?

The Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, first discovered in the 1950s by Soviet scientist Boris Belousov, produces striking visual patterns when certain chemicals are combined in solution. As the mixture oscillates between different colors in rhythmic waves, spiral and circular patterns ______ reaction has become a favorite demonstration in chemistry classrooms, offering students a vivid example of self-organizing chemical behavior.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

In 1969, French author Raymond Queneau published “Exercises in Style,” a book consisting of 99 retellings of the same simple story: a man witnesses a minor altercation on a bus and later sees one of the participants near a train station. Each version recounts these identical events using a different literary style, tone, or linguistic constraint—one is written as a sonnet, another as a series of exclamations, another entirely in past tense. Queneau originally envisioned the project as containing far more variations, but he ultimately selected only those versions that he felt demonstrated genuinely distinct approaches rather than superficial modifications. Literary scholars studying the work have noted that despite the apparent simplicity of the source material, certain retellings reveal details about the characters’ psychology that remain invisible in other versions.

Which statement about “Exercises in Style” is best supported by the text?

Economists have long assumed that improving energy efficiency would naturally reduce overall energy consumption. However, nineteenth-century economist William Stanley Jevons observed the opposite effect: as steam engines became more efficient and thus cheaper to ______ coal consumption in England actually increased rather than decreased. This counterintuitive phenomenon, now known as the Jevons Paradox, suggests that efficiency gains can lower the cost of using a resource, ultimately driving greater total consumption.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

Process art emerged in the 1960s as a movement that prioritized the act of creation over the finished artwork. Artists such as Robert Morris and Eva Hesse embraced materials that would change over time—rubber that would crack, latex that would discolor, ice that would melt—deliberately undermining the notion that art should be permanent or static. Critics initially dismissed these works as incomplete or self-destructive, arguing that art requiring preservation could not fulfill its cultural function. However, recent scholarship has reframed this impermanence as central to the movement’s meaning: by creating works that visibly aged and decayed, process artists challenged the art market’s emphasis on objects as commodities and invited viewers to consider transformation itself as an aesthetic experience.

Which choice best describes the main purpose of the text?

Rotating counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere due to Earth’s rotation, ______ so powerful that they can cause catastrophic damage to coastal communities when they make landfall.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

In a 2019 study, psychologist Brendan Nyhan examines the backfire effect, a phenomenon in which presenting people with factual corrections to their misconceptions can paradoxically strengthen their commitment to those false beliefs. Nyhan notes that previous research has focused primarily on politically charged topics, where identity-driven reasoning may cause individuals to reject information that threatens their worldview. For his part, Nyhan investigates the backfire effect in contexts involving non-political misconceptions, such as beliefs about vaccine safety or historical events. He found that the effect was significantly weaker in these domains, with most participants accepting corrections when the information did not implicate their political identity. Given this finding, it can reasonably be inferred that the backfire effect ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

The winner’s curse, a phenomenon first identified in auctions for oil drilling rights, occurs when the winning bidder systematically overpays for an item. Economists have documented this effect across various auction types, including art sales, where bidders have limited information about an item’s true ______ where emotional attachment can drive irrational bidding; and corporate acquisitions, where executives may overestimate potential synergies.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?