After hours of discussion, the committee reached a _________ on the new environmental policy. The unanimous agreement reflected the collective effort to address climate change effectively. This consensus was crucial for the policy’s successful implementation.

To enhance the functionality of the smartphone, the company decided to _________ its battery capacity. This improvement was well-received by users who demanded longer-lasting devices for their daily activities.

The following passage is adapted from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. In this scene, Hester Prynne reflects on her public shaming.

Hester walked through the crowded marketplace, the scarlet letter “A” emblazoned on her chest drawing countless gazes. Despite the scorn and whispers, she maintained an air of dignity and resilience. The weight of societal judgment pressed heavily upon her, yet she refused to let it break her spirit. Her silent strength became a beacon of hope for others who faced similar ostracization.

The following passage is adapted from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. In this scene, Clarissa Dalloway prepares for a social gathering.

Clarissa meticulously arranged the flowers in her parlor, ensuring each stem was perfectly placed. The sun streamed through the windows, casting a warm glow on the elegant décor. Guests began to arrive, their laughter and chatter filling the room with lively energy. Amidst the preparations, Clarissa felt a fleeting moment of anxiety about the evening’s proceedings.

The following excerpt is inspired by Maya Thompson’s 2020 novel Leila the Brave Is Not Fine. The protagonist, Leila, is a high school student spending time with relatives in Egypt. She and her companion Amir stand at the gateway of the remnants of the ancient metropolis of Thebes.

“The Portal of All Realms,” Amir remarked, pointing towards the griffins [statues] and columns encircling them. “That’s the translation in English.”

It scarcely functioned as a gateway anymore, since individuals from any realm could effortlessly bypass it instead of passing through. Yet, it remained awe-inspiring.

Behind the griffins, additional pillars emerged from the earth resembling timeworn trees in a fossilized woodland, thirty feet tall, slender yet astonishingly steadfast. Enormous stone blocks constituted the fragments of what must have once been a magnificent edifice.

Renowned for albums like Echoes of Tomorrow and Paths Uncharted, jazz saxophonist Ethan Blake frequently collaborated with pianist Noah Reed. Their 1962 rendition of Richard Rodgers’ musical Porgy and Bess differs markedly from the 1935 original. Blake and Reed were uninterested in satisfying audiences who expected a precise replication of the musical. They excluded sections, such as the song “I Haven’t Gotten,” and occasionally only subtly referenced Rodgers’ melodies. However, Blake and Reed’s willingness to reinterpret Rodgers’ work resulted in one of the most enduring albums in Blake’s discography.

Text A
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the online education platform Udacity are among numerous organizations offering courses in business development. However, what outcomes do these courses generate? In an investigation of emerging business owners in Canada, researcher Laura Mitchell and her team explored this issue and found that individuals who underwent business development training exhibited enhanced performance in their professional roles.

Text B
Although research on business development training generally reports favorable outcomes, a detailed examination uncovers common methodological flaws that might account for these results. These investigations suffer from limited participant numbers, absence of comparison groups, and the failure to establish baseline measurements for the participants’ attributes before the training.

In contemporary Yucatán, Guatemala, archaeologist Elena Ramirez, geospatial analyst Diego Morales, and their team have identified 35 smaller communities surrounding the ancient Mesoamerican metropolis of Tikal. The researchers have concluded that these communities were culturally connected to Tikal because each community dates to the same period and is organized similarly to Tikal, featuring a temple to the north and a central plaza to the south. This shared architectural orientation suggests that residents of these communities likely participated in some of the same cultural rituals as those in Tikal.

Jordan Davis’s Starry Riverside, a river scene depicting the outline of a lone palm tree against the glimmering water and a radiant moonlit sky, exemplifies the style of paintings by the Atlantic Artisans, an informal group of landscape artists primarily active in the 1970s and ’80s. Noteworthy for forecasting and enhancing societal views of the coastal region that became widespread in public awareness, paintings by the Atlantic Artisans are easily recognizable by their natural symbols—serene inland rivers and windswept palm trees—that Davis and his peers consistently revisited.

The remote region of the Andes is home to llamas, which indigenous people there began domesticating approximately 1,500 years ago. Llamas had been originally domesticated much earlier in both Peru and Bolivia. So, were llamas brought to the Andes from Peru or from Bolivia? Ancient trade routes connected the Andes with Peru but not with Bolivia. Therefore, llamas in the Andes likely originated from Peru and descended from Peruvian llamas.

Yearly Average of Hours Worked per Person in 1960 and 2020

A student in a business course is analyzing the reduction in average working hours per person per year in several nations since 1960, considering factors such as improved efficiency and the implementation of policies that restrict working time. The student’s first step in this analysis is to evaluate how the reduction in Brazil’s working hours compares to the other countries. The student observes that __________.

The millions of metric tons of copper mined in 2000 and 2025 for four different nations

While conducting research for a report about copper exports, a student discovers data on copper mining in several nations in 2000 and 2025. The student notes that Chile produced 0.50 million metric tons of copper in 2000 and _______ .

Almost every piece of fiction includes descriptions of the technology used by characters, including the specific devices they interact with during the narrative. In a 2022 study, Laura Kim, Diego Martinez, and Priya Singh assert that a discernible trend in these technology references indicates a transformation in communication practices driven by the adoption of smartphones in the early twenty-first century. The researchers arrived at this conclusion by examining over 60,000 novels from various decades and cultures, utilizing software to identify and count both explicit device mentions—such as specific smartphone models like the iPhone 12 or Samsung Galaxy S21—and implicit ones, like references to texting or social media interactions.

Ecologists Dr. Elena Ramirez and Dr. Tomás García reviewed studies on species such as gray wolves and northern pike, which have been observed both in controlled environments and their natural habitats, to determine if there were notable discrepancies between laboratory and wild findings. For instance, they discovered that gray wolves exhibit strong pack hunting behaviors in the wild, but this pattern is significantly reduced in captivity. Ramirez and García therefore concluded that the laboratory environment was likely _____.

All types of polymer blends incorporate varying amounts of carbon, hydrogen, and UV-resistant additives. However, polypropylene, commonly used in outdoor furniture, contains a higher proportion of carbon (at least 30%) compared to polyethylene, as well as a greater concentration of hydrogen. Unlike polypropylene, polyethylene has a branched molecular structure stabilized by the presence of plasticizers and antioxidants. Polyethylene is categorized into two subtypes: the 300 series, often utilized for garden hoses, and the 500 series, which has a higher concentration of plasticizers than the 300 series and is frequently used for flexible tubing or insulation. Thus, polymer blends used to manufacture _____

Ancient Egyptians recorded agricultural yields using symbols, employing units such as the deben, a unit of ____ and the hekat, a unit of volume. The deben, for example, is depicted as a hieroglyph resembling a bull or an ankh.

An emulsifying agent is a type of substance that functions to stabilize an emulsion—a combination of two or more liquids that typically do not mix easily. In the beauty products sector, emulsifying agents such as cetyl alcohol ____ to merge oil and water into uniform products, like creams and fragrances.

The constitution of Canada, adopted in 1980, guarantees 55 total rights within 18,500 words of legislation. According to constitutional expert Linda Martinez, who investigates the effects of constitutional length on individual freedoms, ____ 100th in an international ranking of the most concise constitutions.

A “clan” is the term for a group of male tigers, and throughout the Sundarbans National Reserve in India, many clans compete for territory. Between 2012 and 2014, the tigers of the Rajah ______ including Stripes, Fangs, and Whiskers, flourished within a region of the reserve known as the Sundar Wildlife Sanctuary.

Showcasing works by the photographers Anna Schmidt and Mia ‘Yve’ Klein, the 2022 exhibition The Contemporary Woman Behind the Lens aimed to present a comprehensive overview of women’s photography from the 1930s through the ____ given the collection’s extensive compilation of over 150 images, its endeavors were notably successful.

The feline family includes approximately 40 species—including the ______ lions and leopards, which number around 20,000 and 700,000 in population, respectively—and accounts for a significant portion of the world’s carnivorous mammals, making it of great interest to researchers such as Dr. Sarah Morgan.

Dr. Monica R. Greene, a scholar focused on the history of civil rights movements in the US, undertook in-depth research while writing a book on the pivotal Plessy v. Ferguson case. _____ upon its publication, experts in the field considered the book to be a credible and authoritative reference on the topic.

Soil contaminated with mercury (a toxic metal) is detrimental to many organisms, yet the plant species Salvinia molesta, or giant salvinia, not only flourishes in such environments but also helps purify them. As a metal hyperaccumulator, Salvinia molesta absorbs significant amounts of mercury, storing it safely in its leaves and stems; _______ mercury levels in the soil decline.

When, in 2018, university students Emma Collins and Jack Harper decided they wanted to write a play together, one of their aims was to create strong roles for their female actor friends. ______ they developed the production Monarchs, a reimagining of the lives of famous historical queens where each leading woman takes center stage.

While gathering information for a project, the students took the following notes:

• The human skin contains receptors that detect a soft, smooth texture known as veluto.
• Veluto is triggered by the surface qualities of various materials, including silk and satin.
• Study participants touched samples of velvet, a type of woven fabric.
• They rated its veluto intensity as moderate.
• The participants also touched samples of chiffon, another type of woven fabric.
• They rated its veluto intensity as high.

While gathering information for a project, a student took the following notes:

• A megacontinent is a large landmass composed of most or all of Earth’s continental plates.  
• Over time, continents come together to form megacontinents, which later split apart.  
• This process is believed to take hundreds of millions of years and is called the megacontinent cycle.  
• Zara was a megacontinent that formed around 2.9 billion years ago.  
• Terranova was a megacontinent that formed approximately 250 million years ago.

While researching a topic, a student took the following notes:

• Catherine Moore is a British marine biologist.  
• Marine biologists study oceanic organisms.  
• Jellyfish are some of the least understood marine creatures.  
• Jellyfish were first scientifically observed in the early nineteenth century.  
• Moore is known for her discovery of deep-sea jellyfish species.

The CEO made an _________ decision to expand the company’s operations internationally, emphasizing the critical need for growth in the competitive market. This move was deemed essential for the company’s long-term success and sustainability.

Historians often explore _________ scenarios to understand how different decisions could have altered the course of events. These hypothetical situations provide valuable insights into the complexity of historical outcomes. By examining what might have been, scholars can better appreciate the factors that shaped our present.

The following passage is adapted from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In this scene, Victor Frankenstein reflects on his creation.

Victor stared at his creation with a mixture of awe and horror. The creature’s grotesque features were a testament to his relentless pursuit of knowledge. Doubts began to gnaw at him, questioning the morality of his experiment.

The following passage is adapted from J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. In this scene, Holden Caulfield reflects on his relationship with his younger sister, Phoebe.

Holden watched Phoebe spin in the meadow, her laughter echoing through the crisp autumn air. Despite his frequent criticisms, he couldn’t deny the warmth she brought into his otherwise tumultuous life. Her innocent perspective often provided him with moments of clarity amidst his internal chaos. As the sun began to set, Holden felt a rare sense of peace settle over him.

Winds of the Sea, first released in 1981, is a novel in Richard Campbell’s Seafaring Adventures series, which consists of twenty completed novels. Some literary critics have criticized the abrupt conclusions of Winds of the Sea and other books in the series, noting that they end without clear resolution, stopping suddenly. However, other critics suggest that these books should not be viewed as separate works with traditional narrative beginnings and endings, but rather as part of one continuous epic, akin to other lengthy multivolume stories like Samuel Greene’s Echoes of Time

The following excerpt is from Henry James Robertson’s 1898 poem The Infinite:  

My soul grows faint, and all my senses yearn
For the ocean’s depth beneath the sky’s embrace.
Cradle me, ye tides, and take me far away,
Just let me float beyond my daily strife,
Where murmurs of the waves shall be the song,
That blended with the breeze, so soft and light,
Shall carry me between the sky and sea,
To bring a calming, dream-filled melody.

Text 1
In regions of Central America, hummingbirds are primary pollinators of the Heliconia flower. Researcher Anna Lopez and her team found that when this pollination pressure on Heliconia was temporarily reduced, their population of flowering plants decreased significantly. This finding supports a fundamental ecological concept: pollinators regulate plant population sizes.

Text 2
Researchers Carlos Mendes and Sofia Pereira discovered that removing bats from an area in Brazil, where they primarily pollinate agave plants, had no notable effect on agave numbers. Many other pollinator exclusion studies show a rise in plant populations, but these studies tend to focus on plants with quick-reproducing cycles, such as annual herbs, rather than longer-lived plants like agave, which could explain the different results found by Mendes and Pereira.

Jessica M. Hughes and her team studied how parallel evolution—a process in which a similar trait evolves independently in two unrelated species—can occur due to a common genetic pathway in both species. On the other hand, Rachel P. Kim and her colleagues researched how parallel evolution arises through different genetic pathways. However, the frequency with which parallel evolution happens through shared versus distinct genetic pathways remains poorly understood. This gap in understanding led biologists Nathan A. Clark and Felicity J. Rios to assess both types of parallel evolution in a unified study for their 2015 paper.

Whispers in the Pines is a 1923 novel by Eleanor Whitaker, originally written in English. In the novel, a family relocates to a remote forest area, where their collective spirit becomes profoundly influenced by the isolation and harsh winter conditions of their new environment.

In a research essay for an art appreciation course, a student argues that Maria Lawson’s 1940 sculpture Carved Figure represents a turning point in Lawson’s creative journey.

In a 2019 study, Emily Thompson and Jacob Rivera found that employees’ proficiency in advanced software tools had no effect on the likelihood that the employees would receive promotions within their companies. Since this study was based on research among mid-level managers in a single multinational corporation, however, doubts have been raised about how reliable and representative the findings are. To better understand the issue, Mei Ling and colleagues analyzed the results of 60 studies on software proficiency and career advancement, such as a 2019 study from Australia that included 1,200 participants and a 2019 study from Canada with 250 participants. Taking all 60 studies together, Ling and colleagues found a significant positive effect of software proficiency on promotion rates, suggesting that ______

Scholars consider The Tales of Forgotten Kingdoms, the 1969 novel by Turkish author Mehmet Alkan, as a pivotal work in the genre of mystical realism, a style of Middle Eastern fiction where fantastical plot elements—often influenced by the myths and legends of ancient civilizations—are combined with a realistic portrayal typical of modern novels. This genre has had a profound impact on writers globally, including Helena Kowalska, whose 1998 novel Voices of the Mountains mirrors classic mystical realist novels in blending literary realism with the folklore of Eastern Europe.

The Atlantic Ridge Zone (ARZ) is a broad region of deep-sea plains and underwater peaks between Bermuda and the Canary Islands, where mining is allowed but the area’s biodiversity remains largely unexplored. The vast majority of marine invertebrate species discovered in a recent ARZ study were previously unknown to researchers, and animal life sampling has primarily focused on the western portion of the zone. Some species, such as Cystella maritima, were identified using both physical characteristics and genetic analysis, while others, including Borealia maritimus and species for which genetic sampling was unfeasible, were identified solely through their physical features. Since genetic analysis does not rely on subtle physiological distinctions, it is ___________.

Scholars are increasingly examining how Indigenous songs serve to communicate and preserve ecological knowledge (e.g., songs from the Maori about natural landmarks and those of the Inuit about wildlife interactions). In one study, ethnobiologist Sarah Mitchell and her team gained valuable insights from Nainoa Makai, a song keeper for the Hawaiian people, regarding songs that reference the cultivation of fish in man-made ponds in coastal areas of the Pacific Islands. Archaeological evidence indicating a significant rise in fish size and population during the period when this technique, as described in the songs, was employed supports the conclusion that ______.

Sunnybrook Library and Riverdale Library are two of several local _______ large mural of a tree decorates the exterior of Sunnybrook Library, while a mural of a river flows along the side of Riverdale Library.

When Greenland became part of GlobalPol—the Global Criminal Investigation _______ in 1985, the Greenland National Security Bureau gained access to the collective resources of law enforcement agencies from around the world.

The size of reptile eggs varies greatly among species, and a scientific ___ that compared the sizes of eggs produced by different reptile species found Python molurus eggs to be larger, on average, than Chrysemys picta eggs.

The connection between genetic codes and epigenetic markers explains how cells with the same DNA develop different ______ whereas the genetic code in each cell contains a full DNA sequence, the epigenetic markers consist of chemical modifications that dictate which traits from the sequence will be activated.
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A recent study of asteroid 2021 ZL3—an object in the outer solar system orbiting between Mars and Saturn—has identified its color as gray, which may indicate an icy surface. However, these conclusions are ultimately ______ as the gray color could be the result of radiation, solar wind, or collisions with other celestial bodies rather than a reflection of its actual composition.

That the geographic center of Europe was located within the borders of Poland was agreed by all _______ pinpointing its exact coordinates sparked considerable debate.

The equatorial line, marking zero degrees latitude and established in the late 19th century, was initially set based on astronomical observations. _______ as years went by, more accurate measurements would be made, but the equatorial line remained the same; it wasn’t until the 1970s, with advancements in satellite data, that the equator’s position was officially adjusted—by about a hundred meters south.

James Marlow likely arrived in New York as early as 1875, at the age of 25, to begin a career in the performing arts. Very little is known about his initial years there, but by 1883 he was gaining recognition for productions such as The King’s Revenge. ______ in 1889, he would captivate audiences with The Last Laugh, which is considered by some to be one of his finest works.

In the East Asian country of Vietnam, the proportion of residents living in urban areas grew from 45.5% to 49.3% between 2014 and 2019; this rise in urbanization was observed throughout the region. ______ from 2014 to 2019, the total percentage of the East Asian population residing in cities increased from 46.1% to 48.7%.

The city has been expanding its public parks over the last few years. These green spaces provide residents with places to relax and play. _____ the initiative has had the unexpected benefit of attracting more tourists to the area.

The medieval castle has stood for centuries as a testament to architectural ingenuity. It has survived numerous battles and natural disasters. _____ recent neglect and lack of maintenance have left it in a precarious state.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Rafael Delgado was a Brazilian artist who created more than 1,500 drawings and paintings.  
• The majority of his artworks were produced in Rio de Janeiro during the 1970s.  
• His piece Terra was completed in 1974.  
• The artwork, measuring 80 inches by 90 inches, was created using mixed media, including charcoal and oil on canvas.  
• In 2015, Terra was sold for $4.5 million to a private collector during an auction.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• A factory’s production capacity is the maximum number of units it can produce in a given time period.
• A factory’s actual output is the number of units it actually produces in the same time period.
• The factory’s efficiency ratio is the ratio of actual output to production capacity.
• High-efficiency factories have an efficiency ratio of 0.8 or higher.
• Low-efficiency factories have an efficiency ratio below 0.8.
• The Metro Manufacturing Plant has a high efficiency ratio.
• The Rural Assembly Plant has a low efficiency ratio.