Question

From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, the Inca empire flourished in the Andes Mountains. It maintained an eleven-thousand-mile network of stone-paved roads.
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1) Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest support for an archaeologist’s conclusion that a particular stretch of ancient stone-paved road was part of the Inca road system?

A) When the Inca conquered the area, they took some of the existing roads into their road system and then greatly extended the road system.

B) The particular stretch of road is oriented north and south, the orientation that many of the major roads in the Inca system had because of the north-south orientation of the Andes chain.

C) Shards of eleventh-century pottery from a distant part of what later became the Inca empire were found next to the stretch of road.

D) The stretch of road is the only ancient road between two places that were listed consecutively in a sixteenth-century list of way stations on the Inca road system.





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2) Which of the following, if true, would best explain the material presented in the table?

A) The total value of property owned by Black residents in Washington during the 1830-1860 period was similar to that in other cities during this period.

B) Rising standards of living allowed an increasing number of Black residents to own property during the 1830-1860 period.

C) Property values throughout Washington were higher in 1860 than they were in 1830.

D) Many Black property owners changed residences several times during the1830-1860 period.







The amount of water needed daily by plants for photosynthesis, cell growth, and cell maintenance is very small, and yet plants require large volumes of water in order to live. It is estimated that over 90 percent of the water absorbed by plants is lost into the air. Most of the water loss is due to evaporation from the plant through the small openings in leaves called stomata. This loss of water vapor from plants is referred to as transpiration.

The data represent the average transpiration value for twenty plants under each of the six experimental conditions. The room conditions were a temperature of 22°C, fluorescent lighting, and low humidity.
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3) Which of the following statements best explains the results associated with condition 5?

A) When a fan was added to heat and additional light, the rate of transpiration was slowed to the rate associated with room conditions, because the fan cooled the plants.

B) Additional heat and light and air movement caused the plants to lose so much water that after five minutes they wilted, thereby closing their stomata and preventing further water loss.

C) Additional heat resulted in such severe water loss that it could not be counteracted by air movement caused by the fan, and the plants died.

D) After five minutes the rate of transpiration gradually increased, because moisture was being brought up the stem more rapidly.


4) Which of the following hypotheses about the effects of high humidity is supported by the graph?

A) Plants will grow faster.

B) Plant tissues will contain a smaller volume of water.

C) Plants will close their stomata.

D) Evaporation will proceed more slowly.






The great French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874) sympathized with the French Middle Ages and with the Revolutionary epoch in France, yet he wrote his best work on the despotic French monarchy, which he despised.
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5) The statement above, if true, would most clearly support which of the following general claims about the writing of history?

A) Historians should keep personal opinions out of their historical writing.

B) The best history is not necessarily written by historians in sympathy with their subject.

C) Historians tend to write about historical subjects with which they sympathize.

D) It is difficult to write objectively about the French monarchy.



Officials are considering placing the sturgeon on the endangered species list. If such an action is taken, ships, including those that carry goods and produce, will not be allowed to travel on the large rivers in our region that serve as breeding grounds for the fish. If ship travel were restricted in this way, critics argue, prices for goods and produce would rise in the region, and some businesses might even be forced to close.
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6) If the argument about rising prices is true, then which of the following is also likely to be true?

A) The sturgeon population in the region has decreased significantly in the last decade.

B) All other means of transporting goods and produce in the region are costlier than shipping.

C) Over the years several large cities have developed along the region’s large rivers.

D) Consumer demand for goods and produce is greater in this region than in other regions.



For some philosophers, writing is an unfortunate necessity, a means of communication that is at best irrelevant to the philosophical thought it expresses and at worst a barrier to that thought. The words in which the philosophical investigator writes up his or her results, according to these philosophers, should be as few and as transparent as possible.
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7) The philosophers described above make which of the following assumptions about philosophy as a scholarly discipline?

A) Philosophy should entail the direct contemplation of thought, with as few mediating influences as possible.

B) Philosophy should be a means of personal expression as well as a vehicle for the communication of ideas.

C) Philosophy is inevitably determined by the written forms in which philosophical ideas are expressed.

D) Philosophy, in general, is more intellectually difficult than are other scholarly disciplines.









Over time, non-specialists are usually able to assimilate radically new scientific ideas, even though these ideas may seem strange when they are initially introduced. Such was the case with Newtonian physics; when Newton proposed his ideas regarding motion and gravitation in the seventeenth century, they were denounced as unreasonable even by other leading physicists. Eventually, however, Newton’s ideas were generally assimilated. Such will also prove to be the case with quantum mechanics, a twentieth-century science that deals with the behavior of matter and light on the subatomic scale. Eventually, the novelty of quantum mechanics will no longer act as a bar to the comprehension of this theory by the non-specialist.
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8) The author of the passage assumes which of the following about quantum mechanics in relation to previous scientific theories?

A) Quantum mechanics is not inherently more difficult for the non-specialist than previous scientific theories.

B) Quantum mechanics has generated less controversy among specialists than previous scientific theories.

C) Quantum mechanics is more important to the history of science than previous scientific theories.

D) Quantum mechanics has more important practical applications than previous scientific theories.



In 1976 a powerful earthquake hit the city of Tangshan, China. Scientists had failed to predict the earthquake. If people had paid attention to the unusual animal behavior that preceded the earthquake, however, they would have known it was coming. Animals can often sense an impending earthquake when scientists cannot.
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9) Which of the following statements, if true, would suggest a weakness in the argument above?

A) A wide variety of phenomena can cause animals to behave strangely.

B) Scientists use a variety of sophisticated tools to monitor and predict earthquakes.

C) Many domestic as well as wild animals behaved strangely the day before the Tangshan earthquake.

D) The city of Tangshan is near a major fault line that makes it particularly susceptible to earthquakes.



(1) It is an article of faith among some economists that the significant inventions of the contemporary world are the results of the innovative genius of big business organizations. (2) Yet in the United States, the current trend toward corporate mergers has been accompanied by a sharp decline in innovation. (3) The record indeed shows that big organizations are far more resistant to change than small ones are, and for predictable reasons. (4) They are tied to highly specialized operations that would be disrupted even by small changes, and they are guided by bureaucracies that typically favor control over innovation. (5) According to T.K. Quinn, the former chief executive officer of a large finance company, giant corporations do not invent new technology--they buy out the smaller companies and independent inventors who do.
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10) Sentence 5 supports the author’s argument primarily by

A) providing a specific example of a corporate merger

B) explaining the effects of new technology

C) questioning the honesty of an opponent

D) citing the opinion of a person experienced in business