TEAS 7 › Mock tests › Full Mock Test 4
All 170 questions of Full Mock Test 4 in one page: every question, the correct answer (marked ✓, bold checkbox marks are the answer key), and a full explanation. The exam itself is timed and section-locked here; this page is for study and review.
Key ideas & details, craft & structure, integration of knowledge & ideas.
Sound reaches the ear as invisible waves of pressure moving through the air, and the job of the ear is to translate those waves into signals the brain can read. The outer ear funnels sound into the ear canal, where the waves strike the eardrum, a thin membrane that vibrates like the head of a drum. Behind the eardrum, three tiny bones called the hammer, anvil, and stirrup form a lever system that carries the vibration across the middle ear and concentrates its force onto the oval window, a membrane at the entrance of the inner ear. The inner ear contains the cochlea, a snail-shaped, fluid-filled tube lined with thousands of delicate hair cells. Pressure waves in the fluid bend these hair cells, and the bending triggers electrical impulses that travel along the auditory nerve to the brain. Hair cells do not regrow once damaged. Loud noise, infections, and some medicines can destroy them, which is why prolonged exposure to loud sound causes permanent hearing loss. Age also takes a toll: the highest pitches often fade first because hair cells tuned to high frequencies sit near the entrance of the cochlea and take the brunt of the sound energy.
Q1 According to the passage, where do pressure waves in the inner ear bend the hair cells? pilot
A. In the ear canal just behind the outer ear.
B. In the middle ear behind the eardrum.
C. Inside the fluid-filled cochlea. ✓
D. At the tip of the auditory nerve.
The passage says the cochlea is a fluid-filled tube lined with hair cells and that pressure waves in that fluid bend the hair cells, which triggers the nerve impulses. The ear canal and middle ear conduct the vibration earlier in the chain, and the auditory nerve carries the resulting signal, so those options are the wrong locations.
The demand for women's voting rights in the United States grew out of the antislavery movement, where women had organized petitions and speeches only to be told that politics was not their place. In 1848, reformers met at Seneca Falls, New York, and issued a declaration of rights that included a demand for the ballot, a demand considered so radical that even some supporters tried to delete it. For the next seventy years the campaign advanced by inches: some western states allowed women to vote in state elections, yet federal law still barred them from national races. Suffragists marched, picketed the White House, endured arrest, and went on hunger strikes, while opponents argued that voting would corrupt women or that their husbands already represented them. The turning point came during the First World War, when the contributions of women workers made the old arguments harder to defend. In 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, and in the presidential election that followed, more than eight million women cast ballots for the first time.
Q2 What is the author's main purpose in writing this passage? pilot
A. To describe the history of the struggle for women's suffrage in the United States. ✓
B. To argue that presidential elections are too expensive to run.
C. To explain how constitutional amendments are enforced in court.
D. To compare voting rights in the United States with those in Europe.
The author traces the movement's origins, setbacks, tactics, and final victory, which is a historical account of the struggle. The passage does not discuss election costs, court enforcement, or European voting systems.
On the last day of April, the bookshop closed for good, and Iris was the only one who seemed to mind. Mrs. Hale had run the shop for forty years, and the new owners of the building wanted a coffee bar instead. For three weeks Iris had come after school to help sort the shelves, and on the final afternoon she found a letter tucked inside an old novel no one had ever bought. The letter was dated 1962 and signed with a name that matched the handwriting on a photograph Mrs. Hale kept beside the register. Mrs. Hale read it without speaking, then folded it carefully and put it back inside the book. Some things, she said quietly, belong to the people they were written for. She gave Iris the novel anyway, and Iris kept it on her nightstand long after the coffee bar opened, mostly to remind herself that a quiet room full of old books could still hold a small piece of someone's life.
Q3 When did Iris find the letter inside the novel? pilot
A. Years before the shop closed for good.
B. During her very first visit to the bookshop.
C. On the final afternoon before the shop closed. ✓
D. After the coffee bar had already opened in the building.
The passage says Iris found the letter on the final afternoon while helping sort the shelves, before the shop closed for good at the end of April. The other options place the discovery at a different point in the story, all of which contradict the stated timing.
The clock had stood in the hallway for three generations, and when the chime went flat, it was Rosa who noticed. Her grandmother claimed the clock had never been right since the war, but Rosa's grandfather, a watchmaker before he retired, said a clock that struck eleven at half past nine was not mysterious, only neglected. 'It wants cleaning, not patience,' he told them, and Rosa asked to help. Together they lifted the weights, laid the works on newspaper, and brushed years of dust from the brass gears. Rosa learned the names of the parts, the escape wheel, the anchor, the pendulum, and how a tiny length of wire could cost the clock a minute a week. When they hung the weights again and set the pendulum swinging, the clock ticked with a steady, confident beat, and at ten o'clock it struck ten. The old man smiled at Rosa. 'Keep it wound,' he said, 'and it will outlast us both.' Rosa wound it every Sunday after that, and the clock kept the family's time.
Q4 Which of the following best describes the author's purpose in this passage?
A. To instruct readers on how to become watchmakers.
B. To argue that old clocks should be replaced with new ones.
C. To tell a short story about a family repairing an heirloom clock. ✓
D. To explain the physics of pendulums in technical terms.
The passage narrates Rosa noticing the faulty chime, helping her grandfather clean the works, and winding the clock every Sunday, which is a short narrative, C. A is wrong because no career instructions are given. B is wrong because the family restores rather than replaces the clock. D is wrong because the pendulum is named within a story, not explained technically.
Elio had baked the same four kinds of bread for thirty years, and he did not believe a stranger could do it better. So when the owner hired Marta, a young woman fresh from culinary school, Elio said nothing and pointed at the flour. For a week she measured, kneaded, and shaped beside him in silence. On the eighth morning Elio noticed that the sourdough starter had been fed at midnight instead of dawn, and the loaves came out of the oven with crusts that crackled like nothing he had produced in a decade. He examined the scoring on top, the shallow cuts that let bread expand, and saw a pattern he had never tried. 'Who showed you this?' he asked. Marta shrugged. 'I read it. Then I watched the dough.' Elio stood a long time looking at the loaves. The next day he brought her the old recipe book his own teacher had given him, stamped with the year 1962, and said, 'Read this. Then watch me.' Marta took it, and for the first time that week she smiled.
Q5 The passage is told from which point of view?
A. First person, with Marta narrating her own experiences.
B. Third person, focused mainly on Elio's observations and reactions. ✓
C. Second person, directing the reader to try baking bread.
D. Third person, focused mainly on the owner's thoughts.
The narrator uses 'he' and 'she' and shows Elio's perceptions, such as his noticing of the midnight feeding and his long look at the loaves, so the point of view is third person centered on Elio, B. A is wrong because Marta never says 'I.' C is wrong because the reader is never addressed. D is wrong because the owner's thoughts never appear.
The clock had stood in the hallway for three generations, and when the chime went flat, it was Rosa who noticed. Her grandmother claimed the clock had never been right since the war, but Rosa's grandfather, a watchmaker before he retired, said a clock that struck eleven at half past nine was not mysterious, only neglected. 'It wants cleaning, not patience,' he told them, and Rosa asked to help. Together they lifted the weights, laid the works on newspaper, and brushed years of dust from the brass gears. Rosa learned the names of the parts, the escape wheel, the anchor, the pendulum, and how a tiny length of wire could cost the clock a minute a week. When they hung the weights again and set the pendulum swinging, the clock ticked with a steady, confident beat, and at ten o'clock it struck ten. The old man smiled at Rosa. 'Keep it wound,' he said, 'and it will outlast us both.' Rosa wound it every Sunday after that, and the clock kept the family's time.
Q6 What does the grandmother's claim that the clock 'had never been right since the war' most likely represent in the passage?
A. Proof that the clock is beyond repair.
B. A warning that the family should buy a new clock.
C. A belief that the clock's problem was mysterious rather than fixable. ✓
D. An order to leave the clock unwound.
The grandmother treats the faulty striking as an unsolvable mystery linked to the past, while the grandfather shows the cause is ordinary neglect that cleaning fixes, so her claim represents a belief that the fault was mysterious, C. A is disproved by the successful repair. B is contradicted by the repair. D never happens, since Rosa winds the clock.
On a clear day, the sky overhead is blue, yet the sun itself looks white or yellow. The explanation lies in how sunlight behaves as it passes through the atmosphere. Sunlight is a mixture of colors, and air molecules are small enough to scatter some of those colors far more strongly than others. Short wavelengths, especially blue and violet light, bounce off air molecules in every direction, so blue light fills the sky from all angles. Violet is scattered even more than blue, but the eye is less sensitive to it, which is why the sky appears blue rather than violet. Clouds look white because their water droplets are much larger than air molecules and scatter all the colors about equally. At sunrise and sunset, sunlight travels through a thicker layer of atmosphere, so most of the blue is scattered away before the light reaches the eye. The longer red and orange wavelengths survive the longer journey, painting the sky near the horizon red. On Mars, where the atmosphere is thin and dusty, the sky is the opposite: dust particles scatter red light, so Martian skies often appear pink or butterscotch.
Q7 A photographer notices that on a very hazy afternoon the sky near the horizon looks pale and milky rather than deep blue. Which understanding from the passage best explains this observation?
A. Haze particles are tiny enough to scatter red light only.
B. Extra particles in a thicker, dirtier layer of air scatter more of the blue before it reaches the eye, leaving a washed-out sky. ✓
C. The sun has moved higher in the sky, so scattering stops altogether.
D. Water vapor absorbs blue light before it can be scattered.
The passage explains that when sunlight passes through more atmosphere, most of the blue is scattered away before it reaches the eye, which is why low, distant skies look pale, and extra haze adds more particles to that path. Scattering does not stop, haze does not scatter only red light, and the passage never claims vapor absorbs blue.
In 1862, in the middle of the Civil War, Congress authorized the building of a railroad from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast. Two companies took on the task from opposite ends. The Union Pacific built westward across the flat plains, laying track quickly, while the Central Pacific worked eastward through the Sierra Nevada, where crews tunneled through solid granite in brutal conditions. Thousands of workers came from Ireland and, on the Central Pacific, from China, where recruiters sought laborers willing to take on the most dangerous jobs. The two lines raced toward each other, and the government paid each company by the mile of track laid, an incentive that encouraged speed over caution. On May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit in Utah, the two crews met and drove a golden spike to mark the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. The consequences were swift. A journey that had taken months by wagon was reduced to about a week, freight rates fell sharply, and western towns grew at rates that surprised even their founders. The railroad also opened vast lands to settlement, changed how food and livestock reached eastern cities, and hastened the decline of the buffalo herds and the displacement of Native peoples who had lived on those lands.
Q8 Before the railroad, crossing the continent by wagon took months; after 1869 the same journey took about a week. What does this contrast most directly show?
A. Wagon travel remained the fastest option available.
B. The railroad radically shortened cross-country travel time. ✓
C. Freight rates rose sharply after the line was joined.
D. The golden spike was worth more than the rails.
The passage states that the journey dropped from months by wagon to about a week and that freight rates fell sharply, so the contrast documents a dramatic reduction in travel time. The other options reverse or ignore the passage's stated effects of the railroad.
Maya had watched her uncle blow glass since she was small, but the first goblet she tried on her own came out lopsided, the bowl sagging toward the floor like a melted candle. Her uncle examined it without speaking, then set it on the cooling shelf beside the good pieces. The glass does not know what you want, he said at last. It knows only what you do. You pulled the bowl too soon, while the gather was still heavy. Heat the piece again, and let the shape find its own weight. On her second attempt Maya worked more slowly, turning the pipe in her hands and letting the soft glass settle before she opened the bowl. The result was still imperfect, tilted slightly, but it would hold water. Her uncle nodded and set it on the shelf with the first one. Keep both, he said. In twenty years you will look at them and remember that you learned patience, not glass. Maya did keep them, and he was right about the patience, though she often suspected he was also right that the glass remembered everything she did to it, including her hesitation.
Q9 Which statement best captures the meaning of the uncle's remark that the glass remembers everything she did to it?
A. Glass stores images of the maker like a photograph.
B. The finished piece reveals every choice the maker made while working. ✓
C. Glass must be reheated in order to forget past mistakes.
D. Maya's hesitation caused permanent damage to the blowing pipe.
The remark is a metaphor for how the goblet reflects Maya's working choices, such as pulling too soon or hesitating, which is why the first piece came out lopsided. It does not mean literal photography, forgetting, or damage to the pipe.
To all warehouse staff: Beginning Monday, the new load-limit rule applies to every forklift in the building. A pallet that presses the yellow line on the mast is over the rated capacity, and it must be split into two loads before it moves. Do not carry passengers under any circumstances, even on short runs; the second seat was removed for a reason. When stacking, place the heaviest pallets at the bottom of the rack and leave a hand's width of clearance below the sprinkler heads. Back into an aisle only when the aisle is marked clear, and sound the horn once at every blind corner. If a load shifts while you are moving, stop immediately, lower the forks, and fix the pallet before continuing. Anyone who spots a cracked fork or a leaking hose should tag the machine out of service at once. The full policy is posted beside the time clock, and questions go to the shift supervisor before the start of the shift.
Q10 What tells an operator that a pallet is over the rated capacity?
A. The pallet is taller than the driver's cab.
B. The forks begin to wobble.
C. The pallet weighs more than ten pounds.
D. The pallet presses the yellow line on the mast. ✓
The memo states that a pallet pressing the yellow line on the mast is over the rated capacity. Height of the cab, wobbling forks, and a ten-pound weight are markers the memo never uses to judge capacity.
The liver is the body's largest internal organ and its busiest chemical factory. It sits in the upper right of the abdomen, and nearly every nutrient absorbed from food passes through it first. The liver filters toxins and waste from the blood, breaks down old red blood cells, stores sugar in a form the body can release between meals, and produces bile, a yellow fluid that helps digest fats. Because it receives blood from two sources, the hepatic artery and the portal vein, it can process both oxygen-rich blood and blood freshly loaded with digested food. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the liver is its ability to regenerate: if disease or injury removes a large portion of the organ, the remaining tissue can grow back to nearly full size within months, a capacity almost unknown elsewhere in the adult human body. Damage often accumulates more slowly than symptoms appear; fatty buildup and scarring can develop for years without pain, which is why routine blood tests that measure liver enzymes are important. Protecting the liver means moderating alcohol, maintaining a healthy weight, and avoiding unnecessary medications, because the organ must process whatever enters the blood.
Q11 Why can liver damage go unnoticed for years, according to the passage?
A. The liver has no blood supply, so tests cannot find damage.
B. Fatty buildup and scarring can develop for years without pain. ✓
C. The liver never changes size, so nothing seems wrong.
D. Routine blood tests cannot measure anything about the liver.
The passage says damage often accumulates more slowly than symptoms appear, because fatty buildup and scarring can develop for years without pain. The liver does receive blood, and the passage says routine tests that measure liver enzymes are important, so the other choices contradict the text.
In 1872, the United States created Yellowstone National Park, the first national park in the world. The idea did not come from a single visionary but from a series of expeditions. In 1870, a group of explorers camped at the junction of two rivers in what is now Wyoming and, around a campfire, discussed whether the region's wonders should be reserved for the public rather than claimed by private owners. The following year, geologist Ferdinand Hayden led a well-funded expedition that mapped the area in detail and returned with photographs and paintings that showed Congress what was at stake. The evidence convinced lawmakers, and President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act on March 1, 1872. The law set aside more than two million acres of geysers, hot springs, and wildlife as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. Managing such a place proved difficult, and in 1916 the National Park Service was created to oversee Yellowstone and the parks that followed. Today the park remains a symbol of the idea that some land is worth more preserved than developed.
Q12 What question did the explorers around the campfire in 1870 discuss?
A. Whether the geysers could be harnessed to generate power.
B. Where the new railroad line should cross the mountains.
C. How many visitors the park could admit each summer.
D. Whether the region's wonders should be reserved for the public rather than claimed by private owners. ✓
The passage says the 1870 explorers camped at the junction of two rivers and discussed whether the region's wonders should be reserved for the public rather than claimed by private owners, an idea that shaped the later law. Power generation, railroad routes, and visitor limits play no part in the campfire discussion as described.
Alice Augusta Ball was born in Seattle in 1892 and showed an early gift for science. She studied at the University of Washington and, in 1915, became the first woman and the first African American to earn a master of science degree in chemistry from the University of Hawaii. At Hawaii, Ball tackled a problem that scientists had struggled with for decades: treating leprosy, or Hansen's disease. The only known remedy was chaulmoogra oil, a thick substance that could not be absorbed by the body. Ball found a way to isolate the oil's active fatty acids and convert them into a water-soluble compound that could be injected. Her method, developed when she was just twenty-three, became the standard treatment for leprosy. Ball died in 1916, before she could publish her results, and the president of the university continued her work without crediting her, calling the treatment the Dean method. For decades her contribution was overlooked. In 2000, the University of Hawaii finally honored Ball with a medal, and in 2007 it dedicated a plaque in her honor at the chaulmoogra tree on campus, restoring the chemist's name to the discovery.
Q13 The passage places quotation marks around the name Dean method in order to
A. emphasize that the label credited the wrong person and was not Ball's own. ✓
B. suggest that the university president invented the treatment himself.
C. quote the official scientific name of the compound.
D. show that the treatment was named after a kind of whale oil.
The quotation marks around Dean method signal that this was the label attached when the university president continued the work without crediting Ball, a misattribution the passage goes on to correct. The president did not invent the treatment, the name is not the compound's scientific name, and whale oil never appears in the text.
That summer, twelve-year-old Toby spent his Saturdays behind the projection booth of the Sunset Drive-In, learning the trade from Mr. Delgado, who had run the machine for thirty-eight years. The booth smelled of dust, popcorn oil, and hot lamps. Mr. Delgado showed Toby how the reels were loaded in a precise order, how the carbon arc lamp burned brighter than the sun, and how a single skipped frame could make the whole picture stutter. On the last Saturday of August, the owners posted a sign: the drive-in would close at the end of the month, and the land would become a storage yard. Toby expected Mr. Delgado to be angry. Instead, the old projectionist threaded the final reel slowly, patted the machine, and said, 'It gave people a place to rest their eyes together. That is not nothing.' Toby said nothing, but he watched the beam of light carry the picture out across the dark field of parked cars and decided that the story was like the machine: delicate, hot, and worth protecting. He took one of the old film canisters home, empty, and kept it on his desk.
Q14 Which detail about the projector does Toby learn from Mr. Delgado?
A. A single skipped frame can make the whole picture stutter. ✓
B. The machine runs on batteries when the power fails.
C. The booth must be cleaned every hour during a show.
D. The lamp burns cooler than an ordinary kitchen bulb.
The passage lists three things Mr. Delgado shows Toby: how the reels are loaded in a precise order, how the carbon arc lamp burns brighter than the sun, and how a single skipped frame can make the picture stutter. Only the stutter detail appears among the answer choices; the rest are not in the passage.
The sense of taste begins on the tongue, where clusters of cells called taste buds sit inside small bumps. Each taste bud holds receptor cells that respond to one of five basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami, the savory taste of proteins. When food dissolves in saliva, chemicals reach the buds, receptors fire, and signals travel along nerves to the brain. Yet the tongue alone cannot tell the difference between an apple and a pear, which is where smell comes in. As you chew, aromatic molecules drift up the back of the throat into the nose, and the brain blends the taste signals with these smell signals. That is why food seems bland when you have a stuffy nose, and why a hot meal tastes different from the same meal cold, since heat releases more aromas. Taste buds also turn over quickly, replacing themselves every week or two, which is why a burnt tongue recovers in days. Bitter is the most sensitive of the five tastes, a chemical warning system that helped early humans avoid toxic plants.
Q15 How is the passage organized overall?
A. As an argument that smell matters more than taste.
B. As a list of the five basic tastes only.
C. As an explanation of how taste works and what affects it. ✓
D. As a chronological history of taste research.
The passage walks through how taste buds and smell work together, then adds related influences such as temperature and the rapid replacement of taste buds. It never argues one sense is superior, limits itself to a list, or narrates a history of research.
Vaccination is one of the oldest tools of preventive medicine, and it developed through centuries of experiment. In parts of Asia, healers practiced variolation, deliberately exposing a person to material from a mild case of smallpox, with the risk that the exposure itself could cause severe disease. In 1796 the English physician Edward Jenner showed that material from cowpox, a milder relative of smallpox, conferred protection without causing the disease, and he called the procedure vaccination. A century later, Louis Pasteur extended the idea by weakening microbes in the laboratory, producing the first vaccine against rabies in 1885. The twentieth century brought vaccines against tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, and, from Salk in 1955 and Sabin in the 1960s, two polio vaccines. In 1980 the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated, the first disease removed from the world by a vaccine. Most recently, messenger RNA vaccines built a flexible platform that could be redesigned in weeks, a speed that proved decisive during the 2020 pandemic response.
Q16 Based on the passage, which statement about variolation is accurate?
A. It was developed by Jenner as part of his vaccination experiments.
B. It carried a risk of causing the very disease it was meant to prevent. ✓
C. It used weakened microbes grown in a laboratory.
D. It was used only after Pasteur's rabies vaccine proved successful.
The passage says variolation had the risk that exposure itself could cause severe disease, and places it before Jenner. The other options misdate or mischaracterize the practice.
Sound reaches the ear as invisible waves of pressure moving through the air, and the job of the ear is to translate those waves into signals the brain can read. The outer ear funnels sound into the ear canal, where the waves strike the eardrum, a thin membrane that vibrates like the head of a drum. Behind the eardrum, three tiny bones called the hammer, anvil, and stirrup form a lever system that carries the vibration across the middle ear and concentrates its force onto the oval window, a membrane at the entrance of the inner ear. The inner ear contains the cochlea, a snail-shaped, fluid-filled tube lined with thousands of delicate hair cells. Pressure waves in the fluid bend these hair cells, and the bending triggers electrical impulses that travel along the auditory nerve to the brain. Hair cells do not regrow once damaged. Loud noise, infections, and some medicines can destroy them, which is why prolonged exposure to loud sound causes permanent hearing loss. Age also takes a toll: the highest pitches often fade first because hair cells tuned to high frequencies sit near the entrance of the cochlea and take the brunt of the sound energy.
Q17 The author compares the eardrum vibrating to the head of a drum. This comparison is meant to help the reader picture
A. a thin membrane that moves back and forth when struck by sound waves. ✓
B. a solid plate that blocks sound completely.
C. a round bone that spins inside the middle ear.
D. a hollow chamber that stores incoming air.
A drumhead is a thin stretched membrane that vibrates when struck, which is exactly how the passage describes the eardrum responding to sound waves. The comparison supports the image of a vibrating membrane, not a solid plate, a spinning bone, or a storage chamber.
Rosa had cleaned the museum at night for eleven years, and she knew the building the way a sailor knows a ship. She could tell, just from the echo, whether the marble hall was empty or whether a guard had stepped in behind her. Her favorite room was the clock gallery, where the pendulums swung in silence after closing, and she sometimes stopped her polishing to watch them, calling their motion a conversation no one else heard. One winter night she found a small note taped under the reading lamp of the library room, asking that the lamp be left on for the student who studied there after hours. The next night she left it on, and the night after that, and soon leaving notes back and forth became her quiet ritual. She never learned the student's name, and that seemed right to her. Some friendships, she decided, were best kept in the dark, guarded by the soft light of a lamp no one was supposed to need.
Q18 According to the passage, how does Rosa know when a guard has stepped into the marble hall?
A. She smells the polish on the floor.
B. She hears the museum alarm.
C. She hears the change in the echo. ✓
D. She sees the guard's flashlight beam.
The passage says Rosa could tell from the echo whether the marble hall was empty or a guard had stepped in. Polish smell, the alarm, and a flashlight beam are details the passage does not provide.
The liver is the body's largest internal organ and its busiest chemical factory. It sits in the upper right of the abdomen, and nearly every nutrient absorbed from food passes through it first. The liver filters toxins and waste from the blood, breaks down old red blood cells, stores sugar in a form the body can release between meals, and produces bile, a yellow fluid that helps digest fats. Because it receives blood from two sources, the hepatic artery and the portal vein, it can process both oxygen-rich blood and blood freshly loaded with digested food. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the liver is its ability to regenerate: if disease or injury removes a large portion of the organ, the remaining tissue can grow back to nearly full size within months, a capacity almost unknown elsewhere in the adult human body. Damage often accumulates more slowly than symptoms appear; fatty buildup and scarring can develop for years without pain, which is why routine blood tests that measure liver enzymes are important. Protecting the liver means moderating alcohol, maintaining a healthy weight, and avoiding unnecessary medications, because the organ must process whatever enters the blood.
Q19 What does the liver do with sugar, according to the passage? pilot
A. Stores it in a form the body can release between meals. ✓
B. Converts it directly into bile for digesting fats.
C. Removes it from the blood permanently and forever.
D. Turns it into red blood cells for oxygen transport.
The passage lists the liver's jobs and says it stores sugar in a form the body can release between meals. Bile is produced to help digest fats, and old red blood cells are broken down, so the other options mix up functions the passage keeps separate.
For centuries, ships moving between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans had to round the tip of South America, a journey of thousands of extra kilometers through the stormy Drake Passage. The idea of cutting a canal across the narrow Isthmus of Panama dates to the French attempt under Ferdinand de Lesseps in the 1880s, which collapsed after yellow fever and malaria killed thousands of workers. The United States took over the project in 1904, and its success rested on two changes: the decision to build a lock canal with a chain of artificial lakes rather than a sea-level cut, and an aggressive campaign against the mosquitoes that transmitted the diseases, led by the physician William Gorgas. The work was brutally hard; laborers drilled through rock, dredged mud, and operated enormous steam shovels in heat and rain, and thousands died in accidents and illness before the canal opened in 1914. The locks lift ships twenty-six meters to the level of Gatun Lake, and the canal shortened the sea voyage between New York and San Francisco by more than twelve thousand kilometers.
Q20 Which statement best expresses the main idea of the passage about the building of the canal?
A. The Panama Canal was never completed because of disease and engineering failure.
B. A canal across the Isthmus of Panama shortened sea travel once locks and mosquito control overcame earlier failures. ✓
C. Ships still prefer the long route around South America despite the canal.
D. The canal was completed by the French company in the 1880s.
The passage moves from the long sea route, to the failed French attempt, to the successful American project with locks and mosquito control, so the main idea is that the canal shortened the voyage after those problems were solved. The other options contradict the text.
Pool Operations Memo 42: Daily Water-Quality Testing (Effective Immediately). All lifeguards certified after January 1 must perform the morning water tests before the gates open. Begin by collecting a sample from the deep end at elbow depth, away from the return jets. Test for free chlorine and pH using the color-comparison kit kept in the storage office; record both readings in the logbook on the front desk. Free chlorine must read between 1.0 and 3.0 parts per million, and pH must stay between 7.2 and 7.8. If chlorine reads below 1.0, add the measured dose of granular chlorine to the skimmer baskets, wait thirty minutes, and retest before allowing swimmers in. If pH falls outside the acceptable range, treat the water with the appropriate chemical and retest until the reading is stable. Cyanuric acid, which protects chlorine from sunlight, should be checked every Monday and kept under 50 parts per million. Never open the gates with readings outside these ranges; a pool that fails testing stays closed until corrected, and the closing must be reported to the shift supervisor in writing.
Q21 Just before opening, a lifeguard tests the water and finds the free chlorine at 0.7 parts per million. Based on the memo, the correct first response is to
A. open the gates and retest at noon.
B. drain half the pool and refill it with fresh water.
C. send swimmers home and close for the entire season.
D. add a measured dose of granular chlorine, wait thirty minutes, and retest. ✓
The memo gives the exact procedure for low chlorine: add the measured dose of granular chlorine to the skimmer baskets, wait thirty minutes, and retest before allowing swimmers in. Opening anyway, draining the pool, or closing for the season are never described, so the other options do not follow the memo's rules.
Alice Augusta Ball was born in Seattle in 1892 and showed an early gift for science. She studied at the University of Washington and, in 1915, became the first woman and the first African American to earn a master of science degree in chemistry from the University of Hawaii. At Hawaii, Ball tackled a problem that scientists had struggled with for decades: treating leprosy, or Hansen's disease. The only known remedy was chaulmoogra oil, a thick substance that could not be absorbed by the body. Ball found a way to isolate the oil's active fatty acids and convert them into a water-soluble compound that could be injected. Her method, developed when she was just twenty-three, became the standard treatment for leprosy. Ball died in 1916, before she could publish her results, and the president of the university continued her work without crediting her, calling the treatment the Dean method. For decades her contribution was overlooked. In 2000, the University of Hawaii finally honored Ball with a medal, and in 2007 it dedicated a plaque in her honor at the chaulmoogra tree on campus, restoring the chemist's name to the discovery.
Q22 What medical problem did Alice Ball work on at the University of Hawaii?
A. Finding a usable way to deliver chaulmoogra oil to patients with leprosy. ✓
B. Developing a vaccine for influenza.
C. Isolating the vitamin that prevents scurvy.
D. Improving the safety of x-ray machines.
The passage says Ball tackled the problem of treating leprosy, for which the only known remedy was chaulmoogra oil that the body could not absorb, and she converted its fatty acids into an injectable compound. Influenza vaccines, scurvy vitamins, and x-ray machines are never part of her work as described.
A staff nurse taking a blood pressure reading should follow the same sequence every time. First, ask the patient to rest quietly for at least five minutes in a chair with both feet flat on the floor. Remove or roll up any tight sleeve. Place the cuff on the bare upper arm so its lower edge sits two to three centimeters above the crease of the elbow, with the bladder centered over the brachial artery. Before inflating, locate the radial pulse and inflate the cuff only to about 30 millimeters of mercury above the point where that pulse disappears. Then deflate the cuff slowly, at two to three millimeters per second. The first tapping sound you hear through the stethoscope is the systolic pressure; the point where the tapping sounds disappear is the diastolic pressure. Taking a repeat reading is common, but wait one to two minutes between attempts so the arm's circulation can recover.
Q23 What is the primary purpose of the passage?
A. To explain why blood pressure readings vary from person to person.
B. To argue that blood pressure is measured too often in clinics.
C. To describe how a nurse should take a blood pressure reading. ✓
D. To compare manual and automated blood pressure devices.
Every sentence gives an instruction in the order it should be done, so the purpose is procedural: how to take the reading. The other purposes describe content the passage does not contain.
Elio had baked the same four kinds of bread for thirty years, and he did not believe a stranger could do it better. So when the owner hired Marta, a young woman fresh from culinary school, Elio said nothing and pointed at the flour. For a week she measured, kneaded, and shaped beside him in silence. On the eighth morning Elio noticed that the sourdough starter had been fed at midnight instead of dawn, and the loaves came out of the oven with crusts that crackled like nothing he had produced in a decade. He examined the scoring on top, the shallow cuts that let bread expand, and saw a pattern he had never tried. 'Who showed you this?' he asked. Marta shrugged. 'I read it. Then I watched the dough.' Elio stood a long time looking at the loaves. The next day he brought her the old recipe book his own teacher had given him, stamped with the year 1962, and said, 'Read this. Then watch me.' Marta took it, and for the first time that week she smiled.
Q24 What does Elio's decision to give Marta his teacher's recipe book most strongly suggest?
A. He has come to respect her skill and wants her to learn more. ✓
B. He wants her to copy the recipes before she quits.
C. He hopes the owner will fire her and return his old duties.
D. He believes the book is worthless and wants to get rid of it.
Elio's gift follows his admiration of her crusts and her scoring pattern, and the book is his own teacher's, so the gesture signals respect and a wish to teach her, A. B is unsupported, since she shows no plan to quit. C contradicts his changed attitude. D is contradicted, since he treasured the book by keeping it through his career.
That summer, twelve-year-old Toby spent his Saturdays behind the projection booth of the Sunset Drive-In, learning the trade from Mr. Delgado, who had run the machine for thirty-eight years. The booth smelled of dust, popcorn oil, and hot lamps. Mr. Delgado showed Toby how the reels were loaded in a precise order, how the carbon arc lamp burned brighter than the sun, and how a single skipped frame could make the whole picture stutter. On the last Saturday of August, the owners posted a sign: the drive-in would close at the end of the month, and the land would become a storage yard. Toby expected Mr. Delgado to be angry. Instead, the old projectionist threaded the final reel slowly, patted the machine, and said, 'It gave people a place to rest their eyes together. That is not nothing.' Toby said nothing, but he watched the beam of light carry the picture out across the dark field of parked cars and decided that the story was like the machine: delicate, hot, and worth protecting. He took one of the old film canisters home, empty, and kept it on his desk.
Q25 When Mr. Delgado says the drive-in gave people a place to rest their eyes together, he most likely means that the drive-in pilot
A. let strangers share a single experience in the dark, which was worth something. ✓
B. offered seats more comfortable than those indoors.
C. was a place where audiences could sleep during films.
D. made its money by keeping the field open at night.
Mr. Delgado speaks as the projector beam carries the picture out over the parked cars, and his words emphasize togetherness: many separate people watching one image at once. His tone is affectionate, not practical, so the statement is about shared experience rather than comfort, sleep, or profit.
The liver is the body's largest internal organ and its busiest chemical factory. It sits in the upper right of the abdomen, and nearly every nutrient absorbed from food passes through it first. The liver filters toxins and waste from the blood, breaks down old red blood cells, stores sugar in a form the body can release between meals, and produces bile, a yellow fluid that helps digest fats. Because it receives blood from two sources, the hepatic artery and the portal vein, it can process both oxygen-rich blood and blood freshly loaded with digested food. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the liver is its ability to regenerate: if disease or injury removes a large portion of the organ, the remaining tissue can grow back to nearly full size within months, a capacity almost unknown elsewhere in the adult human body. Damage often accumulates more slowly than symptoms appear; fatty buildup and scarring can develop for years without pain, which is why routine blood tests that measure liver enzymes are important. Protecting the liver means moderating alcohol, maintaining a healthy weight, and avoiding unnecessary medications, because the organ must process whatever enters the blood.
Q26 The passage calls the liver the body's busiest chemical factory. This description mainly emphasizes
A. how large the organ is compared with the other organs.
B. how dark the liver's color becomes with use.
C. how many different substances the liver produces and processes. ✓
D. how far the liver is from the stomach.
The factory image points to production and processing: the liver filters toxins, breaks down old red blood cells, stores sugar, and makes bile, all chemical jobs. It does not primarily comment on size, color, or position, which the passage addresses separately or not at all.
Antibiotics are among the most successful drugs ever discovered, yet they are slowly losing their power. When a bacterium divides, it copies its genetic material, and that copying occasionally produces a mutation, a small change in the new copy. Most mutations are harmless, but a rare one can make a bacterium resistant to an antibiotic, meaning the drug no longer harms it. If that bacterium survives and multiplies, its descendants inherit the resistance, and the population of resistant cells grows. The more often antibiotics are used, the more chances bacteria have to encounter them and evolve protection; the drugs do not create resistance on purpose, they simply select for it by killing the vulnerable cells and leaving the few resistant survivors to reproduce. Taking antibiotics for a viral infection speeds this process because the drugs kill harmless bacteria in the body while doing nothing to stop the virus, exposing bacterial populations to the drug without any benefit. For this reason, prescribers now urge patients to finish the full course and to refuse antibiotics for colds.
Q27 Based on the passage, which practice would the author most likely support?
A. Taking antibiotics for every cold to feel better faster.
B. Sharing leftover antibiotics with family members.
C. Stopping the antibiotic as soon as symptoms improve.
D. Taking antibiotics only for illnesses caused by bacteria. ✓
The passage warns that antibiotics do nothing for viral colds and urges patients to refuse them, so the author would support taking antibiotics only for bacterial illnesses. The other options describe the misuse the passage criticizes.
To all kitchen staff: this memo updates the evening closing procedure and takes effect on the first of the month. After the last customer is served, begin by turning off the flat top and the fryers and allowing them to cool before any surface cleaning is attempted. Next, move all perishable items from the serving line into the walk-in cooler within thirty minutes of closing; never leave dairy, eggs, or prepared salads at room temperature overnight. Wash and sanitize every cutting board and utensil that touched raw meat, using the three-sink method: wash, rinse, then sanitize in the chemical bath for a full sixty seconds. At the end of the shift, wipe down all counters with the blue sanitizer cloths, never the red ones, which are reserved for raw meat areas. Finally, record the cooler temperature on the log sheet, initial the closing checklist, and lock the walk-in. Any item left unlogged in the morning will be treated as a missed step. Questions about this procedure should be directed to the shift supervisor before the first closing under the new rule.
Q28 A worker completes the closing steps but forgets to initial the checklist. Based on the memo, which outcome is most likely?
A. The walk-in cooler will lock automatically.
B. The worker will be required to clean the flat top again.
C. The unlogged item will be treated as a missed step in the morning. ✓
D. Nothing will happen because the checklist is optional.
The memo closes by warning that any item left unlogged in the morning will be treated as a missed step, so an uninitialed checklist would draw that result. Automatic locking, re-cleaning the flat top, and an optional checklist are unsupported.
The lymphatic system is the body's second circulatory network, a web of thin vessels that works beside the blood system. Every day, some of the fluid that leaves the capillaries to nourish tissues does not return directly to the blood. The lymphatic vessels collect that fluid, now called lymph, and carry it back toward the chest, where it re-enters the bloodstream near the heart. Along the way the lymph passes through lymph nodes, small bean-shaped filters that trap bacteria, dead cells, and other debris. White blood cells inside the nodes examine the trapped material and, if they find a threat, begin producing antibodies against it, which is why lymph nodes swell during infections. The spleen and the thymus work with this system, and the tonsils and appendix are also parts of it. When lymph vessels are damaged or removed, fluid can accumulate in a limb, a condition called lymphedema that causes persistent swelling. Unlike the heart-driven blood system, lymph moves by the squeeze of nearby muscles and by breathing, which is one reason regular movement helps keep the system working.
Q29 Which claim about lymph nodes is best supported by the passage?
A. Lymph nodes produce the red blood cells that carry oxygen.
B. Lymph nodes pump lymph through the vessels like small hearts.
C. Lymph nodes grow larger only when a person is asleep.
D. Lymph nodes swell during infections because white blood cells there respond to trapped bacteria. ✓
The passage explains that lymph nodes swell during infections because white blood cells inside them respond to trapped bacteria by producing antibodies. Producing red cells, pumping lymph like hearts, and enlarging only during sleep are claims the passage does not support anywhere.
In the early 1930s, a disaster unfolded across the southern Great Plains that came to be known as the Dust Bowl. For decades, farmers had plowed millions of acres of native grassland to plant wheat, encouraged by good prices and wet years. The deep-rooted prairie grasses that had held the soil in place were gone. Then a severe drought settled over the region, and the dry topsoil turned to powder. Strong winds lifted the loose earth into towering black clouds that blotted out the sun and buried farm buildings, roads, and fences under drifts of dirt. In 1935, a single dust storm carried an estimated 300,000 tons of soil from the plains toward the East Coast. Thousands of families abandoned their farms and fled west, many to California, in one of the largest migrations in American history. The crisis pushed the federal government to action, creating the Soil Conservation Service, which taught farmers contour plowing, crop rotation, and windbreaks. Within a decade, the combination of better farming methods and the return of rain brought the eroded land slowly back to life.
Q30 Which sentence best states the central idea of the passage?
A. Farming that stripped the native grassland, combined with drought, turned the plains to dust and forced thousands of families to leave. ✓
B. The Dust Bowl affected only a small corner of the southern plains.
C. The federal government refused to help farmers during the crisis.
D. Most families who left the plains returned home within a single year.
The passage connects the plowing of native grassland, the severe drought, and the wind that lifted loose topsoil into enormous dust storms, then records the mass migration and the federal response. That cause-and-effect chain is the central idea; the other statements contradict or narrow the account.
Rosa had cleaned the museum at night for eleven years, and she knew the building the way a sailor knows a ship. She could tell, just from the echo, whether the marble hall was empty or whether a guard had stepped in behind her. Her favorite room was the clock gallery, where the pendulums swung in silence after closing, and she sometimes stopped her polishing to watch them, calling their motion a conversation no one else heard. One winter night she found a small note taped under the reading lamp of the library room, asking that the lamp be left on for the student who studied there after hours. The next night she left it on, and the night after that, and soon leaving notes back and forth became her quiet ritual. She never learned the student's name, and that seemed right to her. Some friendships, she decided, were best kept in the dark, guarded by the soft light of a lamp no one was supposed to need.
Q31 The passage says the pendulums made a conversation no one else heard. What does this image most suggest about Rosa?
A. She believes the clocks are out of order.
B. She finds companionship in the quiet building even though she works alone. ✓
C. She is afraid to enter the clock gallery.
D. She thinks the night guards talk too loudly.
Rosa watches the silent pendulums and calls them a conversation, and she later treasures the secret note exchange, showing she finds company in the empty building. The other choices attach fear or mechanical failure to a passage about companionship.
Employee Handbook, Section 4: Requesting Time Off. All full-time staff must submit requests for paid time off through the online portal at least fourteen calendar days before the first day of leave. Exceptions are granted only for documented emergencies, and managers must receive a call from the employee before the start of the scheduled shift. Approved requests are recorded on the shared team calendar within two business days. Requests are granted on a first-come, first-served basis, and no more than two employees from the same department may be on leave at one time, except during training weeks, when the limit is one. Paid time off accrues at a rate of one and a half days per month worked, and unused days may be carried over into the next calendar year up to a maximum of ten days. Because the first week of each quarter is inventory week, time off will not be approved during those five working days. Employees who fail to follow this procedure and miss work without an approved request will be marked absent without pay and may face corrective action.
Q32 How is the policy organized?
A. As a chronological history of the company's leave policies.
B. As a set of rules that includes deadlines, limits, exceptions, and consequences. ✓
C. As a narrative about one employee who requests a month of leave.
D. As a comparison of paid time off with unpaid personal leave.
The excerpt is a rule list: it states a deadline, names an emergency exception, sets a departmental limit, gives accrual and carry-over figures, and closes with a consequence for missing work without approval. It does not narrate an employee's story, compare paid and unpaid leave, or trace history.
Honeybees do not simply fly in search of nectar; they tell one another where the nectar is. A forager that has found a rich patch of flowers returns to the hive and performs a movement pattern on the vertical surface of the comb called the waggle dance. The dance consists of a straight run during which the bee waggles her abdomen from side to side, followed by a looping return to the starting point, repeated again and again. The angle of the straight run relative to vertical encodes the direction of the food source measured against the position of the sun, while the duration of the waggle phase encodes distance: the longer the waggle, the farther the flowers. Hive mates follow the dancer by touch, then leave to search in the indicated direction. The dance is not an invitation to feed but a message about location, and it is performed with remarkable precision, though accuracy declines when wind or hills distort the true bearing. Young bees that have never foraged can still read the dance correctly, which suggests the signal is innate rather than learned. Because the message is symbolic rather than a simple trail, scientists describe the waggle dance as a genuine form of communication.
Q33 According to the passage, what happens when wind or hills distort the true bearing of a food source?
A. The forager stops dancing until the weather clears.
B. The accuracy of the waggle dance declines. ✓
C. The hive sends out scouts to search by scent.
D. The dancer switches to a different form of dance.
The passage states that the dance is performed with remarkable precision, though accuracy declines when wind or hills distort the true bearing, so B is directly stated. A is unsupported, since the passage does not say the bee stops dancing. C is wrong because the passage says the message is symbolic rather than a simple trail and mentions no scent-based search. D introduces a different dance form that never appears.
Maya had watched her uncle blow glass since she was small, but the first goblet she tried on her own came out lopsided, the bowl sagging toward the floor like a melted candle. Her uncle examined it without speaking, then set it on the cooling shelf beside the good pieces. The glass does not know what you want, he said at last. It knows only what you do. You pulled the bowl too soon, while the gather was still heavy. Heat the piece again, and let the shape find its own weight. On her second attempt Maya worked more slowly, turning the pipe in her hands and letting the soft glass settle before she opened the bowl. The result was still imperfect, tilted slightly, but it would hold water. Her uncle nodded and set it on the shelf with the first one. Keep both, he said. In twenty years you will look at them and remember that you learned patience, not glass. Maya did keep them, and he was right about the patience, though she often suspected he was also right that the glass remembered everything she did to it, including her hesitation.
Q34 Which detail most strongly supports the conclusion that the uncle values Maya's learning process over the finished product?
A. He examines the first goblet without speaking at first.
B. He sets the good pieces high on the cooling shelf.
C. He tells Maya to keep both imperfect goblets as reminders of what they taught her. ✓
D. He watches silently while Maya works at the furnace.
Keeping the failed and imperfect goblets as reminders of the lesson shows that the uncle prizes what Maya learned more than a flawless result. Examining the piece silently does not show this, and the shelf and his watching are neutral details.
Mangrove forests stand where most trees cannot grow: in salty tidal water along tropical coasts. Their tangled roots rise above the mud at low tide and flood completely at high tide, creating a nursery for fish, crabs, and shrimp that shelter among the root masses until they are large enough to survive in open water. Mangroves also defend the coast. The dense network of trunks and roots slows incoming waves and traps sediment, so shorelines ringed by mangroves erode more slowly and suffer less damage from storm surges than bare shores do. For decades these forests were dismissed as useless swamps and cleared for timber, shrimp ponds, or coastal development, and many countries lost more than half of their original cover. Restoration projects have since shown that the losses are not permanent: where tidal flow is restored and seedlings are planted, the forest can rebound within a generation, bringing the fish nurseries and the coastal protection back with it. Scientists now rank mangroves among the most valuable habitats on Earth per hectare, storing carbon in their waterlogged soils for centuries.
Q35 Which statement best expresses the main idea of the passage?
A. Mangrove trees cannot survive in salty water and die at high tide.
B. Shrimp ponds are the most profitable use of tropical coastlines.
C. Mangrove forests shelter marine life, defend coasts, and can recover after restoration. ✓
D. Restoration of mangrove forests has failed everywhere it has been tried.
The passage describes mangroves as nurseries for fish and crabs, as coastal defenders that slow waves, and as habitats that have rebounded through restoration, so C states the main idea. A contradicts the first sentence, which says mangroves grow in salty water. B is contradicted by the passage's regret over clearing forests for shrimp ponds. D is contradicted by the account of successful restoration.
For centuries, ships moving between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans had to round the tip of South America, a journey of thousands of extra kilometers through the stormy Drake Passage. The idea of cutting a canal across the narrow Isthmus of Panama dates to the French attempt under Ferdinand de Lesseps in the 1880s, which collapsed after yellow fever and malaria killed thousands of workers. The United States took over the project in 1904, and its success rested on two changes: the decision to build a lock canal with a chain of artificial lakes rather than a sea-level cut, and an aggressive campaign against the mosquitoes that transmitted the diseases, led by the physician William Gorgas. The work was brutally hard; laborers drilled through rock, dredged mud, and operated enormous steam shovels in heat and rain, and thousands died in accidents and illness before the canal opened in 1914. The locks lift ships twenty-six meters to the level of Gatun Lake, and the canal shortened the sea voyage between New York and San Francisco by more than twelve thousand kilometers.
Q36 According to the passage, why did the French attempt to build the canal fail? pilot
A. The canal was completed but immediately abandoned by shippers.
B. Laborers could not drill through the rock of the isthmus.
C. Yellow fever and malaria killed thousands of workers. ✓
D. Ships quickly grew too large for the locks.
The passage says the French effort collapsed after yellow fever and malaria killed thousands of workers. The canal was not completed by the French, rock drilling was later accomplished, and locks were part of the American design, not the French failure.
Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 to a wealthy English family that expected her to marry and manage a household. Instead, she insisted on training as a nurse, a profession then regarded as the work of the poor and uneducated. In 1854, during the Crimean War, she led a small team of nurses to a military hospital at Scutari, where wounded soldiers were dying of infection, filth, and neglect at an appalling rate. Nightingale found the hospital overcrowded and unsanitary, with inadequate supplies and water. She used her own funds and those of a public subscription to buy soap, towels, and bedding, and she insisted on clean kitchens and laundries. Within months the death rate in the hospital fell sharply. When she returned to England, she published a detailed analysis of army mortality, using statistics and charts that showed most soldiers died of preventable disease rather than battle wounds. In 1860 she used donations from the public to open the Nightingale Training School for nurses in London, the first secular nursing school in the world. She spent the rest of her long life reforming hospitals and public health, and she is remembered as the founder of modern nursing.
Q37 According to the passage, what did Nightingale find when she arrived at the hospital in Scutari?
A. Overcrowded, unsanitary conditions with inadequate supplies and water. ✓
B. A well-equipped hospital staffed by trained medical officers.
C. Wounded soldiers who were healthy but suffering from hunger.
D. A building that had been destroyed by enemy artillery fire.
The passage says Nightingale found the Scutari hospital overcrowded and unsanitary, with inadequate supplies and water, and that wounded soldiers were dying of infection, filth, and neglect. The other options describe conditions the passage does not report.
On the last day of April, the bookshop closed for good, and Iris was the only one who seemed to mind. Mrs. Hale had run the shop for forty years, and the new owners of the building wanted a coffee bar instead. For three weeks Iris had come after school to help sort the shelves, and on the final afternoon she found a letter tucked inside an old novel no one had ever bought. The letter was dated 1962 and signed with a name that matched the handwriting on a photograph Mrs. Hale kept beside the register. Mrs. Hale read it without speaking, then folded it carefully and put it back inside the book. Some things, she said quietly, belong to the people they were written for. She gave Iris the novel anyway, and Iris kept it on her nightstand long after the coffee bar opened, mostly to remind herself that a quiet room full of old books could still hold a small piece of someone's life.
Q38 Why did the bookshop close at the end of April?
A. Mrs. Hale could no longer read or write well enough to run it.
B. Iris stopped coming after school to help sort the shelves.
C. The shop had been closed for several years before the story begins.
D. The new owners of the building planned to open a coffee bar there. ✓
The passage says Mrs. Hale had run the shop for forty years and that the new owners of the building wanted a coffee bar instead, which is why the shop closed. The other options blame Iris, imply the shop was already closed, or question Mrs. Hale's abilities, none of which the passage supports.
Bessie Coleman was born in 1892 in Texas, the tenth of thirteen children of parents who worked as sharecroppers. She walked four miles to a segregated school, saved money for a year and a half of college, and then moved to Chicago, where she worked as a manicurist. Aviation fascinated her, but American flight schools of that era refused to train women, and especially Black women. Her answer was to learn French and travel to Paris, where she earned her pilot's license in 1921, becoming the first Black woman in the world to do so. She returned home as a barnstormer, performing loops and figure eights at air shows across the country, and she refused to appear at any event that barred Black spectators. She planned to open a flight school for Black students, but in 1926, at age thirty-four, she died when a test flight crashed. Her example outlived her: by the 1940s Black aviators had formed a club that bore her name, and a generation of pilots she never met called her their inspiration.
Q39 The detail that Coleman refused to perform at any event that barred Black spectators mainly shows that she
A. preferred flying in small towns to flying in big cities.
B. was afraid of performing in front of large crowds.
C. wanted to save money on event admission tickets.
D. demanded equal treatment even when it cost her work. ✓
Because turning down segregated events could mean losing paying shows, the detail shows Coleman put her principles above income and convenience. The other options read the refusal as caution, preference for small towns, or thrift, interpretations the passage never supports.
Thunderstorms begin inside a tall cloud whose top rises far above the freezing level. Inside that cloud, rising air carries water droplets upward, where they freeze into ice crystals and small hailstones. As the crystals and hailstones collide and rub against one another, they exchange electric charge: the lighter ice crystals carry positive charge to the top of the cloud, while the heavier hailstones leave negative charge concentrated near the bottom. The separation of charge builds an electric field between the cloud, the ground, and other clouds. When the field grows strong enough to overcome the resistance of the air, a jagged channel of ionized air, the lightning bolt, carries current in a series of rapid steps. The bolt heats the air around it to roughly five times the temperature of the sun's surface, and that sudden expansion of superheated air explodes outward as thunder. Because light travels almost instantly while sound crawls along at about a third of a kilometer per second, the delay between the flash and the rumble tells a listener how far away the storm is.
Q40 A listener sees a lightning flash and counts five seconds before hearing thunder. Based on the passage, what can the listener conclude?
A. The storm is roughly one and a half kilometers away. ✓
B. The storm is directly overhead.
C. The lightning struck within a few meters of the listener.
D. The storm is moving away from the listener.
The passage says sound travels about a third of a kilometer per second, so a five-second delay means roughly one and a half kilometers, A. B would require thunder to arrive almost instantly. C would produce a nearly immediate rumble. D cannot be determined, since the passage gives no way to judge the storm's direction of travel from a single flash.
Composting turns kitchen scraps and yard waste into dark, crumbly soil in a process driven entirely by living things. Bacteria and fungi do most of the work, breaking down plant matter the way they break down fallen leaves in a forest. For a pile to decompose quickly, it needs the right balance of two kinds of material: greens, which are wet and rich in nitrogen, such as fruit peels and grass clippings, and browns, which are dry and rich in carbon, such as dried leaves and shredded cardboard. Too many greens makes the pile slimy and smelly, while too many browns slows the process almost to a stop. The pile also needs oxygen, because the busiest decomposers are aerobic, and moisture, roughly the dampness of a wrung-out sponge. A well-tended pile heats up on its own as the microbes multiply, sometimes to more than fifty degrees Celsius, and that warmth is a signal that breakdown is proceeding well. Finished compost, called humus, holds water and nutrients in the soil, feeds earthworms, and reduces the need for chemical fertilizer. Gardeners often say the best soil is made, not bought, and the pile behind the shed is proof.
Q41 What does the heat produced by a well-tended pile indicate, according to the passage?
A. that the pile is too dry to decompose.
B. that too many browns have been added.
C. that microbes are multiplying and breakdown is proceeding well. ✓
D. that the pile has already finished decomposing.
The passage states that a well-tended pile heats up as the microbes multiply and that warmth is a signal that breakdown is proceeding well. Dry piles, excess browns, and finished compost are not connected to heat in the passage.
The Global Positioning System begins far above the earth. A constellation of about thirty satellites circles the planet, each carrying an atomic clock that keeps time to within a few billionths of a second. The satellites broadcast continuous radio signals that carry the time the signal left the satellite and the satellite's position. A receiver on the ground listens for signals from several satellites at once. Because radio waves travel at a fixed speed, the receiver can calculate its distance from each satellite by comparing the time the signal was sent with the time it arrived. If the receiver knows its distance from three satellites, the three distances fix its location, and a fourth satellite corrects for small errors in the receiver's own clock. That is why a device needs a clear view of the sky: walls, roofs, and dense tree cover block the weak signals. The system was built for military navigation, but it now guides ships, tractors, delivery vans, and hikers, and it sets the time on everything from power grids to banking networks.
Q42 What central point does the passage make about GPS receivers and satellites?
A. A receiver finds its location by measuring how long satellite radio signals take to arrive. ✓
B. Satellites can locate a receiver only when the receiver sends signals back to them.
C. Radio waves travel at different speeds depending on the weather.
D. The system was designed mainly for hikers and delivery drivers.
The passage explains that receivers measure how long satellite signals take to arrive and that radio waves travel at a fixed speed, so travel time fixes distance. The other options reverse the flow of signals or add details the passage never states.
To all warehouse staff: Beginning Monday, the new load-limit rule applies to every forklift in the building. A pallet that presses the yellow line on the mast is over the rated capacity, and it must be split into two loads before it moves. Do not carry passengers under any circumstances, even on short runs; the second seat was removed for a reason. When stacking, place the heaviest pallets at the bottom of the rack and leave a hand's width of clearance below the sprinkler heads. Back into an aisle only when the aisle is marked clear, and sound the horn once at every blind corner. If a load shifts while you are moving, stop immediately, lower the forks, and fix the pallet before continuing. Anyone who spots a cracked fork or a leaking hose should tag the machine out of service at once. The full policy is posted beside the time clock, and questions go to the shift supervisor before the start of the shift.
Q43 According to the memo, what should an employee do if a load shifts while the forklift is moving?
A. Speed up to reach the rack before the load falls.
B. Sound the horn twice and keep moving.
C. Stop immediately, lower the forks, and fix the pallet before continuing. ✓
D. Ask a coworker to hold the load in place.
The memo says that if a load shifts, the operator must stop immediately, lower the forks, and fix the pallet before continuing. Speeding up, honking, and asking a coworker to hold the load are all contrary to the stated rule.
For centuries, ships moving between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans had to round the tip of South America, a journey of thousands of extra kilometers through the stormy Drake Passage. The idea of cutting a canal across the narrow Isthmus of Panama dates to the French attempt under Ferdinand de Lesseps in the 1880s, which collapsed after yellow fever and malaria killed thousands of workers. The United States took over the project in 1904, and its success rested on two changes: the decision to build a lock canal with a chain of artificial lakes rather than a sea-level cut, and an aggressive campaign against the mosquitoes that transmitted the diseases, led by the physician William Gorgas. The work was brutally hard; laborers drilled through rock, dredged mud, and operated enormous steam shovels in heat and rain, and thousands died in accidents and illness before the canal opened in 1914. The locks lift ships twenty-six meters to the level of Gatun Lake, and the canal shortened the sea voyage between New York and San Francisco by more than twelve thousand kilometers.
Q44 Which description best matches the way the passage is organized?
A. as a problem-and-solution account, from the long sea route to the canal that shortened it. ✓
B. as a comparison of two modern canals built in the twentieth century.
C. as a biography of the canal's chief engineer.
D. as a set of instructions for operating the locks.
The passage opens with the problem of the long voyage, then presents the failures and the two solutions that finally worked, closing with the canal's opening and its effect. It compares no other canal, tells no single engineer's life story, and gives no operating instructions.
The lymphatic system is the body's second circulatory network, a web of thin vessels that works beside the blood system. Every day, some of the fluid that leaves the capillaries to nourish tissues does not return directly to the blood. The lymphatic vessels collect that fluid, now called lymph, and carry it back toward the chest, where it re-enters the bloodstream near the heart. Along the way the lymph passes through lymph nodes, small bean-shaped filters that trap bacteria, dead cells, and other debris. White blood cells inside the nodes examine the trapped material and, if they find a threat, begin producing antibodies against it, which is why lymph nodes swell during infections. The spleen and the thymus work with this system, and the tonsils and appendix are also parts of it. When lymph vessels are damaged or removed, fluid can accumulate in a limb, a condition called lymphedema that causes persistent swelling. Unlike the heart-driven blood system, lymph moves by the squeeze of nearby muscles and by breathing, which is one reason regular movement helps keep the system working.
Q45 According to the passage, what happens to lymph as it passes through lymph nodes?
A. It mixes with blood and returns directly to the heart.
B. It is filtered, and white blood cells there can produce antibodies against trapped threats. ✓
C. It absorbs oxygen from the tissues that surround the nodes.
D. It becomes denser and settles in the lower limbs of the body.
The passage states that lymph passes through nodes that trap bacteria, dead cells, and debris, and that white blood cells inside the nodes may produce antibodies against what they find there. Returning to the heart immediately, gaining oxygen, and settling in the limbs are not described.
Numbers & algebra, measurement & data. On-screen calculator available.
Q1 A bakery produces 72 loaves of bread each morning, and 5/8 are sold before noon. How many loaves are sold before noon?
A. 36
B. 40
C. 45 ✓
D. 27
5/8 of 72 is found by dividing 72 by the denominator 8, giving 9 loaves per eighth, then multiplying by the numerator 5: 9 x 5 = 45. The distractors come from 3/8 (27), half (36), and 5/9 (40).
Q2 A lab result is reported as 6.25 x 10^3. What is this number in standard form?
A. 6,250 ✓
B. 62,500
C. 625
D. 0.00625
A positive exponent of 3 moves the decimal point three places to the right, so 6.25 x 10^3 = 6,250. The option 62,500 moves the decimal four places, 625 moves it two places, and 0.00625 moves it in the wrong direction entirely.
Q3 A clinic tracked blood draws over four days: Day Draws Monday 32 Tuesday 29 Wednesday 24 Thursday 27 How many more draws were taken on Monday and Tuesday combined than on Wednesday and Thursday combined?
A. 12
B. 8
C. 9
D. 10 ✓
Monday plus Tuesday totals 32 + 29 = 61 draws, while Wednesday plus Thursday totals 24 + 27 = 51, so the difference is 61 - 51 = 10 draws. The option 12 misreads one of the table values, and both 8 and 9 come from subtraction slips on the column totals.
Q4 A rectangular garden is 3 times as long as it is wide. Its perimeter is 64 m. What is the width of the garden?
A. 24
B. 8 ✓
C. 32
D. 16
If the width is w, the length is 3w, and the perimeter is 2(w + 3w) = 8w. Set 8w = 64, so w = 8 m. The 16 option divided the perimeter by 4, the 24 option reported the length instead of the width, and the 32 option took half the perimeter as the width.
Q5 A hallway measures 12 yards. How many feet is that? (1 yd = 3 ft)
A. 24 ft
B. 36 ft ✓
C. 48 ft
D. 30 ft
One yard equals 3 feet, so 12 yards = 12 x 3 = 36 feet. The option 24 ft multiplies by 2 instead of 3, 48 ft multiplies by 4, and 30 ft adds 18 feet on top of a misread conversion.
Q6 Evaluate: 6 x (3 + 4) - 5 x 2.
A. 42
B. 22
C. 14
D. 32 ✓
Work inside the parentheses first: 3 + 4 = 7, so 6 x 7 = 42; then 5 x 2 = 10; finally 42 - 10 = 32. The option 42 is the first product alone, 22 comes from multiplying left to right, and 14 subtracts 10 from 6 before multiplying.
Q7 A medical equipment salesperson earns a 4% commission on sales. One week's sales total $6,750. What is the commission for that week?
A. $202.50
B. $337.50
C. $270.00 ✓
D. $135.00
The commission is 4% of 6,750: 0.04 x 6,750 = $270.00. $202.50 uses a 3% rate; $337.50 uses 5%; $135.00 uses 2% of the same sales total.
Q8 The mean of six measurements is 34. If one measurement of 58 is removed, what is the new mean of the remaining five measurements?
A. 29.2 ✓
B. 27.4
C. 30.8
D. 28.6
Rebuild the total from the old mean: 6 x 34 = 204, then remove the value of 58, leaving 146 for five measurements, so the new mean is 146 / 5 = 29.2. 27.4 divides 146 by 6, the old count, and the other options come from subtracting 58 before multiplying. Update both the total and the count, then divide.
Q9 A rectangular aquarium measures 60 cm by 30 cm by 40 cm. What is its capacity in liters? (1 L = 1,000 cu cm) pilot
A. 7200
B. 7.2
C. 720
D. 72 ✓
First find the volume in cubic cm: 60 x 30 x 40 = 72,000, then divide by 1,000 to convert to liters, giving 72 L. The 720 option divided by 100, the 7.2 option divided by 10,000, and the 7,200 option divided by only 10.
Q10 Weekly shipping volumes for seven weeks were 62, 48, 55, 71, 58, 64, and 49 packages. What is the median volume?
A. 62
B. 55
C. 64
D. 58 ✓
Sort the volumes: 48, 49, 55, 58, 62, 64, 71. With seven values the median is the fourth, which is 58 packages. The values 62, 55, and 64 are above or below the middle of the sorted list.
Q11 A circular tabletop has a radius of 6 m. Using 3.14 for pi, what is its area?
A. 37.68 sq m
B. 75.36 sq m
C. 18.84 sq m
D. 113.04 sq m ✓
Area of a circle is pi x r^2 = 3.14 x 36 = 113.04 sq m. The option 37.68 is the circumference, 75.36 uses the wrong radius in the square, and 18.84 multiplies pi by the radius alone instead of by r^2.
Q12 A courier drives 210 miles in 3.5 hours. What is the average speed in miles per hour?
A. 70
B. 55
C. 60 ✓
D. 65
Average speed equals distance divided by time: 210 / 3.5 = 60 miles per hour. The option 70 divides by 3 instead of 3.5, 55 subtracts 5 from the correct quotient, and 65 adds 5 to it.
Q13 A department's overtime budget is $3,600. Each overtime hour costs $45. How many overtime hours does the budget cover? pilot
A. 75
B. 80 ✓
C. 90
D. 85
Divide the budget by the cost per hour: $3,600 / $45 = 80 overtime hours. At $45 per hour, 75 hours would cost $3,375 and 90 hours would cost $4,050, which exceeds the budget.
Q14 If y - 12.5 = 9.75, what is the value of y?
A. 21.75
B. 22.5
C. 22.25 ✓
D. 20.25
Add 12.5 to both sides to isolate y: y = 9.75 + 12.5, so y = 22.25. Checking, 22.25 - 12.5 = 9.75, which matches the equation, so 22.25 is the value of y.
Q15 A patient weighs 72 kg. Using the conversion 1 kg = 2.2 lb, what is the weight in pounds?
A. 32.7
B. 144
C. 158.4 ✓
D. 176
Multiply by the conversion factor: 72 kg x 2.2 lb/kg = 158.4 lb. 32.7 divides 72 by 2.2 instead of multiplying, 144 uses the rough 2 lb/kg factor, and 176 adds 72 and 104. A sanity check helps: since 2.2 lb is a bit more than double 1 kg, 72 kg should be a bit more than 144 lb.
Q16 A rectangular room that is 10 m by 6 m has a 2 m by 2 m storage niche cut out of one corner. What is the floor area of the remaining space?
A. 56 ✓
B. 58
C. 52
D. 60
The room's area is 10 x 6 = 60 sq m, and the niche is 2 x 2 = 4 sq m, so the remaining area is 60 - 4 = 56 sq m. The 58 option subtracted the niche's side length instead of its area, the 52 option subtracted the niche's perimeter, and the 60 option forgot to subtract at all.
Q17 A medical device is priced at $240 US dollars. If 1 US dollar buys 1.35 Canadian dollars, what is the price in Canadian dollars? pilot
A. $324.00 ✓
B. $300.00
C. $336.00
D. $312.00
Each US dollar converts to 1.35 Canadian dollars, so 240 x 1.35 = $324.00 CAD. $300.00 uses a 1.25 rate; $336.00 uses 1.4; $312.00 uses 1.3 instead of the 1.35 rate given.
Q18 Which list orders the decimals 0.35, 0.305, and 0.4 from smallest to largest?
A. 0.35, 0.305, 0.4
B. 0.4, 0.35, 0.305
C. 0.305, 0.35, 0.4 ✓
D. 0.305, 0.4, 0.35
Compare place by place: 0.305 is smallest because its hundredths digit is 0, then 0.35, and 0.4 is largest with a tenths digit of 4. Only the third list places all three decimals in that correct ascending order.
Q19 A jug contains 3.6 L of saline, and each small vial holds 0.15 L. How many vials can be filled completely?
A. 2.4
B. 240
C. 24 ✓
D. 18
Divide the total volume by the vial size: 3.6 / 0.15 = 24 vials. The option 2.4 treats 0.15 as 1.5, 240 multiplies instead of dividing, and 18 divides 3.6 by 0.2 by mistake.
Q20 A lab runs 36 tests in a batch, and 5/9 of them pass quality control. How many tests pass?
A. 16
B. 24
C. 18
D. 20 ✓
Multiply the batch size by the fraction that passed: 36 x 5/9 = 20 tests. The 16 option computed the 4/9 that failed, answering the wrong group, the 18 option used half the batch, and the 24 option used 2/3 of the batch instead of 5/9.
Q21 A syringe holds 3.2 mL. How many microliters is that? (1 mL = 1,000 mcL)
A. 320
B. 32,000
C. 0.32
D. 3,200 ✓
Because 1 mL contains 1,000 microliters, multiply: 3.2 x 1,000 = 3,200 mcL. The option 320 multiplies by 100 instead, 32,000 multiplies by 10,000, and 0.32 divides by 10 as though converting to liters.
Q22 A fair coin is flipped and a fair six-sided die is rolled. What is the probability that the coin lands heads AND the die shows a 4?
A. 1/6
B. 1/12 ✓
C. 2/3
D. 7/12
Multiply the independent probabilities: 1/2 for heads times 1/6 for rolling a 4 gives 1/12. The 2/3 option added the two probabilities, the 7/12 option computed the probability of either event occurring, and the 1/6 option ignored the coin flip entirely.
Q23 Which decimal is equal to 3/25? pilot
A. 0.15
B. 0.12 ✓
C. 0.32
D. 0.75
Divide 3 by 25 to convert the fraction: 3 / 25 = 0.12. Since 3/25 is under 1/4 (0.25), options such as 0.32 and 0.75 are too large, so 0.12 is correct.
Q24 A clinic starts the week with 150 bottles of hand sanitizer and ends the week with 96. What is the percent decrease?
A. 36% ✓
B. 56%
C. 64%
D. 26%
Percent decrease divides the change by the original amount: (150 - 96) / 150 = 54 / 150 = 0.36 = 36%. 56% divides by the ending value 96 instead (the classic wrong-base error), 64% reports what fraction of the original remains, and 26% is an arithmetic slip. Always use the starting value as the base.
Q25 A commuter drives 45 mph for 2 hours and then 60 mph for 1 hour. What is the average speed for the whole trip in mph?
A. 52.5
B. 47.5
C. 50 ✓
D. 55
Total distance is 45 x 2 = 90 miles plus 60 x 1 = 60 miles, giving 150 miles over 3 hours. Average speed is 150 / 3 = 50 mph. A plain average of 45 and 60 gives 52.5 but ignores the longer time at the lower speed.
Q26 A clinic's daily patient counts for one week were: 20 patients on two days, 24 patients on three days, and 30 patients on two days. What is the median daily count for the week?
A. 20
B. 30
C. 25
D. 24 ✓
List the seven daily counts in order: 20, 20, 24, 24, 24, 30, 30. With seven values, the median is the fourth value, which is 24. The option 20 is the lowest count, 30 the highest, and 25 is the rounded mean of 172 / 7 misread as the median.
Q27 A triangular roof gable has a base of 10 m and a height of 4 m. The house has two identical gables. What is the total area of the two gables?
A. 20
B. 80
C. 40 ✓
D. 60
One triangle has area (1/2) x base x height = (1/2) x 10 x 4 = 20 square meters. With two identical gables, the total area is 2 x 20 = 40 square meters. The value 20 counts only a single gable.
Q28 The mean of four calibration readings is 18. A fifth reading of 27 is added. What is the new mean of all five readings?
A. 18
B. 22.5
C. 24.75
D. 19.8 ✓
The four readings sum to 4 x 18 = 72. Adding the fifth gives 72 + 27 = 99, and dividing by 5 readings gives a new mean of 19.8. The option 18 is the original mean unchanged, 22.5 is the midpoint of 18 and 27, and 24.75 divides 99 by only 4.
Q29 An overnight courier shipped 35 packages on Monday, 42 on Tuesday, 38 on Wednesday, 45 on Thursday, and 40 on Friday. How many more packages were shipped on Thursday than on Monday?
A. 7
B. 10 ✓
C. 5
D. 8
Thursday's total was 45 packages and Monday's was 35, so the difference is 45 - 35 = 10 packages. Seven is the difference between Tuesday and Monday, and 5 is the difference between Friday and Monday.
Q30 Six patient ages are 34, 41, 29, 36, 29, and 44. What is the median age?
A. 36
B. 35 ✓
C. 35.5
D. 34
Order the ages as 29, 29, 34, 36, 41, 44; with 6 values the median is the average of the 3rd and 4th, (34 + 36) / 2 = 35. The 34 and 36 options are the two middle values taken alone, and the 35.5 option is the mean instead.
Q31 Hospital A admits 320 patients a month. Hospital B admits 260. Hospital A's admissions are what percent greater than Hospital B's? (nearest whole percent)
A. 19%
B. 17%
C. 27%
D. 23% ✓
(320 - 260)/260 = 60/260 = 0.2308, about 23%. The base is B, the comparison target. 19% uses A as the base; 17% and 27% are subtraction or rounding slips.
Q32 A recipe that serves 6 people calls for 2.5 cups of flour. At the same ratio, how much flour is needed to serve 15 people?
A. 6.25 ✓
B. 5
C. 3.5
D. 7.5
Scale by the ratio of servings: 15 / 6 = 2.5, so flour is 2.5 x 2.5 = 6.25 cups. The 5 option doubled the flour for only 12 servings, the 7.5 option tripled it for 18 servings, and the 3.5 option added 1 cup instead of scaling proportionally.
Q33 A service elevator has a capacity of 1,400 lb. A cart weighs 320 lb, and each supply box weighs 35 lb. At most how many boxes can be loaded onto the cart?
A. 31
B. 29
C. 30 ✓
D. 28
Weight available after the cart is 1,400 - 320 = 1,080 lb. Divide by 35: 1,080 / 35 = 30.86, so at most 30 boxes. 31 would exceed the limit because 31 x 35 = 1,085 lb; 29 and 28 are one and two boxes short.
Q34 A juice bar makes 120 smoothies in a day. Of these, 3/5 contain fruit, and 1/6 of the fruit smoothies also contain protein powder. How many smoothies contain protein powder?
A. 20
B. 24
C. 36
D. 12 ✓
Work the compound fraction in two steps: 3/5 of 120 is 72 fruit smoothies, then 1/6 of 72 is 72 / 6 = 12 smoothies with protein powder. 20 uses only 1/6 of 120, 24 uses 1/5 of 120, and 36 multiplies 120 by 3/10. Splitting the two fractions keeps the arithmetic manageable.
Q35 A courier departs at 2:15 PM and arrives at 6:05 PM. How many minutes does the trip take?
A. 230 ✓
B. 210
C. 240
D. 250
From 2:15 PM to 6:05 PM is 3 hours and 50 minutes, which is 3 x 60 + 50 = 230 minutes. 240 counts a full 4 hours; 210 counts 3.5 hours; 250 adds an extra 10 minutes past the arrival time.
Q36 Eight lab turnaround times in minutes are 28, 42, 35, 51, 39, 46, 33, and 40. What is the median turnaround time?
A. 39.25
B. 39
C. 39.5 ✓
D. 40
With an even number of values, the median is the average of the two middle ones after sorting: 28, 33, 35, 39, 40, 42, 46, 51, so (39 + 40) / 2 = 39.5 minutes. 39.25 is the mean of the set, while 39 and 40 are each only one middle value. Sorting first, then splitting the list in half, avoids choosing by original order.
Q37 A ward prepares 4 batches of a cleaning solution, and each batch needs 2 1/4 cups of concentrate. How many fluid ounces of concentrate are used in all? (1 cup = 8 fl oz)
A. 18
B. 36
C. 72 ✓
D. 68
Four batches need 2 1/4 x 4 = 9 cups of concentrate, and 9 cups x 8 fluid ounces per cup = 72 fl oz. The option 18 converts only a single batch to ounces, 36 accounts for just half the batches, and 68 comes from a slip on 9 x 8.
Q38 The frequency table shows how many clinic visits patients reported last year: Visits 0 1 2 3 4 Patients 8 12 15 10 5 What is the total number of visits reported?
A. 92 ✓
B. 90
C. 88
D. 95
Multiply each visit count by its frequency: 1 x 12 = 12, 2 x 15 = 30, 3 x 10 = 30, and 4 x 5 = 20. Adding these products gives 12 + 30 + 30 + 20 = 92 visits. Frequencies must weight the counts.
Anatomy & physiology, biology, chemistry, scientific reasoning.
Q1 Each blood type in a population is to be displayed as a slice of a circle, with the size of each slice matching how common that blood type is. Which type of graph should the researchers use?
A. Line graph
B. Histogram
C. Pie chart ✓
D. Scatter plot
A pie chart shows each category as a slice of a circle, making it ideal for displaying parts of a whole such as percentages of blood types. A line graph shows trends over time, a scatter plot shows relationships between two variables, and a histogram shows the distribution of continuous data.
Q2 When the atria of the heart are stretched by an increase in blood volume, which hormone is released that promotes sodium and water excretion by the kidneys and thereby lowers blood pressure? pilot
A. Aldosterone
B. Antidiuretic hormone (ADH)
C. Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) ✓
D. Renin
Atrial natriuretic peptide is secreted by atrial muscle cells when stretched by high blood volume; it increases sodium excretion, promotes water loss, inhibits renin and aldosterone, and opposes vasoconstriction, lowering blood pressure. Aldosterone and ADH retain sodium and water and raise pressure, while renin activates the angiotensin pathway that also raises pressure.
Q3 During the rising (depolarizing) phase of an action potential in a neuron, which ion moves rapidly into the cell through voltage-gated channels?
A. Sodium ✓
B. Potassium
C. Chloride
D. Calcium
Voltage-gated sodium channels open first during an action potential, and sodium ions rush into the neuron, making the interior more positive and driving depolarization. Potassium efflux later restores the resting potential, chloride usually stabilizes the membrane, and calcium is not the main ion of the rising phase in neurons.
Q4 The sound 'dup' in 'lub-dup' is generated chiefly by the snapping shut of which valves at the start of ventricular relaxation?
A. Atrioventricular (tricuspid and mitral) valves
B. Atrioventricular and semilunar valves together
C. Semilunar (aortic and pulmonary) valves ✓
D. Chordae tendineae and papillary muscles
The second heart sound occurs at the start of ventricular diastole when the aortic and pulmonary (semilunar) valves snap shut after blood ejection. The tricuspid and mitral (AV) valves produce the first sound, S1, while chordae tendineae anchor the AV valves rather than making the sound.
Q5 Which two atoms are isotopes of each other?
A. An atom with 6 protons and 6 electrons, and an identical atom with 6 protons and 6 electrons
B. An atom with 6 protons and 7 neutrons, and an atom with 7 protons and 6 neutrons
C. An atom with 6 protons and 6 neutrons, and an atom with 6 protons and 8 neutrons ✓
D. An atom with 12 protons and 12 neutrons, and an atom with 6 protons and 6 neutrons
Isotopes of one element share the same proton number but differ in neutron number, so 6-proton atoms with 6 versus 8 neutrons are isotopes of carbon. The first distractor pairs different elements, the second pairs carbon with magnesium, and the third lists two identical atoms, so only the first pair is isotopic.
Q6 In the loop of Henle, the descending limb is highly permeable to water but nearly impermeable to salts, while the ascending limb shows the opposite pattern. What is the main consequence of this arrangement?
A. Sodium ions are actively secreted into the descending limb
B. Water leaves the descending limb, steadily concentrating the fluid inside the tubule ✓
C. Glucose is reabsorbed by simple diffusion along the loop
D. The filtrate becomes more dilute as it travels down the descending limb
Because the descending limb lets water escape into the salty interstitial fluid while holding back solutes, the tubular fluid becomes progressively more concentrated as it descends. The ascending limb then pumps salt out without letting water follow, diluting the fluid. Glucose reabsorption occurs mainly in the proximal tubule, not in the loop.
Q7 Which structure is the smallest functional unit of skeletal muscle contraction?
A. Sarcomere ✓
B. Myofibril
C. Sarcoplasmic reticulum
D. Motor unit
A sarcomere, the segment between two Z-discs, is the repeating functional unit in which actin and myosin filaments slide to shorten a muscle. A myofibril is a long chain of sarcomeres, the sarcoplasmic reticulum stores calcium ions, and a motor unit is one neuron with all the fibers it innervates.
Q8 Which process converts atmospheric nitrogen gas into ammonia or other forms that plants can absorb and use?
A. Denitrification
B. Photosynthesis
C. Nitrogen fixation ✓
D. Respiration
Nitrogen-fixing bacteria in soil and in nodules of legume roots convert inert N2 gas into ammonia, which plants absorb to build proteins and nucleic acids. Denitrification returns nitrogen to the air, while photosynthesis and respiration cycle carbon rather than nitrogen.
Q9 Water and dissolved mineral ions absorbed by root hairs travel upward through a plant mainly within which vascular tissue?
A. Xylem ✓
B. Phloem
C. Cambium
D. Epidermis
Xylem is the vascular tissue that conducts water and dissolved minerals from the roots to the shoots, driven by transpiration pull, cohesion, and root pressure. Phloem transports the sugars made by photosynthesis, the cambium is the meristem that produces new vascular tissue, and the epidermis is the protective outer cell layer.
Q10 In a closed flask, 4.0 g of hydrogen gas reacts with 32.0 g of oxygen gas to produce exactly 36.0 g of water. Which principle does this outcome illustrate?
A. The octet rule
B. Activation energy
C. The ideal gas law
D. Conservation of mass ✓
Mass is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction, so the mass of the products (36.0 g of water) exactly equals the total mass of the reactants (4.0 g + 32.0 g). The octet rule concerns electron configurations of atoms, activation energy is the energy barrier to a reaction, and the ideal gas law relates pressure, volume, moles, and temperature.
Q11 When a red-flowered snapdragon (RR) is crossed with a white-flowered snapdragon (rr), all offspring are pink (Rr) because neither allele fully dominates the other. This pattern of inheritance is called
A. Complete dominance
B. Incomplete dominance ✓
C. Codominance
D. Sex-linked inheritance
In incomplete dominance the heterozygote shows an intermediate phenotype, as in pink snapdragon flowers, because the dominant allele's product is present in reduced amount. Codominance expresses both alleles fully at once, as in AB blood type, complete dominance completely masks one allele, and sex linkage refers to genes carried on sex chromosomes.
Q12 A researcher plots experimental data and draws a line of best fit. Using that line to estimate a value that lies between two measured data points is called
A. Extrapolation
B. Correlation
C. Standardization
D. Interpolation ✓
Interpolation estimates a value within the range of the collected data, where the line of best fit is directly supported by nearby measured points. Extrapolation predicts beyond the data range and is less reliable, while correlation describes the strength of a relationship and standardization is a separate adjustment procedure.
Q13 Roughly midway through the menstrual cycle, a brief surge of a hormone released by the anterior pituitary makes the mature ovarian follicle burst and release its egg. Which hormone is this?
A. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH)
B. Growth hormone (GH)
C. Luteinizing hormone (LH) ✓
D. Prolactin
The mid-cycle LH surge is the trigger for ovulation, the release of the secondary oocyte from the mature ovarian follicle. TSH controls thyroid secretion, GH drives general body growth, and prolactin supports breast milk production, so none of these three prompt the release of an egg.
Q14 In a large population at Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, the frequency of the recessive allele q is 0.2. What is the expected frequency of heterozygous carriers (2pq)?
A. 0.04
B. 0.64
C. 0.32 ✓
D. 0.16
Because p + q = 1, p = 1 - 0.2 = 0.8. The heterozygote frequency is 2pq = 2 x 0.8 x 0.2 = 0.32. The 0.64 value is p squared, the frequency of dominant homozygotes, and 0.04 is q squared, the frequency of recessive homozygotes, so the three genotype classes sum to 1.
Q15 A radioactive isotope has a half-life of 10 days. What fraction of a sample remains after 30 days?
A. 1/2
B. 1/4
C. 1/16
D. 1/8 ✓
Thirty days equals exactly three half-lives, so the fraction remaining is (1/2) raised to the third power, which equals 1/8. After one half-life half remains, after two half-lives one quarter remains, and 1/16 would require four half-lives, or 40 days. Each half-life halves the amount present at the start of that period.
Q16 Which substance forms free-moving ions when dissolved in water and therefore conducts an electric current well?
A. Sodium chloride (table salt) ✓
B. Sucrose (table sugar)
C. Ethanol
D. Olive oil
Sodium chloride is an ionic compound that dissociates fully into Na+ and Cl- ions in water, and these mobile ions conduct an electric current, making it a strong electrolyte. Sucrose and ethanol dissolve as neutral molecules and olive oil does not dissolve, so they do not conduct electricity.
Q17 Which type of lymphocyte matures in the bone marrow and produces antibodies during an immune response?
A. T lymphocyte
B. Natural killer cell
C. B lymphocyte ✓
D. Monocyte
B lymphocytes mature in the bone marrow and differentiate into plasma cells that secrete antibodies. T lymphocytes mature in the thymus and mainly kill infected cells, natural killer cells attack abnormal cells nonspecifically, and monocytes become macrophages, so B cells are the antibody producers.
Q18 Which element has the largest atomic radius?
A. Rb ✓
B. Li
C. Na
D. K
Atomic radius increases moving down a group because each element adds a new electron shell farther from the nucleus, with inner electrons shielding the outer ones. Rubidium is the lowest element listed, so it has the largest atomic radius.
Q19 Which structure controls the passage of chyme from the stomach into the duodenum?
A. Ileocecal valve
B. Pyloric sphincter ✓
C. Lower esophageal sphincter
D. Anal sphincter
The pyloric sphincter, located where the stomach meets the small intestine, regulates the release of chyme into the duodenum. The ileocecal valve separates the small from the large intestine, the lower esophageal sphincter guards the stomach entrance, and the anal sphincter controls the anus.
Q20 Which structure of the nephron is responsible for most reabsorption of filtered glucose?
A. Glomerulus
B. Proximal convoluted tubule ✓
C. Loop of Henle
D. Collecting duct
The proximal convoluted tubule reabsorbs nearly all filtered glucose along with most sodium and water. The glomerulus only filters, and the loop and collecting duct handle later adjustments, not bulk glucose reabsorption.
Q21 In the reaction HCl + NaOH yields NaCl + H2O, the hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide act as
A. two acids.
B. an acid and a base. ✓
C. a salt and water.
D. an oxidizing and a reducing agent.
HCl donates a proton and NaOH accepts it, the defining behavior of an acid and base in this neutralization. The products NaCl and water are the salt and the water, not the reactants' roles.
Q22 During aerobic respiration, in which stage is carbon dioxide released as glucose is fully oxidized?
A. Glycolysis
B. The electron transport chain
C. Fermentation
D. The Krebs cycle ✓
The Krebs cycle, which runs in the mitochondrial matrix, releases carbon dioxide as carbon skeletons are oxidized, also generating NADH and FADH2. Glycolysis splits glucose without releasing carbon dioxide, the electron transport chain uses oxygen and forms water, and fermentation only regenerates NAD+.
Q23 Which question can be investigated using the methods of science?
A. Is abstract art more beautiful than realistic art?
B. Does fertilizer type affect tomato yield? ✓
C. Which flavor of ice cream is the best?
D. Should the city raise taxes?
Science investigates natural, testable questions with measurable outcomes, and the effect of fertilizer type on tomato yield can be settled with a controlled experiment. Beauty, taste preference, and tax policy depend on values and opinions, so experiments cannot resolve them.
Q24 Which type of RNA carries a specific amino acid to the ribosome during translation? pilot
A. Transfer RNA ✓
B. Messenger RNA
C. Ribosomal RNA
D. Small nuclear RNA
Transfer RNA (tRNA) delivers activated amino acids to the ribosome, matching its anticodon to the codon on messenger RNA. Messenger RNA carries the protein blueprint from DNA, ribosomal RNA is a structural component of ribosomes, and small nuclear RNA participates in RNA splicing.
Q25 Which vitamin must be present for calcium to be absorbed efficiently from the small intestine? pilot
A. Vitamin D ✓
B. Vitamin K
C. Vitamin C
D. Vitamin B12
Calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D, stimulates intestinal cells to make calcium-binding proteins that move calcium into the blood. Vitamin K supports clotting, vitamin C aids collagen synthesis, and vitamin B12 supports red cell formation, so vitamin D is required for calcium absorption.
Q26 The knee-jerk (patellar) reflex, in which tapping the patellar tendon causes the quadriceps muscle to contract, is initiated when which type of receptor is stretched?
A. Muscle spindle ✓
B. Golgi tendon organ
C. Nociceptor
D. Pacinian corpuscle
Muscle spindles are stretch receptors embedded within skeletal muscle that sense changes in muscle length; tapping the patellar tendon stretches the quadriceps spindles and triggers a monosynaptic stretch reflex that contracts the muscle. Golgi tendon organs sense tension in tendons, nociceptors detect pain, and Pacinian corpuscles sense deep pressure and vibration.
Q27 Eukaryotic chromatin is organized into repeating beadlike units, each made of DNA wrapped around a core of eight histone proteins. These repeating units are known as which structures?
A. Ribosomes
B. Centromeres
C. Nucleosomes ✓
D. Plasmids
A nucleosome is the fundamental packaging unit of eukaryotic chromatin, consisting of roughly 147 base pairs of DNA wound around a core of eight histone proteins. Ribosomes synthesize proteins, the centromere is the chromosomal region where spindle fibers attach, and plasmids are small circular DNA molecules typical of bacteria, not nuclear packing units.
Q28 A researcher surveys 200 students selected from a high school of 2,000 students to estimate study habits. In this study, the entire group of 2,000 students is called the
A. Population ✓
B. Sample
C. Variable
D. Control group
The population is the complete set of individuals about whom the researcher wants to draw conclusions, here all 2,000 students. The 200 students who were actually surveyed are the sample, a subset used to estimate population values; a variable is a measured characteristic, and a control group is a comparison group in an experiment.
Q29 Which hormone stimulates uterine contractions during childbirth and triggers milk ejection from the mammary glands during breastfeeding?
A. Insulin
B. Aldosterone
C. Oxytocin ✓
D. Thyroxine
Oxytocin, released by the posterior pituitary gland, produces uterine contractions during labor and causes the let-down of milk during nursing. Insulin regulates blood glucose, aldosterone controls salt and water balance, and thyroxine sets the metabolic rate, so none of them performs these actions.
Q30 Lymph collected from the lower limbs, the abdomen, the left upper limb, and the left side of the head and neck empties into the bloodstream through which vessel? pilot
A. The thoracic duct ✓
B. The right lymphatic duct
C. The hepatic portal vein
D. The inferior vena cava
The thoracic duct drains lymph from the lower body, the left upper limb, and the left side of the head and neck into the left subclavian vein. The right lymphatic duct serves only the right upper quadrant, the hepatic portal vein carries blood from the gut to the liver, and the inferior vena cava returns venous blood, not lymph.
Q31 Which organelle modifies, sorts, and packages proteins into vesicles for secretion from the cell?
A. Rough endoplasmic reticulum
B. Golgi apparatus ✓
C. Nucleolus
D. Peroxisome
The Golgi apparatus receives proteins from the rough endoplasmic reticulum, modifies them, and packages them into vesicles for delivery or export. The rough ER synthesizes the proteins but does not finalize them, the nucleolus makes ribosomal RNA, and peroxisomes break down fats, so the Golgi fits the sorting role.
Q32 A student records reaction times of 0.24 s, 0.26 s, 0.20 s, 0.30 s, and 0.25 s in five trials. What is the mean reaction time? pilot
A. 0.20 s
B. 0.24 s
C. 0.25 s ✓
D. 0.30 s
The mean is the sum of the measurements divided by the count: 1.25 s divided by 5 equals 0.25 s. The other options are single measurements or the minimum value rather than the computed average of all five trials.
Q33 According to the equation 2 H2O -> 2 H2 + O2, how many grams of oxygen gas are produced by the decomposition of 36.0 g of water? (H2O = 18.0 g/mol, O2 = 32.0 g/mol)
A. 8.0 g
B. 16.0 g
C. 32.0 g ✓
D. 64.0 g
A 36.0 g sample of water is 2.0 moles (36.0 divided by 18.0). The balanced equation shows that 2 moles of water yield 1 mole of oxygen, so 1.0 mole of O2 forms, which has a mass of 32.0 g. The other choices reflect incorrect mole ratios or mass conversions.
Q34 Which class of macromolecules is the primary long-term energy storage form in animals?
A. Carbohydrates
B. Lipids ✓
C. Proteins
D. Nucleic acids
Fats, a type of lipid, store more energy per gram than any other macromolecule and serve as the body's long-term energy reserve. Carbohydrates provide quick but short-lived energy, proteins mainly build and repair tissues, and nucleic acids store genetic information, not energy.
Q35 Which cells of the immune system directly destroy infected or abnormal body cells by releasing perforin and granzymes, and are the main effectors of cell-mediated immunity?
A. Cytotoxic T lymphocytes ✓
B. Plasma cells
C. Helper T cells
D. Regulatory T cells
Cytotoxic (CD8+) T lymphocytes kill infected and tumor cells by releasing perforin, which forms pores in the target membrane, and granzymes, which trigger apoptosis; this is cell-mediated immunity. Plasma cells secrete antibodies in humoral immunity, helper T cells coordinate other immune cells, and regulatory T cells suppress immune responses.
Q36 Which molecule carries the genetic message from DNA in the nucleus to the ribosomes in the cytoplasm?
A. Messenger RNA (mRNA) ✓
B. Transfer RNA (tRNA)
C. Ribosomal RNA (rRNA)
D. DNA polymerase
mRNA is transcribed from DNA and carries the protein-building instructions to ribosomes in the cytoplasm. tRNA delivers amino acids one at a time, rRNA is a structural component of ribosomes, and DNA polymerase copies DNA, so mRNA is the molecule that carries the message.
Q37 What is the main purpose of randomly assigning participants to treatment groups in an experiment?
A. To ensure every participant receives the treatment
B. To balance unknown confounding variables across groups ✓
C. To make the results easier to graph
D. To guarantee the sample represents the whole population
Random assignment spreads both known and unknown participant characteristics evenly across groups, so differences in outcomes are more likely to reflect the treatment than preexisting differences between people. It is not the same as random sampling, does not give everyone the treatment, and does not simplify graphing.
Q38 In a distribution of household incomes, most households earn moderate amounts while a small number earn extremely large amounts, producing a long tail on the right. How is this distribution best described?
A. Symmetric
B. Negatively skewed
C. Positively skewed ✓
D. Bimodal
A distribution with a long tail extending toward high values is positively skewed (right-skewed), and the few extremely large values typically pull the mean above the median. A left-skewed distribution has its long tail on the low end, a symmetric distribution has balanced tails, and a bimodal distribution has two distinct peaks.
Q39 Which statement is an observation rather than an inference?
A. The leaf is green and measures 6 cm across ✓
B. The plant must be getting too much water
C. The wilted flowers probably need fertilizer
D. The animal is likely defending its territory
An observation is a direct description of what is detected with the senses, such as the color and size of a leaf, while an inference is an interpretation built from observations. Judging that a plant is overwatered, that flowers need fertilizer, or that an animal is defending territory all require explanation beyond what is directly sensed.
Q40 Which enzyme, secreted by the chief cells of the stomach, begins the digestion of proteins into smaller peptides?
A. Trypsin
B. Amylase
C. Lipase
D. Pepsin ✓
Chief cells release pepsinogen, which stomach acid activates into pepsin, the enzyme that cleaves proteins into smaller peptides and begins protein digestion. Trypsin continues protein breakdown in the small intestine, amylase digests starch, and lipase digests fats, so the other enzymes act elsewhere.
Q41 A researcher wants to draw conclusions about all high school students in a region. Which sampling method best supports generalizing the results?
A. a random sample of students from many different schools ✓
B. students from one classroom in one school
C. students who volunteer from a single sports club
D. the first ten students who arrive at one school
Random sampling across many schools makes the sample representative of the whole region and minimizes selection bias. Convenience and volunteer samples drawn from single locations overrepresent narrow groups, so they generalize poorly to all students.
Q42 Which enzyme, present in saliva, begins the chemical breakdown of starch in the mouth?
A. Lipase
B. Salivary amylase ✓
C. Pepsin
D. Trypsin
Salivary amylase starts splitting starch into shorter sugar chains while food is still in the mouth. Pepsin digests proteins in the stomach, trypsin digests proteins in the small intestine, and lipase digests fats, so none of those enzymes acts on starch in the oral cavity.
Q43 Which set of bones belongs to the axial skeleton?
A. Humerus, radius, and ulna
B. Skull, vertebral column, and rib cage ✓
C. Femur, tibia, and fibula
D. Clavicle, scapula, and humerus
The axial skeleton forms the body's central axis and consists of the skull, vertebral column, and rib cage. The humerus, radius, and ulna are the upper limb, and the femur, tibia, and fibula form the lower limb; the clavicle and scapula are the pectoral girdle, all parts of the appendicular skeleton.
Q44 Which change in the blood is the strongest stimulus for increasing the rate and depth of breathing?
A. A fall in arterial oxygen
B. A rise in blood pH
C. A fall in blood glucose
D. A rise in arterial carbon dioxide ✓
Central chemoreceptors respond mainly to rising arterial carbon dioxide, which crosses into the cerebrospinal fluid, lowers its pH, and strongly drives faster and deeper breathing. A fall in oxygen is only a weaker secondary stimulus, a rising pH slows breathing, and blood glucose does not directly control ventilation.
Q45 A hypothesis predicts that warmer water speeds up seed germination. Which result would most weaken this hypothesis? pilot
A. Seeds in warm water and seeds in cold water germinate at the same rate ✓
B. Seeds in warm water germinate faster than seeds in cold water
C. Seeds in cold water fail to germinate at all
D. Warm water dissolves the outer seed coat
Equal germination rates in warm and cold water directly contradict the prediction that warmth speeds germination, so this result most weakens the hypothesis. Faster germination in warm water supports it, and the other outcomes do not specifically test whether temperature changes germination speed.
Q46 A chemist dilutes 100 mL of a 6.0 M hydrochloric acid solution by adding water to a final volume of 300 mL. What is the new concentration of the solution?
A. 1.5 M
B. 2.0 M ✓
C. 3.0 M
D. 18 M
Dilution conserves the number of moles of solute: M1V1 = M2V2, so (6.0 M)(0.100 L) = M2(0.300 L), which gives M2 = 0.60/0.30 = 2.0 M. The volume tripled, so the concentration falls to one third of its original value; 18 M would require concentrating the solution, not diluting it.
Q47 Which element has the highest electronegativity of all the elements?
A. Chlorine
B. Oxygen
C. Nitrogen
D. Fluorine ✓
Fluorine, located in the upper right of the periodic table, has the highest electronegativity of any element because its small atom pulls shared electrons very strongly. Chlorine, oxygen, and nitrogen are all less electronegative than fluorine on the Pauling scale.
Q48 A research group publishes a striking finding from a single study. Which action by other scientists would most strengthen confidence that the result is real?
A. Reanalyzing the original data with new statistics
B. Publishing a commentary criticizing the methods
C. Interviewing additional participants without changing the design
D. An independent laboratory repeating the study and obtaining the same result ✓
Independent replication, repeating the experiment in another laboratory with fresh procedures and obtaining the same result, provides the strongest evidence that a finding is real rather than an artifact. Reanalyzing the original data, commenting on methods, or interviewing more subjects without a new experiment cannot rule out hidden errors.
Q49 What is the oxidation number of sulfur in sulfuric acid, H2SO4?
A. +6 ✓
B. +4
C. +2
D. -2
In H2SO4 each hydrogen is +1 (total +2) and each oxygen is -2 (total -8), so sulfur must be +6 to make the molecule neutral: +2 + x - 8 = 0, giving x = +6. The values +4, +2, and -2 would leave the compound with a nonzero overall charge.
Q50 Which type of blood vessel carries blood away from the heart?
A. Artery ✓
B. Capillary
C. Vein
D. Venule
Arteries always carry blood away from the heart, whether the blood is oxygenated or not; the pulmonary artery, for example, carries deoxygenated blood to the lungs. Veins and venules return blood toward the heart, and capillaries connect the two sides for exchange, so artery is the correct term.
Conventions of standard English, knowledge of language, vocabulary acquisition.
Q1 Read the sentence. Each student in the woodworking class must bring their own safety goggles to the first session. Which option corrects the pronoun-antecedent error?
A. Each student in the woodworking class must bring its own safety goggles to the first session.
B. Each student in the woodworking class must bring his or her own safety goggles to the first session. ✓
C. All student in the woodworking class must bring their own safety goggles to the first session.
D. Each students in the woodworking class must bring their own safety goggles to the first session.
The antecedent each student is singular, so the singular pronoun his or her is required rather than the plural their or the inanimate its. Though singular they is common in speech, traditional usage questions expect his or her, and the other options also introduce agreement errors such as all student and each students.
Q2 Which sentence shows correct agreement between a subject and its verb?
A. Every one of the engineers have a copy of the manual.
B. Neither of the proposals meet the deadline requirements.
C. Each of the invoices was checked twice before payment. ✓
D. Both of the printers was out of ink.
Indefinite pronouns like each, every one, and neither take singular verbs in formal English. Option C matches the singular each with was. Option A matches every one with have, option B matches neither with meet, and option D matches the plural both with was, so the other three break the agreement.
Q3 Read the sentence. The workshop covered budgeting and also how to file taxes and marketing your small business. Which revision presents the topics as a clear, parallel list? pilot
A. The workshop covered budgeting and tax filing and marketing for small businesses and how to do them.
B. The workshop covered budgeting, also tax filing, also marketing your small business.
C. The workshop covered budgeting, tax filing, and how you market your small business.
D. The workshop covered budgeting, tax filing, and small-business marketing. ✓
Option d converts every item in the list to the same grammatical form, a noun phrase: budgeting, tax filing, and small-business marketing. The original jumbles and also how to with a gerund, leaving the list lopsided, and the other options keep mixed structures or add filler words that obscure the three topics.
Q4 Read the sentence. There is several empty tables near the window of the cafe. Which option corrects the subject-verb agreement error?
A. There are several empty tables near the window of the cafe. ✓
B. There is several empty tables near the window of the cafe.
C. There are several empty table near the window of the cafe.
D. There is several empty table near the window of the cafe.
In a there-construction, the verb agrees with the subject that follows it, and tables is plural, so are must replace is. Option A alone pairs the plural subject with the plural verb, while B, C, and D keep an agreement mismatch between is or are and the noun or verb form beside it.
Q5 Read the sentence. The end result of the committee's meeting was a unanimous vote by all members. Which revision removes the redundant wording?
A. The committee reached a unanimous decision. ✓
B. The end result of the committee's meeting was a unanimous vote by all members.
C. The committee's final outcome was a unanimous vote by every member.
D. All members voted unanimously, and the vote was unanimous.
End result repeats one idea, and unanimous vote by all members says the same thing twice, so the revision keeps the essential claim of a fully agreed committee decision while deleting repeated words. The other choices preserve end result, final outcome, or unanimous stated two times within a single sentence.
Q6 Read the sentence. Whose going to object if we leave early, and who's parking spot is this? Which revision corrects the misuse of who's and whose?
A. Who's going to object if we leave early, and who's parking spot is this?
B. Who's going to object if we leave early, and whose parking spot is this? ✓
C. Whose going to object if we leave early, and who's parking spot is this?
D. Whose going to object if we leave early, and whose parking spot is this?
Who's is the contraction of who is, while whose shows possession. The correct version uses who's before the verb going and whose before the noun spot. The other choices either use whose where the contraction is needed or use the contraction where the possessive is required, reversing the two words in one or both clauses.
Q7 Read the sentence. The campers were soaking wet; ___, they were in high spirits. Which transition best fits the blank?
A. The campers were soaking wet; therefore, they were in high spirits.
B. The campers were soaking wet; nevertheless, they were in high spirits. ✓
C. The campers were soaking wet; for example, they were in high spirits.
D. The campers were soaking wet; in addition, they were in high spirits.
The second clause states an outcome that runs against what the first clause leads a reader to expect, and nevertheless signals exactly that kind of contrast. Therefore would imply the wet campers were the cause of their good mood, while for example and in addition do not connect the two ideas logically.
Q8 Since the storm, the crew ___ the dock twice. Which verb phrase completes the sentence correctly?
A. rebuilds
B. has rebuilt ✓
C. rebuilt
D. will rebuild
The phrase since the storm spans from a past point up to the present, which is the job of the present perfect, so has rebuilt is correct. Rebuilds is simple present and rebuilt is simple past, neither of which reaches up to now, and will rebuild points to the future, so the other forms miss the time frame the sentence sets.
Q9 Which sentence follows the rules of capitalization?
A. We fly to Denver, colorado, on the last friday of March.
B. We fly to denver, Colorado, on the last Friday of March.
C. We fly to Denver, Colorado, on the last Friday of March. ✓
D. We fly to Denver, Colorado, on the last Friday of march.
Proper nouns, cities and states, and the names of days and months all take capital letters. Option C capitalizes Denver, Colorado, Friday, and March. Option A lowercases the state and the day, option B lowercases the city, and option D lowercases the month.
Q10 Read the sentence. The vending machine malfunctioned again, keeping everyone's coins and dispensing nothing. What does the word malfunctioned mean in this sentence?
A. was refilled
B. made a loud noise
C. failed to work properly ✓
D. ran smoothly
The prefix mal- means bad or wrongly, so a machine that malfunctioned failed to work the way it should, which the stuck coins and empty slot show. Ran smoothly contradicts the prefix, was refilled names a fix rather than the failure, and made a loud noise describes sound rather than broken function.
Q11 A warehouse supervisor is writing a memo about the new footwear rule. Which sentence fits a professional tone?
A. Everybody's gotta wear closed-toe shoes out on the floor, no exceptions.
B. Shoes that cover your toes are a must for floor work, peeps.
C. All staff members must wear closed-toe shoes while working on the floor. ✓
D. No more bare toes while you work, okay?
A professional memo uses complete sentences, standard grammar, and neutral vocabulary. Option c states the rule plainly and directly, while the other choices rely on the contraction gotta, the slang peeps, or a casual imperative that would undermine the authority of a workplace dress-code notice.
Q12 Read the sentence. Because the town pool closed at dusk. Which revision turns the fragment into a complete sentence?
A. Because the town pool closed at dusk, the lifeguards locked the gates and went home. ✓
B. Because the town pool closed at dusk, the lifeguards locking the gates and going home.
C. The town pool closed at dusk, the lifeguards locked the gates and went home.
D. Because the town pool closed at dusk and the lifeguards locked the gates and went home.
The original words begin with the subordinating conjunction because and leave the reader waiting for a main clause, so they form a fragment. Option A supplies an independent clause, while B repeats the fragment pattern with participles, C splices two clauses with a comma, and D keeps the whole statement subordinate.
Q13 Which option avoids the unclear pronoun reference in this sentence? "The supervisor told the intern that she needed to redo the forms."
A. The supervisor told the intern to redo the forms. ✓
B. The supervisor told the intern that they needed to redo the forms.
C. The supervisor told the intern, and she needed to redo the forms.
D. The supervisor told the intern that she would be expected to redo the forms.
Option A removes the pronoun entirely and uses an infinitive, so there is no doubt about who must redo the forms, and it is the clear choice. Option B's they could name either person, option C keeps the unexplained she, and option D repeats the same ambiguity while adding yet another verb phrase.
Q14 Which revision is the most concise? Original sentence: In the near future, the station will begin its big renovation work on the platforms.
A. In the near future, the station will begin its big renovation work on the platforms.
B. The station, in the near future, will begin its big renovation work on the platforms.
C. The station will soon begin renovating the platforms. ✓
D. The station will begin its renovation work on the platforms in the near future.
Concision trims filler without dropping facts, and the keyed revision replaces in the near future with soon, drops the vague adjective big, and tightens renovation work into renovating. The other three keep the padded opener in the near future, the wordy noun phrase renovation work, or both, so none of them buys meaning for fewer words.
Q15 Read the sentence. The mechanic tightened the bolts, checked the fluid levels, and then the oil filter was replaced. Which option keeps the verb forms parallel and consistent?
A. The mechanic tightens the bolts, checked the fluid levels, and replaced the oil filter.
B. The mechanic tightened the bolts, checks the fluid levels, and replaced the oil filter.
C. The mechanic tightened the bolts, checked the fluid levels, and the oil filter was replaced.
D. The mechanic tightened the bolts, checked the fluid levels, and replaced the oil filter. ✓
All three actions should appear as matching past-tense verbs: tightened, checked, and replaced. The original shifts to the passive was replaced, option c keeps that passive shift, and the other options mix tenses such as tightens and checks, breaking the parallel pattern of the list.
Q16 Which revision changes this sentence from passive to active voice? "The medication was administered by the night nurse."
A. The night nurse administered the medication. ✓
B. The medication was given by the night nurse.
C. The medication got administered by the night nurse.
D. By the night nurse, the medication was administered.
In active voice the subject performs the action, while in passive voice the subject receives it and the doer trails behind a by phrase. Option A makes the night nurse the subject who performs the administering. Options B and D keep the passive structure with different wording, and option C stays passive while adding the informal got.
Q17 Read the sentence. The juggler was ambidextrous, tossing pins with equal skill from either hand. What does ambidextrous mean as used in the sentence?
A. able to juggle without looking
B. able to use both hands with equal skill ✓
C. unusually quick at learning new tricks
D. easily distracted by the crowd
The phrase with equal skill from either hand defines the juggler's ability, and the prefix ambi-, meaning both, reinforces that ambidextrous describes equal use of both hands. Looking away, learning speed, and distraction are not supported, making B the correct meaning.
Q18 Read the sentence. The critic panned the film, calling the plot contrived and the dialogue wooden. What does contrived mean as used in the sentence?
A. forced and artificial ✓
B. natural and easy
C. original and clever
D. slow and boring
The critic is criticizing the film, and a plot paired with wooden dialogue is one that feels manufactured, so contrived means forced and artificial. Natural and easy and original and clever describe praise rather than blame, and slow and boring describes pacing rather than the plot's construction, so the clues point only to the artificial reading.
Q19 Read the sentence. The committee made a prudent choice, setting aside emergency funds before any crisis appeared. Which word is closest in meaning to prudent as used in the sentence?
A. cautious and wise ✓
B. hasty and careless
C. generous and open-handed
D. stubborn and rigid
Setting aside emergency funds before a crisis shows forethought, so prudent means cautiously wise in this context. Hasty and careless describes the opposite approach, while generosity and stubbornness are not implied by the action, making A the closest synonym.
Q20 Combine these two sentences into one clear sentence: "The alarm sounded. The night crew evacuated the ward." Which option does this best?
A. The alarm sounded, the night crew evacuated the ward.
B. When the alarm sounded, the night crew evacuated the ward. ✓
C. The alarm sounded however the night crew evacuated the ward.
D. The alarm sounded and the night crew evacuating the ward.
The best combination subordinates the earlier event to the main clause with when, which makes the sequence of events clear and keeps both ideas intact. Option A splices two independent clauses with a comma, option C drops the punctuation that however needs, and option D leaves a broken verb form in the second clause.
Q21 Which sentence uses the correct preposition?
A. The technician was responsible of maintaining the backup servers.
B. The technician was responsible on maintaining the backup servers.
C. The technician was responsible at maintaining the backup servers.
D. The technician was responsible for maintaining the backup servers. ✓
The adjective responsible takes the preposition for when it introduces a duty, so responsible for is the idiomatic choice. Options A, B, and C pair responsible with of, on, and at, none of which forms a standard expression for a duty, so all three fail the same idiom rule.
Q22 The root aud- means hear. Which word's meaning best reflects that root?
A. aquarium
B. aviation
C. auditorium ✓
D. avenue
The root aud- means hear, and an auditorium is a hall where an audience gathers to hear a performance, so it is the word built on the hearing root. Aquarium names a place for aquatic life, aviation relates to flight, and avenue means a road, none of which grows out of aud-.
Q23 Read the sentence. The storm drains were cleared by the volunteer crew before the heavy rain arrived. Which revision puts the sentence in the active voice?
A. The storm drains, cleared by the volunteer crew, before the heavy rain arrived.
B. The storm drains were cleared by the volunteer crew before the heavy rain arrived.
C. The volunteer crew cleared the storm drains before the heavy rain arrived. ✓
D. Before the heavy rain arrived, the storm drains were cleared.
In the active voice, the subject performs the action: the volunteer crew cleared the drains. Option A puts the crew in the subject position and the action in an active verb. The other options keep the passive construction, in which the drains receive the action, or produce a sentence fragment.
Q24 The suffix -ful means full of. Which word below means full of doubt?
A. doubting
B. doubtful ✓
C. doubtless
D. undoubted
The suffix -ful means full of, so doubtful means full of doubt, or uncertain. Option A is the only word whose meaning combines doubt with the -ful suffix. Doubting describes an ongoing action, doubtless means without doubt, and undoubted carries the opposite sense of being certain.
Q25 Select the pronoun that correctly completes the sentence: Either Maya or Lena will bring ___ program notes to the rehearsal.
A. their
B. its
C. her ✓
D. theirs
With either...or, the pronoun should agree with the nearer of the two subjects, and Lena is singular and feminine, so her is the matching possessive. Their treats both people as plural, its is reserved for things rather than people, and theirs is a stand-alone possessive that cannot sit directly before program notes as a modifier.
Q26 Which option fixes the dangling modifier in this sentence? "After reviewing the lab results, the decision was postponed."
A. After reviewing the lab results, the decision was postponed by the team.
B. After the team reviewed the lab results, the decision was postponed. ✓
C. After reviewing the lab results, postponing the decision was done.
D. After reviewing the lab results, the decision postponed itself.
A dangling modifier has no actor to modify; the phrase after reviewing never names who reviewed. Option B supplies the team as the subject of the introductory clause, so the sentence makes sense. Options A and C keep the dangling structure with different wording, and option D makes the decision absurdly perform the action on itself.
Q27 Which sentence uses accept or except correctly?
A. All the interns passed accept one who missed the deadline.
B. We except your apology and will move on.
C. All the interns passed except one who missed the deadline. ✓
D. Accept for the night shift, everyone attended the training.
Except means excluding, and accept means to receive or approve. Option C uses except to exclude the intern who missed the deadline. Option A substitutes accept for except, option B uses the exclusion verb where receive is meant, and option D writes accept for the preposition except.
Q28 If the prefix trans- means across, which choice gives the correct meaning of transcontinental?
A. within a single continent
B. under the ocean
C. crossing a continent ✓
D. surrounding a continent
The prefix trans- means across, so transcontinental describes something that crosses a continent, such as a railway or a long flight. Staying within one continent would require a prefix like intra-, and moving under or around the continent are ideas the prefix does not carry, so only the across reading fits the word.
Q29 The prefix over- can mean too much. Based on that meaning, what does overcook most likely mean? pilot
A. cook too little
B. cook before the meal starts
C. cook for too long ✓
D. cook without salt
When the prefix over- attaches to a verb, it often signals excess, so overcook means to cook for longer than the food needs, which usually ruins the texture and flavor. The other options assign meanings about undercooking, early timing, or seasoning that the prefix does not carry.
Q30 Read the sentence. The canoe rental shack closed at dusk, the paddlers returned the life jackets. Which revision correctly joins these two related clauses? pilot
A. The canoe rental shack closed at dusk; the paddlers returned the life jackets. ✓
B. Because the canoe rental shack closed at dusk, the paddlers returned the life jackets.
C. The canoe rental shack closed at dusk the paddlers returned the life jackets.
D. The canoe rental shack closed at dusk, and the life jackets returned by the paddlers.
The original sentence joins two independent clauses with only a comma, which creates a comma splice. Option A separates the two complete clauses with a semicolon, the correct punctuation for related independent clauses that keeps their meaning equal. Option C changes the relationship to cause and effect, and option D is an awkward fragment.
Q31 Which sentence capitalizes the book title correctly? Maya borrowed a novel called the long road home from the library.
A. Maya borrowed a novel called The Long Road Home from the library. ✓
B. Maya borrowed a novel called the long road home from the library.
C. Maya borrowed a novel called The long road home from the library.
D. Maya borrowed a novel called The Long road home from the library.
A book title is a proper noun, so the principal words The, Long, Road, and Home all take capitals. The keyed option capitalizes all four. The all-lowercase version treats the title like an ordinary phrase, and the two partial versions capitalize only some of the title words, mixing proper and common treatment.
Q32 Read the sentence. The teachers lounge is closed this week for repairs. Which option corrects the error in the sentence?
A. The teacher's lounge is closed this week for repairs.
B. The teachers' lounge is closed this week for repairs. ✓
C. The teachers lounge's is closed this week for repairs.
D. The teachers' lounge' is closed this week for repairs.
The lounge belongs to the teachers as a group, so the plural possessive teachers' needs an apostrophe after the s. Option A wrongly makes a single teacher own it, while C and D push apostrophes into impossible positions, leaving B as the only correct possessive form.
Q33 Which option punctuates the introductory phrase correctly? From the top of the ridge the whole valley stretched to the horizon.
A. From the top of the ridge the whole, valley stretched to the horizon.
B. From the top of the ridge, the whole valley stretched to the horizon. ✓
C. From, the top of the ridge the whole valley stretched to the horizon.
D. From the top of the ridge; the whole valley stretched to the horizon.
An introductory prepositional phrase that opens a sentence should be set off from the main clause with a comma, and the keyed option places that comma correctly after ridge. The semicolon version wrongly joins an introductory phrase to the main clause, and the two options that split the whole valley apart or isolate from break the phrase into pieces.
Q34 Which sentence uses who or whom correctly?
A. Dr. Lin is the surgeon whom performed the transplant.
B. Whom will attend the morning seminar?
C. The nurse, whom transferred to pediatrics, starts Monday.
D. Dr. Lin is the surgeon who performed the transplant. ✓
Who is the subject form and whom is the object form. In option D, who performs the verb performed, so the subject form is correct. Options A, B, and C all use whom where the subject of a verb is needed: performed, will attend, and transferred.
Q35 Read the sentence. Each of the recipes in the cookbook list a different baking time. Which option corrects the subject-verb agreement error?
A. Each of the recipes in the cookbook lists a different baking time. ✓
B. Each of the recipes in the cookbook are listing different baking times.
C. Each of the recipes in the cookbook list different baking times.
D. Each of the recipes in the cookbook have listed a different baking time.
The true subject is Each, not recipes, and the words after of form a prepositional phrase that never controls the verb. Because each is singular, it needs the singular verb lists, so option A is correct while B, C, and D each pair the singular subject with a plural or mismatched verb form.
Q36 Read the sentence. The bakery won the contest however the prize money barely covered the ingredients. Which option punctuates the sentence correctly?
A. The bakery won the contest, however the prize money barely covered the ingredients.
B. The bakery won the contest; however the prize money barely covered the ingredients.
C. The bakery won the contest; however, the prize money barely covered the ingredients. ✓
D. The bakery won the contest, however, the prize money barely covered, the ingredients.
A semicolon correctly separates the two independent clauses, and a comma after the conjunctive adverb however sets it off from the second clause. The other options either splice the clauses with only a comma, omit the comma after however, or insert a comma that wrongly splits the subject from its verb.
Q37 A tenant is emailing a landlord to request a heater repair. Which option uses the most appropriate tone and wording for that message? pilot
A. I am writing to request that the heating unit in my apartment be repaired as soon as possible. ✓
B. The heater is totally broken and we are freezing, so you need to fix it fast.
C. You should really get someone out here to look at the heat thing.
D. Hey, the heat is out, so get it fixed soon.
A formal message to a landlord calls for polite, complete phrasing without slang, casual address, or demands. Option A states the request directly and courteously, while B, C, and D use informal words like totally and the heat thing, blame the reader, or issue commands that do not fit professional correspondence.
Last verified: 29 September 2026. Structure, timing and scoring facts are sourced from ATI's published exam materials and help center.