Reading and Writing Quiz1

What word best completes the text? Bioluminescent beetles called fireflies may seem to create flashes of light randomly, but each species of firefly actually has its own special series of repeated flashes and pauses. These unique ______ allow fireflies of the same species to find each other.

• quantities

• decorations

• patterns

• agreements

What word best completes the text? As an architect in Los Angeles in the 1950s, Helen Liu Fong became known for avoiding designs in her buildings. Instead of using standard shapes and colors, she typically explored innovative forms and daring ______.

• creative

• bold

• traditional

• understandable

What word best completes the text? The printing of Virginia Woolf's novels featured a ______ between Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell: a talented painter, Bell worked closely with Woolf to create original cover art for most of the novels.

• rebellion

• partnership

• discovery

• disagreement

What word best completes the text? A brief book review cannot fully convey the ______ of Olga Tokarczuk's novel The Books of Jacob, with its enormous cast of characters, its complicated, wandering plot, and its page numbers that count backward (beginning at 965 and ending at 1).

• accuracy

• inactivity

• complexity

• restraint

What word best completes the text? Sumerian civilization (which lasted from around 3300 to 2000 BCE) ______ many concepts that persist into present-day civilizations: for example, the first description of the seven-day week appears in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh.

• transformed

• introduced

• inherited

• overlooked

What is the main purpose of the text? Fanny's friends did not interest Polly much; she was rather afraid of them [because] they seemed so much older and wiser than herself, even those younger in years. They talked about things of which she knew nothing and when Fanny tried to explain, she didn't find them interesting; indeed, some of them rather shocked and puzzled her.

• To portray Polly's reaction to Fanny's friends

• To identify the topics Polly talks about with Fanny's friends

• To explain how Fanny met some of her friends

• To illustrate how Fanny's friends feel about Polly

What best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole? In 1801, a Blackfoot chief named Ac Ko Mok Ki drew a finely detailed map of the Upper Missouri region. This work demonstrates a vast amount of topographic knowledge, as the map features specific names of mountains and rivers, as well as the first-known sketch of the drainage network of the Missouri River. The map is especially notable because Ac Ko Mok Ki also included details about the numerous tribes that lived in the area.

• It emphasizes Ac Ko Mok Ki's desire to represent other tribes on the map.

• It explains how Ac Ko Mok Ki developed an interest in mapmaking.

• It identifies some reasons why the map is impressive.

• It details how the map was used for hunting and trading purposes.

What best describes the function of the first sentence in the text as a whole? Yawn contagion occurs when one individual yawns in response to another's yawn. Studies of this behavior in primates have focused on populations in captivity, but biologist Elisabetta Palagi and her colleagues have shown that it can occur in wild primate populations as well. In their study, which focused on a wild population of gelada monkeys (Theropithecus gelada) in Ethiopia, the researchers further reported that yawn contagion most commonly occurred in males and across different social groups instead of within a single social group.

• It defines a phenomenon that is discussed in the text.

• It introduces a problem that is examined in the text.

• It makes a claim that is challenged in the text.

• It presents a hypothesis that is evaluated in the text.

What is the main purpose of the text? [Joe] was wild with enthusiasm and with a desire to be a part of all that the metropolis meant. In the evening he saw the young fellows passing by dressed in their spruce clothes, and he wondered with a sort of envy where they could be going. Back home there had been no place much worth going to, except church and one or two people's houses.

• It illustrates a character's reaction to a new environment.

• It explains why a character has traveled to a city.

• It compares a character's thoughts about an event at two different times of day.

• It presents a character feeling regret over leaving home.

What best states the main idea of the text? The painter María Izquierdo played an important role in the development of twentieth-century Mexican art, but her work has never been well-known in the United States except among art historians. One reason for Izquierdo's relative obscurity is the enormous popularity of some of her peers. In particular, the painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have so captivated the interest of US audiences that Izquierdo and other Mexican artists from the period often get overlooked, despite the high quality of their work.

• Izquierdo's work is not as well-known in the United States as it should be because Kahlo and Rivera draw so much of the public's attention.

• During Izquierdo's lifetime, her paintings were displayed in galleries in the United States much more frequently than paintings by Kahlo and Rivera were.

• Izquierdo painted some of the same subjects that Kahlo and Rivera painted but used different techniques than they used.

• Few of Izquierdo's works are in galleries today because she produced only a small number of paintings.