Methods: Cause/Effect and Compare/Contrast Practice Test

Read the passage embedded below, then answer the question.

A city council member argues that planting street trees is not cosmetic spending but heat policy. On blocks without canopy cover, asphalt absorbs sunlight all day and releases it at night, keeping temperatures high long after sunset. Higher nighttime heat increases air-conditioning use, which strains the grid; strained grids trigger outages; outages send vulnerable residents to emergency rooms when apartments become unsafe. Trees interrupt that chain by shading pavement and cooling air through evapotranspiration, lowering both peak and overnight temperatures. The council member acknowledges that trees cost money to plant and maintain, but he notes that the city already pays for the consequences of heat: overtime for paramedics, repairs after transformer failures, and missed workdays. The most expensive option, he concludes, is pretending heat is a private inconvenience rather than a public infrastructure problem.

The passage relies most heavily on…

Read the passage embedded below, then answer the question.

A school board member argues that starting high school later is a health policy disguised as a scheduling change. When the first bell rings before 8 a.m., many teenagers, whose circadian rhythms naturally shift later, accumulate sleep debt. Sleep-deprived students are more likely to miss the bus, arrive late, and disengage in first-period classes; chronic fatigue also correlates with higher anxiety and more frequent visits to the nurse. Those patterns then show up in data the district already tracks: lower attendance, lower morning test scores, and more behavioral referrals. The board member acknowledges that a later start complicates athletics and childcare, but she argues that the current system exports its costs to classrooms and families anyway. If the district wants better learning, she concludes, it should stop treating sleep as optional.

The passage relies most heavily on…