Practice Test 4

A historian notes that printing presses helped standardize spelling by circulating the same word forms to large audiences. _______ regional dialects persisted in speech, and many communities continued to use local pronunciations even as written language became more uniform.

In a controlled experiment, plants exposed to intermittent wind developed thicker stems than plants grown in still air. _______ the wind-treated plants were less likely to topple when later subjected to heavy rain, indicating that mechanical stress can trigger structural reinforcement.