New SAT Reading - SAT Math

Individuals of the roughly 2,000 species in the family Lampyridae include those insects capable of producing bioluminescent light through a specific metabolic process. Though commonly referred to as fireflies or lightning bugs, these idiosyncratic creatures are more accurately categorized as winged beetles. Like their amphibian predators, most fireflies are crepuscular and are thus largely reliant on their bioluminescence to attract mates, find food, and warn predators of their potential poisonousness. Fireflies are known not to be desirable prey animals for most predators due to the presence of potentially harmful substances in their blood and bitter taste. During their larval stage, bioluminescence serves as the primary defense mechanism to fend off those predators. The diet of most fireflies includes a mixture of nectar, pollen, fireflies, and other insects. It has been shown that different species of fireflies exhibit unique bioluminescence patterns when attracting mates. For example, males of the species P. pyralis (the state insect of Tennessee) use flashing patterns during courtship to attract potential mates. If a female elects to mate with the male, she will respond by reciprocating with a flash of her own. However, the males must beware, as females of other species such as P. pensylvanica can mimic these patterns to deceive, attract, and eat the males.

The biochemical reaction by which fireflies produce light occurs inside a specialized organ in their lower abdomen. This light-emitting organ utilizes the molecule luciferin, which is responsible for the production of visible light. In the presence of oxygen, magnesium ions, and the energy-rich molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the enzyme luciferase converts luciferin into oxyluciferin, which emits light due to being in an electronically excited state. Upon emitting light, oxyluciferin is recycled and reconverted to luciferin so the process may continue. As with any biochemical process, the rate and capacity for bioluminescence in fireflies is dictated by the concentration of inputs as well as the rate at which byproducts are recycled. Scientists still do not fully understand how fireflies are able to produce bioluminescence with upwards of 80-90% energy efficiency. In comparison, the average incandescent light bulbs and LED lights emit only about 10% and 20% of their total electrical energy input as light, respectively. Since the first law of thermodynamics states that the total energy of the universe is constant and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, heat is the major byproduct in the reactions mentioned above.

To further study the interaction of firefly luciferase with its substrate, a student designs an experiment testing the rate at which the molecules involved are recycled. The student gathers 100 fireflies and separates them randomly into five equal experimental groups. Group A is not given any treatment and each subsequent group of fireflies is administered increasing concentrations of luciferin. Each group of fireflies is then released into separate pitch-black rooms that mimic the fireflies’ natural habitat. These rooms also contain light meters that measure the intensity of light emitted by the group of 20 fireflies as a whole. The results of this experiment are shown in Table 1.

Table 1

With which of the following statements would the author most likely agree?

Individuals of the roughly 2,000 species in the family Lampyridae include those insects capable of producing bioluminescent light through a specific metabolic process. Though commonly referred to as fireflies or lightning bugs, these idiosyncratic creatures are more accurately categorized as winged beetles. Like their amphibian predators, most fireflies are crepuscular and are thus largely reliant on their bioluminescence to attract mates, find food, and warn predators of their potential poisonousness. Fireflies are known not to be desirable prey animals for most predators due to the presence of potentially harmful substances in their blood and bitter taste. During their larval stage, bioluminescence serves as the primary defense mechanism to fend off those predators. The diet of most fireflies includes a mixture of nectar, pollen, fireflies, and other insects. It has been shown that different species of fireflies exhibit unique bioluminescence patterns when attracting mates. For example, males of the species P. pyralis (the state insect of Tennessee) use flashing patterns during courtship to attract potential mates. If a female elects to mate with the male, she will respond by reciprocating with a flash of her own. However, the males must beware, as females of other species such as P. pensylvanica can mimic these patterns to deceive, attract, and eat the males.

The biochemical reaction by which fireflies produce light occurs inside a specialized organ in their lower abdomen. This light-emitting organ utilizes the molecule luciferin, which is responsible for the production of visible light. In the presence of oxygen, magnesium ions, and the energy-rich molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the enzyme luciferase converts luciferin into oxyluciferin, which emits light due to being in an electronically excited state. Upon emitting light, oxyluciferin is recycled and reconverted to luciferin so the process may continue. As with any biochemical process, the rate and capacity for bioluminescence in fireflies is dictated by the concentration of inputs as well as the rate at which byproducts are recycled. Scientists still do not fully understand how fireflies are able to produce bioluminescence with upwards of 80-90% energy efficiency. In comparison, the average incandescent light bulbs and LED lights emit only about 10% and 20% of their total electrical energy input as light, respectively. Since the first law of thermodynamics states that the total energy of the universe is constant and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, heat is the major byproduct in the reactions mentioned above.

To further study the interaction of firefly luciferase with its substrate, a student designs an experiment testing the rate at which the molecules involved are recycled. The student gathers 100 fireflies and separates them randomly into five equal experimental groups. Group A is not given any treatment and each subsequent group of fireflies is administered increasing concentrations of luciferin. Each group of fireflies is then released into separate pitch-black rooms that mimic the fireflies’ natural habitat. These rooms also contain light meters that measure the intensity of light emitted by the group of 20 fireflies as a whole. The results of this experiment are shown in Table 1.

Table 1

Which group of fireflies exhibited the most bioluminescent activity?

Individuals of the roughly 2,000 species in the family Lampyridae include those insects capable of producing bioluminescent light through a specific metabolic process. Though commonly referred to as fireflies or lightning bugs, these idiosyncratic creatures are more accurately categorized as winged beetles. Like their amphibian predators, most fireflies are crepuscular and are thus largely reliant on their bioluminescence to attract mates, find food, and warn predators of their potential poisonousness. Fireflies are known not to be desirable prey animals for most predators due to the presence of potentially harmful substances in their blood and bitter taste. During their larval stage, bioluminescence serves as the primary defense mechanism to fend off those predators. The diet of most fireflies includes a mixture of nectar, pollen, fireflies, and other insects. It has been shown that different species of fireflies exhibit unique bioluminescence patterns when attracting mates. For example, males of the species P. pyralis (the state insect of Tennessee) use flashing patterns during courtship to attract potential mates. If a female elects to mate with the male, she will respond by reciprocating with a flash of her own. However, the males must beware, as females of other species such as P. pensylvanica can mimic these patterns to deceive, attract, and eat the males.

The biochemical reaction by which fireflies produce light occurs inside a specialized organ in their lower abdomen. This light-emitting organ utilizes the molecule luciferin, which is responsible for the production of visible light. In the presence of oxygen, magnesium ions, and the energy-rich molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the enzyme luciferase converts luciferin into oxyluciferin, which emits light due to being in an electronically excited state. Upon emitting light, oxyluciferin is recycled and reconverted to luciferin so the process may continue. As with any biochemical process, the rate and capacity for bioluminescence in fireflies is dictated by the concentration of inputs as well as the rate at which byproducts are recycled. Scientists still do not fully understand how fireflies are able to produce bioluminescence with upwards of 80-90% energy efficiency. In comparison, the average incandescent light bulbs and LED lights emit only about 10% and 20% of their total electrical energy input as light, respectively. Since the first law of thermodynamics states that the total energy of the universe is constant and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, heat is the major byproduct in the reactions mentioned above.

To further study the interaction of firefly luciferase with its substrate, a student designs an experiment testing the rate at which the molecules involved are recycled. The student gathers 100 fireflies and separates them randomly into five equal experimental groups. Group A is not given any treatment and each subsequent group of fireflies is administered increasing concentrations of luciferin. Each group of fireflies is then released into separate pitch-black rooms that mimic the fireflies’ natural habitat. These rooms also contain light meters that measure the intensity of light emitted by the group of 20 fireflies as a whole. The results of this experiment are shown in Table 1.

Table 1

How many more lumens did the brightest group produce than the group administered twice that dose of luciferase?

Individuals of the roughly 2,000 species in the family Lampyridae include those insects capable of producing bioluminescent light through a specific metabolic process. Though commonly referred to as fireflies or lightning bugs, these idiosyncratic creatures are more accurately categorized as winged beetles. Like their amphibian predators, most fireflies are crepuscular and are thus largely reliant on their bioluminescence to attract mates, find food, and warn predators of their potential poisonousness. Fireflies are known not to be desirable prey animals for most predators due to the presence of potentially harmful substances in their blood and bitter taste. During their larval stage, bioluminescence serves as the primary defense mechanism to fend off those predators. The diet of most fireflies includes a mixture of nectar, pollen, fireflies, and other insects. It has been shown that different species of fireflies exhibit unique bioluminescence patterns when attracting mates. For example, males of the species P. pyralis (the state insect of Tennessee) use flashing patterns during courtship to attract potential mates. If a female elects to mate with the male, she will respond by reciprocating with a flash of her own. However, the males must beware, as females of other species such as P. pensylvanica can mimic these patterns to deceive, attract, and eat the males.

The biochemical reaction by which fireflies produce light occurs inside a specialized organ in their lower abdomen. This light-emitting organ utilizes the molecule luciferin, which is responsible for the production of visible light. In the presence of oxygen, magnesium ions, and the energy-rich molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the enzyme luciferase converts luciferin into oxyluciferin, which emits light due to being in an electronically excited state. Upon emitting light, oxyluciferin is recycled and reconverted to luciferin so the process may continue. As with any biochemical process, the rate and capacity for bioluminescence in fireflies is dictated by the concentration of inputs as well as the rate at which byproducts are recycled. Scientists still do not fully understand how fireflies are able to produce bioluminescence with upwards of 80-90% energy efficiency. In comparison, the average incandescent light bulbs and LED lights emit only about 10% and 20% of their total electrical energy input as light, respectively. Since the first law of thermodynamics states that the total energy of the universe is constant and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, heat is the major byproduct in the reactions mentioned above.

To further study the interaction of firefly luciferase with its substrate, a student designs an experiment testing the rate at which the molecules involved are recycled. The student gathers 100 fireflies and separates them randomly into five equal experimental groups. Group A is not given any treatment and each subsequent group of fireflies is administered increasing concentrations of luciferin. Each group of fireflies is then released into separate pitch-black rooms that mimic the fireflies’ natural habitat. These rooms also contain light meters that measure the intensity of light emitted by the group of 20 fireflies as a whole. The results of this experiment are shown in Table 1.

Table 1

The scientists who conducted the aforementioned experiment decided to add another group of 20 fireflies, Group F, which was administered 0.25 mmol luciferase. Which of the following would be the expected luminosity of this new group?

The following is an excerpt from “What is a Monopoly? The Structure and Tell-Tale Signs of Market Control” (2018)

A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity (this contrasts with a monopsony which relates to a single entity's control of a market to purchase a good or service, and with an oligopoly which consists of a few entities dominating an industry). Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service and a lack of viable substitute goods. The verb "monopolize" refers to the process by which a company gains the ability to raise prices or exclude competitors. In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge high prices. Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry.

A monopoly is distinguished from a monopsony, in which there is only one buyer of a product or service; a monopoly may also have monopsony control of a sector of a market. Likewise, a monopoly should be distinguished from a cartel (a form of oligopoly), in which several providers act together to coordinate services, prices or sale of goods. Monopolies, monopsonies and oligopolies are all situations such that one or a few of the entities have market power and therefore interact with their customers (monopoly), suppliers (monopsony) and the other companies (oligopoly) in ways that leave market interactions distorted.

Monopolies can be established by a government, form naturally, or form by integration. In many jurisdictions, competition laws restrict monopolies. Holding a dominant position or a monopoly of a market is often not illegal in itself. However certain categories of behavior can be considered abusive and therefore incur legal sanctions when a business is dominant. A government-granted monopoly or legal monopoly, by contrast, is sanctioned by the state, often to provide an incentive to invest in a risky venture or enrich a domestic interest group. Patents, copyright, and trademarks are sometimes used as examples of government granted monopolies. The government may also reserve the venture for itself, thus forming a government monopoly.

The function of the first paragraph in relation to the passage as a whole is to

This passage is adapted from “Railroads: the Development and the Impact of One of America’s First Modern Systems of Transportation.” (2019)

Transportation developments have greatly influenced the pace and course of business growth in America. The early turnpike and the canal systems each broadened the market area by lowering costs and speeding distribution. But the influence of railroads dwarfed all of these previous developments. Railroads pioneered many aspects of business administration and enhanced some land values enormously. They also had an important impact on the growth of certain cities. Atlanta, for example, was transformed from a spot in the wilderness to a thriving metropolis as a result of the construction of the Western and Atlantic Railroad.

Railroads also provided a large outlet for savings.Their capital requirements were so great that they provided the first big opening for the investment banker – who by the end of the 19th century was in control of many railroads. Railroads, too, because of the stress of competition, both in construction and operation, were the first big firms to experiment with new forms of business organization such as pools and consolidation. It followed – because railroads were so vital to the nation and because their performance was tied in with the business cycle – that the highways which came later were the first form of business to have their operations regulated in large degree by the government.

Finally, railroads were responsible for a great many jobs, at one time more than 2,000,000 workers. Railroads were easily the nation’s largest employers during the post-Civil War, pre-World War I period. In addition they were responsible, indirectly, for tens of thousand of other jobs in the coal, iron, steel, and engineering industries – in such big enterprises, for example, as the Pullman Palace Car Company and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. \ The Pullman Company, in 1909, was the eighth largest firm in the nation in terms of assets, and practically all of its output went to American railroads. Railroads, actually, were to the period 1850-1915 what the auto industry is to today in terms of being the pacesetter or bellwether of the economy. The biggest difference is that no one railroad ever dominated the rail industry as Ford and GM once dominated the auto industry.

The third paragraph of the passage primarily functions to

The following passage is adapted from a speech delivered by Susan B. Anthony in 1873. The speech was delivered after Anthony was tried and fined $100 for voting in the 1872 presidential election.

Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last Presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny.

The preamble of the Federal Constitution says: “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people— women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government—the ballot.

For any State to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people is a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity. To them this government had no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the right govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured, but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters of every household—which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord and rebellion into every home of the nation.

Webster, Worcester and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office. The one question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no State has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women are citizenswomen in the constitutions and laws of the several States is today null and void, precisely as is every one against African Americans.

The author uses the word “alleged” in the first paragraph to:

The following is an excerpt from “What is a Monopoly? The Structure and Tell-Tale Signs of Market Control” (2018)

A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity (this contrasts with a monopsony which relates to a single entity's control of a market to purchase a good or service, and with an oligopoly which consists of a few entities dominating an industry). Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service and a lack of viable substitute goods. The verb "monopolize" refers to the process by which a company gains the ability to raise prices or exclude competitors. In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge high prices. Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry.

A monopoly is distinguished from a monopsony, in which there is only one buyer of a product or service; a monopoly may also have monopsony control of a sector of a market. Likewise, a monopoly should be distinguished from a cartel (a form of oligopoly), in which several providers act together to coordinate services, prices or sale of goods. Monopolies, monopsonies and oligopolies are all situations such that one or a few of the entities have market power and therefore interact with their customers (monopoly), suppliers (monopsony) and the other companies (oligopoly) in ways that leave market interactions distorted.

Monopolies can be established by a government, form naturally, or form by integration. In many jurisdictions, competition laws restrict monopolies. Holding a dominant position or a monopoly of a market is often not illegal in itself. However certain categories of behavior can be considered abusive and therefore incur legal sanctions when a business is dominant. A government-granted monopoly or legal monopoly, by contrast, is sanctioned by the state, often to provide an incentive to invest in a risky venture or enrich a domestic interest group. Patents, copyright, and trademarks are sometimes used as examples of government granted monopolies. The government may also reserve the venture for itself, thus forming a government monopoly.

The function of the first paragraph in relation to the passage as a whole is to

This passage is adapted from “Railroads: the Development and the Impact of One of America’s First Modern Systems of Transportation.” (2019)

Transportation developments have greatly influenced the pace and course of business growth in America. The early turnpike and the canal systems each broadened the market area by lowering costs and speeding distribution. But the influence of railroads dwarfed all of these previous developments. Railroads pioneered many aspects of business administration and enhanced some land values enormously. They also had an important impact on the growth of certain cities. Atlanta, for example, was transformed from a spot in the wilderness to a thriving metropolis as a result of the construction of the Western and Atlantic Railroad.

Railroads also provided a large outlet for savings.Their capital requirements were so great that they provided the first big opening for the investment banker – who by the end of the 19th century was in control of many railroads. Railroads, too, because of the stress of competition, both in construction and operation, were the first big firms to experiment with new forms of business organization such as pools and consolidation. It followed – because railroads were so vital to the nation and because their performance was tied in with the business cycle – that the highways which came later were the first form of business to have their operations regulated in large degree by the government.

Finally, railroads were responsible for a great many jobs, at one time more than 2,000,000 workers. Railroads were easily the nation’s largest employers during the post-Civil War, pre-World War I period. In addition they were responsible, indirectly, for tens of thousand of other jobs in the coal, iron, steel, and engineering industries – in such big enterprises, for example, as the Pullman Palace Car Company and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. \ The Pullman Company, in 1909, was the eighth largest firm in the nation in terms of assets, and practically all of its output went to American railroads. Railroads, actually, were to the period 1850-1915 what the auto industry is to today in terms of being the pacesetter or bellwether of the economy. The biggest difference is that no one railroad ever dominated the rail industry as Ford and GM once dominated the auto industry.

The third paragraph of the passage primarily functions to

The passage is excerpted from Ngonghala CN, et. al’s “Poverty, Disease, and the Ecology of Complex Systems” © 2014 Ngonghala et al.

The modern economics literature on poverty traps, however, is strikingly silent about the role of feedbacks from biophysical and biosocial processes. Two overwhelming characteristics of under-developed economies and the poorest, mostly rural, subpopulations in those countries are (i) the dominant role of resource-dependent primary production—from soils, fisheries, forests, and wildlife—as the root source of income and (ii) the high rates of morbidity and mortality due to parasitic and infectious diseases. For basic subsistence, the extremely poor rely on human capital that is directly generated from their ability to obtain resources, and thus critically influenced by climate and soil that determine the success of food production. These resources in turn influence the nutrition and health of individuals, but can also be influenced by a variety of other biophysical processes. For example, infectious and parasitic diseases effectively steal human resources for their own survival and transmission. Yet scientists rarely integrate even the most rudimentary frameworks for understanding these ecological processes into models of economic growth and poverty.

The author discusses parasitic and infectious diseases in order to:

The passage is excerpted from Ngonghala CN, et. al’s “Poverty, Disease, and the Ecology of Complex Systems” © 2014 Ngonghala et al.

Nonetheless, for the billion people who still languish in chronic extreme poverty, Malthus’s ideas about the importance of biophysical and biosocial feedback (e.g., interactions between human behavior and resource availability) to the dynamics of economic systems still ring true. Indeed, while they were based on observations of human populations, Malthus ideas had reverberations throughout the life sciences. His insights were based on important underlying processes that provided inspiration to both Darwin and Wallace as they independently derived the theory of evolution by natural selection. Likewise, these principles underlie standard models of population biology, including logistic population growth models, predator-prey models, and the epidemiology of host-pathogen dynamics.

The author uses the word “reverberations” in the highlighted sentence primarily in order to

The following passage and corresponding figure are from Emilie Reas. "How the brain learns to read: development of the “word form area”", PLOS Neuro Community, 2018.

The ability to recognize, process and interpret written language is a uniquely human skill that is acquired with remarkable ease at a young age. But as anyone who has attempted to learn a new language will attest, the brain isn’t “hardwired” to understand written language. In fact, it remains somewhat of a mystery how the brain develops this specialized ability. Although researchers have identified brain regions that process written words, how this selectivity for language develops isn’t entirely clear.

Earlier studies have shown that the ventral visual cortex supports recognition of an array of visual stimuli, including objects, faces, and places.\[Sentence 1\] Within this area, a subregion in the left hemisphere known as the “visual word form area” (VWFA) shows a particular selectivity for written words. However, this region is characteristically plastic. It’s been proposed that stimuli compete for representation in this malleable area, such that “winner takes all” depending on the strongest input. That is, how a site is ultimately mapped is dependent on what it’s used for in early childhood. But this idea has yet to be confirmed, and the evolution of specialized brain areas for reading in children is still poorly understood.

In their study, Dehaene-Lambertz and colleagues monitored the reading abilities and brain changes of ten six-year old children to track the emergence of word specialization during a critical development period. Over the course of their first school-year, children were assessed every two months with reading evaluations and functional MRI while viewing words and non-word images (houses, objects, faces, bodies). As expected, reading ability improved over the year of first grade, as demonstrated by increased reading speed, word span, and phoneme knowledge, among other measures.

Even at this young age, when reading ability was newly acquired, words evoked widespread left-lateralized brain activation. This activity increased over the year of school, with the greatest boost occurring after just the first few months. Importantly, there were no similar activation increases in response to other stimuli, confirming that these adaptations were specific to reading ability, not a general effect of development or education. Immediately after school began, the brain volume specialized for reading also significantly increased.\[Sentence 2\] Furthermore, reading speed was associated with greater activity, particularly in the VWFA. The researchers found that activation patterns to words became more reliable with learning. In contrast, the patterns for other categories remained stable, with the exception of numbers, which may reflect specialization for symbols (words and numbers) generally, or correlation with the simultaneous development of mathematics skills.

What predisposes one brain region over another to take on this specialized role for reading words? Before school, there was no strong preference for any other category in regions that would later become word-responsive. However, brain areas that were destined to remain “non-word” regions showed more stable responses to non-word stimuli even before learning to read. Thus, perhaps the brain takes advantage of unoccupied real-estate to perform the newly acquired skill of reading.

These findings add a critical piece to the puzzle of how reading skills are acquired in the developing child brain. Though it was already known that reading recruits a specialized brain region for words, this study reveals that this occurs without changing the organization of areas already specialized for other functions. The authors propose an elegant model for the developmental brain changes underlying reading skill acquisition. In the illiterate child, there are adjacent columns or patches of cortex either tuned to a specific category, or not yet assigned a function.\[Sentence 3\] With literacy, the free subregions become tuned to words, while the previously specialized subregions remain stable.

The rapid emergence of the word area after just a brief learning period highlights the remarkable plasticity of the developing cortex. In individuals who become literate as adults, the same VWFA is present. \[Sentence 4\] However, in contrast to children, the relation between reading speed and activation in this area is weaker in adults, and a single adult case-study by the authors showed a much slower, gradual development of the VWFA over a prolonged learning period of several months. Whatever the reason, this region appears primed to rapidly adopt novel representations of symbolic words, and this priming may peak at a specific period in childhood. This finding underscores the importance of a strong education in youth. The authors surmise that “the success of education might also rely on the right timing to benefit from the highest neural plasticity. Our results might also explain why numerous academic curricula, even in ancient civilizations, propose to teach reading around seven years.”

The figure below shows different skills mapped to different sites in the brain before schooling and then with and without school. Labile sites refer to sites that are not currently mapped to a particular skill.

Which choice provides the best evidence for the statement below?

VWFA grows more quickly in children than it does in adults.

The following passage and corresponding figure are from Emilie Reas. "How the brain learns to read: development of the “word form area”", PLOS Neuro Community, 2018.

The ability to recognize, process and interpret written language is a uniquely human skill that is acquired with remarkable ease at a young age. But as anyone who has attempted to learn a new language will attest, the brain isn’t “hardwired” to understand written language. In fact, it remains somewhat of a mystery how the brain develops this specialized ability. Although researchers have identified brain regions that process written words, how this selectivity for language develops isn’t entirely clear.

Earlier studies have shown that the ventral visual cortex supports recognition of an array of visual stimuli, including objects, faces, and places. Within this area, a subregion in the left hemisphere known as the “visual word form area” (VWFA) shows a particular selectivity for written words. However, this region is characteristically plastic. It’s been proposed that stimuli compete for representation in this malleable area, such that “winner takes all” depending on the strongest input. That is, how a site is ultimately mapped is dependent on what it’s used for in early childhood. But this idea has yet to be confirmed, and the evolution of specialized brain areas for reading in children is still poorly understood.

In their study, Dehaene-Lambertz and colleagues monitored the reading abilities and brain changes of ten six-year old children to track the emergence of word specialization during a critical development period. Over the course of their first school-year, children were assessed every two months with reading evaluations and functional MRI while viewing words and non-word images (houses, objects, faces, bodies). As expected, reading ability improved over the year of first grade, as demonstrated by increased reading speed, word span, and phoneme knowledge, among other measures.

\[Sentence 1\]Even at this young age, when reading ability was newly acquired, words evoked widespread left-lateralized brain activation. This activity increased over the year of school, with the greatest boost occurring after just the first few months. Importantly, there were no similar activation increases in response to other stimuli, confirming that these adaptations were specific to reading ability, not a general effect of development or education. Immediately after school began, the brain volume specialized for reading also significantly increased. Furthermore, reading speed was associated with greater activity, particularly in the VWFA. The researchers found that activation patterns to words became more reliable with learning.\[Sentence 2\] In contrast, the patterns for other categories remained stable, with the exception of numbers, which may reflect specialization for symbols (words and numbers) generally, or correlation with the simultaneous development of mathematics skills.

What predisposes one brain region over another to take on this specialized role for reading words? Before school, there was no strong preference for any other category in regions that would later become word-responsive. \[Sentence 3\]However, brain areas that were destined to remain “non-word” regions showed more stable responses to non-word stimuli even before learning to read. Thus, perhaps the brain takes advantage of unoccupied real-estate to perform the newly acquired skill of reading.

These findings add a critical piece to the puzzle of how reading skills are acquired in the developing child brain. Though it was already known that reading recruits a specialized brain region for words, this study reveals that this occurs without changing the organization of areas already specialized for other functions. The authors propose an elegant model for the developmental brain changes underlying reading skill acquisition. In the illiterate child, there are adjacent columns or patches of cortex either tuned to a specific category, or not yet assigned a function. With literacy, the free subregions become tuned to words, while the previously specialized subregions remain stable.

\[Sentence 4\] The rapid emergence of the word area after just a brief learning period highlights the remarkable plasticity of the developing cortex. In individuals who become literate as adults, the same VWFA is present. However, in contrast to children, the relation between reading speed and activation in this area is weaker in adults, and a single adult case-study by the authors showed a much slower, gradual development of the VWFA over a prolonged learning period of several months. Whatever the reason, this region appears primed to rapidly adopt novel representations of symbolic words, and this priming may peak at a specific period in childhood. This finding underscores the importance of a strong education in youth. The authors surmise that “the success of education might also rely on the right timing to benefit from the highest neural plasticity. Our results might also explain why numerous academic curricula, even in ancient civilizations, propose to teach reading around seven years.”

The figure below shows different skills mapped to different sites in the brain before schooling and then with and without school. Labile sites refer to sites that are not currently mapped to a particular skill.

Which of the following provides the best evidence for the claim below?

A finding that non-word regions continue to solidify in students who remain illiterate may call into question the claim that learning to read does not affect parts of the brain other than the VWFA.

The following passage is adapted from a speech delivered by Susan B. Anthony in 1873. The speech was delivered after Anthony was tried and fined $100 for voting in the 1872 presidential election.

Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last Presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny.

The preamble of the Federal Constitution says: “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people— women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government—the ballot.

For any State to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people is a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity. To them this government had no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the right govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured, but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters of every household—which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord and rebellion into every home of the nation.

Webster, Worcester and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office. The one question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no State has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women are citizenswomen in the constitutions and laws of the several States is today null and void, precisely as is every one against African Americans.

The author uses the word “alleged” in the first paragraph to:

This passage is adapted from Adam K. Fetterman and Kai Sassenberg, “The Reputational Consequences of Failed Replications and Wrongness Admission among Scientists", first published in December 2015 by PLOS ONE.

We like to think of science as a purely rational. However, scientists are human and often identify with their work. Therefore, it should not be controversial to suggest that emotions are involved in replication discussions.\[Sentence 1\] Adding to this inherently emotionally volatile situation, the recent increase in the use of social media and blogs by scientists has allowed for instantaneous, unfiltered, and at times emotion-based commentary on research. Certainly social media has the potential to lead to many positive outcomes in science–among others, to create a more open science.\[Sentence 2\] To some, however, it seems as if this ease of communication is also leading to the public tar and feathering of scientists. \[Sentence 3\] Whether these assertions are true is up for debate, but we assume they are a part of many scientists’ subjective reality. Indeed, when failed replications are discussed in the same paragraphs as questionable research practices, or even fraud, it is hard to separate the science from the scientist. Questionable research practices and fraud are not about the science; they are about the scientist. We believe that these considerations are at least part of the reason that we find the overestimation effect that we do, here.

Even so, the current data suggests that while many are worried about how a failed replication would affect their reputation, it is probably not as bad as they think. Of course, the current data cannot provide evidence that there are no negative effects; just that the negative impact is overestimated. That said, everyone wants to be seen as competent and honest, but failed replications are a part of science. In fact, they are how science moves forward!

While we imply that these effects may be exacerbated by social media, the data cannot directly speak to this. However, any one of a number of cognitive biases may add support to this assumption and explain our findings.\[Sentence 4\] For example, it may be that a type of availability bias or pluralistic ignorance of which the more vocal and critical voices are leading individuals to judge current opinions as more negative than reality. As a result, it is easy to conflate discussions about direct replications with “witch- hunts” and overestimate the impact on one’s own reputation. Whatever the source may be, it is worth looking at the potential negative impact of social media in scientific conversations.

If the desire is to move science forward, scientists need to be able to acknowledge when they are wrong. Theories come and go, and scientists learn from their mistakes (if they can even be called “mistakes”). This is the point of science. However, holding on to faulty ideas flies in the face of the scientific method. Even so, it often seems as if scientists have a hard time admitting wrongness. This seems doubly true when someone else fails to replicate a scientist’s findings. Even so, it often seems as if scientists have a hard time admitting wrongness. This seems doubly true when someone else fails to replicate a scientist’s findings. In some cases, this may be the proper response. Just as often, though, it is not. In most cases, admitting wrongness will have relatively fewer ill effects on one’s reputation than not admitting and it may be better for reputation. It could also be that wrongness admission repairs damage to reputation.

It may seem strange that others consider it less likely that questionable research practices, for example, were used when a scientist admits that they were wrong. However, it does make sense from the standpoint that wrongness admission seems to indicate honesty. Therefore, if one is honest in one domain, they are likely honest in other domains. Moreover, the refusal to admit might indicate to others that the original scientist is trying to cover something up. The lack of significance of most of the interactions in our study suggests that it even seems as if scientists might already realize this. Therefore, we can generally suggest that scientists admit they are wrong, but only when the evidence suggests they should.

The chart below maps how scientists view others' work (left) and how they suspect others will view their own work (right) if the researcher (the scientist or another, depending on the focus) admitted to engaging in questionable research practices.

Adapted from Fetterman & Sassenberg, "The Reputational Consequences of Failed Replications and Wrongness Admission among Scientists." December 9, 2015, PLOS One.

Which choice provides the best evidence to support the statement below?

The author of this passage argues that the effect of social media may give the illusion that feedback on a study is more negative than it really is.

The passage is excerpted from Ngonghala CN, et. al’s “Poverty, Disease, and the Ecology of Complex Systems” © 2014 Ngonghala et al.

The modern economics literature on poverty traps, however, is strikingly silent about the role of feedbacks from biophysical and biosocial processes. Two overwhelming characteristics of under-developed economies and the poorest, mostly rural, subpopulations in those countries are (i) the dominant role of resource-dependent primary production—from soils, fisheries, forests, and wildlife—as the root source of income and (ii) the high rates of morbidity and mortality due to parasitic and infectious diseases. For basic subsistence, the extremely poor rely on human capital that is directly generated from their ability to obtain resources, and thus critically influenced by climate and soil that determine the success of food production. These resources in turn influence the nutrition and health of individuals, but can also be influenced by a variety of other biophysical processes. For example, infectious and parasitic diseases effectively steal human resources for their own survival and transmission. Yet scientists rarely integrate even the most rudimentary frameworks for understanding these ecological processes into models of economic growth and poverty.

The author discusses parasitic and infectious diseases in order to:

The passage is excerpted from Ngonghala CN, et. al’s “Poverty, Disease, and the Ecology of Complex Systems” © 2014 Ngonghala et al.

Nonetheless, for the billion people who still languish in chronic extreme poverty, Malthus’s ideas about the importance of biophysical and biosocial feedback (e.g., interactions between human behavior and resource availability) to the dynamics of economic systems still ring true. Indeed, while they were based on observations of human populations, Malthus ideas had reverberations throughout the life sciences. His insights were based on important underlying processes that provided inspiration to both Darwin and Wallace as they independently derived the theory of evolution by natural selection. Likewise, these principles underlie standard models of population biology, including logistic population growth models, predator-prey models, and the epidemiology of host-pathogen dynamics.

The author uses the word “reverberations” in the highlighted sentence primarily in order to

The following passage and corresponding figure are from Emilie Reas. "How the brain learns to read: development of the “word form area”", PLOS Neuro Community, 2018.

The ability to recognize, process and interpret written language is a uniquely human skill that is acquired with remarkable ease at a young age. But as anyone who has attempted to learn a new language will attest, the brain isn’t “hardwired” to understand written language. In fact, it remains somewhat of a mystery how the brain develops this specialized ability. Although researchers have identified brain regions that process written words, how this selectivity for language develops isn’t entirely clear.

Earlier studies have shown that the ventral visual cortex supports recognition of an array of visual stimuli, including objects, faces, and places.\[Sentence 1\] Within this area, a subregion in the left hemisphere known as the “visual word form area” (VWFA) shows a particular selectivity for written words. However, this region is characteristically plastic. It’s been proposed that stimuli compete for representation in this malleable area, such that “winner takes all” depending on the strongest input. That is, how a site is ultimately mapped is dependent on what it’s used for in early childhood. But this idea has yet to be confirmed, and the evolution of specialized brain areas for reading in children is still poorly understood.

In their study, Dehaene-Lambertz and colleagues monitored the reading abilities and brain changes of ten six-year old children to track the emergence of word specialization during a critical development period. Over the course of their first school-year, children were assessed every two months with reading evaluations and functional MRI while viewing words and non-word images (houses, objects, faces, bodies). As expected, reading ability improved over the year of first grade, as demonstrated by increased reading speed, word span, and phoneme knowledge, among other measures.

Even at this young age, when reading ability was newly acquired, words evoked widespread left-lateralized brain activation. This activity increased over the year of school, with the greatest boost occurring after just the first few months. Importantly, there were no similar activation increases in response to other stimuli, confirming that these adaptations were specific to reading ability, not a general effect of development or education. Immediately after school began, the brain volume specialized for reading also significantly increased.\[Sentence 2\] Furthermore, reading speed was associated with greater activity, particularly in the VWFA. The researchers found that activation patterns to words became more reliable with learning. In contrast, the patterns for other categories remained stable, with the exception of numbers, which may reflect specialization for symbols (words and numbers) generally, or correlation with the simultaneous development of mathematics skills.

What predisposes one brain region over another to take on this specialized role for reading words? Before school, there was no strong preference for any other category in regions that would later become word-responsive. However, brain areas that were destined to remain “non-word” regions showed more stable responses to non-word stimuli even before learning to read. Thus, perhaps the brain takes advantage of unoccupied real-estate to perform the newly acquired skill of reading.

These findings add a critical piece to the puzzle of how reading skills are acquired in the developing child brain. Though it was already known that reading recruits a specialized brain region for words, this study reveals that this occurs without changing the organization of areas already specialized for other functions. The authors propose an elegant model for the developmental brain changes underlying reading skill acquisition. In the illiterate child, there are adjacent columns or patches of cortex either tuned to a specific category, or not yet assigned a function.\[Sentence 3\] With literacy, the free subregions become tuned to words, while the previously specialized subregions remain stable.

The rapid emergence of the word area after just a brief learning period highlights the remarkable plasticity of the developing cortex. In individuals who become literate as adults, the same VWFA is present. \[Sentence 4\] However, in contrast to children, the relation between reading speed and activation in this area is weaker in adults, and a single adult case-study by the authors showed a much slower, gradual development of the VWFA over a prolonged learning period of several months. Whatever the reason, this region appears primed to rapidly adopt novel representations of symbolic words, and this priming may peak at a specific period in childhood. This finding underscores the importance of a strong education in youth. The authors surmise that “the success of education might also rely on the right timing to benefit from the highest neural plasticity. Our results might also explain why numerous academic curricula, even in ancient civilizations, propose to teach reading around seven years.”

The figure below shows different skills mapped to different sites in the brain before schooling and then with and without school. Labile sites refer to sites that are not currently mapped to a particular skill.

Which choice provides the best evidence for the statement below?

VWFA grows more quickly in children than it does in adults.

The following passage and corresponding figure are from Emilie Reas. "How the brain learns to read: development of the “word form area”", PLOS Neuro Community, 2018.

The ability to recognize, process and interpret written language is a uniquely human skill that is acquired with remarkable ease at a young age. But as anyone who has attempted to learn a new language will attest, the brain isn’t “hardwired” to understand written language. In fact, it remains somewhat of a mystery how the brain develops this specialized ability. Although researchers have identified brain regions that process written words, how this selectivity for language develops isn’t entirely clear.

Earlier studies have shown that the ventral visual cortex supports recognition of an array of visual stimuli, including objects, faces, and places. Within this area, a subregion in the left hemisphere known as the “visual word form area” (VWFA) shows a particular selectivity for written words. However, this region is characteristically plastic. It’s been proposed that stimuli compete for representation in this malleable area, such that “winner takes all” depending on the strongest input. That is, how a site is ultimately mapped is dependent on what it’s used for in early childhood. But this idea has yet to be confirmed, and the evolution of specialized brain areas for reading in children is still poorly understood.

In their study, Dehaene-Lambertz and colleagues monitored the reading abilities and brain changes of ten six-year old children to track the emergence of word specialization during a critical development period. Over the course of their first school-year, children were assessed every two months with reading evaluations and functional MRI while viewing words and non-word images (houses, objects, faces, bodies). As expected, reading ability improved over the year of first grade, as demonstrated by increased reading speed, word span, and phoneme knowledge, among other measures.

\[Sentence 1\]Even at this young age, when reading ability was newly acquired, words evoked widespread left-lateralized brain activation. This activity increased over the year of school, with the greatest boost occurring after just the first few months. Importantly, there were no similar activation increases in response to other stimuli, confirming that these adaptations were specific to reading ability, not a general effect of development or education. Immediately after school began, the brain volume specialized for reading also significantly increased. Furthermore, reading speed was associated with greater activity, particularly in the VWFA. The researchers found that activation patterns to words became more reliable with learning.\[Sentence 2\] In contrast, the patterns for other categories remained stable, with the exception of numbers, which may reflect specialization for symbols (words and numbers) generally, or correlation with the simultaneous development of mathematics skills.

What predisposes one brain region over another to take on this specialized role for reading words? Before school, there was no strong preference for any other category in regions that would later become word-responsive. \[Sentence 3\]However, brain areas that were destined to remain “non-word” regions showed more stable responses to non-word stimuli even before learning to read. Thus, perhaps the brain takes advantage of unoccupied real-estate to perform the newly acquired skill of reading.

These findings add a critical piece to the puzzle of how reading skills are acquired in the developing child brain. Though it was already known that reading recruits a specialized brain region for words, this study reveals that this occurs without changing the organization of areas already specialized for other functions. The authors propose an elegant model for the developmental brain changes underlying reading skill acquisition. In the illiterate child, there are adjacent columns or patches of cortex either tuned to a specific category, or not yet assigned a function. With literacy, the free subregions become tuned to words, while the previously specialized subregions remain stable.

\[Sentence 4\] The rapid emergence of the word area after just a brief learning period highlights the remarkable plasticity of the developing cortex. In individuals who become literate as adults, the same VWFA is present. However, in contrast to children, the relation between reading speed and activation in this area is weaker in adults, and a single adult case-study by the authors showed a much slower, gradual development of the VWFA over a prolonged learning period of several months. Whatever the reason, this region appears primed to rapidly adopt novel representations of symbolic words, and this priming may peak at a specific period in childhood. This finding underscores the importance of a strong education in youth. The authors surmise that “the success of education might also rely on the right timing to benefit from the highest neural plasticity. Our results might also explain why numerous academic curricula, even in ancient civilizations, propose to teach reading around seven years.”

The figure below shows different skills mapped to different sites in the brain before schooling and then with and without school. Labile sites refer to sites that are not currently mapped to a particular skill.

Which of the following provides the best evidence for the claim below?

A finding that non-word regions continue to solidify in students who remain illiterate may call into question the claim that learning to read does not affect parts of the brain other than the VWFA.

The passage is adapted from Ngonghala CN, et. al’s “Poverty, Disease, and the Ecology of Complex Systems” © 2014 Ngonghala et al.

The economics literature on poverty traps, where extreme poverty of some populations persists alongside economic prosperity among others, has a history in various schools of thought. The most Malthusian of models were advanced later by Leibenstein and Nelson, who argued that interactions between economic, capital, and population growth can create a subsistence-level equilibrium. Today, the most common models of poverty traps are rooted in neoclassical growth theory, which is the dominant foundational framework for modeling economic growth. Though sometimes controversial, poverty trap concepts have been integral to some of the most sweeping efforts to catalyze economic development, such as those manifest in the Millennium Development Goals.

In the context of the highlighted portion of the passage, “catalyze” most nearly means