Two-Passage Questions Practice Test

Text 1
City officials often treat remote work as a temporary disruption, but the evidence suggests it is a durable shift that will permanently weaken downtown economies. In several U.S. cities, weekday office occupancy has stabilized far below pre-2020 levels, and small businesses that relied on lunch crowds have not recovered. Because firms can now recruit nationally without paying for prime real estate, many will keep shrinking their footprints. Downtowns built around commuting should expect long-term decline unless they radically reinvent their purpose.
Text 2
Remote work has changed where people sit, not whether they spend. When commuters stop buying sandwiches downtown, they buy groceries and coffee closer to home, and those neighborhood businesses expand. Moreover, many companies are adopting hybrid schedules that still bring workers into the city several days a week, sustaining demand for transit and restaurants, though in a different pattern. The real risk is not an inevitable collapse of downtowns but a failure to adapt zoning and housing policy to convert empty offices into livable mixed-use space.

Based on Text 2, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to Text 1’s claim that downtowns should expect long-term decline?

Text 1
Standardized tests should be eliminated from college admissions because they primarily measure family resources, not academic potential. Wealthier students can pay for tutoring, take the exam multiple times, and attend schools that teach test-taking strategies. Meanwhile, students juggling jobs or caregiving may have strong grades but little time to prepare. When colleges rely on scores, they reward advantage and call it merit. A fairer system would emphasize sustained performance in coursework and community contributions over a single timed exam.
Text 2
Test scores reflect inequality, but eliminating them can worsen transparency. Grades and extracurriculars are also shaped by resources, and they vary widely across schools with different rigor and inflation. A standardized measure, though imperfect, can help identify high-achieving students in under-resourced schools whose transcripts may be undervalued. The better solution is to use tests cautiously—offering free preparation, considering local context, and limiting retakes—rather than pretending that removing a metric removes inequity from admissions.

Based on Text 2, how would its author most likely respond to Text 1’s argument for eliminating standardized tests?