Craft and Structure

Chief Editor

Mar 17, 2024

Take all 3 MCQs in interactive quiz mode with timer and progress tracking

For her 2021 art installation Anthem, Wu Tsang joined forces with singer and composer Beverly Glenn-Copeland to produce a piece that critics found truly ________: they praised Tsang for creatively transforming a museum rotunda into a dynamic exhibit by projecting filmed images of Glenn-Copeland onto a massive 84-foot curtain and filling the space with the sounds of his and other voices singing. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

Difficulty: Hard

restrained

inventive

inexplicable

mystifying

Text 1 Most animals can regenerate some parts of their bodies, such as skin. But when a three-banded panther worm is cut into three pieces, each piece grows into a new worm. Researchers are investigating this feat partly to learn more about humans' comparatively limited abilities to regenerate, and they're making exciting progress. An especially promising discovery is that both humans and panther worms have a gene for early growth response (EGR) linked to regeneration. Text 2 When Mansi Srivastava and her team reported that panther worms, like humans, possess a gene for EGR, it caused excitement. However, as the team pointed out, the gene likely functions very differently in humans than it does in panther worms. Srivastava has likened EGR to a switch that activates other genes involved in regeneration in panther worms, but how this switch operates in humans remains unclear. Based on the texts, what would the author of Text 2 most likely say about Text 1's characterization of the discovery involving EGR?

Difficulty: Hard

It is reasonable given that Srivastava and her team have identified how EGR functions in both humans and panther worms.

It is overly optimistic given additional observations from Srivastava and her team.

It is unexpected given that Srivastava and her team's findings were generally met with enthusiasm.

It is unfairly dismissive given the progress that Srivastava and her team have reported.

Text 1 Because literacy in Nahuatl script, the writing system of the Aztec Empire, was lost after Spain invaded central Mexico in the 1500s, it is unclear exactly how meaning was encoded in the script's symbols. Although many scholars had assumed that the symbols signified entire words, linguist Alfonso Lacadena theorized in 2008 that they signified units of language smaller than words: individual syllables. Text 2 The growing consensus among scholars of Nahuatl script is that many of its symbols could signify either words or syllables, depending on syntax and content at any given site within a text. For example, the symbol signifying the word huipil (louse) in some contexts could signify the syllable "pil" in others, as in the place name "Chiplitepec." Thus, for the Aztecs, reading required a determination of how such symbols functioned each time they appeared in a text. Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely characterize Lacadena's theory, as described in Text 1?

Difficulty: Medium

By praising the theory for recognizing that the script's symbols could represent entire words

By arguing that the theory is overly influenced by the work of earlier scholars

By approving of the theory's emphasis on how the script changed over time

By cautioning that the theory overlooks certain important aspects of how the script functioned