Practice Quiz Mode
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Researchers have struggled to pinpoint specific causes for hiccups, which happen when a person's diaphragm contracts ________. However, neuroscientist Kimberley Whitehead has found that these uncontrollable contractions may play an important role in helping infants regulate their breathing.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Difficulty: Easy
A:
involuntarily
B:
beneficially
C:
strenuously
D:
smoothly
Streams and rivers carry soil and rocks from one location to another. But there is another way for these geological materials to move. Scientists call this process "aeolian transport." In aeolian transport, winds move small particles of soil or rock over potentially great distances. Geologist Melisa Diaz and her team studied dust in Antarctica to find out if it was moved by aeolian transport. They discovered that the dust matched geological material in Australia. Aeolian transport had carried it from one continent to another, across thousands of miles of open ocean.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
Difficulty: Easy
A:
It presents Melisa Diaz's remarks about difficulties that her team encountered.
B:
It introduces a scientific term that is used in the discussion that follows.
C:
It emphasizes the surprising nature of the findings that are presented.
D:
It explains the difference between two kinds of geological material.
The following text is adapted from Mohsin Hamid's 2017 novel Exit West. Saeed lives with his mother and father. On cloudless nights after a daytime rain, Saeed's father would sometimes bring out the telescope, and the family would slip green tea on their balcony, enjoying a breeze, and take turns to look up at objects whose light, often, had been emitted before any of these three viewers had been born--light from other centuries, only now reaching Earth.
As used in the text, what does the word "reaching" most nearly mean?
Difficulty: Easy
A:
Arriving at
B:
Consulting with
C:
Running to
D:
Clinging to
When Mexican-American archaeologist Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall published her 1886 research paper on sculptures found at the ancient Indigenous city of Teotihuacan in present-day Mexico, other researchers readily ________ her work as groundbreaking; this recognition stemmed from her convincing demonstration that the sculptures were much older than had previously been thought.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Difficulty: Easy
A:
acknowledged
B:
ensured
C:
denied
D:
underestimated
Some people have speculated that two helmets with attached horns discovered in Denmark in 1942 belonged to Vikings, but scholars have long been skeptical. Archaeologist Helle Vandkilde and colleagues recently provided radiocarbon dates for the helmets, and their findings ________ scholars' skepticism: the helmets date to the Nordic Bronze Age, centuries before the Vikings existed.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Difficulty: Easy
A:
anticipate
B:
inspect
C:
reveal
D:
justify
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