Read the passage from "What Your Most Vivid Memories Say about You,” which is an informational text that explores what makes up a person’s identity.In an intriguing study, Connecticut College psychologist Jefferson Singer and his colleagues (2007) compared older adults with college students on self-defining memories. They found that older adults tended to come up with more general memories that linked several events together and that, in general, older adults tended to feel more positively about their self-defining memories, even if the memories were of events that were negative in nature. These findings fit with other lines of research suggesting that older adults have found ways to make sense out of their life stories. They convert memories of troubling events into stories of redemption in which they make peace with their past struggles. For younger adults, events of a negative nature had more rough edges, causing them to experience greater distress when they recalled them.
Read the passage from "Stalin: A Brutal Legacy Uncovered,” which is an informational text about Stalin’s atrocities and how he used ambition and fear to rule over people of the Soviet Union.As Khrushchev informed the closed session of the Party apparatchiks, his report—which has entered history as the "Secret Speech"—was based on research by a special commission of senior leaders of the Communist Party. It covered primarily only one part of Stalin's murderous record: the peak years of his savage "Great Purge" in the mid- and late 1930s, a massacre that wiped out a whole generation of Bolsheviks, the Party's oldest and most faithful members.Khrushchev, who went on to become the Soviet prime minister, said next to nothing about the rest of Stalin's victims, who have been estimated at more than 20 million.Stalin's genocidal record was the product of a ruthless, steely personality hardened by searing hardships in his youth: first, brutal beatings by his alcoholic, dirt-poor father; and later, several rounds of imprisonment and exile—from which he often escaped—following his expulsion from a Russian Orthodox seminary for fomenting a strike of railroad workers. For the 20-year-old Stalin, an outstanding student with top marks in Bible and Church studies, the strike was the first step on a new road - a career of rebellion, crime, and radical politics that eventually made him the unquestioned boss of the Communist Party and of 140 million people in the Soviet Union.
Read the passage from "Carrots with Character,” which is an informational text about the health benefits of genetically modified carrots.The researchers, led by plant geneticist Philipp Simon, haven't limited themselves to the color orange. They've selectively bred a rainbow of carrots—purple, red, yellow, even white. Scientists are learning that these plant pigments perform a range of protective duties in the human body—which is not surprising, says Simon, since many of the pigments serve to shield plant cells during photosynthesis. Red carrots derive their color mainly from lycopene, a type of carotene believed to guard against heart disease and some cancers. Yellow carrots accumulate xanthophylls, pigments similar to beta-carotene that support good eye health. Purple carrots possess an entirely different class of pigments—anthocyanins—which act as powerful antioxidants.While colored carrots are unusual, they're not exactly new. "Purple and yellow carrots were eaten more than 1,000 years ago in Afghanistan and 700 years ago in western Europe,” says Simon. "But the carrot-breeding process has gone on intensively for just 50 years.”Simon and his team of ARS researchers and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) have recently shown that their highly pigmented carrots are a ready source of some sought-after nutrients.
Read the excerpt from The Crisis, Number I. "I call not upon a few but upon all—not on this state or that state, but on every state—up and help us. . . . Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and repulse it."Paine's purpose in issuing this plea is to
Read the passage from the beginning of "Banksy and the Tradition of Destroying Art."When the British street artist Banksy shredded his "Girl With Balloon” after it was purchased for US $1.4 million at Sotheby’s, did he know how the art world would react?Did he anticipate that the critics would claim that the work, in its partially shredded state, would climb in value to at least $2 million? That the purchaser would not object and would instead rejoice?We have no way of really knowing, though the famously anonymous artist did suggest that the shredder malfunctioned: The painting was supposed to be fully shredded, not partially destroyed.As an art historian, I view his act in a larger context—as the latest example of artists deploying guerrilla tactics to expose their disdain for the critics, dealers, gallery owners and museum curators whom they depend on for their livelihood.
Which sentence contains a comma splice?
Read the passage from "When Good People Do Bad Things,” which is an informational text about research into group behaviors.In a study that recently went online in the journal Neurolmage, the researchers measured brain activity in a part of the brain involved in thinking about oneself. They found that in some people, this activity was reduced when the subjects participated in a competition as part of a group, compared with when they competed as individuals. Those people were more likely to harm their competitors than people who did not exhibit this decreased brain activity.
How do both “The Author to Her Book” and “A Hymn to the Evening” reflect cultural values of their time?
What is the central idea of paragraph six of Of Plymouth Plantation?
Which statement most accurately describes "The Author to Her Book" and "A Hymn to the Evening"?
Read the statement.When a government fails to protect the unalienable rights of its citizens, it is the duty and right of citizens to create another form of government.This statement is the Declaration of Independence’s
Read the excerpt from The Crisis, Number I. "I am as confident as I am that God governs the world that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars without ceasing will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire."Paine uses metaphor to demonstrate that
Which of the following statements supports the idea that Colonists tried to work with the king before writing the Declaration of Independence?
Read the paragraph.Salvador Dalí, born Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domenech. In Figueras, Spain in 1904. He was a Surrealist painter and printmaker; some of his most notable works explore subconscious imagery. In fact, he was profoundly influenced by the writings of Sigmund Freud. An Austrian neurologist who created psychoanalysis. Which is the best way to improve this paragraph’s sentence fluency?
Read the quotation from The Crisis, Number IV.“It is not a field of a few acres of ground, but a cause, that we are defending, and whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the consequences will be the same.”Which phrase best describes the “cause” that Paine refers to?
Read this quotation from The Crisis, Number IV by Thomas Paine.Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.According to this quotation, Paine believes that the colonists
Which is the best summary of the final paragraph of The Crisis, Number IV?
Read the statement.Achieving independence requires sacrifice and determination.This statement is the The Crisis, Number IV’s
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