QUESTION EXPLANATIONS

1. (A) — The original sentence is correct: reading on indicates the passage is written in the present tense because it is describing things that are currently true. (B) and (C) both change the tense of the sentence into something that is inconsistent with the passage, so they are incorrect. “Being” by itself cannot be the main verb of a sentence, which this is, so (D) is incorrect.

2. (D) — This answer choice makes the two parts of the sentence as closely parallel in structure as possible. Although the original sentence is grammatically correct, it is not parallel, so it is awkward and (A) is incorrect. (B) and (C) do not address the problem of parallelism, so they are incorrect.

3. (A) — The paragraph discusses two examples of defensive weapons and summarizes the effect of such adaptations on predator behavior; (A) establishes defensive weapons as the topic of the sentence without including distracting information, so it is correct. The paragraph does not discuss whether the adaptations mentioned are simple or elaborate, so (B) is incorrect. The paragraph does not discuss animals avoiding confrontation or running away, so (C) and (D) are incorrect.

4. (B) — This answer choice is appropriately formal in tone, so it is correct. “Way too gross” is too casual to suit a formal tone, so (A) and (D) are incorrect. Using figurative dialogue for animals is also inappropriate for a formal piece of writing, so (C) is also incorrect.

5. (C) — “Mimicry” appropriately characterizes animals imitating the appearance of their surroundings to avoid predators; it suggest successfully imitation and can be used without connotations of malicious intent. “Mockery” and “deceit” both always carry connotations of malicious intent, which can only apply to humans, not animals, so (A) and (D) incorrect. “Duplication” suggests an exact copy of something, which an animal imitating a plant cannot be, so (B) is incorrect.

6. (C) — The information in this sentence follows logically from the information in the preceding sentence; this makes “naturally” an appropriate transition to begin the sentence with, so (C) is correct. “Even so” and “nevertheless” both imply the existence of an apparent contradiction between the information in this sentence and the information in the preceding sentence; this is not the case, so (A) and (B) are incorrect. “And then” implies that this sentence follows sequentially from the previous sentence, but the facts in this sentence and the preceding sentence are true at the same time, not in order; thus, (D) is incorrect.

7. (D) — This answer creates a grammatically correct sentence without any redundant words, so it is correct. The original sentence contains redundant words because “quickly” and “right away” mean roughly the same thing, so (A) is incorrect. (B) replaces “right away” with “immediately,” which results in the same problem, so it is incorrect. Plugging (C) into the original context results in a clause that does not make grammatical sense (“Surely such animals would be spotted and immediately”), so it is incorrect.

8. (B) — The subject of this sentence, “coloration,” is singular, so the verb must be singular; the singular third person form of “indicate” is “indicates,” so (B) is correct. “Indicate” is used for the first or second person, or for the third person plural, none of which apply to this sentence, so (A) is incorrect. (C) and (D) both change the tense of the sentence to be inconsistent with the passage as a whole, which is written in the present tense, so they are incorrect.

9. (C) — The paragraph is focused on the ways a particular anti-predation strategy works to help the animals that use it; sentence 5 is the only sentence in this paragraph or in the passage that talks about aesthetic judgments humans make about animals, so it is irrelevant and distracting. The logical flow of the paragraph would not be improved by moving sentences around, so (A) and (B) are incorrect. Sentence 4 describes how the anti-predation strategy in question works, so deleting it would make the paragraph less informative while not improving focus, so (D) is incorrect.

10. (A) — The pronoun here refers to the singular “honey bee,” so it needs to be singular; it is being used as an adjective to describe “ability,” so it needs to be possessive. “Its” is a singular possessive pronoun appropriate to use in reference to a bee, so (A) is correct. “It’s” is a contraction meaning “it is,” which does not make sense in context, so (B) is incorrect. “Their” is a plural pronoun, so (C) is incorrect. “They’re” is a contraction meaning “they are,” which does not make sense in context, so (D) is incorrect.

11. (D) — The drone fly” does not appear in this sentence, and other things that can be referred to with gender-neutral pronouns do appear in this sentence (including “trickery” and “sting”), so in order for the sentence to be clear, the drone fly should be mentioned again; thus, (D) is correct. (A), (B), and (C) are all pronouns which have an ambiguous antecedent; choosing any of these answer choices results in a confusing sentence, so they are incorrect.

12. (D) — A comma joins the two parts of the sentence in a grammatically correct way, so it is correct. The portion of the sentence beginning with “thanks” is not an independent clause, so it cannot be its own sentence or connected to the previous sentence by a semicolon; therefore, (A) and (C) are incorrect. Although colons can sometimes be used to join independent clauses to phrases that are not independent clauses, that use is normally reserved for lists and quotes. The phrase beginning “thanks” is not a list or quote; it a modifying phrase, and should be more closely connected to the phrase that it modifies, so (B) is incorrect.

13. (B) — This choice is concise, clear, and parallel to the information it is joined with (“brilliant strategy,” another adjective followed by a noun). The original sentence is too wordy and the clause in question lacks parallelism, so (A) is incorrect. (C) and (D) do nothing to address those concerns, so they are also incorrect.

14. (C) — This choice is both concise and clear, so it is correct. “While” implies an apparent contradiction, which is not present in this case, so (A) is incorrect. The use of “then” in (B) is redundant because the presence of “earlier success” implies that this action is taking place later, so (B) is incorrect. (D) fails to emphasize grammatically the link between his success and his later actions, so it is incorrect.

15. (C) — “Threatening to mutiny” refers to his troops, so “his troops” should come right after the comma; therefore, (C) is correct. The original sentence has “threatening to mutiny” grammatically modifying “he,” not his troops, which creates a misplaced modifier, so (A) is incorrect. (B) and (D) do not address this problem, so it is incorrect.

16. (A) — This is an example of a semicolon being used properly to join two independent clauses, so it is correct. Two independent clauses joined by a comma create a comma splice, which is a type of run-on sentence, so (B) is incorrect. Answer choice (C) inserts a comma unnecessarily, separating the subject of a clause from its verb, so it is incorrect. Answer choices (D) creates a run-on sentence because it joins two independent clauses without any punctuation or conjunction, so it is incorrect.

17. (D) — This is both clear and concise, so it is correct. The original sentence is excessively wordy, so (A) is incorrect. Alexander adopted customs, not the country, so although (B) is concise, it is incorrect. (C) is clear, but not as concise as it could be, so it is incorrect.

18. (B) — Alexander’s failure is a result of the unpopular decisions described in the preceding sentence; “as a result” captures this relationship between the two sentences, so (B) is correct. “Nevertheless” and “in spite of this” both imply apparent or real contradictions, which are not present in this case, so (A) and (D) are incorrect. “In addition” implies that the information in the sentence is adding to that given by the previous sentence but not building directly from it; it fails to connect Alexander’s failure to his unpopular decisions and is therefore incorrect.

19. (B) — This choice provides contextual information that makes the beliefs of the historians mentioned in sentence 2 more plausible by making poisoning seem common in this time and place. The composition of different types of poisons is not relevant to the question of whether someone poisoned Alexander, so (A) is incorrect. (C) and (D) both indicate a general decline in health, and while that could have made Alexander more vulnerable to poisoning, that could also support the contrary assertion that Alexander died of natural causes; (C) and (D) therefore do not effectively support the claim in sentence 2 and are incorrect.

20. (A) — Sentence 4 gives an example of the “grandiose plans” mentioned in the preceding sentence, so it makes logical sense where it is. Placing it after sentence 1 would put it between two sentences about the circumstances of his death, which would be disruptive and confusing, so (B) is incorrect. Placing it after sentence 2 means placing it right before the context that gives it meaning relevant to the paragraph, which would be confusing; therefore (C) is incorrect. By the end of the paragraph, the focus has shifted to what came after Alexander; placing sentence 4 after sentence 6 would cause the flow of the paragraph to reverse direction, which would not be logical or clear; therefore (D) is incorrect.

21. (B) — The paragraph deals primarily with Alexander’s “impact on history”; (B) effectively establishes this topic, so it is correct. (A) contradicts the idea put forth in the final paragraph that Alexander’s legacy lived on after his empire fell, so it is incorrect. (C) focuses on Alexander’s failures, but the paragraph focuses on Alexander’s importance regardless of those failures, so (C) is incorrect. The legacy described in the paragraph does not involve positive judgments of his ruling style, so (D) is incorrect.

22. (D) — Although the four possible words sound very similar, they mean very different things. “Elusions” are escapes or evasions, “elisions” are instances of not pronouncing part of a word, and “illusions” are deceptions. “Allusions” are references to other things. Only “allusions” makes sense in context, so (D) is correct and (A), (B) and (C) are incorrect.

23. (B) — This choice is appropriately formal in tone, so it is correct. (A), (C), and (D) are all excessively casual to use in formal writing, so they are incorrect.

24. (A) — This choice is the most concise version of the underlined portion of the sentence. (B) is incorrect because it unnecessarily adds the phrase “as well” to the end of the underlined portion. “These disorders” refers to the disorders mentioned in the preceding paragraph, which include anxiety disorders, so while this sentence expands on a preceding idea it doesn’t add a new disorder to the list and "as well" doesn't add any useful information. (C) and (D) are incorrect because they both create redundancies by discussing “adolescents” and “teens” or “teenage youth.” Those terms refer to the same groups, so they are redundant with one another. The group has also been defined earlier in the sentence. While it is sometimes better to repeat a noun or noun phrase than to use a pronoun, that is only necessary when using a pronoun might be unclear. While there are some other plural nouns in the sentence, none of the alternatives could plausibly “suffer from … an anxiety disorder,” so there is no ambiguity about the correct antecedent in this context and we can take the more concise option of using the pronoun "them" in place of the longer noun phrase "adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18."

25. (B) — The plural possessive pronoun “their” correctly refers to the plural antecedent “people,” so (B) is correct. (A), (C), and (D) would all refer to singular antecedents, so they are incorrect.

26. (B) — Both pieces of information presented in this sentence are accurate according to the graph. The graph does not present data for children born in 2010, only sites reporting that year, so (A) and (C) are incorrect. The column containing the values 6.8 and 14.7 refers to prevalence per 1,000 children, not percent (which is prevalence per 100), so (D) is incorrect.

27. (A) — Sentence 2 offers a percentage figure, and, in its current context, appears to be contrasting that figure with a preceding figure given for another disorder. If we were to move the sentence to the beginning of the paragraph, or to follow sentence 4, it would be unclear what “that figure” refers to, so (B) is incorrect. If we moved it to follow sentence 5, then it could be comparing the 10% rate “for ADHD and depression” with the rate of ASD in children born in a particular year. However, that would be a comparison of unlike figures, so (D) is not as logical as (A).

28. (B) — This choice aligns a plural, “students,” with a plural, “psychologists,” so it is correct. (A), (C), and (D) all align the plural “students” with a singular word, so they are incorrect.

29. (B) — “Without a doubt” is used to strongly affirm the truth of a statement, but such affirmation is not necessary in this context, so (A) is incorrect. “Conversely” is used to introduce a statement which is the opposite of a preceding statement, but uncertainty about causes of mental illness is not the opposite of uncertainty about whether prevalence is increasing, so (C) is incorrect. “Consequently” introduces a statement which describes the logical consequence of preceding statements, but uncertainty about root causes does not appear to be a consequence of uncertainty about prevalence, so (D) is incorrect. “However” introduces a contrast, but not as strongly as “conversely.” In this case, the writer has asserted that studies are needed to better understand potential changes in prevalence. Then, she suggests that “root causes and biological underpinnings” are actually not known, and that studies of the genes and brains of individuals with mental illnesses are needed to better understand the causes of mental illness. There is thus a contrast between the need for broad studies of the entire population and the need to study the genes and brains of individuals with mental illness, and “however” is an appropriate transitional word.

30. (D) — Both “genes” and “brains” are being used as plural non-possessive nouns in the sentence, so this is correct. (A), (B), and (C) all include at least one of those words being used as singular possessive, which does not make sense in context, so they are incorrect.

31. (C) — This paragraph is primarily about the treatment of mental illness; (C) effectively establishes that as the topic. (A), (B), and (D) all fail to relate to treatment, so they are not strongly related to the paragraph; therefore, they are incorrect.

32. (B) — The pronoun refers to the plural “medications,” and the verb is accordingly in its plural form, so this is correct. (A) uses a singular pronoun to refer to a plural antecedent, so it is incorrect. “Which” is used in questions or to introduce a relative clause, neither of which is happening here, so (C) is incorrect. “Does” is a singular verb which cannot be used with plural pronouns, so “D” is grammatically wrong and therefore incorrect.

33. (C) — The subject of this verb is the singular “availability,” so the verb should be singular; therefore, (C) is correct. “Are” is a plural verb, so (A) is incorrect. “Can be” is not certain enough to fit with the fact that the passage is actively advocating in favor of the availability of more psychologists, so (B) is incorrect. The passage is written in the present tense, and “was” is in the past tense with no apparent reason to be, so (D) is incorrect.

34. (D) — “Affiliated” takes the preposition “with,” so (D) is correct. “Affiliated” never takes the prepositions “to,” “in,” or “by,” so (A), (B), and (C) are incorrect.

35. (C) — “Expounded,” or “presented,” makes sense in the context of the sentence, so (C) is correct. “Concluded” does not make sense as something a book would do to principles; it also contradicts the information that Sartre was a pioneer, meaning his work was early in the field’s history. Thus, (A) is incorrect. “Contrived” usually has a connotation of acting either slyly or foolishly, which is not appropriate in this context, so (B) is incorrect. “Insinuated” means to suggest or hint, but the context strongly suggests direct communication (e.g. “Sartre argued” specific points), so (D) is incorrect.

36. (B) — “By developing” introduces a restrictive phrase that specifies how people must define their own meaning and purpose. Restrictive phrases shouldn’t be separated from their subjects, and (A), (C), and (D) all separate it from the rest of the sentence, so they are incorrect.

37. (C) — This choice is clear and contains no redundancies, so it is correct. The original sentence contains “also” and “as well,” which are both ways of marking additional information. In this context, the conjunction “and” is adequate to indicate that Sartre emphasized freedom as well as responsibility, so “also” and “as well” are not necessary; thus, (A), (B), and (D), which all contain at least one of those while retaining the “and,” are all incorrect.

38. (C) — Characters reflecting on their misdeeds in Hell are examples of the “irresponsible and immoral characters” mentioned in the previous section, so (C) is correct. (A), (B), and (D) do not refer to characters who are clearly irresponsible or immoral, so they are not relevant as evidence for the claim in the preceding sentence; therefore, they are incorrect.

39. (A) — “Though” implies an apparent contradiction, which is appropriate in the case of an author addressing existentialist themes while not considering himself an existentialist, so (A) is correct. The other options all retain the information but do not logically connect it by addressing the apparent contradiction, so (B), (C), and (D) are incorrect.

40. (C) — It is true that the information in the sentence is not relevant and diminishes the focus of the paragraph, so it should be deleted. It is not relevant to the subject of Camus’s work, so (A) is incorrect. It does not contribute to the logical progression of the passage, so (B) is incorrect. It does not contradict information presented earlier in the passage, so (D) is incorrect.

41. (C) — A series of three items should be joined by commas after the first one or two and the conjunction “and” before the last, so (C) is correct. (A), (B), and (D) all use two conjunctions, so they are unnecessarily wordy and therefore incorrect.

42. (D) — The clause "who maintained a lifelong romantic relationship with Sartre" is nonessential. That is, it provides extra information about Simone de Beauvior, but it isn't necessary for the rest of the sentence to make sense. A nonessential clause that comes in the middle of a sentence should be separated from the rest of the sentence with commas or dashes on both sides. (D) is correct because it sets the beginning of the clause off with a comma, matching the comma used at the end of the clause.

(A) is incorrect because it doesn't use any punctuation at the beginning of the clause. (B) is incorrect because it only changes the pronoun "who" to "that," which isn't a personal pronoun and doesn't fix the punctuation problem. (C) is incorrect because it uses a dash. While dashes can be used to set off a clause like this, the punctuation has to be the same at the beginning and ending of the clause, and the clause ends with a comma—so a dash at the beginning is incorrect.

43. (A) — Of the four words presented, only “constrain” can logically take “choices” as a direct object, so (A) is correct and (B), (C) and (D) are all incorrect.

44. (C) — This option correctly compares two like things: Beauvoir’s female characters and Sartre’s female characters (implied). The original sentence compares Beauvoir’s female characters to Sartre, which is an illogical comparison, so (A) is incorrect. (B) and (D) do nothing to address this problem, so they are also incorrect.