whole?
A) It acknowledges that a practice favored by the author of the passage has some limitations.
B) It illustrates with detail the arguments made in the first two paragraphs of the passage.
C) It gives an overview of a problem that has not been sufficiently addressed by the experts mentioned in the passage.
D) It advocates for abandoning a practice for which the passage as a whole provides mostly favorable data.
12. Which choice does the author explicitly cite asan advantage of automobile travel in North America? A) Environmental impact B) Convenience C) Speed D) Cost
13. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?
A) Lines 5-9 (―In . . . automobile‖) B) Lines 20-24 (―And . . . car‖) C) Lines 24-26 (―In . . . experience‖) D) Lines 32-34 (―Hopping . . . quickly‖)
14. The central idea of the fourth paragraph (lines 35-57) is that A) European countries excel at public transportation.
B) some public transportation systems are superior to travel by private automobile.
C) Americans should mimic foreign public transportation systems when possible.
D) much international public transportation is engineered for passengers to work while on board.
15. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?
A) Line 35 (―It . . . this‖)
B) Lines 35-37 (―Done . . . automobile‖) C) Lines 37-40 (―In . . . sound‖) D) Lines 44-48 (―From . . . cities‖)
16. As used in line 58, ―credit‖ most nearly means A) endow. B) attribute. C) believe. D) honor.
17. As used in line 61, ―favor‖ most nearly means A) indulge. B) prefer. C) resemble. D) serve.
18. Which choice best supports the conclusion that public transportation is compatible with the use of personal electronic devices? A) Lines 59-63 (―The . . . subways‖) B) Lines 63-67 (―Part . . . annoyances‖) C) Lines 68-70 (―Even . . . ago‖) D) Lines 77-81 (―Already . . . homes‖)
19. Which choice is supported by the data in the first figure?
A) The number of students using public transportation is greater than the number of retirees using public transportation.
B) The number of employed people using public transportation and the number of unemployed people using public transportation is roughly the same.
C) People employed outside the home are less likely to use public transportation than are homemakers.
D) Unemployed people use public transportation less often than do people employed outside the home.
20. Taken together, the two figures suggest that most people who use public transportation
A) are employed outside the home and take public transportation to work. B) are employed outside the home but take public transportation primarily in order to run errands.
C) use public transportation during the week but use their private cars on weekends.
D) use public transportation only until they are able to afford to buy a car.
Questions 21-30 are based on the following passage.
This passage is adapted from Thor Hanson, Feathers. ?2011 by Thor Hanson. Scientists have long debated how the ancestors of birds evolved the ability to fly. The ground-up theory assumes they were fleet-footed ground dwellers that captured prey by leaping and flapping their upper limbs. The tree-down theory assumes they were tree climbers that leapt and glided among branches.
At field sites around the world, Ken Dial saw a pattern in how young pheasants, quail, tinamous, and other ground birds ran along behind their Line parents. “They jumped up like popcorn,” he said, 5 describing how they would flap their half-formed wings and take short hops into the air. So when a group of graduate students challenged him to come up with new data on the age-old
ground-up-tree-down debate, he designed a project 10 to see what clues might lie in how baby game birds learned to fly.
Ken settled on the Chukar Partridge as a model species, but he might not have made his discovery without a key piece of advice from the local 15 rancher in Montana who was supplying him with birds. When the cowboy stopped by to see how things were going, Ken showed him his nice, tidy laboratory setup and explained how the birds? first hops and flights would be measured. The rancher 20 was incredulous. “He took one look and said, in pretty colorful language, ?What are those birds doing on the ground? They hate to be on the ground! Give them something to climb on!? ” At first it seemed unnatural—ground birds don?t like the ground? But 25 as he thought about it Ken realized that all the
species he?d watched in the wild preferred to rest on ledges, low branches, or other elevated perches where they were safe from predators. They really only used the ground for feeding and traveling. So he brought 30 in some hay bales for the Chukars to perch on and then left his son in charge of feeding and data collection while he went away on a short work trip. Barely a teenager at the time, young Terry Dial was visibly upset when his father got back. “I asked 35 him how it went,” Ken recalled,“ and he said, ?Terrible! The birds are cheating!? ” Instead of flying up to their perches, the baby Chukars were using their legs. Time and again Terry had watched them run right up the side of a hay bale, flapping all the 40 while. Ken dashed out to see for himself, and that was the “aha” moment. “The birds were using their wings and legs cooperatively,” he told me, and that single observation opened up a world of possibilities. Working together with Terry (who has since gone 45 on to study animal locomotion), Ken came up with a series of ingenious experiments, filming the birds as they raced up textured ramps tilted at increasing angles. As the incline increased, the partridges began to flap, but they angled their wings differently from 50 birds in flight. They aimed their flapping down and backward, using the force not for lift but to keep their feet firmly pressed against the ramp. “It?s like the spoiler on the back of a race car,” he explained, which is a very apt analogy. In Formula One racing,