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Reading & Writing · Standard English Conventions · 107 questions · every one comes with a full explanation.

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  1. 1Generations of mystery and horror ______ have been influenced by the dark, gothic stories of celebrated American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849).Easy · Standard English Conventions
  2. 2The Mission 66 initiative, which was approved by Congress in 1956, represented a major investment in the infrastructure of overburdened national ______ it prioritized physical imprMedium · Standard English Conventions
  3. 3A recent study tracked the number of bee species present in twenty-seven New York apple orchards over a ten-year period. ______ found that when wild growth near an orchard was cleaHard · Standard English Conventions
  4. 4A study led by scientist Rebecca Kirby at the University of Wisconsin–Madison found that black bears that eat human food before hibernation have increased levels of a rare carbon iMedium · Standard English Conventions
  5. 5The haiku-like poems of Tomas Tranströmer, which present nature- and dream-influenced images in crisp, spare language, have earned the Swedish poet praise from leading contemporaryHard · Standard English Conventions
  6. 6While one requires oxygen and one does ______ and anaerobic respiration are both forms of cellular respiration—that is, they are processes by which cells break down glucose to use Easy · Standard English Conventions
  7. 7To serve local families during the Great Depression, innovative New York City librarian Pura Belpré offered storytelling in both English and Spanish, an uncommon ______ celebrated Hard · Standard English Conventions
  8. 8Photosynthesis, the mechanism by which plants use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into ______ is fueled in part by an enzyme called Photosystem II that harvests energy-giMedium · Standard English Conventions
  9. 9Human-made (synthetic) fibers used in clothes and many other consumer products are more durable than most natural plant ______ the manufacture of synthetic fibers requires toxic chEasy · Standard English Conventions
  10. 10After a spate of illnesses as a child, Wilma Rudolph was told she might never walk again. Defying all odds, Rudolph didn't just walk, she ______ the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, sMedium · Standard English Conventions
  11. 11Emperor penguins don't waddle out of the ocean. They launch themselves at such a high speed that they travel up to two meters before landing. How ______ A layer of microbubbles on Easy · Standard English Conventions
  12. 12Beatrix Potter is perhaps best known for writing and illustrating children's books such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), but she also dedicated herself to mycology, the study ofMedium · Standard English Conventions
  13. 13In addition to advocating for South America's independence in two political treatises, the Cartagena Manifesto and the Letter from Jamaica, Simón Bolívar personally led armies agaiHard · Standard English Conventions
  14. 14In a 2016 study, Eastern Washington University psychologist Amani El-Alayli found that, among the study participants who experienced frisson (a physiological response akin to gooseHard · Standard English Conventions
  15. 15Emperor Ashoka ruled the Maurya Empire in South Asia from roughly 270 to 232 BCE. He is known for enforcing a moral code called the Law of Piety, which established the sanctity of Easy · Standard English Conventions
  16. 16On July 23, 1854, a clipper ship called the Flying Cloud entered San Francisco ______ left New York Harbor under the guidance of Captain Josiah Perkins Creesy and his wife, navigatHard · Standard English Conventions
  17. 17When external forces are applied to common glass made from silicates, energy builds up around minuscule defects in the material, resulting in fractures. Recently, engineer Erkka FrHard · Standard English Conventions
  18. 18In 2018, a team of researchers led by Dr. Caitlin Whalen compiled every available measurement of ocean mixing rates from the past two decades. With this novel data set, the team waHard · Standard English Conventions
  19. 19Researcher Lin Zhi developed a process for increasing the tensile strength—measured in gigapascals, or GPa—of silkworm ______ dissolving and reweaving the silk in a solution of iroHard · Standard English Conventions
  20. 20A subseasonal weather forecast attempts to predict weather conditions three to four weeks in ______ its predictions are therefore more short-term than those of the seasonal forecasEasy · Standard English Conventions
  21. 21In discussing Mary Shelley's 1818 epistolary novel Frankenstein, literary theorist Gayatri Spivak directs the reader's attention to the character of Margaret Saville. As Spivak poiHard · Standard English Conventions
  22. 22As British scientist Peter Whibberley has observed, "the Earth is not a very good timekeeper." Earth's slightly irregular rotation rate means that measurements of time must be periMedium · Standard English Conventions
  23. 23In her book The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, author Maxine Hong Kingston examines themes ______ childhood, womanhood, and Chinese American identity by intertwEasy · Standard English Conventions
  24. 24The fine, powdery substance that covers the Moon's surface is called regolith. Because regolith is both readily available and high in oxygen ______ scientists have wondered whetherEasy · Standard English Conventions
  25. 25Over twenty years ago, in a landmark experiment in the psychology of choice, professor Sheena Iyengar set up a jam-tasting booth at a grocery store. The number of jams available foHard · Standard English Conventions
  26. 26Po'Pay was a Tewa leader from Ohkay Owingeh, a pueblo located about twenty-five miles north of present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was instrumental in organizing the Pueblo RevoltMedium · Standard English Conventions
  27. 27Psychophysicist Howard Moskowitz was hired by a soda company to determine how much artificial sweetener ______ After conducting consumer taste tests, he found that no such ideal exEasy · Standard English Conventions
  28. 28Gathering accurate data on water flow in the United States is challenging because of the country's millions of miles of ______ the volume and speed of water at any given location cMedium · Standard English Conventions
  29. 29In 2008, two years after the death of science fiction writer Octavia Butler, the Huntington Library in ______ received a collection of more than 8,000 items, including Butler's priMedium · Standard English Conventions
  30. 30On sunny days, dark rooftops absorb solar energy and convert it to unwanted heat, raising the surrounding air ______ a light-colored covering to an existing dark roof, either by atHard · Standard English Conventions
  31. 31Typically, underlines, scribbles, and notes left in the margins by a former owner lower a book's ______ when the former owner is a famous poet like Walt Whitman, such markings, knoEasy · Standard English Conventions
  32. 32After the United Kingdom began rolling out taxes equivalent to a few cents on single-use plastic grocery bags in 2011, plastic-bag consumption decreased by up to ninety ______ taxeEasy · Standard English Conventions
  33. 33In her two major series "Memory Test" and "Autobiography," painter Howardena Pindell explored themes ______ healing, self-discovery, and memory by cutting and sewing back together Easy · Standard English Conventions
  34. 34Archaeologists have estimated that the pre-Columbian Native American city of Cahokia, located across the Mississippi River from modern-day St. Louis, Missouri, had as many as 20,00Medium · Standard English Conventions
  35. 35About 70,000 meteorites have been found on Earth. Although most meteorites are fragments of ______ hundred have been identified as being from the Moon or Mars.Easy · Standard English Conventions
  36. 36Sociologist Alton Okinaka sits on the review board tasked with adding new sites to the Hawai'i Register of Historic Places, which includes Pi'ilanihale Heiau and the 'Ōpaeka'a RoadHard · Standard English Conventions
  37. 37Polyphenols are organic compounds ______ among their many roles, provide pigment that helps protect plants against ultraviolet radiation from sunlight.Easy · Standard English Conventions
  38. 38Eli Eisenberg, a genetics expert at Tel Aviv University in Israel, recently discovered that ______ have a special genetic ability called RNA editing that confers evolutionary advanMedium · Standard English Conventions
  39. 39Detroit natives Timothy Paule and Nicole Lindsey have combined their two passions, Detroit and beekeeping, to improve the health of their city's flowers and other vegetation. In 20Medium · Standard English Conventions
  40. 40The city of Pompeii, which was buried in ash following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, continues to be studied by archaeologists. Unfortunately, as ______ attest, archaeolMedium · Standard English Conventions
  41. 41Using satellite remote sensing, Dr. Catherine Nakalembe, director of NASA's Harvest Africa initiative, gathers important data on crop health. Nakalembe doesn't just compile the ___Hard · Standard English Conventions
  42. 42From afar, African American fiber artist Bisa Butler's portraits look like paintings, their depictions of human faces, bodies, and clothing so intricate that it seems only a fine bHard · Standard English Conventions
  43. 43In paleontology, the term "Elvis taxon" gets applied to a newly identified living species that was once presumed to be extinct. Like an Elvis impersonator who might bear a strikingHard · Standard English Conventions
  44. 44After the printing press was introduced in 1440, handwritten manuscripts from Europe's medieval period were often destroyed and the paper used for other purposes. In one instance, Easy · Standard English Conventions
  45. 45Santa Clara Pueblo artist Roxanne Swentzell's sculpture Mud Woman Rolls On consists of five human figures made of clay and plant fiber and arranged in descending size; each figure Medium · Standard English Conventions
  46. 46Nine months before Rosa Parks made history by refusing to comply with the segregated seating policy on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, a fifteen-year-old Montgomery girl named ClaudettMedium · Standard English Conventions
  47. 47The first computerized spreadsheet, Dan Bricklin's VisiCalc, improved financial recordkeeping not only by providing users with an easy means of adjusting data in spreadsheets but aMedium · Standard English Conventions
  48. 48It is generally true that technological change is a linear process, in which once-useful technologies are replaced by new and better ______ the reawakening of interest in the steamMedium · Standard English Conventions
  49. 49In 2017, artists Isabel and Ruben Toledo redesigned the costumes and sets for The Miami City Ballet's production of The ______ to reviewers, the Toledos' designs helped infuse the Medium · Standard English Conventions
  50. 50Seneca sculptor Marie Watt's blanket art comes in a range of shapes and sizes. In 2004, Watt sewed strips of blankets together to craft a 10-by-13-inch ______ in 2014, she arrangedMedium · Standard English Conventions
  51. 51The life spans of rockfish vary greatly by species. For instance, the colorful calico rockfish (Sebastes dalli) can survive for a little over a ______ the rougheye rockfish (SebastEasy · Standard English Conventions
  52. 52The Arctic-Alpine Botanic Garden in Norway and the Jardim Botânico of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil are two of many botanical gardens around the world dedicated to growing diverse plantHard · Standard English Conventions
  53. 53In 1955, Indian Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray released his first movie, Pather ______ quiet black-and-white drama about a family in rural India, Ray's film was quite different froHard · Standard English Conventions
  54. 54A study published by Rice University geoscientist Ming Tang in 2019 offers a new explanation for the origin of Earth's ______ structures called arcs, towering ridges that form whenHard · Standard English Conventions
  55. 55Humans were long thought to have begun occupying the Peruvian settlement of Machu Picchu between 1440 and 1450 CE. However, a team led by anthropologist Dr. Richard Burger used accMedium · Standard English Conventions
  56. 56The intense pressure found in the deep ocean can affect the structure of proteins in fish's cells, distorting the proteins' shape. The chemical trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) counteEasy · Standard English Conventions
  57. 57When particles are suspended in liquid (like pollen in a water glass), they will zigzag randomly through the liquid and collide with one another in perpetuity. This type of random,Easy · Standard English Conventions
  58. 58Materials scientist Marie-Agathe Charpagne and her colleagues believed they could improve on the multicomponent alloy NiCoCr, an equal-proportions mixture of nickel (Ni), cobalt (CMedium · Standard English Conventions
  59. 59The forty-seven geothermal springs of Arkansas' Hot Springs National Park are sourced via a process known as natural groundwater recharge, in which rainwater percolates downward thMedium · Standard English Conventions
  60. 60In 1959, the film industry debuted Smell-O-Vision. Theaters were fitted with specialized vents that emitted odors at specific points in a ______ as the scent of roses when roses apEasy · Standard English Conventions