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In the context of the passage as a whole, the highlighted sentence serves to
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According to the passage, which of the following statements about bison in the Columbian Basin is true?
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While the history of the Earth`s moon is well understood, the origin of the Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, is still a mystery in spite of numerous space missions sent to Mars. One theory, based on striking similarities between the physical characteristics of the surfaces of Mars` moons and the surfaces of numerous objects in the asteroid belt, is that the Martian moons were formed far away from Mars and then captured by the planet`s gravitational attraction. However, this theory cannot account for the current near-equatorial and near-circular orbits of the moons. The fact that these orbits are consistent with expected orbits of objects accreted around Mars motivated some astrophysicists to propose instead that Phobos and Deimos were formed from a disk of debris in Mars` orbit.
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The passage suggests that if the Martian moons were formed far away from Mars, it is likely that
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According to the passage, "one theory" is motivated by
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Spiders of the species Argiope build distinctive zig-zag patterns, called stabilimenta, into their webs. Recent research has established that Argiope spiders use stabilimenta to collect drinking water. This discovery, far from discrediting the long-standing hypothesis that stabilimenta serve to reinforce the webs, actually supports that hypothesis since________.
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Which of the following, if true, most logically completes the argument?
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While studying different-sized ant colonies, Cole discovered that when there were only a few ants in the space provided, each individual exhibited a chaotic pattern of activity and rest. As the density of the colony increased by the addition of more ants, Cole observed a sudden transition to dynamic order: patterns of activity and rest over the colony as a whole suddenly changed from chaotic to rhythmic. Why should the density of ants play an apparently crucial role in the transition from chaotic to ordered behavior? Ants interact with one another, and an active ant encountering an inactive one will stimulate the latter into movement. At low densities there are few encounters, but at higher densities activity can spread like a contagion through the colony.
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According to the passage, which of the following statements about ant interactions is true?
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In the context in which it appears, "ordered" most nearly means
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Before 1865, magazines created specifically for women in the United States targeted an elite class of readers. Relatively expensive, they carried little or no advertising and generally contained literary, etiquette, and fashion material. After 1865, readership increased significantly: literacy increased; innovations in printing allowed publication of hundreds of copies in a short time; an expanded railroad, improved roads, and a larger and cheaper postal service permitted more efficient and reliable distribution; and aggressive solicitation of advertisers allowed publishers to reduce prices of the magazines, which now focused on middle-class women. While the entertainment function of the earlier magazines persisted, as did advice columns and articles on cultural affairs and other nonfiction topics, women as consumers received increasing attention, particularly through the newly important ads.
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According to the passage, which of the following was a feature common to women`s magazines published both before and after 1865?
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It can be inferred that before 1865, the readership that women`s magazines could reach was restricted by which of the following factors?
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Basic population biology demonstrates that widespread use of common nonspecific insecticides must inevitably exacerbate the very problems these insecticides were designed to solve because, in addition to killing "bad" insects (those that eat crops), these insecticides have a "side effect", they also kill "good" insects (those that prey on the bad insects) and indirectly reduce the good insects` birth rate. While insecticide use will decimate both populations equally, the bad insects will rebound much more quickly. In predator/prey systems, predators control the death rate of their prey by eating them, while the prey control the birth rate of their predators by providing nourishment. When population numbers of both decline, therefore, the prey`s death rate is dramatically reduced because there are many fewer predators, while the predators` birth rate is dramatically reduced because there is less food and it is harder to find. The birth rate of the prey is much less affected, and thus those insects feeding on crops are capable of rebounding first, then, in the resulting environment that is largely devoid of predators, they reach higher numbers than before.
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According to the passage, one of the differences in the ways in which predator and prey insects are affected by the widespread use of common nonspecific insecticides is that
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Which of the following most accurately describes the "side effect" mentioned in the passage
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It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following would most alleviate the "side effect"?
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Pharmaceuticals imported into Bornland are inspected for quality to the extent that staff limitations permit. For the last few years, the proportion of shipments examined that have been found to be deficient has been consistently around 25 percent. This year, the number of inspectors and inspections was doubled, and only 21 percent of shipments inspected were found deficient. Clearly, therefore, the quality of pharmaceuticals being imported into Bornland has greatly improved.
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The answer to which of the following would be most helpful in evaluating this argument?
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The novel Georges, published under Alexander Dumas` name, may actually have been written by Felicien Mallefille. A comparison of Georges with well-known Dumas novels such as The Count of Monte Cristo suggests that Dumas had little to do with Georges. For example, Georges` characters are tiresomely earnest, while those from Dumas` well-known novels crack jokes and utter colorful oaths. Meanwhile, in a technical sense, Georges is well-written, while The Count of Monte Cristo, with all its verve and sparkle, is full of redundancies, repetitions, and non sequiturs. As Umberto Eco discovered while attempting to translate The Count of Monte Cristo, the charm of Dumas` novel and its "narrative wisdom" are inseparable from its "linguistically sludgy and gasping" prose.
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