Which is the best example of resilience?

The plan was abandoned because it proved ______ in real-world conditions.

The author’s tone was neutral, avoiding emotional language.

Passage 2 Question 11: The author’s primary purpose is to

    Primitive art, the kind of paintings drawn on cave walls and ceilings tens of thousands of years ago, might naturally be considered the result of primitive minds drawing simple animal-shaped doodles.  However, a closer look at cave drawings found throughout the world reveals a very sophisticated artistry, one that archaeologists and art historians try to “lead” in order to understand the minds and culture that created such intricate work.     We do know the cave artists themselves came from the hunter people roaming throughout what is now Western Europe as much as 30,000 years ago. These hunters were armed with not much more than simple tools fashioned from stone, bone, or wood. They had to rely on sight, smell, agility, quick wits, and intimate knowledge of the animal prey that, in most cases, was larger, swifter, and more powerful than the hunters themselves.     By continually searching for, stalking, chasing, and bringing down their next meal, hunters developed an almost magical bond with the prey; they came to revere and honor the very animals they hunted and ate. Thus, the hunters’ daily thoughts, plans, and actions centered on animals in what could be described as a unique and vital relationship. Not surprisingly, then, and perhaps as an expression of this essential relationship, hunter-artists etched and even sculpted those animals by firelight on the ceilings and interiors of caves in, for example, the Dordogne region of France, northern Spain, through Russia, China, and into the Arctic Region.     From the earliest “rough” works of 25,000 years ago, we see the importance of the prey animal itself.  The caves yield x-ray-like outlines of what appear to be musk ox, bison, bear, and fish sketched by fingertip on the damp clay walls. About 12,000 years later, cave painters began to produce strikingly realistic animal figures in motion during various stages of the hunt. Drawn in red ocher and charcoal, large scale, “herds” of horses and deer animate the artist’s storytelling, a narrative that even includes, in many paintings, such details as the traps used for the lure and capture.     In addition to illustrating the significance of the prey animal itself, cave artists also revealed themselves and their culture through other means. By drawing some human figures wearing animal skins and heads, they showed a profound identification with their prey, and by incorporating some geometric designs in certain works, cave artists demonstrated an ability to think abstractly and symbolically.     Clearly, the paintings of these animals and portrayals of the hunt and kill show that early humans were able to convey honor and respect through abstract and literal means. Such artistic expression suggests a far more sophisticated mentality than we might think possible at first glance into the dark and “primitive” caves. Passage 4 Question 28:  Which sentence best states the main idea of this passage?

    Bottle collecting is a relatively inexpensive way to preserve some of the most beautiful and breakable items of the past, as well as a way to invest in the future.  A bottle collection will appreciate over time if the beginning collector knows how to assess each bottler’s potential value and buys wisely.  Although rare sizes or the appearance of bubbles formed during the “fining out” process can increase a bottle’s worth, perhaps the quickest way to assess value is by determining a bottle’s age: old bottles, generally speaking, are more valuable than newer ones and can be identified according to what they originally contained medicine, bitters, mineral water, or fruit, for example.      Color also helps identify a bottle’s age and hence its potential value. Bottles made of glass mixture of sand, soda, and lime heated to a molten 1,000-2000 degrees Fahrenheit assume a color dependent on the mineral content of the sand, the proportion of sand to lime, the temperature of the furnace, and the length of firing.  Until the late 1800s, most bottles were green due to the iron content of the sand.  When food manufacturers began to demand clear bottles, however, manganese was used to remove green and other naturally occurring colors such as brown, amber, and aqua from glass.  Therefore, the most clear bottles date from the 1880s on.  Of course, a variety of other colors, such as yellow, cobalt blue, purple, and red, were also created by adding metallic oxides to the raw materials.     Another quick way to date bottles is by looking at the mold seam, a thin line running up the bottle’s length, in conjunction with the bottle’s lip, which is the trim around the finished top.  Seams occur where two (or three) separate blown sections are joined.  On bottles made before 1860, seams barely extend to the bottle’s shoulder (the area where the thicker body slopes upward into the narrower neck).  In bottles made between 1860-1880, the seam runs completely up the neck to meet the lip of the bottle. After 1900, when bottles started to be completely machine-made, the seam runs through the lip.     Prior to 1840, lips were created by simply snipping the neck free in a blunted end resembling a tube, hence the term “sheared lip.”  From 1840 to approximately 1880, glass rings of various shapes and sizes were attached to the end of the sheared lip, resulting in what is known as the “applied lip.”  After 1880, the shape of the applied lip was more or less standardized to appear as it does today on popular soda bottles.      A bottle’s weight can also indicate age; heavier bottles are often older as can other factors, such as the appearance of a certain kind pointil mark.  But for the novice collector, just a few beginning guidelines can help identify older and potentially more valuable bottles that will, perhaps, appreciate over time like some cathedral pickle jars did by 400% in 20 years! Passage 1 Question 1:  Which sentence best states the main idea of this passage?

    Located between the Andes mountain range in the west and the Atlantic Ocean in the east, at what some describe as the ends of the Earth, is the little-known but huge region of Patagonia, Argentina.  Covering nearly all the southern mainland, this 260,000-square-mile, unspoiled region contains strikingly varied geography.     The western border of Patagonia is created by the Andean mountain range running north and south like a huge backbone. In these rugged mountain lands are national parks, such as Nahuel Huapí and Los Alerces in the north, and Perito Francisco P. Moreno, with its sharper peaks, further south.   All along the Andes, ancient glaciers once hollowed out valleys and steep canyons and created a series of pristine lakes San Martin, Viedma, and Argentino.  The Andean land has been formed also by geologically recent volcanic activity, resulting in terraced land, like huge steps, moving east from the mountains.  These stepplands eventually merge with the broad desert of Patagonia’s interior, reaching east all the way to the Atlantic coast.     In the northern bushlands, more moderate in terrain and climate, eastward-flowing river Río Negro most notably creates Patagonia’s best agricultural land. The Negro River fruit region, for example, produces peaches, plums, almonds, apples, pears, olives, grapes, and alfalfa with the help of irrigation that provides moisture in a semiarid, moderate climate. Here and in central Patagonia are the primary natural resources: oil and natural gas reserves around Neuquén and Comodoro Rivadavai and iron ore in Sierra Grande. Coal is mined further south in Río Turbio.     Further south, the land and climate are made inhospitable by arctic blasts sweeping away everything but the hardiest fauna and flora.  In the southern interior, the dark volcanic hills and lava fields and the light bunchgrasses produce the much-photographed “spotted” terrain of southern Patagonia. This land rises steadily until, at the southernmost point, the Strait of Magellan leads to the islands of Tierra del Fuego.  Here, the old whaling port of Ushiaia is quite literally the last habitable spot before the South Pole. The Beagle Channel, named for the ship that naturalist Charles Darwin made famous, allows access inland from the south     At this point, at the end of the world, dry, bitter winds blow from Antarctica; the soil is rocky and poor, and only the strong survive like the arctic beech tree or, incongruously, a type of parrot and canary more apt to be found in the tropics than the tundra. Passage 3 Question 19:  Which sentence best states the main idea of this passage?

  Passage 1 Question 2: The implied main idea of paragraph four is

The study of tissues is _________..

Name at least one barrier that could still be broken through in your sport. Why do you believe that?