Read the following passages and then choose the best answer for each question.

Passage 1

For a time, the Hubble telescope was the brunt of jokes and subject to the wrath of those who believed the U.S. government had spent too much money on space projects that served no valid purpose. The Hubble was sent into orbit with a satellite by the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990 amid huge hype and expectation. Yet after it was in position, it simply did not work, because the primary mirror was misshapen. It was not until 1993 that the crew of the Shuttle Endeavor arrived like roadside mechanics, opened the hatch that was installed for the purpose, and re-placed the defective mirror with a good one.
Suddenly, all that had originally been ex-pected came true. The Hubble telescope was indeed the “window on the universe,” as it had originally been dubbed. When you look deep into space, you are actually looking back through time, because even though light travels at 186,000 miles a second, it re-quires time to get from one place to another. In fact, it is said that in some cases, the Hubble telescope is looking back eleven billion years to see galaxies already forming. The distant galaxies are speeding away from Earth, some traveling at the speed of light. Hubble has viewed exploding stars such as the Eta Carinae, which clearly displayed clouds of gas and dust billowing outward from its poles at 1.5 million miles an hour. Prior to Hubble, it was visible from tradi-tional telescopes on earth, but its details were not ascertainable. But now, the evidence of the explosion is obvious. The star still burns five million times brighter than the sun and illuminates clouds from the inside. Hubble has also provided a close look at black holes, which are described as cosmic drains. Gas and dust swirl around the drain and are slowly sucked in by the incredible gravity. It has also looked into an area that looked empty to the naked eye and, within a region the size of a grain of sand, located layer upon layer of galaxies, with each galaxy consisting of billions of stars. The Hubble telescope was named after Edwin Hubble, a 1920s astronomer who de-veloped a formula that expresses the proportional relationship of distances between clusters of galaxies and the speeds at which they travel. Astronomers use stars known as Cepheid variables to measure distances in space. These stars dim and brighten from time to time, and they are photographed over time and charted. All the discoveries made by Hubble have allowed astronomers to learn more about the formation of early galaxies.

1. The author states that the Hubble was not always popular because

2. The word brunt  in the first sentence is closest in meaning to

3. The word wrath  in the first sentence is closest in meaning to

4. The author implies that at the time the Hubble was initially deployed from Earth

5. The word misshapen  in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to

6. The word it  in the second sentence of the second paragraph refers to

7. The author implies that the satellite that carries the Hubble was specifically designed so that

8. The author compares the astronauts of the Endeavor to

9. The author states that Edward Hubble

10. The word dubbed in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to

11. The author states that

12. According to the passage, a Cepheid variable is

13. The author indicates that the Eta Carinae was previously viewed from other telescopes, but

14. The word billowing  in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to

15. The author implies that a black hole is analogous to

Passage 2

The pain of a migraine headache can virtually disable a person who suffers from it. Millions and millions of people suffer from migraines, although many of them do not even recognize that a migraine is different from a regular headache. A migraine is not at all the same as a normal headache, and it seems to have a very physical cause. One symptom of a migraine is a precursor, which is a visual aura before an attack. Yet only about a third of patients actually experience that, and it is therefore not a requirement in the diagnosis. Other symptoms include increased pain when a person moves, nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound. Scientists now believe that migraines are caused, not by abnormal blood vessels as previously believed, but instead by a unique electrical disorder of brain cells. Physicians used to treat migraines with medicine to con-strict blood vessels because of the belief that dilated blood vessels were the cause. The new research has been enhanced by imaging devices that allow scientists to watch patients’ brains during an attack. The results show that sufferers have abnormally excitable neurons, or brain nerve cells. Prior to the attack, the neurons suddenly fire off electrical pulses at the back of the brain, which ripple like waves on a lake after a stone hits the water. They ripple across the top and then the back of the brain, ultimately affecting the brain stem where the pain centers are located. The pain then generates possibly from the brain stem itself or from blood vessels inflamed by the rapidly changing blood flow, or perhaps from both. Scientists have experimented by applying a powerful magnet to stimulate the neurons and discovered that some people’s brains react differently than others’. When stimulation was applied to the brains of people who had suffered migraines, they saw the initial aura, and some actually suffered migraines. When the same stimulation was applied to the brains of people who had never suffered migraines, they realized no effect and the neurons showed no change. Scientists and doctors continue to work on the research in an attempt to find the perfect treatment. It is considered important to treat migraines because it is believed that pro-longed untreated attacks could cause physical changes in the brain leading to chronic pain.
1. The word it in the first sentence refers to

2. The author implies that a migraine

3. The author indicates that the precursor to a migraine

4. The author implies that in the past scientists had thought migraines were caused by

5. The prior treatment for migraines included medicine that

6. The word enhanced  in the fourth paragraph is closest in meaning to

7. The new research indicates that the neurons in the brain of migraine sufferers

8. Scientists have recently learned more about the cause of migraines from

9. The author indicates that researchers have determined that

10. The author describes the firing of the neurons during a migraine as

11. According to the passage, what is the significance of an attack reaching the brain stem?

12. According to the passage, now that scientists know that unusual neurons in certain people are the cause of migraines, they

13. Scientists have caused neurons to react by applying

14. The best title for this passage would be what?

15. Researchers believe that long-term migraine sufferers

Passage 3

Lightning has been a mystery since early times. People of ancient civilizations believed angry gods threw lightning bolts from the sky. Nobody understood that lightning resulted from electricity until Ben Franklin flew a kite with a key dangling from the string, and it was struck by lightning. In current times, it is known that lightning has a very scientific cause. Generally, within a storm cloud, friction from water and ice-laden clouds creates a negative charge at the bottom of the cloud. When that charge grows too great for the air to hold it back, it is united with a positive charge from the Earth, creating a channel of electricity that flows between the two points. The charge remains invisible as it moves towards the ground until it meets the charge rising from the ground. Once they meet, a fifty thousand degree cur-rent superheats the air around the channel, resulting in an explosion of sound known as thunder. In fact, very recently it has been dis-covered that occasionally the positive charges appear at the bottom of the cloud, which are then met by negative charges from earth.
Florida leads the nation in lightning deaths. Approximately ten people die each year in Florida from lightning, which surpasses the number of deaths caused by the winds of other weather events such as tornados and hurricanes. Lightning is much harder to fore-cast than a storm. Forecasters can indicate when a storm is likely to produce lightning, but there is no way to know when or where lightning will actually strike. It is known that it can actually strike up to 25 miles from the center of a storm, which occurs when light-ning originates under a cloud but travels horizontally for a time before turning towards earth. Thunder is only heard up to ten miles from where lightning strikes, so it is possible to be struck by lightning without even realizing there is a storm in the area. Generally, people are injured by lightning when they are in the open, near or in water, or near tall structures like trees. Golfers, swimmers, beach-goers, and outdoor workers are in greatest danger. The greatest number of victims are males, but it is believed that this is because males are more likely to be in the places where lightning strikes. When lightning is about to strike, one feels an odd, tingling sensation, and one’s hair stands on end. Of course, there is little chance to do anything about it, because the full blow will occur within a second and be over in a couple of seconds. The victim may be thrown, lose consciousness, be burned, die, or suffer permanent injury. Some people recover completely, but others do not.
1. According to the passage, the first recorded evidence that lightning came from electricity was discovered by

2. The word dangling  in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to

3. According to the passage, the relationship between the charge in the cloud and that from earth is that

4. According to the passage, the primary cause of the charge in the storm cloud is

5. The author implies that as the lightning comes towards earth, but before it strikes,

6. The author indicates that thunder is created when

7. The author indicates that lightning can strike far from the center of a storm when

Passage 4

The strangler fig tree, home to many birds and animals that enjoy the figs as nutrition, is found in the rain forests of Indonesia as well as in a 220,000-acre park known as Gunung Palung National Park on the island of Borneo. The trees are referred to as stranglers be-cause of the way they envelope other trees. Yet, the expression strangler is not quite ac-curate because the fig trees do not actually squeeze the trees on which they piggyback nor do they actually take any nutrients from the host tree. But they may stifle the host tree’s growth as the fig tree’s roots meet and fuse together, forming rigid rings around the host’s trunk and restricting further growth of the supporting tree. The most interesting aspect of the strangler fig is that it grows from the sky down to the ground. Birds are a major factor in the birth of new fig trees, ingesting the fruit and later dropping the seeds contained in them. Most seeds that are dropped to the ground do nothing, but those that drop into a moist mulch of decayed leaves and mosses that have collected in branches of trees have a chance of survival. They are more likely to receive some sunlight than those that drop all the way to the ground. After the seeds of the fig trees germinate high in the canopy, their roots descend to form a menacing vise around the trees that support them. Eventually the host tree may begin to die, but it may take many years. Some types of fig trees put down roots so thick that they completely surround the host. In that case, all that is left is a moss-covered scaffold of fig roots.

1. According to the passage, fig trees are referred to as stranglers because they

2. The author implies that the term strangler is not accurate because

3. The word stifle  in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to

4. The author indicates that the fig trees

5. The word fuse in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to

6. The word mulch  in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to

7. The word menacing  in the final paragraph is closest in meaning to

8. The word scaffold  in the last sentence is closest in meaning to