In 1942, the 1,500-mile Alaska Highway was constructed in under nine months, largely due to the skilled work of nearly 4,000 African American soldiers from US Army engineering regiments. The soldiers’ contribution was overlooked for decades. ---------- in 2017, lawmakers declared October 25 a day of recognition—“Alaska Highway Day”—for the troops who helped build this critical roadway.

[1] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

When it was built in the nineteenth century, the Eiffel Tower was criticized—even protested—for its unique appearance. _____ the spire-like structure earned not just acceptance but adoration, and its iconic design is now echoed in everything from the Eiffel Tower replica in Klagenfurt, Austria, to the Tokyo Tower in Tokyo, Japan.

[2] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Most of the planets that have been discovered outside our solar system orbit G-type stars, like our Sun. In 2014, ______ researchers identified a planet orbiting KELT-9, a B-type star more than twice as massive and nearly twice as hot as the Sun. Called KELT-9b, it is one of the hottest planets ever discovered.

[3] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

The Babylonian king Hammurabi achieved much during his forty-year reign. He conquered all of Mesopotamia and built Babylon into one of the most powerful cities of the ancient world. Today, ______ he is mainly remembered for a code of laws inscribed on a seven-foot-tall block of stone: the Code of Hammurabi.

[4] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Mountain climbing routes that incorporate metal rungs and cables are known as via ferratas, from the Italian phrase for “iron path.” As climbing these routes has shifted from a mode of travel to a sporting activity, modern via ferratas are rarely designed to simply reach a summit. _____ new routes favor recreation over utility, aiming to provide a challenging climb or showcase dramatic scenery.

[5] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

With many elements, like neon, scientists were able to isolate a relatively pure sample of the substance shortly after discovering its existence—but this wasn't the case with all elements. _____ the isolation process took years. The element erbium, for instance, was discovered in 1843 but not isolated until 1934.

[6] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

In the 1880s, inventor Lewis Latimer improved upon Thomas Edison’s design for the electric light bulb. ______ Latimer made the light bulb more durable by placing cardboard around its carbon filament. With this innovation, Latimer became the first Black inventor to contribute to the electrification of the world.

[7] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Julius LeMoyne was an outspoken abolitionist whose Pennsylvania home was a stop on the Underground Railroad (the network of people and places that some enslaved people used to escape to freedom). It was relatively rare for supporters of the railroad to be secretive about their antislavery views. _____ they were vocal abolitionists like LeMoyne.

[8] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

In contrast to first-past-the-post electoral processes, the proportional representation system by which Sweden’s Parliament is elected begins with citizens casting their votes not for specific candidates but for political parties. _____ once the votes have been tabulated, each party is awarded a number of seats proportional to the number of votes it received.

[9] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

It has long been thought that humans first crossed a land bridge into the Americas approximately 13,000 years ago. ______ based on radiocarbon dating of samples uncovered in Mexico, a research team recently suggested that humans may have arrived more than 30,000 years ago—much earlier than previously thought.

[10] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Contour modeling and box modeling, methods used by digital artists to create three-dimensional elements for video games, typically require software to process geometric shapes numbering in the thousands. _____ these approaches are more economical than surface model methods, which require more powerful and expensive processors to manage polygons numbering in the millions.

[11] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

As a young historian in the 1950s, Alixa Naff began interviewing fellow Arab American immigrants about their experiences straddling two cultures. Over the next few decades, Naff conducted more than 450 such interviews, also known as oral histories. ______she collected photographs and other artifacts that represented her subjects’ experiences.

[12] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

The early Australian railroad system of the 1800s was famously uncoordinated. Trains on the broad gauge Victorian Goldfields Railway line in Victoria couldn't travel on the Hotham Valley Railway in Western Australia, which used narrow gauge tracks, without performing time-consuming conversions. _____ historians refer to this complicated system as the “mixed gauge muddle.”

[13] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

In a 1993 study by Vales and Peek, the researchers determined the ratio of three different plant subtypes within the diet of elk: graminoids, forbs, and browse. _____ the researchers determined the relative quantities of the plants the animal consumed.

[14] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Before the 1847 introduction of the US postage stamp, the cost of postage was usually paid by the recipient of a letter rather than the sender, and recipients were not always able or willing to pay promptly. ______ collecting this fee could be slow and arduous, and heaps of unpaid-for, undeliverable mail piled up in post offices.

[15] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Though Middle English was widely spoken in fourteenth-century England, the language was rarely employed in literature until poet Geoffrey Chaucer helped pioneer its literary use. _____ his manuscripts contain the first documented uses of over 2,000 English words—like the word "exaltation" in his 1386 poem “The Squire’s Tale”—which led a contemporary to dub him “the first finder of our fair language.”

[16] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Katharine Kuh and Bernarda Bryson Shahn have both received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Women's Caucus for Art, though for different reasons. Kuh was honored for her work as an art historian; Bryson, _____ was recognized for her contributions as a painter.

[17] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Following the American Revolutionary War, North American foodways underwent a radical transformation, fueled in large part by spiking consumer demand for certain grains. The cultivation, trade, and transportation of maize and wheat, _____ reconfigured the continent's existing regional foodways into a globally oriented food system.

[18] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

The first documented use of the English word “muzzle” is attributed to poet Geoffrey Chaucer's 1385 work The Knight's Tale. However, Chaucer didn't write in Modern English; _____ he wrote in what we now call Middle English, which was commonly used during the period.

[19] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Marcel Duchamp intended his 1917 so-called ready-made sculpture Fountain to challenge then-prevailing conceptions about the nature of art. _____ Duchamp's Fountain did just that, raising the question of whether displaying any object in an art gallery could be said to transform the object-even, as Duchamp's sculpture was, a urinal-into a legitimate work of art.

[20] Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

The musical scores of Japanese composer Hiroyuki Sawano are famous for their mysterious titles. Laden with emojis and seemingly meaningless words, and driven largely by Sawano’s “personal feeling and mood,” ______

[21] Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

Entomologists Yash Sondhi and Samuel Fabian have tried to explain why moths fly erratically around light sources at night. Knowing that flying insects keep their backs pointed toward sunlight during the day, ______

[22] Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

Based on genetic evidence, archaeologists have generally agreed that reindeer domestication began in the eleventh century CE. However, since uncovering fragments of a 2,000-year-old reindeer training harness in northern Siberia, ______ may have begun much earlier.

[23] Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?