1
Fans of science fiction will ( ) multiple references to classic sci-fi stories in Janelle Monáe’s song lyrics, including her recurring nods to the plot of the 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis.
2
To serve local families during the Great Depression, innovative New York City librarian Pura Belpré offered storytelling in both English and Spanish, an uncommon ( ) celebrated el Día de los Tres Reyes Magos, an important community holiday; and put on puppet shows dramatizing Puerto Rican folktales.
3
The Mission 66 initiative, which was approved by Congress in 1956, represented a major investment in the infrastructure of overburdened national ( ) it prioritized physical improvements to the parks’ roads, utilities, employee housing, and visitor facilities while also establishing educational programming for the public.
4
As 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 periodically adjusted. Specifically, an extra “leap second” (the 86,401st second of the day) is ( ) time based on the planet’s rotation lags a full nine-tenths of a second behind time kept by precise atomic clocks.
5
Generations of mystery and horror ( ) have been influenced by the dark, gothic stories of celebrated American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849).
6
A 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 cleared, the number of different bee species visiting the orchard decreased.
7
The algaita is a double reed wind instrument from West Africa. The reed of a wind instrument is the mouthpiece ( ) A double reed contains two pieces of cane that vibrate and produce sound as air passes between them.
8
In a 2023 study, researchers documented a fascinating behavior in the aquatic plant Elodea densa. When exposed to low levels of light, the plant’s ( ) the cellular organs that generate energy from light—reshuffled to form a tightly packed, glass-like surface ideal for collecting more light.
9
A 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 isotope, ( ) due to the higher 13C levels in corn and cane sugar. Bears with these elevated levels were also found to have much shorter hibernation periods on average.
10
Researchers Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley investigated how ( ) In a series of experiments conducted in 2022, they found that people performing small acts of kindness underestimated the positive effect their actions had on others.
11
Roughly 300 nights a year, when the cold air descending from the Andes Mountains meets the warm air rising from Venezuela’s coastal Lake Maracaibo, the result is a spectacular lightning storm, its strikes so bright, so localized, and so ______ that it has become known as “Maracaibo’s Lighthouse.”
12
Jamaican British artist Willard Wigan is known for his remarkable ______ so small that they are best viewed through a microscope, Wigan’s sculptures are made from tiny natural materials, such as spiderweb strands.
13
The 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 contemporary ______ them Nigerian American essayist and novelist Teju Cole, who has written that Tranströmer’s works “contain a luminous simplicity.”
14
While 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 as energy.
15
Photosynthesis, 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-giving electrons from water molecules.
16
Human-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 chemical solvents that can pollute air and water.
17
After 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, she won both the 100- and 200-meter dashes and clinched first place for her team in the 4x100-meter relay, becoming the first US woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympics.
18
By analyzing ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, a research team at Sweden’s Lund University discovered evidence of a solar storm that occurred 9,200 years ago. Scientists had previously thought the Sun to be in a relatively “quiet” phase at that ______ the Lund team’s finding suggests otherwise.
19
Emperor 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 their plumage reduces friction as the penguins speed to the surface.
20
Beatrix 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 of ______ more than 350 paintings of the fungal species she observed in nature and submitting her research on spore germination to the Linnean Society of London.
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Photosynthesis vs Cellular Respiration - Practice Quiz