Questions 1 to 2 are based on this passage:

In the late 1970s, bird populations were found to be declining in India's Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary in Rajasthan. Grazing cattle and buffalo were the suspected culprits: they were entering the preserve in sufficient numbers to disrupt what was believed to be an otherwise balanced ecosystem. Accordingly, grazing was banned in Bharatpur. Yet by the mid-1980s, studies found that bird diversity within the preserve had declined further since the ban, and it continued to plummet. The absence of grazing animals, it turns out, had disturbed the parks' ecology.?Weed species were taking over wetlands and choking canals, thereby reducing the fish populations that had once attracted so many birds, and avian species then went elsewhere in search of more suitable nesting places.

1. The passage suggests which of the following about the decline observed in the late 1970s?

A. It could have been mitigated if limits on grazing had been enacted earlier at Bharatpur.

B. It resulted in part from a then-unrecognized change in the number and variety of Weed species expanding into Bharatpur's wetlands.

C. It was overestimated because of a mistaken assumption about the effect of grazing animals on Bharatpur's ecosystem.

D. It might have been more severe if fewer grazing cattle and buffalo had been entering Bharatpur.

E. It was recognized in hindsight as arising from changes in Bharatpur's fish-species diversity.

2. Which of the following best describes the function of the highlighted sentence??

A. It describes a measure taken in order to address a problem.

B. It examines a flawed assumption underlying a conclusion.

C. It bolsters a claim made in the first sentence of the passage.

D. It corrects a misconception about a historical situation.

E. It identifies the basis on which a policy decision was made.

Questions 3 to 6 are based on this passage:

The positioning of Diane Arbus as a documentary photographer stems from the two exhibits that made her reputation, both curated by John Szarkowski: the group show New Documents in 1967 claimed to show documentary photography's new direction, which Szarkowski said aimed "not to reform life, but to know it", and Diane Arbus, the posthumous one-woman show five years later, which turned her into an icon. Even as Szarkowski identified Arbus' work with the documentary tradition, both the American reformist line and the European taxonomic line represented by August Sanders (who came to be known in the United States in the 1960s), he also indicated the ways in which her work did not fit. If the documentary tradition displayed a consistent style of clarity and directness toward reality, it also displayed in the American tradition a particular emphasis on human suffering and a blend of realism and emotional charge, which was meant, in the words of Roy Stryker, the director of the Farm Security Administration, which sponsored the great documentary photography of the Depression era, to "incite change" by mobilizing sympathy. These two documentary modes-that of "knowing" and that of "reforming"-were tangling and untangling in the 1960s. For instance Walker Evans, who made his name with the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s, delivered his important lecture on "lyric documentary"?at Yale in 1964 in which he eschewed the social reform agenda; in 1966, the year before New Documents, the Farm Security Administration spirit had been revived by Cornell Capa's exhibition The Concerned Photographer, and its similarly titled catalog, and the documentary practices it celebrated made for some of the most arresting images and photo-essays of the Vietnam War.

That Arbus fulfilled the realist impulse of the documentary tradition could hardly be more obvious, whatever her subject matter. But documentary stuck to Arbus through the powerful intervention not only of Szarkowski but also of Susan Sontag, Arbus first and still most influential critic. Sontag's essay on the 1972 exhibit, which launched her inquiry into the medium of photography, is still routinely cited in reviews and scholarship on Arbus' work. Sontag framed the problem of Arbus's photographs within the documentary tradition following Szarkowski, and defined her work as a misappropriation of its form. Sontag claimed that Arbus photographed and collected other people's pain but offered no "compassionate purpose" to the viewer. In these terms, Arbus lacked empathy and the photographs offered a "self-willed test of hardness," one that inured the viewer to ugliness?and pain. Sontag attached Arbus to one version of the documentary tradition, the US reformist agenda, and found Arbus' ability to mobilize sentiment not only deficient but also corrosive of sympathetic sensibilities more broadly.

3. The passage is primarily concerned with

A. analyzing the impact of curators and critics on a specific photographer's career

B. demonstrating that certain genres of photography have long been subjects of disagreement among critics

C. discussing how a specific photographer was situated within a genre of photography

D. tracing the evolution of a particular genre of photography

E. arguing that the work of a certain photographer has been misunderstood by critics

4. Which of the following statements about Susan Sontag can be inferred from the passage?

A. She admired much of the work sponsored by the Farm Security Administration.

B. Her views on documentary photography were influenced by Cornell Capa's aesthetic practices.

C. She largely agreed with Roy Stryker about the purpose of documentary photography

D. Her essay on the 1972 exhibit Diane Arbus was partly a response to Walker Evans' lecture on "lyric documentary."

E. Her definition of documentary photography was unduly influenced by Szarkowski's exhibitions.

Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

5. According to the passage, Sontag criticized Arbus' photographs on which of the following grounds?

A. They did not entirely conform to a specific genre.

B. They included subjects who were undeserving of sympathy.

C. They could cause the sympathy of a viewer to be diminished.

6. The passage suggests that which of the following pairs of artists or critics would be most likely to share similar views about the purposes of documentary photography?

A. Arbus and Capa

B. Capa and Stryker

C. Stryker and Sanders

D. Sanders and Sontag

E. Sontag and Evans

Questions 7 is based on this passage:

Partha's five-year-old embargo on the importation of fruit from Vallone was intended to keep a fungus from being accidentally brought into Partha. The fungus was nevertheless discovered to be present in Partha about a year ago. At about that time, it was also discovered in neighboring Morland. Clearly, what must have happened is that Vallonean fruit exporters circumvented the embargo by exporting fruit to Morland and then reexporting it from there to Partha.

7. Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

A. Morland's annual crop of fruit is just large enough to supply its own domestic market adequately.

B. The fungus colonies discovered in Partha and in Morland were of a distinct strain that has never been found to occur in Vallone.

C. The yields from Vallonean fruit crops have been well below normal in the last two years because of unexpected late frosts.

D. The fungus had been only a minor nuisance in Vallone until Vallone's Great Valley was converted, about ten years ago, into a major fruit-growing area.

E. Partha's embargo on Vallonean fruit was put in place after Parthan fruit growers had suffered losses because of accidentally imported insect pests.

Questions 8-10 is based on this passage:

The Isua rock formations in southwestern Greenland, which formed 3.8 to 3.7 billion years ago, include a variety of sedimentary rocks, which are records of erosion and deposition by surface water. Their testimony to abundant water at Earth's surface 3.8 billion years ago would seem to be at odds with models of stellar evolution, which predict that our Sun, a yellow dwarf star, would have been about 30% less luminous than it is today. With so much less incoming solar energy, any water on Earth should have been frozen. This is the faint young Sun paradox first recognized by astrophysicist Carl Sagan in 1972. Although there have been many creative proposals about how to reconcile this apparent contradiction between astrophysical theory and the rock record , the prevailing view is that an atmosphere dominated by greenhouse gases could have compensated for the dimmer Sun and made the early Earth's climate clement enough to keep ancient rivers rolling down to an open sea. Based on the atmospheres of neighboring Venus and Mars—the lingering breath of volcanoes—carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor are likely to have been the primary heat-trapping gases, although methane, ethane, nitrogen, ammonia, and other compounds may also have acted as additional blankets that kept the Archean world warm.

8. Which of the following statements about the "Isua rock formations" is best supported by the passage?

A. The age assigned to them is most likely incorrect.

B. They have little in common with other sedimentary rock formations on Earth's surface.

C. Their composition is more homogeneous in nature than had been assumed.

D. Their formation contributed to the presence of CO2?in Earth's atmosphere.

E. Their presence suggests that early Earth was likely subject to significant volcanic activity.

9. In the context in which it appears, "reconcile" most nearly means

A. resolve

B. conform

C. relegate

D. restore

E. coordinate

10. According to the passage, "the prevailing view" explains

A. why less solar energy was emitted by the Sun in the past than is emitted in the present

B. why greenhouse gases were formed on Earth some 3.8 to 3.7 billion years ago

C. how the Earth's atmosphere likely differed from those of neighboring planets 3.8 to 3.7 billion years ago

D. how certain temperatures could have existed on Earth 3.8 to 3.7 billion years ago

E. how the ages assigned to certain rock formations were determined