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Passage 1 - Questions 1-6
Passage adapted from Christopher Intagliata, “Road Noise Takes a
Toll on Migrating Birds.” ©2015 by Scientific American.
Building a road through wilderness certainly has a visible
impact on local flora and fauna—you’re physically paving over
a slice of what was once habitat. But roads have less obvious
Line effects, too. Like the introduction of traffic noise, which also
5 takes a toll. “You can see an oil spill but you can’t see a traffic
noise spill. So convincing people that it’s important is a little
more difficult,” said Heidi Ware.
Ware is an ornithologist at the Intermountain Bird
Observatory in Boise, Idaho. She and her colleagues studied
10 the reactions by birds to the sounds of vehicles. And they did it
without paving the great outdoors. Instead, they mounted 15
pairs of speakers on Douglas fir trees, along a ridge near Boise,
and played traffic noise. They thus created what they call a
“phantom road” through the wilderness, which boosted local
15 noise levels 10 decibels higher than those in the surrounding
forest.
Turns out just the sounds of traffic scared away a third of the
area’s usual avian visitors, and cut species diversity too. And
birds of multiple species were not able to pack on as much fat
20 to fuel their migrations when they were forced to dine to the
soundtrack of traffic.
Follow-up experiments in the lab found that, when it’s
noisy, birds spend a lot less time head down, pecking at food,
and a lot more time scanning their surroundings.
25 Ware says Yosemite, Glacier and Rocky Mountain National
Parks all have roads that are busy enough to produce these
effects. And, short of closing park roads to traffic, she says
things like rubberized asphalt and lower speed limits could
help cut the noise. “Glacier National Park is going to put up
30 signs, that instead of showing your speed and preventing
people from speeding, it’s going to show how loud their car is
on the road.” Which, hopefully, will continue to encourage
wilderness lovers to leave no trace—visible or audible.
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1
The main idea of the first paragraph of Passage 1 is
that the presence of a road through a wilderness area
A) affects the environment in ways that can be hard
to recognize.
B) increases the level of unnatural noise and
decreases the level of natural noise.
C) reduces the number of plants that serve as a
source of food for wildlife.
D) leaves the area vulnerable to oil spills and other
physical damage caused by cars.
2
The primary purpose of the second paragraph of
Passage 1 lines 8–16 (“Ware is ... forest.”) is to
A) establish the credentials of researchers who
conducted an experiment.
B) present a hypothesis a group of researchers set out
to investigate.
C) identify the locations of the sites where a study
was conducted.
D) outline the methodology researchers used in a
study.
3
The fourth paragraph of Passage 1 serves mainly to
A) describe the manner in which birds eat in their
natural habitat.
B) critique an experiment that yielded surprising
results.
C) provide evidence that helps to explain the
findings discussed in the previous paragraph.
D) evaluate a hypothesis about the harmful effects of
noise pollution.
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4 5
Based on the information in Passage 1, which of Which choice provides the best evidence for the
the following would most likely result from the answer to the previous question?
construction of a busy road in a forest that is a habitat
A) lines 3-5 (“But ... toll”)
for birds?
B) lines 17-18 (“Turns ... too”)
A) The birds become used to unnatural noise and
start building their nests dangerously close to the C) lines 18-21 (“And ... traffic")
road.
D) lines 22-24 (“Follow-up ... surroundings”)
B) Migration patterns start to change because
the birds run out of energy sooner than they
previously did. 6
C) The birds begin to dwell in quieter parts of the As used in line 32, the word “encourage” most nearly
surrounding forest and deplete the available means
resources in those habitats.
A) cultivate
D) Predation begins to increase because the birds
B) stimulate
are unable to monitor their surroundings for
predators. C) reassure
D) strengthen

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Passage 2 - Questions 7-11 7

Passage adapted from Kate Wong, “Building Earth’s Continental The first paragraph of Passage 2 serves primarily to
Crust.” ©2000 by Scientific American A) introduce two competing explanations of a
natural phenomenon.
Four billion years ago, Earth’s continents began taking
B) establish the validity of evidence supporting a
shape. Scientists long held that this process unfolded gradually.
new scientific theory.
It would have taken millions of years for granite, the primary
Line component of the continental crust, to form in the mantle and C) compare and contrast two perspectives on a
38 migrate to the upper crust, they reasoned. But new research recent discovery.
suggests that these events may have proceeded at rather a
D) present a detailed timeline of advances in a field
different pace. According to a report published in the journal
of study.
Nature, the emergence of granite occurred by way of swift,
dynamic and possibly catastrophic events lasting from 1,000 to
43 100,000 years.
Geologist Alexander Cruden of the University of Toronto
8
and his colleagues turned to experimental studies—melting As used in line 35, “unfolded” most nearly means
rock samples, for example—to explore how granite magma
A) revealed
forms and how fast it can move. Their results proved
48 surprising. “In the past we thought that granite magma, which B) spread
cools and crystallizes to form very large granite intrusions,
C) developed
moved up through kilometers of crust as large, solid blobs at
rates of about a meter per year,” Cruden says. “But we’ve D) expanded
found that magma actually has quite low viscosity and is
53 relatively runny. Because it is runny, it is able to channel its
way from the mantle and lower crust through fractures and 9
cracks that are as small as one meter thick.”
Passage 2 indicates that Cruden and his team made
According to this model, granite intrusions in Greenland or
use of primarily what kind of research in their study?
the Canadian Shield, depending on their size, would have taken
58 only thousands of years to form, which is extraordinarily fast A) Hands-on experimentation
from a geological point of view, Cruden notes.
B) Theoretical computer modeling
C) Synthesis of scholarly literature
D) Analysis of case studies

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10 11
In Passage 2, it can reasonably be inferred that one Which choice provides the best evidence for the
reason scientists thought the continental crust took answer to the previous question?
millions of years to form was that they had
A) lines 36-38 (“It ... reasoned")
A) disregarded the age of granite found in Greenland
B) lines 48-51 (“In ... says”)
and Canada.
C) lines 51-55 (“But ... thick")
B) overestimated the viscosity of granite magma.
D) lines 56-59 (“According ... notes")
C) miscalculated the size of granite intrusions.
D) underestimated the thickness of cracks in the
lower crust.

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