Pronoun and Compression Noun Exercises

Directions: underline the word, phrase, or lines in the passage to which the compression
noun in each sentence refers.

1. What drives traffic on most "news" websites is not

journalism but a combination of snark and celebrity
clickbait. Much of it is churned out in soul-destroying II
content factories manned by inexperienced-and
What does "this deficit" (line 6) refer to?
5 therefore inexpensive-young people without the time
or incentive to dig deeply into anything. This deficit is
particularly acute where it matters most: in the kind of
expensive, far-flung reporting that is either dangerous
to the lives of those doing the work or harmful to the
10 bottom lines of the publications paying for it. The idea n
that readers will pay the actual cost of meaningful What does "it" (line 14) refer to?
journalism has never been sustainable in the United
States and has brought down nearly every entity that has
tried to depend on it.

2. While humpback dolphins look quite similar to

other dolphins, their genetics tells a different story.
Researchers collected 235 tissue samples and 180
skulls throughout the animals' distribution, representing
5 the biggest dataset assembled to date for the animals. II
The team analyzed mitochondrial and nuclear DNA
What does "this divergence" (line 14) refer to?
from the tissue, which revealed significant variations.
Although the line between species, sub-species and
populations is a blurry one, in this case, the researchers
10 are confident that the humpback dolphin is distinct
enough to warrant the "species" title. The mitochondrial
DNA turned up genetic signatures distinct enough to
n
What does "it" (line 16) refer to?
signal a separate species, and likewise, differences in
the dolphins' skulls supported this divergence. Although
15 the nuclear DNA provided a slightly more confounding
picture, it still clearly showed differences between the
four species.

3. Soon after the Big Bang, there were tiny ripples:

quantum fluctuations in the density of the seething ball II
of hot plasma. Billions of years later, those seeds have
What do "those seeds" (line 3) refer to?
grown into galaxy clusters - sprawling groups of
5 hundreds or thousands of galaxies bound together by
gravity. But there seems to be a mismatch. Results
released last year suggest that as much as 40% of
galaxy-cluster mass is missing when compared with
the amount of clustering predicted by the ripples. n
10 The findings have led theorists to propose physics What do "the findings" (line 10) refer to?
beyond the standard model of cosmology to make up
the difference.

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4. Conservationists have historically been at odds
with the people who inhabit wildernesses. During the
last half of the 20th century, millions of indigenous

-
people were ousted from their homelands to establish
nature sanctuaries free of humans. Most succumbed to
5 malnutrition, disease and exploitation. Such outcomes-
coupled with the realization that indigenous groups
What does "such outcomes" (line 5) refer to?
usually help to stabilize ecosystems by, for instance,
keeping fire at bay-have convinced major conservation
groups to take local human concerns into account. The
10 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) now describes indigenous
peoples as "natural allies," and the Nature Conservancy
pledges to seek their "free, informed and prior" consent
to projects impacting their territories.

5. The starlings show up over Rome around dusk,

heading for their roosts after a day of feeding in the
countryside. In flocks of several hundred to several
thousand, they form sinuous streams, whirling

-
5 cylinders, cones or ribbons spread across the sky like
giant flags. Wheeling and dipping together, they
reminded Andrea Cavagna, a physicist at the National
Research Council of Italy, of atoms falling into place
What does "they" (line 4) refer to?
in a superfluid state of matter called a Bose-Einstein
10 condensate. Out of curiosity, Cavagna deployed a
camera to record the flights. As a particle physicist, he
says, "it was refreshing to work with something you
can actually see." But keeping track of a thousand birds
turned out to be much more complicated than a billion ID
15 billion atoms. What do "these acrobatics" (line 17) refer to?
Cavagna was hardly the first scientist to be intrigued
by these acrobatics-known, in a rare instance of
technical language coinciding with poetry, as
"murmurations." Other animals that travel in groups-
20 schooling fish, most obviously-show the same
uncanny ability to move in apparent unison away from
a predator or toward a food source.

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6. I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts
man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American, and
a member of the Senate of the United States. It is I.I
fortunate that there is a Senate of the United States;
What does "a body" (lines 5 and 7) refer to?
5 a body not yet moved from its propriety, not lost to a just
sense of its own dignity and its own high responsibilities,
and a body to which the country looks, with confidence,
for wise, moderate, patriotic, and healing counsels.
It is not to be denied that we live in the midst of strong
10 agitations, and are surrounded by very considerable
dangers to our institutions and government. The Ill
imprisoned winds are let loose. The East, the North, What does "its" (lines 14 and 15) refer to?
and the stormy South combine to throw the whole sea
into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, and
15 disclose its profoundest depths. I do not affect to regard
myself, Mr. President, as holding, or as fit to hold, the
helm in this combat with the political elements; but I
have a duty to perform, and I mean to perform it with Ill
fidelity, not without a sense of existing dangers, but not
What does "it" (line 18) refer to?
20 without hope. I have a part to act, not for my own
security or safety, for I am looking out for no fragment
upon which to float away from the wreck, if wreck there
must be, but for the good of the whole, and the
preservation of all; and there is that which will keep me
25 to my duty during this struggle, whether the sun and the
stars shall appear, or shall not appear for many days.
I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union.

7. Chimps do it, birds do it, even you and I do it.

Once you see someone yawn, you are compelled to
do the same. Now it seems that wolves can be added
to the list of animals known to spread yawns like a
5 contagion. I.I
Among humans, even thinking about yawning can
What do "the trends" (line 20) refer to?
trigger the reflex, leading some to suspect that catching
a yawn is linked to our ability to empathize with other
humans. For instance, contagious yawning activates the
10 same parts of the brain that govern empathy and social
know-how. And some studies have shown that humans
with more fine-tuned social skills are more likely to catch Ill
a yawn. What does "it" (line 22) refer to?
Similarly, chimpanzees, baboons and bonobos
15 often yawn when they see other members of their species
yawning. Chimps (Pan troglodytes) can catch yawns
from humans, even virtual ones. At least in primates,
contagious yawning seems to require an emotional
connection and may function as a demonstration of
20 empathy. Beyond primates, though, the trends are less
clear-cut. One study found evidence of contagious
yawning in birds but didn't connect it to empathy.

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