Standard English Conventions - Form, 4.

Called embouchure, the shape of a skilled

Structure, and Sense.
1. When a fire burns red or green or blue, the
color of its flames ______ the chemical
composition of the combustible material.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
trumpet player’s lips ______ for playing a
wide range of notes with clear tone and
without muscle strain.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) allows

A) indicate B) are allowing

B) indicates C) allow

C) have indicated D) have allowed

D) are indicating
5. It is hard to live in Antarctica. The cold, dry
environment provides the continent’s soil-
2. A Neapolitan pizza made with San Marzano
dwelling microbes few nutrients, little water,
tomatoes ______ considered more traditional
and almost no sunlight. In a 2017 study of
than one made with any other type of
these organisms, microbiologist Belinda
tomatoes.
Ferrari reported that ______ able to survive on
Which choice completes the text so that it a diet of atmospheric gases found in the soil.
conforms to the conventions of Standard
Which choice completes the text so that it
English?
conforms to the conventions of Standard
A) are English?

B) have been A) it is

C) is B) this is

D) were C) either is

3. The sum of money one donates to registered
nonprofit organizations ______ a deduction
that can be made from one’s taxable income.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) represent
B) represents
C) are representing
D) have represented
D) they are
6. Before a jury trial begins, lawyers for each
side interview potential jurors closely, ______
questions intended to reveal any biases.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) asking him or her
B) asking them
C) asking it

D) to ask him or her

7. Thanks to ______ long legs, giraffes are
very fast, running as quickly as 35 miles per
hour in short bursts.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) its
B) one’s
C) their
D) his or her
8. While many spiders use webs to catch their
food, others capture prey using hunting or
burrowing techniques. Spiders from the family
Ctenizidae, often called trapdoor spiders,
______ their burrows with doors, using their
silk for hinges.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) cover
B) are covering
C) will have covered
D) had covered
9. Botanists recognize over fifty different
species of sunflower, and variance exists even
in those species. One species, the silverleaf
sunflower, ______ both an early-flowering
ecotype that tends to grow in coastal areas and
a late-flowering ecotype that grows inland.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) encompassing
B) to encompass
C) encompasses
D) having encompassed
10. Antarctic pearlwort, a low-growing shrub
with characteristic yellow flowers, is one of
only two native flowering plants which
______ in Antarctica.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) were occurring
B) occur
C) are occurring
D) will have occurred
11. Before the museum closed permanently, it
faced financial challenges that ______ a large
deficit and declining ticket sale revenues.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) include
B) will include
C) would include
D) included
12. Rabinal Achí is a precolonial Maya dance
drama performed annually in Rabinal, a town
in the Guatemalan highlands. Based on events
that occurred when Rabinal was a city-state
ruled by a king, ______ had once been an ally
of the king but was later captured while
leading an invading force against him.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) Rabinal Achí tells the story of K’iche’
Achí, a military leader who
B) K’iche’ Achí, the military leader in the
story of Rabinal Achí,
C) there was a military leader, K’iche’ Achí,
who in Rabinal Achí
D) the military leader whose story is told in
Rabinal Achí, K’iche’ Achí,
13. Having returned from the ocean to the
stream where it was born, ______ after which
its offspring start the cycle anew.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) an adult salmon’s life cycle ends when it
spawns and dies,
B) an adult salmon spawns and dies,
completing its life cycle,
C) the spawning and death of an adult salmon
complete its life cycle,
D) the life cycle of an adult salmon is
complete when it spawns and die,
14. While popular depiction might characterize
surfing as a summer sport, the reality is that
winter conditions are considered better for
surfing. Generated by seasonal storms far off
the coast, ______
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) surfers highly prize the large, predictable
sets of waves that are created by winter swells.
B) winter swells reach the shore as large,
predictable sets of waves that are highly prized
by surfers.
C) the shore causes large winter swells to
break in predictable sets of waves highly
prized by surfers.
D) winter is highly prized by surfers for large
swells that break in large, predictable sets of
waves.
15. Slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo’s debut
novel The Poet X, winner of the 2018 National
Book Award for Young People’s Literature, is
composed of ______ protagonist, fifteen-year-
old Xiomara Batista.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) poem’s putatively written by the novel’s
B) poem’s putatively written by the novels’
C) poems putatively written by the novels’
D) poems putatively written by the novel’s
16. Labor unions are formed in order to protect
______ through collective bargaining, which
gives employees greater leverage while
ensuring they are treated equally by
management.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) workers’ rights
B) worker’s rights
C) workers rights’
D) workers’ rights’
17. The striated ______ walls are the result of
erosion and frost weathering having exposed
layers of multicolored sedimentary rock.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) patterns’ of a canyons
B) patterns of a canyons’
C) pattern’s of a canyon’s
D) patterns of a canyon’s
18. When they were first discovered in
Australia in 1798, duck-billed, beaver-tailed
platypuses so defied categorization that one
scientist assigned them the name
Ornithorhynchus paradoxus: “paradoxical
bird-snout.” The animal, which lays eggs but
also nurses ______ young with milk, has since
been classified as belonging to the
monotremes group.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) it’s
B) their
C) they’re
D) its
19. The African Games Co-production Market,
one of over 180 annual international
conferences supporting video game
development, ______ the growth of the
African gaming industry by helping start-up
studios in Africa find partners.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) promotes
B) promote
C) are promoting
D) have promoted
20. Wanda Diaz-Merced, an astrophysicist
who is blind, has developed software that can
translate astrophysical data into sound. Such
tools ______ astrophysicists to detect subtle
patterns in data—patterns that may not be
evident in graphs and other visual formats.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) has enabled
B) enable
C) is enabling
D) enables
21. In 2015, a team led by materials scientists
Anirudha Sumant and Diana Berman
succeeded in reducing the coefficient of
friction (COF) between two surfaces to the
lowest possible level—superlubricity. A nearly
frictionless (and, as its name suggests,
extremely slippery) state, ______
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) reaching superlubricity occurs when two
surfaces’ COF drops below 0.01.
B) superlubricity is reached when two
surfaces’ COF drops below 0.01.
C) when their COF drops below 0.01, two
surfaces reach superlubricity.
D) two surfaces, when their COF drops below
0.01, reach superlubricity.
22. After winning the 1860 presidential
election, Abraham Lincoln appointed Edward
Bates, Salmon P. Chase, and William H.
Seward to his cabinet. Lincoln’s decision was
surprising, since each of these men had run
against him, but historians have praised it,
noting that Lincoln ______ his rivals’ diverse
talents to strengthen his administration.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) will leverage
B) is leveraging
C) has leveraged
D) leveraged
23. In 1990, California native and researcher
Ellen Ochoa left her position as chief of the
Intelligent Systems Technology Branch at a
NASA research center ______ the space
agency’s astronaut training program.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) to join
B) is joining
C) joined
D) joins
24. In 1994, almost 200 years after the death
of Wang Zhenyi, the International
Astronomical ______ the contributions of the
barrier-breaking 18th-century astronomer and
author of “Dispute of the Procession of the
Equinoxes,” naming a crater on Venus after
her.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) Union, finally acknowledging
B) Union, having finally acknowledged
C) Union would finally acknowledge
D) Union to finally acknowledge
25. Classical composer Florence Price’s 1927
move to Chicago marked a turning point in her
career. It was there that Price premiered her
First Symphony—a piece that was praised for
blending traditional Romantic motifs with
aspects of Black folk music—and ______
supportive relationships with other Black
artists.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) developing
B) developed
C) having developed
D) to develop
26. Photographer Ansel Adams’s landscape
portraits are iconic pieces of American art.
However, many of the ______ of landscapes
were intended not as art but as marketing; a
concessions company at Yosemite National
Park had hired Adams to take pictures of the
park for restaurant menus and brochures.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) photographers early photo’s
B) photographers early photos
C) photographer’s early photos
D) photographer’s early photo’s
27. Ten of William Shakespeare’s plays are
classified as histories. Although each one of
these plays, which include Henry V and
Richard III, ______ on a single historical
figure (specifically, an English king), some,
such as Henry VI Part One and Henry VI Part
Two, feature different episodes from the same
monarch’s life.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) focuses
B) focus
C) are focused
D) were focused
28. Official measurements of the Mississippi
River’s length vary: according to the US
Geologic Survey, the river is 2,300 miles long,
whereas the Environmental Protection Agency
records its length as 2,320 miles. This
disparity can be explained in part by the fact
that rivers such as the Mississippi expand and
contract as ______ sediment.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) one accumulates
B) they accumulate
C) it accumulates
D) we accumulate
29. In 1881, French chemist Camille Faure
redesigned the rechargeable lead-acid battery.
Faure’s design greatly increased the amount of
electricity that the original battery, which the
French physicist Gaston Planté ______ fifteen
years earlier, could hold.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) is inventing
B) will invent
C) had invented
D) invents
30. Occupying a significant part of modern-
day Nigeria, the Kingdom of Benin was one of
the major powers in West Africa between the
thirteenth and nineteenth centuries. It ______
ruled by Oba Ewuare I from 1440 to 1473.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) is
B) will be
C) has been
D) was
31. Earth is not a perfect sphere. Due to the
______ gravitational pull, Earth bulges out on
the sides closest to and farthest from the
Moon. This distorting pull is known as a tidal
force, and it is responsible for the changes in
water levels that are called high and low tides.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) Moon’s
B) Moons
C) Moons’
D) Moon
32. Oglala Lakota poet Layli Long Soldier’s
star quilt poems offer an unusually open-ended
reading experience. With ______ eight panels
of text stitched together in the shape of a
traditional eight-pointed Lakota star quilt, the
poems present viewers with a seemingly
infinite number of ways to read them.
Which choice completes the text so that it
conforms to the conventions of Standard
English?
A) their
B) it’s
C) they’re
D) its