Which of the following statements supports the idea that extinction is necessary?

Read the excerpt from Infinite Jest.

[Orin] stood there, he says, hefting a cold clod, playing with the Velcro on his puffy coat, watching as the Moms, bent way down to me, hand reaching, her lowering face with its presbyopic squint, suddenly stopped, froze, beginning to I.D. what it was I held out, countenancing evidence of oral contact with same. He remembers her face as past describing.

What is the meaning of the excerpt?

The narrator's brother is ignoring his mother's behavior.

The narrator's brother is playing a trick on his mother.

The narrator's mother is attempting to identify what her son ate.

The narrator's mother is addressing her sons for their misbehavior.

Read this excerpt from Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics.

The incentive scheme that rules sumo is intricate and extraordinarily powerful. Each wrestler maintains a ranking that affects every slice of life; how much money he makes, how large an entourage he carries, how much he gets to eat, sleep, and otherwise take advantage of his success. The sixty-six highest-ranked wrestlers in Japan, comprising the makuuchi and juryo divisions, make up the sumo elite. A wrestler near the top of this elite pyramid may earn millions and is treated like royalty. Any wrestler in the top forty earns at least $170,000 a year. The seventieth-ranked wrestler in Japan, meanwhile, earns only $15,000 a year. Life isn't very sweet outside the elite. Low-ranked wrestlers must tend to their superiors, preparing their meals and cleaning their quarters and even soaping up their hardest-to-reach body parts. So ranking is everything.

A wrestler's ranking is based on his performance in the elite tournaments that are held six times a year. Each wrestler has fifteen bouts per tournament, one per day over fifteen consecutive days. If he finishes the tournament with a winning record (eight victories or better), his ranking will rise. If he has a losing record, his ranking falls. If it falls far enough, he is booted from the elite rank entirely. The eighth victory in any tournament is therefore critical, the difference between promotion and demotion; it is roughly four times as valuable in the rankings as the typical victory.

Based on the excerpt, which of the following statements best summarizes the incentive system that ranks sumo wrestlers?

The incentive system penalizes elite sumo wrestlers.

The incentive system rewards elite sumo wrestlers.

The incentive system treats all sumo wrestlers equally.

The incentive system treats all sumo wrestlers like
royalty.

Read the excerpt from E.O. Wilson's "The Environmental Ethic."

Why should we care? What difference does it make if some species are extinguished, if even half of all the species on earth disappear? Let me count the ways. New sources of scientific information will be lost. Vast potential biological wealth will be destroyed. Still undeveloped medicines, crops, pharmaceuticals, timber, fibers, pulp, soil-restoring vegetation, petroleum substitutes, and other products and amenities will never come to light. It is fashionable in some quarters to wave aside the small and obscure, the bugs and weeds, forgetting that an obscure moth from Latin America saved Australia's pastureland from overgrowth by cactus, that the rosy periwinkle provided the cure for Hodgkin's disease and childhood lymphocytic leukemia, that the bark of the Pacific yew offers hope for victims of ovarian and breast cancer, that a chemical from the saliva of leeches dissolves blood clots during surgery, and so on down a roster already grown long and illustrious despite the limited research addressed to it.

Which techniques does Wilson use in this excerpt to convey important information to his readers?

Wilson uses humorous anecdotes that make the information more interesting.

Wilson uses metaphors that appeal to a wide range of the reader's senses.

Wilson relates the significance of the information directly to the reader's life.

Wilson refers to empirical statistics to relate the importance of his message.

Read the following excerpt from E. O. Wilson's "The Environmental Ethic."

Species are disappearing at an accelerating rate through human action, primarily habitat destruction but also pollution and the introduction of exotic species into residual natural environments. I have said that a fifth or more of the species of plants and animals could vanish or be doomed to early extinction by the year 2020 unless better efforts are made to save them. . . . As the last forests are felled [destroyed] in forest strongholds like the Philippines and Ecuador, the decline of species will accelerate even more. In the world as a whole, extinction rates are already hundreds or thousands of times higher than before the coming of man. They cannot be balanced by new evolution in any period of time that has meaning for the human race.

Why should we care? What difference does it make if some species are extinguished, if even half of all the species on earth disappear? Let me count the ways. New sources of scientific information will be lost. Vast potential biological wealth will be destroyed. Still undeveloped medicines, crops, pharmaceuticals, timber, fibers, pulp, soil-restoring vegetation, petroleum substitutes, and other products and amenities will never come to light.

Based on the excerpt, which statement best summarizes the author's beliefs about the disappearing species?

The loss of plant species and habitats will lead to widespread animal extinction.

The loss of plant species and habitats will lead to environmental problems in remote regions.

The loss of plant species and habitats will displace animals and decrease human wealth.

The loss of plant species and habitats will devastate animals and hinder human progress.

Read this excerpt from Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics.

The incentive scheme that rules sumo is intricate and extraordinarily powerful. Each wrestler maintains a ranking that affects every slice of life; how much money he makes, how large an entourage he carries, how much he gets to eat, sleep, and otherwise take advantage of his success. The sixty-six highest-ranked wrestlers in Japan, comprising the makuuchi and juryo divisions, make up the sumo elite. A wrestler near the top of this elite pyramid may earn millions and is treated like royalty. Any wrestler in the top forty earns at least $170,000 a year. The seventieth-ranked wrestler in Japan, meanwhile, earns only $15,000 a year. Life isn't very sweet outside the elite. Low-ranked wrestlers must tend to their superiors, preparing their meals and cleaning their quarters and even soaping up their hardest-to-reach body parts. So ranking is everything.

A wrestler's ranking is based on his performance in the elite tournaments that are held six times a year. Each wrestler has fifteen bouts per tournament, one per day over fifteen consecutive days. If he finishes the tournament with a winning record (eight victories or better), his ranking will rise. If he has a losing record, his ranking falls. If it falls far enough, he is booted from the elite rank entirely. The eighth victory in any tournament is therefore critical, the difference between promotion and demotion; it is roughly four times as valuable in the rankings as the typical victory.

Based on the excerpt, which statement provides the best example of incentive for a sumo wrestler to cheat?

Sumo wrestling is revered in a way that American sports can never be.

A sumo wrestler near the top of the elite pyramid may earn millions of dollars.

Sumo wrestling has fifteen bouts in each elite tournament.

A sumo wrestler must participate in elite tournaments six times a year.

Read the excerpt from Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's Freakonomics.

The incentive scheme that rules sumo is intricate and extraordinarily powerful. Each wrestler maintains a ranking that affects every slice of his life; how much money he makes, how large an entourage he carries, how much he gets to eat, sleep, and otherwise take advantage of his success. The sixty-six highest-ranked wrestlers in Japan, comprising the makuuchi and juryo divisions, make up the sumo elite. A wrestler near the top of this elite pyramid may earn millions and is treated like royalty. Any wrestler in the top forty earns at least $170,000 a year. The seventieth-ranked wrestler in Japan, meanwhile, earns only $15,000 a year. Life isn't very sweet outside the elite. Low-ranked wrestlers must tend to their superiors, preparing their meals and cleaning their quarters, and even soaping up their hardest-to-reach body parts. So ranking is everything.

Which sentence from the excerpt best supports the idea that the high-ranking sumo wrestlers enjoy many luxuries?

The incentive scheme that rules sumo is intricate and extraordinarily powerful.

The sixty-six highest-ranked wrestlers in Japan, comprising the makuuchi and juryo divisions, make up the sumo elite.

A wrestler near the top of this elite pyramid may earn millions and is treated like royalty.

The seventieth-ranked wrestler in Japan, meanwhile, earns only $15,000 a year.

Read the following excerpt from Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics.

There is a tale, "The Ring of Gyges," that Feldman sometimes tells his economist friends. It comes from Plato's Republic. A student named Glaucon offered the story in response to a lesson by Socrates—who, like Adam Smith, argued that people are generally good even without enforcement. Glaucon, like Feldman's economist friends, disagreed. He told of a shepherd named Gyges who stumbled upon a secret cavern with a corpse inside that wore a ring. When Gyges put on the ring, he found that it made him invisible. With no one able to monitor his behavior, Gyges proceeded to do woeful things—seduce the queen, murder the king, and so on. Glaucon's story posed a moral question: could any man resist the temptation of evil if he knew his acts could not be witnessed? Glaucon seemed to think the answer was no.

The excerpt serves as which of the following in relation to the authors' argument?

a claim that most people are moral

an example of morality in the workplace

a conclusion about morality in the workplace

a counterclaim to the idea that most people are moral