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Native Americans probably arrived from Asia in successive waves over several millennia, crossing a plain hundreds of miles wide that now lies inundated by 160 feet of water released by melting glaciers. For several periods of time, the first beginning around 60,000 B.C. and the last ending around 7,000 B.C., this land bridge was open. The (5) first people traveled in the dusty trails of the animals they hunted. They brought with them not only their families, weapons, and tools but also a broad metaphysical understanding, sprung from dreams and visions and articulated in myth and song, which complemented their scientific and historical knowledge of the lives of animals and of people. All this they shaped in a variety of languages, bringing into being oral literatures of power and beauty. (10) Contemporary readers, forgetting the origins of western epic, lyric, and dramatic forms, are easily disposed to think of “literature” only as something written. But on reflection it becomes clear that the more critically useful as well as the more frequently employed sense of the term concerns the artfulness of the verbal creation, not its mode of presentation. Ultimately, literature is aesthetically valued, regardless of language, culture,(15)or mode of presentation, because some significant verbal achievement results from the struggle in words between tradition and talent. Verbal art has the ability to shape out a compelling inner vision in some skillfully crafted public verbal form. Of course, the differences between the written and oral modes of expression are not without consequences for an understanding of Native American literature. The essential(20)difference is that a speech event is an evolving communication, an “emergent form,” the shape, functions, and aesthetic values of which become more clearly realized over the course of the performance. In performing verbal art , the performer assumes responsibility for the manner as well as the content of the performance, while the audience assumes the responsibility for evaluating the performer’s competence in both areas. It is this intense(25)mutual engagement that elicits the display of skill and shapes the emerging performance. Where written literature provides us with a tradition of texts, oral literature offers a tradition of performances. The word “Ultimately” in line 14 is closest in meaning to

A. frequently
B. normally
C. whenever possible
D. in the end

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The pulse (that may) be felt (wherever) an artery (passes over) a solid structure, such as (a bone )or cartilage.

A. that may
B. wherever
C. passes over
D. a bone

Duke Ellington’’s orchestra,________ his own often complex compositions, made many innovations in jazz.

A. he played
B. playing
C. that it played
D. was playing

Many ants forage across the countryside in large numbers and undertake mass migrations; these activities proceed because one ant lays a trail on the ground for the others to follow. As a worker ant returns home after finding a source of food, it marks the route by intermittently touching its stinger to the ground and depositing a tiny amount of trail(5)pheromone—a mixture of chemicals that delivers diverse messages as the context changes. These trails incorporate no directional information and may be followed by other ants in either direction. Unlike some other messages, such as the one arising from a dead ant, a food trail has to be kept secret from members of other species. It is not surprising then that ant species use(10)a wide variety of compounds as trail pheromones. Ants can be extremely sensitive to these signals. Investigators working with the trail pheromone of the leafcutter ant Atta texana calculated that one milligram of this substance would suffice to lead a column of ants three times around Earth. The vapor of the evaporating pheromone over the trail guides an ant along the way, (15)and the ant detects this signal with receptors in its antennae. A trail pheromone will evaporate to furnish the highest concentration of vapor right over the trail, in what is called a vapor space. In following the trail, the ant moves to the right and left, oscillating from side to side across the line of the trail itself, bringing first one and then the other antenna into the vapor space. As the ant moves to the right, its left antenna arrives in the vapor space. (20)The signal it receives causes it to swing to the left, and the ant then pursues this new course until its right antenna reaches the vapor space. It then swings back to the right, and so weaves back and forth down the trail. The word “forage” in line 1 is closest in meaning to

A. look up
B. walk toward
C. revolve around
D. search for food

First (reported by) Spanish explorers in 1796, (the asphalt) in California’’s La Brea Tar Pit was mined (commercial) for (many) years.

A. reported by
B. the asphalt
C. commercial
D. many

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