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Not desirous of meeting his Maker in the middle of a poker game, Doc Holiday ______ placed an ace
inside his vest as Bat Masterson shuffled the remaining cards.

• A. suspiciously
• B. overtly
• C. furtively
• D. brazenly
• E. coyly

(1) An incredible hot-air balloon exhibition happened on September 5, 1862.
(2) It was given by Glaisher and Coxwell, two Englishmen.
(3) There was no compressed oxygen for them to breathe in those days.
(4) They got so high that they couldn't use their limbs.
(5) Coxwell had to open the descending valve with his teeth.
(6) Before Glaisher passed out, he recorded an elevation of twenty- nine thousand feet.
(7) Many believe they got eight thousand feet higher before they began to descend, making their ascent
the highest in the nineteenth century.
(8) Now the largest balloon to go up in the nineteenth century was "The Giant."
(9) The balloon held 215,000 cubic feet of air and was 74 feet wide.
(10) It could carry four and a half tons of cargo.
(11) Its flight began in Paris, in 1853, with fifteen passengers.
(12) All of whom returned safely.
(13) The successful trip received a great deal of national and international press because many thought
the hot- air balloon would become a form of common transportation.
Which of the following is the best way to revise sentences 11 and 12? Its flight began in Paris, in 1853,
with fifteen passengers. All of whom returned safely.

• A. Delete "of"
• B. Make the second sentence read" Who all returned safely."
• C. Replace the period at the end of sentence 11 with a comma.
• D. Replace "whom" with "who."
• E. Delete the period at the end of sentence 11 and change "returned" to "returning

He was held up to small children as an ______, one who is worthy of imitation, principally because of his
self-sacrificing dedication to helping others--clearly his ______ made him deserving of such claim.

• A. idol. . .immortality
• B. emancipator. . .thrift
• C. enigma. . .heart
• D. egotist. . .devotion
• E. exemplar. . .altruism

Big earthquakes are naturally occurring events well outside the powers of humans to create or stop. An
earthquake is caused by a sudden slip on a fault. Stresses in the earth's outer layer push the side of the
fault together. The friction across the surface of the fault holds the rocks together so they do not slip
immediately when pushed sideways. Eventually enough stress builds up and the rocks slip suddenly,
releasing energy in waves that travel through the rock to cause the shaking that we feel during an
earthquake. Earthquakes typically originate several tens of miles below the surface of the earth. It takes
many years-- decades to centuries--to build up enough stress to make a large earthquake, and the fault
may be tens to hundreds of miles long. The scale and force necessary to produce earthquakes are well
beyond our daily lives. Likewise, people cannot prevent earthquakes from happening or stop them once
they've started--giant nuclear explosions at shallow depths, like those in some movies, won't actually stop
an earthquake.
The two most important variables affecting earthquake damage are the intensity of ground shaking cased
by the quake and the quality of the engineering of structures in the region. The level of shaking, in turn, is
controlled by the proximity of the earthquake source to the affected region and the types of rocks that
seismic waves pass through en route (particularly those at or near the ground surface). Generally, the
bigger and closer the earthquake, the stronger the shaking. But there have been large earthquakes with
very little damage either because they caused little shaking or because the buildings were built to
withstand that shaking. In other cases, moderate earthquakes have caused significant damage either
because the shaking was locally amplified or more likely because the structures were poorly engineered.
This passage was most likely written to

• A. describe the damage that earthquakes can cause and the reason for varying degrees of damage
• B. explain some basic facts about the causes and effects of earthquakes
• C. teach people the methods they need to all eviate earthquake damage
• D. reassure people who are considering moving into regions prone to earthquakes that they will be safe
  from harm
• E. persuade people to allocate more funding to earthquake research

The storyteller's ______ anecdotes earned her the ______ attention of the crowd.

• A. moribund. .lucid
• B. pointed. .spellbound
• C. compelling. .rapt
• D. poignant. .abrasive
• E. meandering. .distracted