DIRECTIONS: The following passage contains certain words and phrases that are underlined
and numbered. In the questions that accompany it, you will find replacements for each
underlined part. The number of each question refers to the number below each underlined part
of the passage.
For each question, choose the best replacement. In most instances, you will select the option
that expresses the idea most clearly, revises the statement to be appropriate for standard
English, or uses wording consistent with the tone and style of the whole passage. If you think
the best version is the original wording, choose "NO CHANGE."
In some cases, you will encounter a question about the underlined part. Choose the best
answer to the question. You will also encounter questions about a certain section or the whole
passage. These questions do not refer to an underlined part, but rather they are identified by a
number in a box.
Read the passage through once before you begin answering the questions. You may have to
read several sentences beyond the numbered part to determine the answer. Make sure you
have read enough of the passage each time you choose a replacement.
Galaxies
[46] A galaxy is stars, planets, interstellar gas and dust, and there is dark matter that are
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gravitationally connected. You can think of a galaxy as a collection of solar systems that revolve
together around a gravitational center. The gravitational centers of many galaxies are
supermassive black holes that contain the masses of tens or hundreds of billions of stars. Just
as planets orbit stars, stars orbit the centers of their galaxies.
Numbers of Stars in Galaxies
Galaxies can have as few as 10 million stars or as many as one trillion. This means that the
largest galaxy has 10,000 times as many stars as the smallest galaxy. [48] Our Milky Way
galaxy is estimated to contain between 200 and 400 billion stars.
Sizes of Galaxies
As with stars, galaxies can be described in terms of the mass they contain and the space they
occupy. The Milky Way is estimated to contain 5.8  1011 solar masses. That is the mass of 580
billion Suns.
The Milky Way is a large galaxy. Most of the stars of the Milky Way are within a 100,000-lightyear disk. Most of the nearby galaxies are only about 1/10 the size of the Milky Way, the
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smallest galaxies may be only about 5,000 light years across. However, there are galaxies that
are more than thirty times the size of the Milky Way. The largest galaxy possibly 3 million light
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years across.
Types of Galaxies
It wasn't until the 1920s when Edwin Hubble provided evidence that there were groups of stars
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far outside of our Milky Way that astronomers accepted that there were other galaxies in the
universe. [52] One of the first things that Hubble noticed about the galaxies was that they had
different shapes. Hubble began to classify galaxies into three basic shapes—spirals, ellipses,
and irregular. . . .
Spiral galaxies. A spiral galaxy is a flat, circling disk of stars, planets, gas, and dust with a
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bulge in it’s center. Spiral galaxies also have "arms" of stars that curve outward from the center
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like the arms of a pinwheel. New stars form in the arms, which make them brighter than the
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areas in the disk around them. Some spiral galaxies also have a "bar" of stars that cuts across
the center of the galaxy. Hubble called these barred spiral galaxies. About half of all galaxies
are spiral. Irregular galaxies like the Large Magellanic Cloud do not have such a uniform large-
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scale shape.
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with two major spiral arms and four or five minor arms.
It is very hard to imagine distances this great. Astronomers estimate that the Milky Way contains
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between 200 and 400 billion stars. The disk of the Milky Way it is estimated to be about 100,000
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light years in diameter and about 1,000 light years thick. This means it would take a photon of
light 100,000 years to go from one side of the Milky Way to the other.
Use “Passage V” to answer questions 46-60.
46. The writer is considering adding the following sentence to the beginning of Paragraph
1: "In a galaxy far, far away, there may be children just like you reading just as you
are now." Should the writer add this sentence?
A. Yes, because the sentence relates the reader to the subject to be discussed in the text.
B. Yes, because the sentence establishes the audience for the piece at the very beginning.
C. No, because the level of the text makes it appropriate only for readers too old to want to
be called children.
D. No, because it has been proven that there is no life elsewhere in the universe, and this
sentence suggests otherwise.
47. A.
B.
C.
D.
NO CHANGE
also is dark matter
is also comprised of dark matter
dark matter
48. A.
B.
C.
D.
In contrast,
Somewhere in the middle,
Surprisingly,
As might be expected,
49. A.
B.
C.
D.
NO CHANGE
Way--the
Way the
Way. The
50. A.
B.
C.
D.
NO CHANGE
may be
exceeding
as much as
51. A. NO CHANGE
B. 1920s, when Edwin Hubble provided evidence that there were groups of stars far
outside of our Milky Way, that astronomers
C. 1920s when Edwin Hubble provided evidence that there were groups of stars far
outside of our Milky Way. Astronomers
D. 1920s when Edwin Hubble provided evidence that there were groups of stars far
outside of our Milky Way because astronomers
52. A. NO CHANGE
B. 1920s, when Edwin Hubble provided evidence that there were groups of stars far
outside of our Milky Way, that astronomers
C. 1920s when Edwin Hubble provided evidence that there were groups of stars far
outside of our Milky Way. Astronomers
D. 1920s when Edwin Hubble provided evidence that there were groups of stars far
outside of our Milky Way because astronomers
53. A.
B.
C.
D.
NO CHANGE
rotating
twirling
circumnavigating
54. A.
B.
C.
D.
NO CHANGE
its'
its
one's
55. A.
B.
C.
D.
NO CHANGE
arms
'arms'
ARMS
56. What purpose does this phrase serve that would not be met if the phrase were
deleted?
A. It clarifies by relating the shape to that of a familiar object.
B. It summarizes information presented in the preceding sentence.
C. It serves as a transition to the next sentence.
D. It shows another way in which parts of a spiral galaxy are like arms of a body.
57. What should the writer do with this sentence during revision?
A. Leave it unchanged.
B. Move it to a new, separate section on irregular galaxies.
C. Move it to the next paragraph.
D. Revise it to include a definition of irregular galaxy.
58. What change, if any, should the writer make to this sentence?
A. NO CHANGE
B. Move it to a position following Sentence 3.
C. Move it to a position following Sentence 4.
D. Move it to a position following Sentence 5.
59. What should the writer do with this sentence during revision?
A. Replace the pretentious word estimate with the more casual word guess.
B. Italicize between 200 and 400 billion stars to emphasize how unusual this is.
C. Delete the sentence because it presents information that has already appeared.
D. Add a comma and the clause which is between one and two-fifths of a trillion to the
end to clarify how large the numbers are.
60. A.
B.
C.
D.
NO CHANGE
is estimated to be
estimated to be
is estimated as being