act-dog

Every summer at the Choctaw Indian Fair in central Mississippi, hundreds of men, women, and children gather to take part in the fair’s main event: the Choctaw World Series of Stickball. [ A ] This multiday tournament in summer¹ celebrates the fast-paced, aggressive game of stickball (also called toli or ishtaboli), possibly the oldest sport in North America. Players come not only for the sport but also for the sense of community that stickball affords.

In stickball, players work to move the towa—(ball)—down² the field to their opponents’ end, where a narrow twelve-foot-high post stands. [ B ] To catch, carry, and throw the towa, they hold two kabocca, these are sticks made³ of hardwood with a netted scoop at one end. For each question, choose the alternative you consider best and fill in the corresponding oval on your answer document. Read each passage through once before you begin to answer the questions that accompany it. For many of the questions, you must read several sentences beyond the question to determine the answer. Be sure that you have read far enough ahead each time you choose an alternative. Kabocca are used to catch and throw the ball.⁴ Players score a point by either touching the post while carrying the towa or launching the towa and hitting the post.

Teams can be any size as long as both sides⁵ have the same number of players.⁵ In fact, the sport is nicknamed “the little brother of war” because communities frequently settled disputes by playing stickball instead of waging battle. These contests were fierce and physical, and there was almost no⁶ rules. The playing field had no boundaries, and the length of the field varied greatly—sometimes a significant amount.⁷

Modern-day stickball has inherited the game’s intensity. True to the legacy of the game, players do not wear pads or helmets, also⁸ many play barefoot. However, there have been some changes. The game today is usually played on a football field. New rules have been added for safety. For example, only participants making a play on the towa are permitted to be tackled. [ C ]

[ D ] For the Native people at the Choctaw Indian Fair, stickball is much more than an exciting game; it’s a way to honor their heritage and keep it thriving. Through the centuries, stickball has remained a central part of Choctaw culture. Thomas Ben, the stickball commissioner, said, “This is us. This defines the Choctaw people.”

[ 1 ] Szczęsny began designing the Keret House, today likely the narrowest building in the world. [ 2 ] While walking through Warsaw’s Wola district, Polish architect Jakub Szczęsny¹¹ noticed a small gap between two buildings— one not particularly tall,¹² the other a contemporary, concrete apartment building. [ 3 ] He imagined transforming the space into a functional building that would physically link two different eras. - Named to honor writer Etgar Keret, this impossibly slim house is only about four feet across at its widest point. Still, it has most of the features of a traditional house. The house contains a one-foot-wide dining table and chairs and a narrow bed. the preceding passage as a whole. Storage areas, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom are compressed to fit into a spread¹⁴ of space over two floors. The building is primarily a working studio for artists in residence selected by Szczęsny and Keret. Artists apply for a short stay,¹⁵ as Keret explains it, use the space as “a portal to all kinds of artistic initiatives.” Since its opening in 2012, the Keret House has hosted several visitors from around the world, including photographers, writers, and filmmakers.

During the early twentieth century, many goods cost a few pennies or less. Candy lovers could buy a gumball or Tootsie Roll for a penny; moviegoers could watch a reel of a Charlie Chaplin film for a penny or two. Today, though, with the cumulative effects of inflation, the penny has almost zero purchasing power. Think about it: when’s the last time you bought something for a penny? Although many of us harbor fond memories of collecting pennies in¹⁶ a piggy bank,¹⁶ it’s time to do the practical thing: retire the US penny. [ 1 ] Producing and distributing pennies isn’t cheap. [ 2 ] And in that year alone, the Mint made nearly six and a half billion pennies, costing the US over 170 million dollars. [ 3 ] In 2022, the US Mint spent 2.72 cents to put each penny into circulation. 1 Economics professor Robert Whaples cites another problem: the so-called penny tax, which is really a tax on time. When cashiers make change for a cash purchase, they often reach, into the registers’¹⁸ penny trays and count out one to four cents. While the time it takes to do this may seem trivial, each year, billions of cash transactions are¹⁹ made annually.¹⁹ These penny taxes, in aggregate, result in over 120 billion hours when cashiers (and consumers) could be completing more meaningful tasks. Proponents of pennies—often lobbyists for the mining²⁰ of zinc, zinc being the primary component of pennies—²⁰ argue that if the penny were eliminated, consumers would pay more for goods. 5 But in Canada, where the penny was eliminated in 2013, this hasn’t been a problem. Canadian merchants round each cash purchase to the nearest nickel. If a hair comb costs $1.02, consumers pay a dollar. If it costs $1.03, they pay $1.05. Studies have shown that its a wash; overall, consumers pay no more or²² no less then²² they did when the penny was in circulation. Bills for retiring the penny have been floating around Congress for decades. Whether out of nostalgia or fear of change, lawmakers have been disinclined to²³ execute a proposed course of action.²³ But the value of today’s penny is defective.²⁴ By retiring the penny, Congress would cut costs at the US Mint while²⁵ also giving cashiers some time back at work.²⁵

From the time Honor Frost made her first amateur underwater dive in the late 1940s, she was committed to spending as much time as possible exploring. [ A ] She was, consequently, thrilled to be invited by professional divers to join the excavation of a first-century Roman shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea in 1957. But what Frost witnessed during that excavation shocked her. The team, too,²⁶ took little care with how they handled artifacts and little note of where they found them. A talented illustrator,²⁷ Frost understood that the excavation of shipwrecks would benefit from the same systematic approach used on land. She teamed up with fellow underwater explorers Peter Throckmorton and George Bass, and the field of maritime archaeology was born.

Frost made her first major discovery in 1960 with the excavation of a Bronze Age Phoenician ship that dated to 1200 BCE. The historical implications of the find were significant. Prior to the identification of the ship and its’²⁸ contents, prevailing wisdom held that Bronze Age maritime commerce was dominated exclusively by the Mycenaean Greeks. [ B ] In fact, most of them²⁹ believed that the Phoenicians didn’t sail the Mediterranean at all until the Iron Age. The work of Frost and her colleagues fundamentally changed that understanding. [ C ]

Beginning in 1971, Frost directed the excavation of a 2,200-year-old Punic (or late Phoenician) warship off the coast of Sicily. The ship, which Frost surmised may have been sunk in a battle with a Roman vessel, was the first war galley of antiquity ever discovered. The excavation³⁰ took several years. [ D ] During that time, as Frost’s team recovered³¹ artifacts from the wreck, painstakingly recording and publishing their findings along the way. When the excavation was complete, the remnants of the ship was set to be³² restored and reconstructed for display in a Sicilian museum. For Frost and the field of maritime archaeology, all at once, history was³³ being revealed and made at the same time.

The winter night I attempted to see the famed Orion Nebula, I didn’t expect to succeed. I was an inexperienced astronomer peering through³⁶ light-polluted skies. But I was eager to test my new telescope’s capabilities, and the nebula is said to be one of the greatest sights in the night sky. So I bundled up, set out my scope to cool down (its mirrors must adjust to the cold air for optimal viewing), and scanned for the constellation Orion. I had prepared for this night by studying constellations in my astronomy books. Orion appears as a hunter who, in some mythologies, is fighting Taurus the Bull, another constellation. [ A ] Even in bright skies, the telltale three stars marking Orion’s belt are easy to spot. [ B ] I knew to follow the belt to Orion’s sword, a dim line of stars extending south. [ C ] The middle of these is actually not a star but a nebula, the Great Orion Nebula, a birthplace of stars. [ D ] When gravity causes the gas and dust to collapse, forming stars.³⁷ The nebula, is home to thousands of young stars,³⁸ is often called a galactic “nursery.” G I centered my scope where the nebula should be, inserted my lowest-powered eyepiece, and leaned in to look. I just made out a dull smudge. I couldn’t get much improvement even when I adjusted the focuser. Coincidentally,⁴⁰ I switched to a higher-powered eyepiece and tried a trick I’d read about for viewing faint objects: using averted vision. The principle of averted vision states that the eye can often see distant objects better by looking to one side of them rather than directly at them. I I focused my eye on an area beside the smudge, and, sure enough, my peripheral vision yielded a far better view of the nebula’s swirling clouds. I even saw the Trapezium star cluster, illuminated⁴² by four bright young stars nestled in the nebula like birds’ eggs⁴³ in a nest. L

Pittsburgh resident, Eric Singer,⁴⁶ is a technologist who creates robotic instruments. “Usually when I say musical robots, people think of humanoid robots that are playing musical instruments,” Singer says. But these robots are themselves the instruments, creating music in unexpected ways. [ 1 ] One such instrument is the XyloBot, a robotic xylophone. [ 2 ] On a standard xylophone, a musician strikes bars with mallets to produce bright, sharp tones. [ 3 ] The XyloBot, however, needs no musician. [ 4 ] Instead, the set of mallets are⁴⁷ built in, secured to the frame of the instrument and positioned such that each mallet hovers over its corresponding bar. [ 5 ] Beneath the instrument’s frame is a mass of wires that transmit electromagnetic currents to the mechanized parts that then move the mallets to strike. as a whole. [ 6 ] A computer program controls the duration and strength of the currents, enabling the XyloBot to play—get this—an entire song.⁴⁸ Q Singer has designed an array of robotic instruments— guitars, drums, keyboards, violins. His instruments have played alongside Grammy-winning artists onstage, and his work has been commissioned by premier art galleries. STOP! DO as a whole.

Passage A is from the essay “A Windstorm in Downtown Brooklyn” by Robert Sullivan, and Passage B is from the essay “Down the Manhole” by Elizabeth Gaffney, both from the collection Brooklyn Was Mine, edited by Chris Knutsen and Valerie Steiker (©2008 by Chris Knutsen and Valerie Steiker). Passage A by Robert Sullivan The Hebrew word for wind is also the Hebrew word for spirit, ruah, and when I look at the wind I look at something immeasurable, spiritlike, a climactic feature of a soul or souls. Try as I may, I still can’t predict 5 the wind in downtown Brooklyn, nor can I even imagine how the wind blew when Walt Whitman stepped out on the corner of Cranberry Street that is no longer there, or how it will feel when downtown Brooklyn is redeveloped, or “utilized.” I can feel it though. Espe10 cially I can feel the vortex, which draws me, calls to me. When it is windy elsewhere in New York or the world and I am far from the vortex, I think of it, imagine the swirl. Often I walk my daughter, who is eleven, through the vortex on her way back and forth to school, 15 even though it’s a little out of our way—after years of forced wind-watching, her older brother walks alone now, noticing, I hope, the wind on his own. On Saturday mornings, if we go to the farmer’s market, we buy doughnuts and cider and sit on the benches in Colum20 bus Park at the steps of Borough Hall, and wait and see what the wind will blow up. We face the CourtMontague Building and a London plane tree whose branches are notable among Brooklyn trees for their lack of plastic shopping bags. The wind rips the bags 25 away. Six years ago, I was with my son, who was ten at the time, and we were on our way to his school when I saw an entire stack of newspapers go up into the air, a trashy celebration! We were on Court Street, just about 30 to the corner of Montague, when we passed a newsstand. The man selling the papers was doing a pretty good job holding down copies of the Times and the Post considering he had the not-so-good idea of setting up a newsstand inside the vortex, but he was having trouble 35 with the Daily News, which eventually escaped, almost the whole stack, and was then whipped quickly and frantically into the vortex. In a second, the corner of Court and Montague had headlines all over it, the pages several passages in this test. by several questions. choose the best answer to each corresponding oval on your may refer to the passages as doing flip-flops, and then floating out into the street. In 40 another second the sheets of paper began flying up, up, up. My son and I stepped back from the building and waited and watched as, at last, one sheet slowly climbed all forty-two stories of the Court-Montague Building. (A couple of days later, the newsstand relocated two 45 blocks away.) Passage B by Elizabeth Gaffney My parents, as artists, were eager to have their children out discovering beauty in the pedestrian, complexity in the mundane, and they understood child psychology pretty well. Looking for these things underfoot, 50 where few expected to find anything of value, was just the right kind of fun and worked better than yet another trip to the MoMA. We didn’t have to behave. We were allowed, nay required, to touch. My parents believed that embedding beautiful designs in the asphalt and the 55 sidewalks was a quintessentially democratic, political act. When we went out, we considered not just manhole covers but fire hydrants, alarm boxes, street and traffic lights, signage. They were interested in urban renewal and preservation, and so the ideas of street furniture 60 and the livability of the street were important to them. We rated what we saw, and talked about why we did or didn’t like it. To me, the very idea of street furniture was thrilling—it conjured images of nestling in the cushions of imaginary street-corner sofas and jumping 65 on nonexistent double beds. My mother in particular was also a history buff, and so the connection of the manhole covers to Brooklyn’s past was important. Most of them were old; we tried to figure out exactly how old from the names on them and the wear they had under70 gone. Some were rubbed so smooth there was nothing to make a rubbing of, and my mind boggled to think of the forces that could scrape such heavy metal down to nothing. When my mother explained that the metal wheels of horse-drawn vehicles wore the street down 75 harder than modern rubber tires filled with air, I was catapulted into a new understanding of a previous era. The past had never seemed very believable to me, until then. People might have gone around riding horses and wearing bonnets somewhere out West, say where Little 80 House on the Prairie had transpired, but not on the streets I inhabited. But thanks to manhole covers and several stretches of street still paved with Belgian blocks, not asphalt—also pointed out by my mother—I could suddenly fathom that Brooklyn had been some85 thing different once too. History had happened here. Passages A and B: From BROOKLYN WAS MINE, edited by Chris Knutsen & Valerie Steiker, copyright © 2008 by Chris Knutsen & Valerie Steiker. Used by permission of Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

This passage is from the book Welcome to Subirdia: Sharing Our Neighborhoods with Wrens, Robins, Woodpeckers, and Other Wildlife by John M. Marzluff (©2014 by John M. Marzluff). Do not covet your neighbor’s lawn. Having a “perfect” lawn is an original sin of most Americans. Our love of lawn is rooted in our history as a former British colony, and perhaps even in our evolution on short5 grass savannahs, where ancestral hominids found safety from predators. I mowed lawns for a living as a kid. So did my brothers and most of our friends. When we weren’t cutting them, we played or relaxed on them. Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of suburbia, 10 espoused the value of lawns as giving his neighborhoods a “sense of ampleness, greenness, and community.” Many suburbanites foster lawns to boost the value of their homes, as safe havens for their kids, or as firebreaks. Some see lawns as art, as proof of our domi15 nation over nature, or as a way to gain prestige among their neighbors. Whatever the reason, most ecologists agree that the ubiquity of the lawn has outstripped its benefits. Domination of suburbia by lawn constrains the diversity of birds that could be supported. Robins, 20 starlings, crows, wagtails, oystercatchers, and a few other birds forage in lawns, but to my knowledge, not a single species of bird, mammal, reptile, or amphibian reproduces and carries out its other life functions in the modern lawn. 25 In 2005, 2 percent of the coterminous United States, some forty million acres of land, was lawn. Nearly every bit was composed of only a few nonnative grass species. These invaders are regularly mowed to a low, even height and kept continuously green and free 30 of weeds and pests. To maintain this sea of grass Americans annually spend $30 billion. They use eight hundred million gallons of gas, seven billion gallons of water, three million tons of nitrogen fertilizer, and thirty thousand tons of pesticide. The use of pesticides 35 alone is ten times greater than used by the average farmer and includes chemicals that disrupt normal hormone function and reproduction, are suspected to cause cancer, and are banned in other countries. Simply filling up gas-powered lawnmowers is an ecological disas40 ter of the highest order; seventeen million gallons of gas are spilled annually. Concern about lawns has sparked a great deal of debate, creative thought, and neighbor-to-neighbor strife. In 1991, a savvy group of graduate students and 45 faculty from Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies joined their colleagues in the School of Art and Architecture to consider how Americans could redesign their lawns. The resulting book details the history of lawns and charts a plan for those 50 who wish to follow the first commandment. Lawn owners can increase bird use of their turf by reducing its extent, bordering it with shrubs, shading it with trees, mowing it with hand- or electric-powered machines, and skipping the fertilizers and pesticides. 55 Doing this produces what the students and faculty refer to as a “Freedom Lawn.” The plant composition of such lawns diversifies into a rich mix of grasses, forbs, and flowers pollinated and grazed by native, beneficial insects, which in turn are eaten by birds and other 60 animals. The less often a lawn is mowed, the more likely it is to be used by an array of animals. A less-disturbed lawn will attract goldfinches to ripe dandelion seeds, provide nest sites under tussocks for juncos and spar65 rows, and harbor frogs, turtles, and small mammals such as moles and voles. Those who adopt Freedom Lawns buck a multinational industry heavily invested in producing seed, sod, fertilizer, pesticide, irrigation and lawn equipment, and 70 service for those twenty-six million American homes that contract out their lawn care. But the pressure to conform is often more immediate. Neighbors who tolerate shaggy lawns are often thought of as laggards, negligent of their civic duty. As Michael Pollan, author of 75 The Omnivore’s Dilemma, notes: “That subtle yet unmistakable frontier, where the crew-cut lawn rubs up against a shaggy one, is a scar on the face of suburbia— an intolerable hint of trouble in paradise.” From the book Welcome to Subirdia: Sharing Our Neighborhoods with Wrens, Robins, Woodpeckers, and Other Wildlife by John M. Marzluff (©2014 by John M. Marzluff, reproduced with permission of Yale University Press).

This passage is adapted from the article “Spiders: Web of Intrigue” by Katherine Bourzac (©2015 by Springer Nature). The graphic is adapted from the article “Spider Silk–Inspired Artificial Fibers” by Jiatian Li et al. (©2021 The Authors, Wiley-VCG GmbH). A Madagascan bark spider releases a silk dragline into the air. The wind carries the thin threads to the other side of a river, where they land on foliage on the opposite bank 25 metres away. The bark spider (Caero5 stris darwini) then stretches the bridgeline to establish tension, reinforces it, and draws on a palette of other silks, stretchier or stickier as needed, to fashion a web to capture the bugs flying over the water. C. darwini’s bridging silk is the world’s toughest 10 known biomaterial—it is even tougher than steel fibre. But C. darwini’s versatility in producing different kinds of silk is not unique. Many spiders can spin several silks: stiff, structural strands to stabilize their webs; gooey, stretchy spirals to capture flying insects; adhe15 sive pads to anchor their homes in place; and extraordinarily robust draglines from which to hang. The remarkable mechanical properties of these natural fibres have attracted the attention of materials scientists. Researchers are looking to arachnids and 20 other silk makers for ideas about how to make new structural materials for bridges and vehicles, dirtresistant adhesives for climbing robots and sturdy polymers for biomedical devices. Many silks bring together properties that are not readily present in man-made 25 materials—the extreme toughness and elasticity seen in spider threads is one example. Silk proteins can be moulded like plastic or perform optical functions like silicon. Yet because they’re organic, biological materials, silks are environmentally friendly and biocompati30 ble. Silk proteins can be fashioned into films that can be implanted in the body, releasing drugs as they dissolve. This combination of features is unavailable in polyester or collagen or anything else, says David Kaplan, an early proponent of high-tech biomedical 35 silk at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. “There’s clearly a need for new biomaterials,” he says. For Kaplan and others, silk is the best way to meet that need. Silk evolved independently in many invertebrates, 40 including spiders, honeybees and silkworms. Individual spiders can make as many as six different kinds of silk proteins (and two glue proteins), each of which has evolved over the creatures’ 400 million years of natural history. Each spider species uses its own variations of 45 these proteins to make many different types of thread. “We think that a primordial spider had one kind of silk, and then there were multiple events when the gene duplicated and evolved,” says Cheryl Hayashi, a spider specialist at the University of California, Riverside. 50 The species that are more closely related to these ancestors, such as tarantulas and trapdoor spiders, make silks of simple designs—messy tangles to trap walking insects, for example, using fewer types of silk. Other spiders evolved to make more complex spiralling orb 55 webs, in which different regions are composed of different kinds of silk—some optimized for capturing prey, others for structural support of large web designs. This evolutionary bounty has happy implications for engineers looking to put spider silk into human ser60 vice. If a design calls for a fibre with a particular ratio of strength to stretchiness, “it’s probably already been invented” by one of the tens of thousands of types of spider, says Hayashi. Most research has centred on taking advantage of 65 the toughness of spider silk—in materials science, toughness is a measure of how much energy it takes to break something. Materials such as spider silk are both strong and elastic. A large insect that flies into a spiderweb at top speed stretches the superfine fibres in the 70 web but does not break them. The toughest silks are found in spider draglines, which researchers are studying intensely. Spiders use draglines to dangle safely, to make the frames of their webs, and for situations in which resistance to breakage 75 is paramount. In a scene from the 2004 movie SpiderMan 2, the eponymous superhero stops a runaway New York City subway train with his webbing, which is not too far of a stretch from reality. Mechanical Properties of Natural and Synthetic Fibers Strength Elasticity Toughness ‡ 3§ Material (GPa ) (%) (MJ/m ) Bark spider 1.6 52 354 MA silk* Silver garden † 0.095 465 75 spider flag silk Domestic 0.6 18 70 silkworm silk Nylon fiber 0.95 18 80 Kevlar 49 fiber 3.6 2.7 50 Carbon fiber 4 1.3 25 High-tensile 1.5 0.8 6 steel fiber *MA silk: non-sticky; used to make draglines and bridgelines and to anchor webs † flag silk: sticky; used to capture prey in webs ‡ gigapascal § megajoule per cubic meter

This passage is from the article “Native American Film outside the Margins of Filmmaking” by Beverly R. Singer (©2014 by University of Nebraska Press). To manifest oneself as a filmmaker evokes such traditional professional titles as lawyer, doctor, engineer, writer, teacher, and plumber, where established institutional access is built on hierarchy and where 5 acceptance into the profession opens opportunities for employment. One of those doors of access to filmmaking was opened to Native Americans in an exchange that took place at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997. Along with other Native filmmakers, including actor 10 and producer Gary Farmer (Cayuga), I was invited that year to the festival to screen our productions. While there, we were invited to a consultation with the Sundance Institute executive staff to discuss how to enhance and improve the production of Native-made 15 films to make them competitive with any film in the program. Robert Redford, founder of the Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival, was not present at that meeting, but we were told he was aware of it. When asked how the Sundance Institute could help 20 improve the participation of Native American films at the Sundance Festival, we found the conversation wavering from helping to fund filmmakers, to the need for professional training and support for distribution of films. 25 Of most interest to me during the meeting was the discussion of the quality of films produced by Native American filmmakers. In evidence was a demonstration of the power held by the Sundance Festival to promote films that fit specific aesthetic preferences and expecta30 tions by festival audiences comprised of film critics, entrepreneurs, and Hollywood “types.” To that end, Native American films had not yet achieved that appeal, but executive staff members thought it was possible. Hearing the familiar phrase “We really do want Native 35 American participation,” I instinctively sensed that little progress would be made toward “improving” Native filmmaking efforts if we did not become part of the system that made decisions. Maybe it was the timing, the place, or a release of the spirit of true col40 laboration that led me to say, “If we are to be taken seriously and respected, we need to be at the table helping to make decisions at the Sundance Institute’s headquarters where you plan programs and decide policy.” I suggested that the Sundance Institute hire a Native 45 American as a key staff member to help identify and promote Native filmmaking, someone who could work from the inside and be at the table where decisions were made. The first Native American staff member, Heather Rae (Cherokee), was hired in that capacity by the Sun50 dance Institute, which led to her own successful film production work. Progress on behalf of Native filmmaking by the Sundance Institute through its production labs provided initial support for the production of Smoke Signals 55 (1998), as noted by Joanna Hearne in her critical study of Smoke Signals: Native Cinema Rising. Hearne endorses Smoke Signals as a major event: The film can be seen as a landmark “first” in American film history—although it is import60 ant to remember the long history of Native filmmaking that came before Smoke Signals— and it can also be seen as a self-positioned first introduction to Native perspectives and Native filmmaking for many of its viewers. . . . As an 65 intervention, Smoke Signals challenges widely accepted misconceptions about Native Americans. Its “firsts” can be seen in different ways as inaugurating a new generation of Native film production; as an important but also prob70 lematic industry marketing category; as part of a critical paradigm based on sovereignty; and as a strategic creation of politicized space for Indigenous identity in the public mediascape. (xv–xvi) 75 Hearne’s extensive review and close readings of the film’s production and major players, including the film’s scriptwriter, Sherman Alexie, and film director, Chris Eyre, revives the energy surrounding the theatrical release of Smoke Signals. I endorse Hearne’s will80 ingness to take up the study years after the film’s release, but I have to ask, “What is the second act for Native cinema?” Hearne’s full attention to Smoke Signals is a combination of personal stories about the scripting and directorial decision-making processes and 85 the actors’ contributions; moreover, her critical discussion carefully articulates what cultural elements, including pop and Native culture, produced the film’s crossover appeal to audiences on multiple levels. Although the film’s glow has receded somewhat, 90 the direction of Native American filmmaking has led to measurable success and growth internationally. “Native American Film outside the Margins of Filmmaking,” by Beverly R. Singer is reproduced from Great Plains Quarterly with permission from the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 2014.

Alkanes are chemical compounds consisting of only carbon and hydrogen atoms. Two types of alkanes are n-alkanes (molecules in which the carbon atoms are bonded together to form a chain) and cycloalkanes (molecules in which the carbon atoms are bonded together to form a ring). Figure 1 shows an example of an n-alkane and an example of a cycloalkane. Figure 1 H H H H H C H H H C C C H C C H H H H H n-alkane cycloalkane Table 1 shows, for each of 7 n-alkanes, the name, chemical formula, melting point (MP) at 1 atmosphere (atm) of pressure, and boiling point (BP) at 1 atm. Table 1 Chemical MP BP Alkane formula (°C) (°C) Propane C 3 H 8 −187 −42 Butane C 4 H 10 −138 −1 Pentane C 5 H 12 −130 36 Hexane C 6 H 14 −95 69 Heptane C 7 H 16 −91 98 Octane C 8 H 18 −57 126 Nonane C 9 H 20 − 53 151 several passages in this test. by several questions. After the best answer to each corresponding oval on your may refer to the passages as a calculator on this test. Table 2 shows, for each of 7 cycloalkanes, the name, chemical formula, MP at 1 atm, and BP at 1 atm. Table 2 Chemical MP BP Alkane formula (°C) (°C) Cyclopropane C 3 H 6 −128 −31 Cyclobutane C 4 H 8 −91 13 Cyclopentane C 5 H 10 −93 49 Cyclohexane C 6 H 12 7 81 Cycloheptane C 7 H 14 −8 119 Cyclooctane C 8 H 16 15 151 Cyclononane C 9 H 18 11 173

Star formation begins with the gravitational collapse of matter in an interstellar gas cloud. A protostar (forming star) affects gas in the surrounding portions of the cloud in 2 ways: • The protostar’s gravitational field attracts gas, causing the gas to accrete (accumulate onto the protostar). • Radiation pressure (RP) associated with the protostar’s emissions causes gas to be pushed away from the protostar, inhibiting accretion. Star formation ends when the effect of RP overcomes that of gravity. At that point, the protostar can no longer gain mass by accretion and is considered a fully formed star. Three scientists debate whether the maximum mass that a protostar can reach by accretion is great enough to account for the most massive stars observed. Scientist 1 The effect of RP is uniform in all directions around a protostar. As a result, the maximum mass that a protostar can reach by accretion is 20 M S (1 M S = mass of the Sun). Any further increase in mass requires at least 1 stellar merger (the combination of 2 or more fully formed stars into 1). Because stars tend to form in clusters, stellar mergers are likely. Scientist 2 Scientist 1 is correct that stellar mergers are likely. However, because a protostar rotates about its axis, a disk of gas forms in the plane of the protostar’s equator. This reduces the effect of RP in that plane, allowing gas from the disk to readily accrete. As a result, the maximum mass that a protostar can reach by accretion is 40 M S . Any further increase in mass requires at least 1 stellar merger. Scientist 3 Stellar mergers are very unlikely given the vast distances between stars, even within clusters. Scientist 2 is correct about the formation and the effect of the disk. In addition, a protostar produces bubble-like regions of radiation that increase the effect of RP near the protostar’s poles, promoting the flow of gas into the disk. As a result, accretion continues until the surrounding portions of the cloud are nearly depleted of gas. Therefore, the maximum mass that a protostar can reach by accretion is limited only by the amount of available gas.

Scientists conducted a study to examine how sunlight intensity (the percent of maximum possible sunlight) affects seedling growth and survival. Study Seeds were collected from a certain species of plant growing in a temperate grassland. The seeds were planted and grown in identical conditions for 2 months. Then 800 similar-sized seedlings were selected, and each was transplanted into its own pot. All the pots were identical and contained the same amount of a particular soil. The pots were equally divided into 4 groups (Groups 1−4), and then all the groups of pots were placed next to each other in the temperate grassland. In 3 of the groups, all the pots in a group were covered by the same number of layers of a plastic mesh to reduce sunlight intensity. The number of layers was different for each of those 3 groups. Table 1 Sunlight Group intensity 1 10% 2 25% 3 50% 4 100% The seedlings were then grown for the next 10 weeks, during which all the pots were watered daily with the same amount of water. At 10 weeks, the surviving plants were harvested, and the average dry mass of the plants in each group was determined. The seedlings that did not survive were counted, and the seedling mortality (the percent of seedlings that did not survive to 10 weeks) was also determined for each group. The results are shown in Table 2. Table 2 Average Seedling dry mass mortality Group (g) (%) 1 0.18 8 2 0.58 3 3 0.80 2 4 0.57 6 Table adapted from Marina Semchenko et al., “Positive Effect of Shade on Plant Growth: Amelioration of Stress or Active Regulation of Growth Rate?” ©2011 by British Ecological Society.

Dyes such as Congo red are often found in industrial wastewater and must be removed before the water can be discharged. Scientists performed 3 experiments to determine how much Congo red would be removed from a solution by binding to particles of bentonite (B), which is a type of clay, or to particles of a chemically modified bentonite (MB). In each trial of each experiment, Steps 1−5 were performed: 1. A 50 mL volume of an aqueous 300 mg/L Congo red solution having a particular pH was placed in each of 2 flasks. A specific mass of B was added to one flask, and the same mass of MB was added to the other flask. 2. The flasks were sealed and shaken at a speed of 200 revolutions per minute for a certain length of time at 25°C. 3. The contents of each flask were filtered to remove all solid material. 4. The concentration of Congo red remaining in the solution from each flask was measured. 5. The percent of Congo red that had been removed (% CR removed) from the solution was calculated for each flask. Experiment 1 In all trials, the pH of the Congo red solution was the same, and the shaking time was 360 min. From trial to trial, the mass of B and of MB was varied. The results are shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 Key B MB 100 d e vo m e r RC 40 % 0.000 0.050 0.100 0.150 0.200 mass of B or MB (g) Experiment 2 In all trials, the mass of B and of MB was 0.100 g, and the shaking time was 360 min. From trial to trial, the pH of the Congo red solution was varied. The results are shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 Key B MB 100 d e vo m e r RC 40 % 5 6 7 8 9 10 pH Experiment 3 In all trials, the pH of the Congo red solution was the same as it was in Experiment 1, and the mass of B and of MB was 0.100 g. From trial to trial, the shaking time was varied. The results are shown in Figure 3. Figure 3 Key B MB 100 d e vo m e r RC 40 % 0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 shaking time (min) Figures adapted from M. A. Akl, A. M. Youssef, and M. M. Al-Awadhi, “Adsorption of Acid Dyes onto Bentonite and Surfactant-modified Bentonite.” ©2013 by M. A. Akl, et al.

Introduction A teacher performed a demonstration on forces. She placed a beaker on a digital scale and added water until the combined weight (the force of gravity on an object) of the beaker and water was 10.00 newtons (N). She then covered the display panel and held a solid steel rod at rest, partially submerged in the water such that it was not in contact with the beaker (see Figure 1). Figure 1 before after The teacher then asked her students, “The rod has a weight of 5.00 N. How much of that weight is supported by my hand, and how much force is exerted on the scale?” Four students responded. Student 1 The rod displaces some water, producing 2 simultaneous effects: • An upward buoyant force, B, is exerted on the rod. Regardless of the rod’s density, B is equal in magnitude to the weight of the water that is displaced. • The depth of the water increases, which causes the water pressure at the bottom of the beaker to increase. As a result, a downward force—equal in magnitude to B— is exerted on the bottom of the beaker. Therefore, the teacher’s hand is supporting a weight equal to (5.00 N) − B, and the force exerted on the scale is equal to (10.00 N) + B. Student 2 Student 1 is correct that B is exerted on the rod and that water depth increases. However, depth has no effect on water pressure. Therefore, the teacher’s hand is supporting a weight equal to (5.00 N) − B, and the force exerted on the scale is 10.00 N. Student 3 Student 1 is correct that B is exerted on the rod and that water depth increases. However, the rod is less dense than water, so B is equal in magnitude to the weight of the rod. Further, Student 2 is correct that depth has no effect on water pressure. Therefore, the teacher’s hand is supporting 0.00 N, and the force exerted on the scale is 15.00 N. Student 4 Student 1 is correct that water depth increases. However, the rod is denser than water, so B is zero. Further, Student 2 is correct that depth has no effect on water pressure. Therefore, the teacher’s hand is supporting 5.00 N, and the force exerted on the scale is 10.00 N.

Antioxidants are substances that can protect against cellular damage. Over time, antioxidants break down. Antioxidants break down faster when exposed to light or added heat. Blackberries are a good source of antioxidants such as total monomeric anthocyanins (TMA). Scientists conducted an experiment to study how different types and concentrations of pectin (a substance used in jam production) affect the breakdown of TMA in blackberry jam during 6 months of storage. Experiment The scientists obtained fresh blackberries and determined that the concentration of TMA was 200 mg TMA per 100 g of blackberries. The scientists then made 9 batches of blackberry jam. Each batch used 1 of 3 types of pectin (Pectin X, Y, or Z) at 1 of 3 concentrations (0.3%, 0.7%, or 1.0% by mass). For each batch, 6 identical transparent jars were obtained. Each batch was equally portioned into its 6 jars, which were then capped and submerged in boiling water for 10 min. All jars were then placed in a dark storage area maintained at 20°C. Jars from each batch were selected after storage times of 1 day, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months. Once selected, a jar was removed from storage, and its contents were analyzed for TMA concentration before being discarded. The results are shown in Table 1. Table 1 TMA concentration (mg/100 g of Pectin at a storage time of: Pectin concentration type (% by mass) 1 day 1 month 3 months 6 0.3 32 27 24 17 X 0.7 34 31 27 20 1.0 37 34 30 22 0.3 36 31 28 21 Y 0.7 39 37 32 26 1.0 41 39 34 28 0.3 23 19 15 10 Z 0.7 26 22 20 13 1.0 28 25 20 15 Table adapted from Mariana-Atena Poiana et al., “Assessing the Effects of Different Pectins Addition on Color Quality and Antioxidant Properties of Blackberry Jam.” ©2013 by Poiana et al. jam) months

A computer simulation was run to study genetic drift (random fluctuations in allele frequencies) over several generations of 8 populations (P1−P8) of amoebas that reproduce asexually. Each amoeba in the initial generation (G0) of each population was homozygous for 1 of the alleles, Allele A or Allele B, of a specific gene. Each of 6 subsequent generations (G1−G6) was produced by randomly choosing half of the amoebas from the previous generation to reproduce. Figure 1 shows the frequency of Allele A in G0−G6 for each of P1−P4; Figure 2 shows the same for each of P5−P8. There were 10,000 amoebas in G0 of each of P1−P4; there were 12 amoebas in G0 of each of P5−P8. Figure 1 Key P1 P2 P3 P4 1.0 0.9 0.8 A 0.7 e l e ll 0.6 A f o 0.5 y c n e 0.4 uq e 0.3 rf 0.2 0.1 0.0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 G Figure 2 Key P5 P6 P7 P8 1.0 0.9 0.8 A 0.7 e l e ll 0.6 A f o 0.5 y c n e 0.4 uq e rf 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 G Figures adapted from Teresa Audesirk et al., Biology: Life on Earth, 6th ed. ©2002 by Prentice-Hall, Inc.