Transitions Lv Hard

In her poetry collection Thomas and Beulah, Rita Dove interweaves the titular characters’ personal stories with broader historical narratives. She places Thomas’s journey from the American South to the Midwest in the early 1900s within the larger context of the Great Migration. ______ Dove sets events from Beulah’s personal life against the backdrop of the US Civil Rights Movement.

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In a heated debate in biogeography, the field is divided between dispersalists and vicariancists. ______ there are those who argue that dispersal is the most crucial determining factor in a species’ distribution, and those who insist that vicariance (separation due to geographic barriers) is. Biogeographer Isabel Sanmartín counts herself among neither.

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The Sun and other stars are powered by nuclear fusion reactions, in which two atoms collide to form a single heavier atom, releasing energy. Scientists have long believed that fusion has the potential to meet humanity’s clean energy needs. ______ prior to December 2022, no fusion reaction in a laboratory setting had ever generated a net energy gain.

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When designing costumes for film, American artist Suttirat Larlarb typically custom fits the garments to each actor. ______ for the film Sunshine, in which astronauts must reignite a dying Sun, she designed a golden spacesuit and had a factory reproduce it in a few standard sizes; lacking a tailor-made quality, the final creations reflected the ungainliness of actual spacesuits.

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In response to adverse environmental conditions, many plants produce abscisic acid (ABA), a stress hormone. ABA triggers a slowdown in the biological processes of most plants. ______ when the mustard plant Schrenkiella parvula produces ABA in response to an environmental stressor, the hormone triggers accelerated growth. 

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With its clichéd imagery of suburban lawns and power lines, John Ashbery’s 2004 poem “Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse” may seem barren terrain for critical analysis. ______ cultural critic Lauren Berlant finds fertile ground in just its first two stanzas, devoting most of a book chapter to deciphering the “weight of the default space” Ashbery creates in this poem.

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Seismologists Kaiqing Yuan and Barbara Romanowicz have proposed that the magma fueling Iceland’s more than 30 active volcano systems emerges from deep within Earth. The great depths involved—nearly 3,000 km—mark Iceland’s volcanoes as extreme outliers; ______ many of Earth’s volcanoes are fed by shallow pockets of magma found less than 15 km below the surface.

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“Tulip mania”—the rapid rise and sudden fall of the price of tulip bulbs in seventeenth-century Amsterdam—is often cited as an example of the perils of rampant market speculation. However, recent research has demonstrated that the episode was neither as frenzied nor as disastrous as has been thought. The popular myth surrounding it, ______ should be regarded with some skepticism.

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Historically, most conductors of major orchestras and opera companies have been European men, but a new, more diverse generation of artists is stepping up to the podium. Mexico’s Alondra de la Parra took over as conductor for the

Queensland Symphony Orchestra in 2017, ______ and Colombia’s Lina Gonzalez-Granados did the same for the Los Angeles Opera in 2022.

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A 2017 study of sign language learners tested the role of iconicity—the similarity of a sign to the thing it represents—in language acquisition. The study found that the greater the iconicity of a sign, the more likely it was to have been learned. ______ the correlation between acquisition and iconicity was lower than that between acquisition and another factor studied: sign frequency.

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Iraqi artist Nazik Al-Malaika, celebrated as the first Arabic poet to write in free verse, didn’t reject traditional forms entirely; her poem “Elegy for a Woman of No Importance” consists of two ten-line stanzas and a standard number of syllables. Even in this superficially traditional work, ______ Al-Malaika was breaking new ground by memorializing an anonymous woman rather than a famous man.

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Magnetic levitation (maglev) trains are suspended above a track by powerful electromagnets, reducing friction and thus allowing for much faster speeds. Though maglev advocates in the US have long imagined these trains crisscrossing the country, their dream remains unrealized. ______ of the handful of maglev trains currently in operation, all are in Asia.

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Plato believed material objects to be crude representations of unseen ideal forms. In his view, such abstract, nonmaterial forms are the ultimate source of knowledge. Aristotle disagreed, positing that knowledge is best obtained through direct engagement with the material world; ______ sensory experience of the material is the ultimate source of knowledge.

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When soil becomes contaminated by toxic metals, it can be removed from the ground and disposed of in a landfill. ______ contaminated soil can be detoxified via phytoremediation: plants that can withstand high concentrations of metals absorb the pollutants and store them in their shoots, which are then cut off and safely disposed of, preserving the health of the plants.

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When one looks at the dark craggy vistas in Hitoshi Fugo’s evocative photo series, one’s mind might wander off to the cratered surfaces of faraway planets. ______ it’s the series’ title, Flying Frying Pan, that brings one back to Earth, reminding the viewer that each photo is actually a close-up view of a familiar household object: a frying pan.

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In 2009, the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles hosted a special exhibition, Sueños/Yume, showcasing the works of local sculptor Dora de Larios. As suggested by the show’s title (sueños and yume mean “dreams” in Spanish and Japanese, respectively), de Larios’s art reflects a mix of cultural influences. ______ her work is grounded in the artistic traditions of both Mexico and Japan.

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In 1815, while in exile in Jamaica, Venezuelan revolutionary Simón Bolívar penned a letter praising England’s republican government and expressing hope that Latin American nations seeking independence from Spain might achieve something similar. The letter was addressed to a local merchant, Henry Cullen; ______ though, Bolívar’s goal was to persuade political leaders from England and Europe to support his cause.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?