P # 2

A study by a team including finance professor Madhu Veeraraghavan suggests that exposure to sunshine during the workday can lead to overly optimistic behavior. USING DATA SPANNING FROM 1994 TO 2010 FOR A SET OF US COMPANIES, THE TEAM COMPARED OVER 29,000 ANNUAL EARNINGS FORECASTS TO THE ACTUAL EARNINGS LATER REPORTED BY THOSE COMPANIES. The team found that the greater the exposure to sunshine at work in the two weeks before a manager submitted an earnings forecast, the more the manager's forecast exceeded what the company actually earned that year.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?

Some bird species don't raise their own chicks. Instead, adult females lay their eggs in other nests, next to another bird species' own eggs. FEMALE CUCKOOS HAVE BEEN SEEN QUICKLY LAYING EGGS IN THE NESTS OF OTHER BIRD SPECIES WHEN THOSE BIRDS ARE OUT LOOKING FOR FOOD. After the eggs hatch, the noncuckoo parents will typically raise the cuckoo chicks as if they were their own offspring, even if the cuckoos look very different from the other chicks.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?

Astronomers are confident that the star Betelgeuse will eventually consume all the helium in its core and explode in a supernova. THEY ARE MUCH LESS CONFIDENT, HOWEVER, ABOUT WHEN THIS WILL HAPPEN, SINCE THAT DEPENDS ON INTERNAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BETELGEUSE THAT ARE LARGELY UNKNOWN. Astrophysicist Sarafina El-Badry Nance and colleagues recently investigated whether acoustic waves in the star could be used to determine internal stellar states but concluded that this method could not sufficiently reveal Betelgeuse's internal characteristics to allow its evolutionary state to be firmly fixed. Which choice best describes the function of the second sentence in the overall structure of the text?

The mimosa tree evolved in East Asia, where the beetle Bruchidius terrenus preys on its seeds. In 1785, mimosa trees were introduced to North America, far from any B.terrenus. BUT EVOLUTIONARY LINKS BETWEEN PREDATORS AND THIER PREY CAN PERSIST ACROOS CENTURES AND CONTINENTS. Around 2001, B.terrenus was introduced in southeastern North America near where botanist Shu-Mei Chang and colleagues had been monitoring mimosa trees. Within a year, 93 percent of the trees had been attacked by the beetles. Which choice best describes the function of the third sentence in the overall structure of the text?

Part of the Atacama Desert in Peru has surprisingly rich plant life despite receiving almost no rainfall. Moisture from winter fog sustains plants once they're growing, But the soil's tough crust makes it hard for seeds to germinate in the first place. Local birds that dig nests in the ground seem to be of help: THEY CHURN THE SOIL, EXPOSING BURIED SEEDS TO MOISTURE AND NUTRIENTS. Indeed, in 2016 Cristina Rengifo Faiffer found that mounds of soil dug up by birds were far more fertile and supported more seedlings than soil in undisturbed areas. Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?