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Ragwort was accidentally introduced to New Zealand in the late nineteenth century and, like so many invading foreign species, quickly became a pest. By the 1920s, the weed was rampant. What made matters worse was that its proliferation coincided with sweeping changes in agriculture and a massive shift from sheep farming to dairying.

Ragwort contains a battery of toxic and resilient alkaloids: even honey made from its flowers contains the poison in dilute form. Livestock generally avoid grazing where ragwort is growing, but they will do so once it displaces grass and clover in their pasture. Though sheep can eat it for months before showing any signs of illness, if cattle eat it they sicken quickly, and fatality can even result.

Question 1

The passage suggests that the proliferation of ragwort was particularly ill-timed because it

 A. coincided with and exacerbated a decline in agriculture

 B. took place in conditions that enabled the ragwort to spread faster than it otherwise would have done

 C. led to an increase in the amount of toxic compounds contained in the plants

 D. prevented people from producing honey that could be eaten safely

 E. had consequences for livestock that were more dramatic than they otherwise would have been

Question 2

The passage implies which of the following about the problems ragwort poses to dairy farmers?

 A. Milk produced by cows that eat ragwort causes illness in humans who drink it.

 B. Ragwort can supplant the plants normally eaten by cattle.

 C. Cattle, unlike sheep, are unable to differentiate between ragwort and healthy grazing.

Despite the fact that the health-inspection procedures for catering establishments are more stringent than those for ordinary restaurants, more of the cases of food poisoning reported to the city health department were brought on by banquets served by catering services than were brought on by restaurant meals.

Question 3

Which of the following, if true, helps explain the apparent paradox in the statement above?

 A. A significantly larger number of people eat in restaurants than attend catered banquets in any given time period.

 B. Catering establishments know how many people they expect to serve, and therefore are less likely than restaurants to have, and serve, leftover food, a major source of food poisoning.

 C. Many restaurants provide catering services for banquets in addition to serving individual meals.

 D. The number of reported food-poisoning cases at catered banquets is unrelated to whether the meal is served on the caterer’s or the client’s premises.

 E. People are unlikely to make a connection between a meal they have eaten and a subsequent illness unless the illness strikes a group who are in communication with one another.

African American newspapers in the 1930s faced many hardships. For instance, knowing that buyers of African American papers also bought general-circulation papers, advertisers of consumer products often ignored African American publications.

Line Advertisers’ discrimination did free the African American press from advertiser domination. Editors could print politically charged material more readily than could the large national dailies, which depended on advertisers’ ideological approval to secure revenues. Unfortunately, it also made the selling price of Black papers much higher than that of general-circulation dailies. Often as much as two-thirds of publication costs had to come from subscribers or subsidies from community politicians and other interest groups. And despite their editorial freedom, African American publishers often felt compelled to print a disproportionate amount of sensationalism, sports, and society news to boost circulation.

Question 4

The passage suggests that if advertisers had more frequently purchased advertising in African American newspapers, then which of the following might have resulted?

 A. African American newspapers would have given more attention to sports and society news than they did.

 B. African American newspapers would have been available at lower prices than large national dailies were.

 C. African American newspapers would have experienced constraints on their content similar to those experienced by large national dailies.

Question 5

The author of the passage suggests which of the following about the “advertisers” (line 3) mentioned in the passage?

 A. They assumed that advertising in African American newspapers would not significantly increase the sales of their products.

 B. They failed to calculate accurately the circulation of African American newspapers.

 C. They did not take African Americans’ newspaper reading into account when making decisions about where to advertise.

 D. They avoided African American newspapers partly because of their sensationalism.

 E. They tried to persuade African American newspapers to lower the rates charged for advertising.