Lyle wants to write an essay about how the government should cut back on some of its current expenditures on space exploration. He wants to acknowledge that NASA has made several achievements related to space exploration and that those achievements have played a significant role in boosting the morale of the country. He also wants to emphasize that space exploration is less significant than a host of everyday issues the country faces. He wants to suggest that redirecting some of the funds spent on space missions to fields such as education or medical research would be more beneficial to humanity. Given Lyle's ideas for his essay, which of the following is the best thesis statement? Although space exploration is not a profitable venture, it is necessary for humanity to understand the universe.

Space exploration is a waste of money and resources, but NASA should continue to fund its next planned mission to Mars.

While it is not advisable to stop space exploration entirely, the government should prioritize spending on important issues where the benefits may be more tangible.

Space exploration acts like a magnet, pulling away both intellectual resources and the tax payer's dollars only to produce inconsequential results.

Before trying to unravel the mysteries of space, we should learn about our own planet.

In line 8, “theirs” refers to(A) innumerable cigarettes
(B) a laburnum’s blossoms
(C) a laburnum’s branches
(D) Persian saddle-bags
(E) birds’ shadows


Passage 7. Oscar Wilde, Th e Picture of Dorian Gray
Th e studio was fi lled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer
wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the
heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-fl owering thorn.
From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying,
smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could
just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum,
whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty
so fl amelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in fl ight
fl itted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge
window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese eff ect, and making him think
of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art
that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. Th e
sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass,
or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling
woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. Th e dim roar of London
was like the bourdon note of a distant organ. In the centre of the room, clamped
to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary
personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist
himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the
time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.
As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skillfully
mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about
to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fi ngers
upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious
dream from which he feared he might awake. “It is your best work, Basil, the best
thing you have ever done,” said Lord Henry languidly. “You must certainly send
it next year to the Grosvenor. Th e Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever
I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able
to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been
able to see the people, which was worse. Th e Grosvenor is really the only place.”
“I don’t think I shall send it anywhere,” he answered, tossing his head back in that
odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. “No, I won’t send
it anywhere.” Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement
through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls from
his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. “Not send it anywhere? My dear fellow, why?
Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the
world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw
it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being
talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you
far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old
men are ever capable of any emotion.”

What does the word expedite mean?a. manufacture
b. invent
c. make obsolete
d. accelerate

What does Della’s action of cutting her hair to buy Jim a gift reveal about her character and her relationship with Jim? What does it show about Della’s conflicts, motivations, and traits?

In My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass, which adjective best characterizes the Aulds’ home during his early childhood?

In what way does “Song of Myself” reflect Whitman’s brand of American epic poetry?

The type of narrative that records the thoughts and feelings of the narrator as they occur is called _____