The following text is adapted from Jhumpa Lahiri's 2003 novel The Namesake. Ashima and her husband, Ashoke, are traveling from the United States to India. Ashoke puts his hand over hers as the plane begins to gather speed. And then Boston tilts away and they ascend effortlessly over a blackened Atlantic. As used in the text, what does the word "gather" most nearly mean?

Often, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is given to a single person, such as Theodore William Richards in 1914. But scientific breakthroughs are rarely the work of lone geniuses. Instead, success in fields like chemistry has often been achieved through _______ other experts, as was the case for Alan J. Heeger, who was among those awarded for "their discovery and development of conductive polymers." Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

At a conference for aspiring children's book illustrators, Wil Clay, illustrator of such lauded works as Little Eight John, was the subject of a presentation that was intended specifically to foster _______ the techniques of successful illustrators so that attendees could use that understanding to improve their own work. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

Benjamin Prud'homme and colleagues have explored how convergent evolution—a phenomenon that occurs when the same trait evolves independently in two reproductively separate lineages—can result from a genetic mechanism shared by both lineages. Meanwhile, Cynthia C. Steiner and colleagues have investigated how convergence occurs through different genetic mechanisms, but the relative prevalence of convergence through shared and different genetic processes is still poorly understood. This motivated biologists Delbert A. Green II and Cassandra G. Extavour to evaluate both types of convergence in a single study for their 2012 paper. Which choice best states the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?

Like all species of baleen whales, the Antarctic minke whale feeds on tiny creatures known as krill by filtering water through bristlelike keratin structures called baleen plates. In this way, baleen whales can eat up to 30 percent of their total mass per day. And while no one would call the Antarctic minke whale small—it can have a mass as high as 10,000 kg—it is one of the smaller baleen whales and is much smaller than the bowhead whale, which can weigh a whopping 66,000 kg and consume as much as 19,800 kg of krill per day. Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?