Adapted from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)

He was a very silent man by custom. All day he hung round the cove or upon the cliffs with a brass telescope; all evening he sat in a corner of the parlor next the fire and drank rum and water very strong. Mostly he would not speak when spoken to, only look up sudden and fierce and blow through his nose like a fog-horn; and we and the people who came about our house soon learned to let him be. Every day when he came back from his stroll he would ask if any seafaring men had gone by along the road. 

I was far less afraid of the captain than anybody else who knew him. There were nights when he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked, old, wild sea-songs, minding nobody; but sometimes he would call for glasses round and force all the trembling company to listen to his stories or bear a chorus to his singing. His stories were what frightened people worst of all. Dreadful stories they were—about hanging, and walking the plank, and storms at sea, and the Dry Tortugas, and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. By his own account he must have lived his life among some of the wickedest men upon the sea, and the language in which he told these stories shocked our plain country people almost as much as the crimes that he described. My father was always saying the inn would be ruined, for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannized over and put down, and sent shivering to their beds; but I really believe his presence did us good. People were frightened at the time, but on looking back they rather liked it; it was a fine excitement in a quiet country life, and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to admire him, calling him a "true sea-dog" and a "real old salt" and such like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England terrible at sea.

The simile in the underlined sentence tells us that the man being described __________.

The union had made it clear: without a deal the workers would begin their strike at midnight. The company’s lawyers, however, remained resolute: it would be far worse to make a bad deal than to make no deal at all. The two sides were at loggerheads with neither side optimistic about the potential for compromise. But then the executive’s assistant spoke up. Softly but confidently she articulated her plan one sentence at a time, as if willing to stop forever at each period unless encouraged to say more. It’s hard to say which did the most work, her innovative solution or her calming presence; regardless, she broke the stalemate.

Based on the passage, “stalemate” most nearly means

With so many problems to solve in the field of genetics, the specific genetic sequences that form the unique characteristics of a mule, the offspring of a horse and a donkey, were both less important and, due to their specificity in the genome, simply hard to see. But new technology that isolates individual genes for research has allowed scientists to zero in on two fascinating genetic constructions in mules: chromosomal translocations and inversions. The lessons being learned in this research may have consequences that can dramatically improve human health.

Based on the context of the passage, the phrase “zero in” most likely means

His flight arrived hours late and, with no taxi cabs available, he had to walk over a mile to his hotel to finally rest after a long day’s journey. So it is understandable that, while normally a calm and patient man, John was fit to be tied when he was told that the hotel room he had reserved and paid for was occupied by someone else and he would have to find a new place to stay.

Based on the context in passage, the phrase “fit to be tied” most nearly means

The union had made it clear: without a deal the workers would begin their strike at midnight. The company’s lawyers, however, remained resolute: it would be far worse to make a bad deal than to make no deal at all. The two sides were at loggerheads with neither side optimistic about the potential for compromise. But then the executive’s assistant spoke up. Softly but confidently she articulated her plan one sentence at a time, as if willing to stop forever at each period unless encouraged to say more. It’s hard to say which did the most work, her innovative solution or her calming presence; regardless, she broke the stalemate.

Based on the passage, what does “at loggerheads” most likely mean?

The union had made it clear: without a deal the workers would begin their strike at midnight. The company’s lawyers, however, remained resolute: it would be far worse to make a bad deal than to make no deal at all. The two sides were at loggerheads with neither side optimistic about the potential for compromise. But then the executive’s assistant spoke up. Softly but confidently she articulated her plan one sentence at a time, as if willing to stop forever at each period unless encouraged to say more. It’s hard to say which did the most work, her innovative solution or her calming presence; regardless, she broke the stalemate.

Based on the passage, what does “at loggerheads” most likely mean?

The union had made it clear: without a deal the workers would begin their strike at midnight. The company’s lawyers, however, remained resolute: it would be far worse to make a bad deal than to make no deal at all. The two sides were at loggerheads with neither side optimistic about the potential for compromise. But then the executive’s assistant spoke up. Softly but confidently she articulated her plan one sentence at a time, as if willing to stop forever at each period unless encouraged to say more. It’s hard to say which did the most work, her innovative solution or her calming presence; regardless, she broke the stalemate.

Based on the passage, “stalemate” most nearly means

With so many problems to solve in the field of genetics, the specific genetic sequences that form the unique characteristics of a mule, the offspring of a horse and a donkey, were both less important and, due to their specificity in the genome, simply hard to see. But new technology that isolates individual genes for research has allowed scientists to zero in on two fascinating genetic constructions in mules: chromosomal translocations and inversions. The lessons being learned in this research may have consequences that can dramatically improve human health.

Based on the context of the passage, the phrase “zero in” most likely means

Knowing that he didn’t have time to walk home between the end of his soccer practice and the time of his dentist appointment, John killed that half-hour flipping through magazines in the grocery store.

Based on the context of the prompt, the word “killed” most nearly means:

Matthew: I had never been to a church like that before, so I felt really out of place when everyone knew exactly which hand movements to do at each part of the prayer.

Joshua: So what did you do?

Matthew: I watched the person next to me with laser focus and just did everything that she did, as quickly as I could so it would look like I knew what I was doing.

Which of the following figures of speech would make the most sense for Joshua to respond with?