The phrase “ran like the wind” means that someone ran fast or quickly. You can also tell by the context clues that she ran quickly enough to set a new record and win first place, so the context can help you realize that “quickly” is the best answer choice.

The phrases “he eats like a pig,” “he eats like a bird,” and “he eats like a horse” are all common figures of speech.  “He eats like a bull” is not.

The figure of speech “larger than life” refers to someone who attracts a lot of attention and therefore is very important. It does not directly refer to actual size.

The figure of speech “sharp as a knife” (or “sharp as a tack,” a similar usage) is used to refer to mental sharpness, describing someone who is highly intelligent and generally quick to have answers to challenging questions.

Answer: “excessive”  Note from the context that the advocates have already agreed that this is an expensive project, so they are not trying to say that the expense isn’t “big.” What they are trying to say is that the expense isn’t “too big” given that the benefits will outweigh the costs.  “Massive,” “large,” and “major” all mean “big” or “really big” but “excessive” means “too big” (or too much) - and that is the connotation that the sentence calls for.

Answer: “confident”   While all the answer choices express a form of confidence, “arrogant,” “brash,” and “presumptuous” all connote overconfidence to the point of being rude. That’s unlikely what Hannah’s father would be proud of while watching her compete in debate - he’s more likely to be proud of her confidence.

Answer: “surprised”  Note that the words all mean some form of surprised, but “shocked” and “stunned” don’t work well with the fact that Tarik knew he had earned an A and with the qualifier “pleasantly” beforehand.  He’s not completely shocked as though the grade came out of nowhere - he’s more relieved, so a softer form of “surprised” is the right choice here.

Answer: “renovation”  While all these words have similar meanings, notice the context of the passage - the goal is to protect these caves from damage, not to make them better or more modern or anything of that sort.  So “renovation” which means to redo something is the meaning that doesn’t work - the goal is to preserve the caves as they originally were, so renovation would go against that goal.

The sentence calls for a positive connotation of the word that fills the blank, since we know that the teachers appreciate this quality in Jamale.  “Inquisitive,” “curious,” and “precocious” are words with positive connotations to describe a student who asks questions and seeks out more information; “nosy” has a negative connotation for a similar quality and is therefore the word that does not fit in this context.

Answer: exploited. The word "loathe" gives us an idea that the answer is going to have a negative connotation because "loathe" means to hate. Exploit is the only option with a negative connotation and it means to make full use of and derive benefit from.