ACCUPLACER Practice Test 12

Cooling the City

¹Read the following early draft of an essay and then choose the best answer to the question or the best completion of the statement.

²(1) On a summer afternoon, the center of a large city can be several degrees warmer than the farms and forests around it. (2) Scientists call this effect, which makes cities hotter, an urban heat island. (3) The effect occurs largely because cities replace soil and plants with asphalt, concrete, and dark roofing, materials that hold heat far better than grass or soil does. (4) These surfaces absorb sunlight during the day and release the stored heat slowly, so even the nights stay warm and residents without air conditioning get little relief.

³(5) City planners and scientists have found two relatively simple strategies that can reduce this extra heat. (6) The first is planting trees, whose leaves shade streets, sidewalks, and parked cars from direct sun. (7) Trees also release water vapor through their leaves, a process that cools the surrounding air much as sweat cools the skin. (8) The second strategy is installing light colored roofs that reflect sunlight back into the sky instead of absorbing it. (9) In a typical experiment, researchers coated part of a building's flat roof with reflective white paint and measured the temperature of the rooms below over several summer weeks. (10) The rooms under the coated section stayed noticeably cooler on hot days than the rooms under the untreated part of the roof.

⁴(11) For example, these strategies are not a complete solution to the problem. (12) Trees take years to reach full size, and young trees need regular watering, which can be costly during a drought. (13) Reflective roofs can also create glare that bothers people in taller buildings nearby. (14) The first modern air conditioner, designed by the engineer Willis Carrier, was installed in a New York printing plant in 1902. (15) Still, combined with other efforts such as adding parks and fountains, these strategies can make city summers safer and more bearable for millions of people.