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January 2025 English Regents — Answer Key & Worked Solutions

Every question from the January 2025 English Regents exam, with the correct answer and a full step-by-step solution. Check your work, learn the method, then see how it's scored.

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These are real questions from the January 2025 English New York State Regents examination, published by NYSED. Worked solutions are written by RegentsLab.

Question 1 · 2 pts
The universe is so vast that intelligent life must surely have arisen many times. The universe is also so old that even one technological species would have had time to expand and fill the galaxy. Yet there is no sign of life anywhere except on Earth. Humans call this the Fermi Paradox.

The Fermi Paradox (line 10) explains why

The passage introduces Arecibo as the instrument humans use to look for extraterrestrial intelligence, an ear built to hear across the universe, then explains that although the universe is vast and old enough for intelligent life to have arisen and spread everywhere, there is no sign of life anywhere except on Earth, which the narrator says humans call the Fermi Paradox. Since the paradox names this total absence of any detected sign of life despite that expectation, it explains why the Arecibo search, built specifically to detect such life, has failed to find any response or signal.

Question 2 · 2 pts
Some humans theorize that intelligent species go extinct before they can expand into outer space. If they're correct, then the hush of the night sky is the silence of a graveyard.

The figurative language in line 19 suggests that intelligent extraterrestrials

Comparing the silent night sky to a graveyard implies that any intelligent species died out before ever making contact, meaning the chance to connect with others, including humans, was lost.

Question 3 · 2 pts
Alex died suddenly, when he was still relatively young. The evening before he died, Alex said to Pepperberg, "You be good. I love you."

Alex's death (lines 33 and 34) is expressed using which literary device?

This is a brief, specific true story about Alex's final words, which is the definition of an anecdote, not a figurative comparison like a metaphor or simile.

Question 4 · 2 pts
In 1974, astronomers used Arecibo to broadcast a message into outer space intended to demonstrate human intelligence. That was humanity's contact call. In the wild, parrots address each other by name. One bird imitates another's contact call to get the other bird's attention. If humans ever detect the Arecibo message being sent back to Earth, they will know someone is trying to get their attention.

Lines 39 through 44 suggest that extraterrestrials may

The passage compares the Arecibo message to a parrot's contact call, which other parrots imitate to get attention, implying extraterrestrials might likewise send the message back by imitating what Earth sent out.

Question 5 · 2 pts
There's a pleasure that comes with shaping sounds with your mouth. It's so primal and visceral that, throughout their history, humans have considered the activity a pathway to the divine.

In line 64, the word "primal" most nearly means

In context, "primal" describes an instinctive, basic, fundamental human pleasure in vocalizing, best matched by "natural."

Question 6 · 2 pts
Pythagorean mystics believed that vowels represented the music of the spheres, and chanted to draw power from them. Pentecostal Christians believe that when they speak in tongues, they're speaking the language used by angels in heaven. Brahman Hindus believe that by reciting mantras, they are strengthening the building blocks of reality. Only a species of vocal learners would ascribe such importance to sound in their mythologies.

Lines 67 through 76 serve to show the historical

Each example (Pythagorean chanting, speaking in tongues, reciting mantras) ties the act of vocal sound-making to religious or spiritual power, showing the link between vocalization and spirituality.

Question 7 · 2 pts
But you can also think of it as a barely audible reverberation of that original "om." That syllable was so resonant that the night sky will keep vibrating for as long as the universe exists.

As used in line 81, "resonant" most nearly means

"Resonant" describes a full, deep, reverberating sound, so "rich" best captures the meaning that the original syllable was so powerful and full that it continues to vibrate throughout the universe.

Question 8 · 2 pts
According to Hindu mythology, the universe was created with a sound: "om." It is a syllable that contains within it everything that ever was and everything that will be. When the Arecibo telescope is pointed at the space between stars, it hears a faint hum. Astronomers call that the cosmic microwave background. It's the residual radiation of the Big Bang, the explosion that created the universe fourteen billion years ago. But you can also think of it as a barely audible reverberation of that original "om."

According to the narrator, "the voice of creation" (line 83) is the result of

The narrator equates the faint cosmic hum Arecibo detects, the cosmic microwave background, with the residual radiation from the Big Bang, framing it as the reverberation of creation's original sound.

Question 9 · 2 pts
But parrots are more similar to humans than any extraterrestrial species will be, and humans can observe us up close; they can look us in the eye. How do they expect to recognize an alien intelligence if all they can do is eavesdrop from a hundred light-years away?

Which statement best represents a central idea of the text?

This statement captures the story's central irony and idea: humans search the distant universe for intelligent contact while overlooking parrots, a nonhuman intelligence far more similar and accessible to them.

Question 10 · 2 pts
They would sit, two or three of them as a rule, on the cast-iron seat they called a form, that stood at the end of the road to the sea where it petered out in a dirt track through salt marsh, disappeared in sand.

The term "petered out" in line 3 most nearly means

The road gradually diminishes into a dirt track and then disappears into sand, which matches the meaning of "petered out" as gradually dwindling to nothing.

Question 11 · 2 pts
Stranded somehow in this place as if, like seaweed, they had washed up on shore at high tide. Survivors from a world once theirs.

The figurative language in lines 7 and 8 conveys the men's

The lines describe the old men as stranded in this place as if, like seaweed, they had washed up on shore at high tide, comparing them to seaweed that the tide simply deposits with no direction or activity of its own. Seaweed does not act, it just lies wherever it has been left, so the comparison conveys that the men, like that seaweed, now have nothing purposeful to occupy them, rather than pointing to any loss of company.

Question 12 · 2 pts
Stranded somehow in this place as if, like seaweed, they had washed up on shore at high tide. Survivors from a world once theirs.

The men are most likely called "survivors" (line 9) because they have

As former seamen with faces scarred by wind and sun from days on the boats, the men are called survivors because they endured the hardships of their working life at sea.

Question 13 · 2 pts
Survivors from a world once theirs. ... Gulls circling and swooping in the wide skies, diving, as they once did above the shrimp boats as heavy nets were cast into the sea.

The repetition of the word "once" in lines 9 and 18 supports a central idea about

Both uses of "once" point back to a past that has faded, a world once theirs and gulls that once flew above active shrimp boats, emphasizing how the men have aged past their working life.

Question 14 · 2 pts
Somewhere in nearby stone cottages, with modern extensions at the back and sides to accommodate indoor plumbing, were daughters or daughters-in-law, keeping house, cooking meals, expecting the men home, at appointed times. This was the daily routine now.

Which phrase supports a central idea?

The poem's central idea is that a lifetime of hard, exposed labor at sea has permanently marked these old men, and faces scarred by wind and sun from days on the boats states that toll directly, showing the physical evidence of their working years still written on their bodies. The cast-iron seat, the stone cottages, and the circling gulls are only setting details around the men, while the scarred faces are physical proof of the very history of labor the poem is centrally about.

Question 15 · 2 pts
But as we move through adolescence, the brain undergoes extensive remodeling, resembling a network and wiring upgrade.

The metaphor in lines 6 and 7 ("But as we ... wiring upgrade") serves to

Comparing the brain's complicated neurological remodeling to a familiar concept, a network and wiring upgrade, helps make the complex scientific process easier to understand by linking it to something simple and familiar.

Question 16 · 2 pts
At the same time, synapses that see little use begin to wither. This synaptic pruning, as it is called, causes the brain's cortex, the outer layer of gray matter where we do much of our conscious and complicated thinking, to become thinner but more efficient.

The goal of "synaptic pruning" (lines 14 and 15) is to alter the brain cortex's

Synaptic pruning makes the cortex thinner but more efficient, meaning the goal is to improve the brain's productivity or efficiency, not its color, protection, or location.

Question 17 · 2 pts
This process of maturation, once thought to be largely finished by elementary school, continues throughout adolescence.

The primary purpose of lines 19 and 20 is to

The line points out that brain maturation was once mistakenly thought to be finished by elementary school, which the author then corrects, identifying this as a misconception.

Question 18 · 2 pts
Stronger links also develop between the hippocampus, a sort of memory directory, and frontal areas that set goals and weigh different agendas; as a result, we get better at integrating memory and experience into our decisions. At the same time, the frontal areas develop greater speed and richer connections, allowing us to generate and weigh far more variables and agendas than before.

The description of the brain's development in lines 19 through 30 implies that as the brain matures,

The passage describes stronger links between memory and goal-setting brain regions leading to better integration of memory and experience into decisions, meaning decision-making improves significantly.

Question 19 · 2 pts
When this development proceeds normally, we get better at balancing impulse, desire, goals, self-interest, rules, ethics, and even altruism, generating behavior that is more complex and, sometimes at least, more sensible. But at times, and especially at first, the brain does this work clumsily.

Lines 31 through 34 ("When this development ... does this work clumsily") imply that the process of normal maturation is

The passage describes a complex balancing of many factors (impulse, desire, goals, ethics) that at times works clumsily, showing the process is intricate but inconsistent rather than smooth or predictable.

Question 20 · 2 pts
This let the adults use a variety of brain resources and better resist temptation, while the teens used those areas less often and more readily gave in to the impulse to look at the flickering light, just as they're more likely to look away from the road to read a text message.

Lines 51 through 53 contribute to the effectiveness of the text by

The comparison to teens looking away from the road to read a text message gives readers a relatable, familiar real-world example that clarifies the abstract brain-scan findings.

Question 21 · 2 pts
Compared with adults, teens tended to make less use of brain regions that monitor performance, spot errors, plan, and stay focused, areas the adults seemed to bring online automatically.

As used in lines 54 and 55, the term "executive regions" most likely refers to areas of the brain that

The executive regions described monitor performance, spot errors, plan, and maintain focus, functions all related to regulating and controlling behavior and responses.

Question 22 · 2 pts
Meanwhile, in times of doubt, take inspiration in one last distinction of the teen brain, a final key to both its clumsiness and its remarkable adaptability. This is the prolonged plasticity of those late-developing frontal areas as they slowly mature.

As used in the text, the word "plasticity" (line 70) refers to the brain's

"Plasticity" here is explicitly linked to "adaptability" in the text, describing the frontal brain areas' prolonged capacity to change and be reshaped by experience.

Question 23 · 2 pts
This long, slow, back-to-front developmental wave, completed only in the mid-20s, appears to be a uniquely human adaptation. It may be one of our most consequential. It can seem a bit crazy that we humans don't wise up a bit earlier in life. But if we smartened up sooner, we'd end up dumber.

Lines 88 through 90 provide information that is

The claim that smartening up sooner would actually make us end up dumber is a surprising, counterintuitive statement that runs contrary to what readers would expect.

Question 24 · 2 pts
The answer is that speed comes at the price of flexibility. While a myelin coating greatly accelerates an axon's bandwidth, it also inhibits the growth of new branches from the axon.

Which statement best identifies the main effect of the myelination process?

This phrase directly states the main tradeoff effect of myelination, that faster signal transmission is gained at the cost of reduced flexibility for new neural growth.

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