This High School Student Invented a Filter That Eliminates 96 Percent of Microplastics From Drinking Water Virginia teenager Mia Heller’s filtration system harnesses the power of ferrofluid, a magnetic oil that binds to microplastics in flowing water

In today's #SmithsonianSunday article, we read the story of a potential breakthrough for safer drinking water, made by a current high school student. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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Typos Have Plagued Us for Centuries. Just Ask the Publishers Who Printed the Seventh Commandment as 'Thou Shalt Commit Adultery' in 1631 A new exhibition at Yale Library explores the history of typos across five centuries. Visitors will see corrections that were listed inside copies of works by James Joyce, Upton Sinclair and Nicolaus Copernicus

For any of us who have made an embarrassing typo (and who hasn't?), an exhibit at the Yale Library offers some comfort. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #SmithsonianSunday #ReadingIsFundamental #TestPrep #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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The Hunt for Julius Caesar's Assassins Marked the Last Days of the Roman Republic A new page-turning history details the events that led to the deaths of many of the conspirators

This Ides of March, an exploration of the fighting that followed Caesar's assassination, ending the Roman Republic once and for all. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #SmithsonianSunday #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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Why Has Punch, an Adorable Baby Monkey, Struggled to Fit in With His Troop? Scientists Explain the Lives of Japanese Macaques Experts say the other monkeys' aggressive behaviors toward Punch are pretty normal

Who says that Long Island Test Prep can't meet the cultural moment? This week's #SmithsonianSunday gives scientific context to the viral story of Punch The Monkey. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT

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Afghanistan Was a Crossroad of the Ancient World, Where Hellenistic Culture Blended With Buddhist Influences Alexander the Great conquered the region around 329 B.C.E., leaving behind Greek and Macedonian settlers who intermarried with locals. Their descendants eventually formed new kingdoms whose legacies continue to be debated today

Earlier interpretations tell us that Europe was the center of the ancient world. Today's #SmithsonianSunday article reminds us that it was likely quite a bit to the east. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental

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See How Alex Honnold Climbed a Dizzying 1,667-Foot-Tall Skyscraper Without Ropes He became famous after scaling El Capitan without protective equipment in 2017. Now the 40-year-old athlete has completed the first free solo of Taipei 101 in Taiwan

For Super Bowl #SmithsonianSunday, we read about an athlete in a different sport: Climbing Really Tall Things That Nobody Should Ever Try To Climb. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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'Aha' Moments Seem to Come Out of Nowhere. How Does the Brain Create These Sudden Bursts of Insight? Neuroscientists are tracking the brain activity that underlies a cognitive breakthrough and unraveling how it might boost memory

Understanding how "Aha Moments" develop and endeavoring to foster them are important parts of #TestPrep. This week's #SmithsonianSunday article explores the science behind them. Read challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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Hundreds of Mysterious Victorian-Era Shoes Are Washing Up on a Beach in Wales. Nobody Knows Where They Came From The leading theory is that the black leather boots, which were discovered by volunteers, were traveling on a cargo ship that sank nearby roughly 150 years ago

Shoes are washing up on a Welsh beach. What can they can tell us about history? That's still being sorted out. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for life and the exams. #SmithsonianSunday #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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About as long as an #SAT passage, this week's #SmithsonianSunday article gives a background of the technology behind the Times Square #NYE ball, from its beginnings to today. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental

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This Stunning Image Shows a Skydiver Falling Across the Face of the Sun. Here’s How the Team Captured the Mesmerizing Photo Months of careful planning and calculations went into the shot. Then, the team had only one jump attempt to get it right

#SmithsonianSunday! This article details the extraordinary planning that went into staging this picture of a skydiver with the sun as the backdrop. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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A Historian Has Finally Uncovered the Identity of the Nazi Gunman in a Haunting Holocaust Photograph The 1941 image shows a Nazi soldier pointing a gun at the head of a man kneeling at the edge of a pit filled with bodies. With help from A.I., the gunman has been identified as 34-year-old Jakobus Onnen

This week, our #SmithsonianSunday article demonstrates the role A.I. played in uncovering information about the past, including one of the darkest moments in history. Read challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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In Her 70s, Grandma Moses Began Painting Lovely Scenes of Rural Life. Then She Became an Icon A new Smithsonian retrospective explores the legacy of America’s beloved late bloomer, often underrated in art history

This week's #SmithsonianSunday article offers a reconsideration of Grandma Moses and her legacy as an artist. Read challenging and interesting materials to prepare yourself for the exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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Neuroscientists Studied More Than 80,000 People and Found That Speaking Multiple Languages Might Slow Down Brain Aging An enormous analysis of data from a broad array of participants found an association between multilingualism and cognitive aging

There's evidence that developing skills in multiple languages may help slow aging of the brain. Read challenging and interesting materials (perhaps not just in English) to prepare for life and the exams! #ReadingIsFundamental #SmithsonianSunday #TestPrep #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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Scientists Are Releasing the Lovingly Nicknamed 'Snot Otters' Into Ohio Waterways in a Big Success for Conservation Eastern hellbenders, the largest amphibians in North America, are in trouble, but conservationists are hard at work to help the wrinkled wonders survive

Hellbenders? Snot Otters? Neither name seems complimentary. Nonetheless, biologists are working to save them from extinction.

Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #SmithsonianSunday #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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This Inca Building—the Only Surviving Structure of Its Kind—Might Have Been Designed to Amplify Sound and Music Researchers will use 3D modeling to assess what the "carpa uasi" in Huaytará, Peru, originally looked like and how sound traveled through it

A building in Peru provides evidence that Incan builders designed a structure that could amplify sound. Read interesting materials to prepare for the exams and life. #SmithsonianSunday #ReadingIsFundamental #TestPrep #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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New information on the behavior of their magnetic fields is teaching us more about the properties of black holes. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #SmithsonianSunday #ReadingIsFundamental #TestPrep #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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The Louvre Stops Renting Out Nintendo 3DS Consoles, Which Helped Visitors Navigate the Massive Museum for 13 Years Available since 2012, the handheld gadgets are being retired in favor of a new system—but so far, the Paris museum hasn't revealed any details about the replacement

It's always fun to read about the merger of new tech and old media. This week's #SmithsonianSunday article teaches us that some older new tech is making way for something else at The Louvre. Read challenging materials to prepare for the tests and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental

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The Reinvention of George Washington's Mother, From Paragon of Virtue to Greedy Shrew to Widow Striving for Independence A new biography examines how 19th-century Americans remembered Mary Ball Washington, who raised the future president largely on her own after her husband’s death in 1743

The historiography of the life of Mary Washington has taken many turns. Today's #SmithsonianSunday article takes it on. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE #LSAT

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A Batch of Undelivered WWII Letters Intended for Japanese Soldiers Ended Up in an Oregon Museum Decades Later. Now, Experts Are Returning the Lost Correspondence to Their Families An organization devoted to returning artifacts as a way to heal the emotional wounds left by the war is helping the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum send these deeply personal items to the writers' descendants

History shows us how the past shapes the world we live in. In today's #SmithsonianSunday article, we see experts bringing letters from the past to their rightful recipients. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental

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This 102-Year-Old Man Just Became the Oldest Person on Record to Summit Japan's Mount Fuji Kokichi Akuzawa is an experienced climber who trained for his journey up the mountain by walking for one hour every morning

The persistence required for success in Test Prep is nothing compared to Akuzawa's. When I'm his age? I'm not sure if I want to do what he's doing. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #SmithsonianSunday #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental


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How Davy Crockett, the Rugged Frontiersman Killed at the Alamo, Became an Unlikely American Hero During his lifetime, Crockett—who went by David, not Davy—shaped his own myth. In the 20th century, his legacy got a boost from none other than Walt Disney

In the popular imagination, there are many myths about Davy Crockett. This week, on #SmithsonianSunday, we get a concise, thorough, and real biography. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE

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FBI Returns Long-Lost Manuscript Signed by Hernán Cortés in 1527 to Mexico's National Archives The document, which vanished decades ago, includes logistical details linked to the travels of the Spanish conquistador, who had conquered the Aztec Empire several years earlier

A few decades ago, thieves stole part of a manuscript penned by Hernán Cortés. Now it's been returned to Mexico, the rightful owner. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #SmithsonianSunday #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SAT #ACT #GRE

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John Williams, the Famous Composer Known for 'Jaws' and 'Star Wars,' Debuts First Piano Concerto at Age 93 The renowned composer has scored many of the most famous films of our time. But until this summer, he had never attempted a concerto for piano

Love the music in Jaws or the Star Wars series? Then you may enjoy the composition that is the focus of this week's #SmithsonianSunday piece, written by John Williams. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams!! #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #Music

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Seventy Years Ago, Johnny Cash Recorded 'Folsom Prison Blues' and Became a Folk Hero for the Ignored and Downtrodden A man of the people, the artist put his money where his mouth was by visiting prisons around the country and performing the song

This week's #SmithsonianSunday article explores the career and worldview of one of my favorite artists: Johnny Cash. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #TheManInBlack


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Have Eagle-Eyed Experts Found This 316-Year-Old Stradivarius Violin That Was Looted During World War II? Eight decades after the 1709 violin known as the "Small Mendelssohn" disappeared, experts think they've located it in Japan

Classical music fans know the name Stradivarius. This week's #SmithsonianSunday article is a report on the rediscovery of one of his violins previously thought to be lost or destroyed. Read challenging works to prepare for the exams and life! #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental

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The Etch A Sketch was a toy to me. For some, it's a tool to create true art. This week, #SmithsonianSunday affords us a look at its dual role in our culture. Read interesting and challenging materials to prepare for the tests and life. #TestPrep ReadingIsFundamental #EtchASketch

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Doctors Detected a Mysterious Antibody in a French Woman's Body. It Turned Out to Be a Brand New Blood Type Called "Gwada negative," it marks the discovery of the 48th known blood group system in humans

A new blood type? Today, we read about a recent discovery, a refresher on blood types and transfusions, and a reminder that our scientific knowledge is continually evolving. Read challenging materials to prepare for exams and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #SmithsonianSunday

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Scientists Are Using Drones to Unleash Thousands of Mosquitoes in Hawaii in a Bid to Save Native Birds. Here's How It Works The lab-raised, non-biting male mosquitoes are meant to breed with the invasive ones on the islands and produce sterile eggs that will help suppress avian malaria

Scientists are attempting a novel approach to save the Honeycreepers of Hawaii!
Read challenging materials to prepare for life and the exams. #TestPrep #SmithsonianSunday #ReadingIsFundamental

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The Chrysler Building Has Towered Above New York City for Nearly a Century. Now, the Art Deco Skyscraper Is for Sale When it was completed in 1930, the 1,046-foot building was briefly the tallest in the world. In recent years, it's fallen into disrepair

Apologies for the absence. Health issues sidelined me, but I'm healing and back in business! #SmithsonianSunday resumes, focused on an icon of my favorite city. As always, read challenging materials to prep you for the tests and life. #TestPrep #ReadingIsFundamental #GreatToBeBack
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When a Historian Saw This Haunting Photograph of a Nameless Native Girl, She Decided She Had to Identify Her In 1868, Sophie Mousseau was photographed at Fort Laramie alongside six white Army officers. But her identity—and her life story—remained unknown for more than a century

A seemingly innocuous photo leads a historian to research a woman's life, revealing much about society at the time. Social history is a branch of the discipline that was an important part of my M.A. work. Here, we also find a spirited defense of the field. #SmithsonianSunday

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