Sentence:  In repetitions of the experiment from couple to couple , the votes of the two persons in a couple probably agree more often than independence would imply , because couples who visit the museum together <WSD>are</WSD> more likely to have similar tastes than are a random pair of people drawn from the entire population of visitors . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)