SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

Researchers have long debated the origins of silver used in European coins from the 600s through the early 800s CE. Geochemical analysis by Kershaw et al. of 49 coins dating to 660-820 CE provides concrete evidence that reconciles two competing theories: early coins were made from Byzantine silver, and later coins used Frankish silver, findings that provide firm details in a previously __________ area of study.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

Water flowing through a river's hyporheic zone—i. e., the subsurface region where surface water mixes with groundwater—flows not only beneath but also _____________ the channel. Indeed, by mapping aquatic organisms found in soil beyond a waterway's banks, scientists have shown the extent of the hyporheic zone's reach, which for a great river like the Congo can stretch up to 400 meters from the channel.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A study by Augusta D. Gaspar and Joana Carneiro Pinto found that a bank's corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts, including environmental and social campaigns, improve its corporate image. When CSR was mentioned in bank marketing strategies, favorability scores assigned by study participants tended to ___________ the scores assigned by participants when CSR wasn't mentioned.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

The following text is adapted from Henry James's 1916 short story "The Pupil." A man is being considered for a position as a live-in tutor for a woman's child.

The poor young man hesitated and procrastinated: it cost him such an effort to broach the subject of terms, to speak of money to a person who spoke only of feelings and, as it were, of the aristocracy. Yet he was unwilling to take leave, treating his engagement as settled, without some more conventional glance in that direction than he could find an opening for in the manner of the large affable lady who sat there drawing a pair of soiled [suede gloves] through a jewelled hand and, at once pressing and gliding, repeated over and over everything but the thing he would have liked to hear.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

Founded in 1991, the Museo de Las Americas showcases art from Latin America, including the art of Indigenous peoples. It is located in Denver and has more than 4,800 objects in its collection. Since 2000, a number of other institutions devoted to Latino cultures have opened in the United States. A notable example is Casa de Rosado in Lansing, Michigan. It focuses on the arts and cultures of Latino communities in Michigan.

Which statement about the Museo de Las Americas is best supported by the text?

In The Jazz Continuum, LaTasha Barnes, Alain Lauture, and other dancers seamlessly interweave recent dance styles, including hip-hop and voguing, with elements of the Lindy Hop, a popular swing dance of the 1930s with roots in the Black American community of Harlem, New York. Inspired by Barnes's curiosity about the similarities between the Lindy Hop and these seemingly unrelated dance styles, the show's choreography makes visible how intertwined their histories actually are. The show is therefore a testament to the Lindy Hop's enduring influence on American culture.

 

Which choice best states the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?

The metal featured in both the structure of the Shimogamo Machiya Vila by Takuma Ohira and the hardware in the One-Room Residence of 5 Layers by Matsuyama Architect and Associates is representative of a trend in contemporary Japanese interior design to juxtapose sleek, modern accents with traditional organic materials such as cypress. The prominent featuring of metal stems from the post-World War ll emphasis on technological progress, while more traditional natural materials help preserve longstanding architectural and aesthetic approaches.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

To understand the extent of deforestation in the Chorotega region of Costa Rica, Juan Pablo Arroyo-Mora and colleagues used historical aerial photography and remote sensing data to track changes in the annual mean size of forest patches across different land use capability classes (categories that indicate possible uses of forest land). Due to the Chorotega region's climate, various types of forested areas were converted to cattle pasture as rising international meat prices drove a cattle ranching boom in the 1960s and 1970s. By 1986, mean forest patch sizes had dropped considerably. In that year, they were between __________.

 

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complets the assertion?

The nearly forty tribes located in Oklahoma, including the Cherokee Nation and the Seminole Nation, operate numerous businesses and generate billions of dollars in revenue. A student in an economics class is researching the tribes' collective activity as a single industry. The student wants to compare that industry's contribution to Oklahoma's overall economy in 2017 with the contributions made by three other industries in the state. Looking at the table, the student finds that tribal economic activity totaled over $7.3 billion, ranking it above_________.

 

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the comparison?

Wenhao Xu and colleagues demonstrated that applying a low direct current electrical field to graphite (a conductor) and an acrylamide (AAm) gel can increase how strongly materials adhere to each other. At some voltages, adhesion strength—as measured in kilopascals (kPa) of stress needed to pull the materials apart—was high (more than 30 kPa). But the mere application of a direct current electrical field with positive voltage is not sufficient to cause increased adhesion, as evidenced by the fact that________.

 

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the statement?

Carolina chickadees are cavity nesting birds that initiate nest building at the same time of year as golden paper wasps, a species that also nests in enclosed spaces. Researchers observed that both species will settle in nesting boxes, but birds and wasps are not often observed co-occupying boxes, leading to the hypothesis that the two species compete for nesting sites. To test this hypothesis, the researchers installed nesting boxes throughout a nature preserve in the US state of North Carolina, manipulated some of the boxes to exclude birds, and then monitored the boxes for two years. Not only was the hypothesis validated, there was also a clear indication of competitive advantage for birds.

 

Which finding from the study, if true, would most directly support the text's characterization of the study's results?

Port Clarence Indian paintbrush (Castilleja caudata) plants are native to Alaska, where the harsh boreal conditions historically impeded potential invasive species. In recent decades, however, bird vetch (Vicia cracca) plants have established themselves in Alaska. Studies have suggested that increasingly warm spring temperatures benefit invasive plant species more than native plant species, but no such studies have focused on boreal ecosystems despite similar temperature changes occurring there. To fill this gap, biologists Christa Mulder and Katie Spellman tracked C. Caudata and V. cracca, along with other native and invasive species, over several years.

 

Which finding from Mulder and Spellman's study, if true, would most directly support the claim that plant species in boreal ecosystems may not exhibit the pattern seen in studies of plant species in other types of ecosystems?

Studying animals in a laboratory allows variables to be systematically controlled, but removing animals from their wild habitats can affect their behavior and biology in unforeseen ways. Given this, biologists Rebecca M. Calisi-Rodriguez and George E. Bentley examined research on brown-throated three-toed sloths and canaries to see whether results from studies in the wild were consistent with the results of studies in the laboratory. Therefore, data showing that brown-throated three-toedl sloths tend to sleep fewer than 10 hours per day in the wild would be irrelevant to Calisi-Rodríguez and Bentley's investigation if ____________.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Vehicle exhaust produces dangerously high ozone levels in our city in hot, humid weather. As an incentive for people to commute by bus rather than by car, special free commuter buses will be scheduled on hot, humid days. Since a bus can carry about 40 people but produces only about 20 times as much exhaust as a car, ozone levels will be lower as long as the buses are more than half full.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

Scientists looking for signs of ancient life in Africa have found many examples of fossilized hominins, including in a geological formation at the Danakil Depression. However, to find even older specimens like early multicellular organisms from the Ediacaran period, scientists must look elsewhere, such as in the Ediacaran geological formation at Ediacara Hills in Oceania, because __________.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

To appreciate what scholars believe to be the allegorical intent of Matsys's 16th-century painting ___________ to embody the tension between material wealth and spiritual principles—a viewer must become familiar with the painting's symbolic elements.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

____________ a US state when it ratified the US Constitution on November 21, 1789, was thereby empowered, via its representatives to the US Congress, to vote on whether to admit Ohio as a state on March 1, 1803.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

In Puerto Rico, it's not unusual for a city or town to be known by a nickname that corresponds to one of its notable features, like landscape, climate, famous residents, or chief export. For example, the Puerto Rican municipality of Aibonito is well known for its lush __________ this distinction has earned it the fitting nickname of "the Garden of Puerto Rico."

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

In a letter dated January 14th, 1780, congressman John Witherspoon attempts to persuade General George Washington that the Continental Army's difficulty in procuring supplies, often attributed to disloyalty among civilian farmers and merchants, __________ due to concerns suppliers have about receiving compensation in the form of rapidly depreciating Continental currency.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

In the Southeast Asian country of Vietnam,the percentage of the population living in cities rose from 33.8% to 37.3% between 2015 and 2020. ____________ urbanization rates climbed across Southeast Asia as a whole, rising 2.8 percentage points in that five-year period.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

In contrast to first-past-the-post electoral processes, the proportional representation system by which Paraguay's Chamber of Senators is elected begins with citizens casting their votes not for specific candidates but for political parties. ________ once the votes have been tabulated, each party is awarded a number of seats proportional to the number of votes it received.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A writer whose debut novel is a success may struggle to live up to that first book's promise. _________ as in the case of Tommy Orange, author of the popular debut There There (2018) and the sequel Wandering Stars (2024), the follow-up actually elevates the writer's reputation. (Wandering Stars was labeled a "towering achievement" by the New York Times.)

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Photogrammetry and boolean modeling approaches to three-dimensional digital modeling for video games yield graphics that accurately represent the relative sizes and proportions of real-world objects, but since these graphics are rendered from perfect geometric shapes, they tend to lack organic realism. __________ these 3D elements may display unnaturally precise angles and curves as compared to their real-world counterparts.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

· Raymond is the nickname of a Triceratops fossil specimen housed at the National Museum of Nature and Science.

· The National Museum of Nature and Science is located in Tokyo, Japan.

· Raymond lived in the Late Cretaceous period.

· Dio is the nickname of a Triceratops fossil specimen housed at the Royal Ontario Museum.

· The Royal Ontario Museum is located in Ontario, Canada.

· Dio lived in the Late Cretaceous period.

The student wants to contrast the locations of the two specimens. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this

goal?

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

· Manchu is a synthetic language in the Tungusic language family.

· In synthetic languages, nouns can take several different forms (or cases) depending on their function within a sentence.

· Combining the suffix -de with the Manchu noun boo (house) forms the locative-case noun boode (in the house).

· Synthetic languages have extensive case systems.

· In analytic languages, cases are not typically used to indicate noun function.

· Noun function is instead indicated through word order and auxiliary words (such as prepositions and adjectives).

The student wants to explain why Manchu is classified as a synthetic language. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

· The growth-survival paradigm (GSP) posits that faster-growing fish larvae will have higher rates of survival to maturity than will slower-growing larvae.

· Aril Slotte et al.(2019) tested the GSP's applicability to cohorts of Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus).

· Finding: The survival rate of slower-growing C. harengus larvae was significantly higher than that of relatively fast-growing C. harengus larvae.

· Dominique Robert et al. (2023) reviewed 153 studies of the GSP conducted between 1971 and 2022, including Slotte's team's study.

· Robert et al.: "The GSP was supported in the majority of cases," but a "non-negligible proportion of reviewed studies demonstrated the occurrence of selection [favoring] slow-growing individuals in the field, a possibility generally disregarded in the... GSP."

 

The student wants to place the finding of Slotte's team's study in the context of the 2023 review. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?