SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

Fossils of ancient arthropods preserved in volcanic ash in Morocco have           similarities between ancient arthropods and modern ones, such as spiders. Detailed 3D images of the fossils allowed scientists to see features that look like features found in arthropod species living today.

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

Quantitative analysis of vast historical data sets and other tools of abstraction allow historians to examine broad phenomena, but such methods               the particularity of individual actors. By focusing on singular individuals and incidents in exhaustive detail, Paul Seaver's Wallington's World and other microhistories aim to show how broader phenomena were experienced at a human level.

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

The fecal-steroidal profile of moose is clearly distinct from those of other ungulates. By contrast, bison dung cannot be distinguished from elk dung based solely on their fecal-steroidal profiles, as both contain similar levels of cholestanone and stigmastanol, among other sterols. The relative levels of fecal zoostanols (steroids with animal origins), such as coprostanol and 24-ethyl-coprostanol, in layers of lake bed sediments at Buffalo Ford Lake in Yellowstone National Park show that bison, elk, or both have been the dominant ungulate species in the lake's watershed for at least the last 2,000 years.

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

The following text is from Rachel Heng's 2023 novel The Great Reclamation. Ah Boon is fishing off the coast of Singapore.

When he pulled up the nets, they contained only one kind of fish—black pomfrets, the flat diamonds of their bodies slick in the morning light. This uniformity did not surprise him; over the years, he'd learned that the waters here were temperamental. They could be relied upon for a good catch, but from time to time threw up only prawns or squid, and other times colorful varieties of fish that weren't even supposed to be found in this region, He'd grown to accept the unpredictability, embracing it as a game to be played, like the reading of tea leaves or the grooves of a palm.

@2023 by Rachel Heng

Taken together, the three underlined portions most clearly serve which function in the text as a whole?

From meerkats to leaf beetles, many animals practice some form of brood care (caring for offspring). Chenyang Cai and team claim to have found the earliest evidence of this behavior in insects in 163.5-million-year-old remains from the Haifanggou Formation in China, a location that has yielded many fossils, including those of long-proboscis scorpion flies. Cai and team examined 157 specimens of the extinct water boatman species Karataviella popovi and noted thirty individuals that appear to carry eggs on one of their legs. This finding establishes brood care in insects approximately 38 million years earlier than previously known.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

Tanya Tagaq is a writer and musician and a member of the Inuit community of Cambridge Bay in northern Canada. Critics and fellow writers have praised her work for combining traditional Inuit stories with popular genres of literature, such as fantasy fiction. But Tagaq is not the only indigenous writer to blend traditional stories with popular literature. in the 2020 novel The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones successfully blended the oral storytelling tradition of his tribe, the Blackfeet Nation, with horror fiction.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

High-speed rail systems—in which trains can move at great speeds—are expanding in many countries because high-speed rail can reduce the number of automobiles on the road and ultimately conserve energy. In Austria, for instance, 254 kilometers of high-speed rail lines are in operation as of 2023, and 231 kilometers are under construction.

Based on the text, why might Austria be expanding its high-speed rail system?

Text 1

Norse settlers occupied part of Greenland from about 985 CE until the early 15th century, when they mysteriously abandoned the region. Many researchers cite increasingly lower temperatures to explain why the Norse fled. The researchers reason that the Norse settlers arrived in the region while the climate was warm and were able to remain there until temperatures declined during the Little Ice Age, which occurred between the 14th and 19th centuries.

Text 2

Jeffrey Salacup, Isla Castañeda, and colleagues analyzed sediment samples from a lake in Greenland close to the Norse settlement. This allowed them to reconstruct the area's climate history. The researchers found no evidence of substantial temperature changes during the settlement period. They argue that instead the region experienced a persistent drought, which played a more important role in forcing the Norse out of the area than did increasingly lower temperatures.

Based on the texts, the researchers in both passages address which question?

Text 1

Kikko (tortoiseshell) and other Japanese sashiko embroidery patterns use motifs drawn from nature and daily activities, classic sources of inspiration in folk-art traditions. A category that resists firm delineation, folk art is generally defined by an intimate connection to quotidian life. "The beauty of such objects, " writes Soetsu Yanagi in The Unknown Craftsman, "is not so much of the noble, the huge, or the lofty as a beauty of the warm and familiar."

Text 2

Through their beautiful handmade aesthetic, painting and textiles from Japan's twentieth-century's mingei (folk art) movement represent an unambiguous rejection of mass-produced consumer goods. At the same time, minge, properly considered stands apart from fine art, as its rootedness in commonplace craft traditions gives it an authenticity and accessibility that fine art, with its prizing of sophistication and innovation, cannot match.

Which choice best describes how Text 1 differs from Text 2?

Pollination syndromes are suites of floral traits that have independently evolved as a result of selection pressure exerted by pollinators; melittophilous (bee-pollinated) flowers, for example, frequently exhibit a fresh, mild scent. in a review of previous studies covering 417 plant species, Victor Rosas-Guerrero et al. concluded that the syndromes reliably predict angiosperms most effective pollinators. However, in a response paper, Jeff Ollerton et al. note that Rosas-Guerrero et al. may have inadvertently ignored pertinent floral traits in several of the species that were included in the review.

What does the text most strongly suggest about the study conducted by Rosas-Guerrero et al.?

Films based on famous books tend to do well in theaters: when Terry McMilan's acclaimed novel How Stella Got Her Groove Back was adapted into a movie in 1998, it was a commercial success, To investigate whether book-to-movie adaptations also have an impact on the books' popularity, two researchers examined online activity related to The Monuments Men and two other books that have been turned into movies. They found that the films' releases in theaters coincided with increased intent to read the original books but not with higher average ratings for those books.

Information in the text best supports which statement about book-to-movie adaptations?

An anthropologist is recording the metal contents of various historical deposits of valuables, called hoards, found in Ireland and Northern Ireland. She notes that the hoards differed in their contents; for example,          

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

Scientists collected information about brown bears in Katmai National Park in Alaska. This information included each bear's sex, age, and approximate weight. The bear with the lowest approximate weight shown in the table was a           

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

During the Pleistocene, people began using sharpened bone awls to make holes in hide and fur, through which cord was then strung to make clothing. Eventually, people made needles by perforating the end of a bone awl with an eye (hole) to hold the cord, thereby enabling the simultaneous performance of the previously separate actions of puncturing and threading. And once the needle was invented, artisans could use finer cord and smaller holes, resulting in tighter, more thermally efficient seams in their clothing. For example, all other things being equal, the clothing worn by inhabitants at Malaya Syia likely had less thermally efficient seams than the clothing worn by inhabitants at both              

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

Research such as the 2015 study of fish by Kirsty Elizabeth McLaughlin and Hansjoerg P. Kunc has shown that noise from human activity, like traffic on a busy highway, has various significant effects on animals, and many governments require studies of the potential noise effects on wildlife before approving highway construction projects. For one of these projects, a group of researchers suggested that, although there are both fish and birds in the area, taking actions to reduce the effects of noise on the fish will probably protect both types of animals because noise tends to affect fish more strongly than birds. Another group of researchers indicated that, although the effects are usually greater on fish, addressing only those effects won't reduce the potential harm to the birds in the area because           

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Composed of clay and silicate rocks,           are typically dark in appearance. M-type asteroids, on the other hand, are composed of nickel-iron and appear much brighter.

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

When space shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center after its mission, it          ten days and three hours in space.

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

George Meade's image was printed on $1,000 US banknotes in 1890, making the former major general of the US Army one of many non-presidents            on US currency.

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

In 1979, the suffragist Susan B. Anthony            the first woman featured on a US coin. Her image appeared on the $1 coin.

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

Sometimes, when a dog snitts the ground, it will open its mouth, curl back its top lip, and expose its teeth. The dog            this behavior, called the flehmen response, to transmit scents to powerful receptors just above the roof of the dog's mouth.

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

An early term for the literary genre later known as science fiction, "scientification" was coined by inventor and publisher Hugo Gernsback          the hybrid of technical detail and imaginative speculation featured in his aptly titled Amazing Stories magazine.

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

Modernista architects championed nature in their designs.           the dramatic archways and stone turtle statues of Sagrada Famlia, a Modernista basilica designed by Antoni Gaudi, couldn't exactly grow in a forest. Still, one sees natural influences in Gaudi's penchant for curves (rather than right angles) and plant- and animal-inspired flourishes.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Scientists studying forest restoration have discovered that trees depend on complex partnerships with microscopic organisms for survival. The researchers found that special fungi called endophytes live inside tree leaves and serve as a defense mechanism.            these endophytes help by fighting off diseases and boosting the tree's immune system.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

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

·Truman Capote was an acclaimed American writer.

·His first published work of fiction was a short story called "Miriam."

·It was published in 1945 in Mademoiselle.

·Its publication introduced Capote's work to a wider audience.

The student wants to indicate the year "Miriam" was published. 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:

·Epistolary novels are novels written primarily as a series of fictional documents, typically letters.

·Sometimes, the documents are journal entries, newspaper clippings, and more.

·The Screwtape Letters (1942) is an epistolary novel by British author C.S. Lewis.

·It consists primarily of letters sent between a character named Screwtape and his nephew, Wormwood.

·Parable of the Sower (1993) is an epistolary novel by American author Octavia Butler.

·It consists primarily of journal entries written by a teenager living in an apocalyptic society.

The student wants to emphasize a difference between the two novels. 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:

·A nonnative species is considered invasive if it causes environmental or economic harm in an ecosystem.

·Curly pondweed is a species of aquatic plant native to parts of Eurasia.

·It can also be found in the northern and western US.

·There, it crowds out native plants and impedes aquatic recreation.

·It is considered an invasive species in the US.

The student wants to provide an example of an invasive species. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?