SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

The following text is adapted from Kenneth Grahame's 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows. The Mole is dazed after briefly meeting a stranger while traveling with a friend.

[The] Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can re-capture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its turn.

As used in the text, what does the word "recall" most nearly mean?

One reasonable way to evaluate the          of a scholar's research is to track how often other scholars refer to that research. For example, Princeton University economist Anne Case, who studies labor and health economics, is among the world's most frequently cited researchers in her specialty, indicating that her work has had a significant effect on the field.

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

Featuring contributions from Zulema Valdez, Robert W. Fairlie, and other scholars, Advancing U.S. Latino Entrepreneurship(2020) is intended to              two kinds of readers. According to Jerry I. Porras and the book's other editors, it should be of interest to researchers as well as current and aspiring entrepreneurs.

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

The financial situation of playwrights in Elizabethan theater was often             , but being as commercially successful as he was early in his career likely granted William Shakespeare security that contributed to his ability to later create Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, and other works still revered today.

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

The fecal-steroidal profile of pronghorn 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 beta-sitosterol and cholestanone, among other sterols. The relative levels of fecal zoostanols (steroids with animal origins), such as coprostanol and epi-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?

With its mournful subject matter and haunting tune, "Silver Dagger" is one of the most celebrated folk ballads of the southern Appalachian Mountains. Dolly Parton, who was born and raised in the region, was deeply influenced by these traditional ballads, as can be heard in the songs she wrote in the first decade of her career, "My Blue Tears," a song from her 1971 album Coat of Many Colors, echoes Appalachian ballads both in theme and word choice.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence?

Pollination syndromes are suites of floral traits that have independently evolved as a result of selection pressure exerted by pollinators; psychophilous (butterfly-pollinated) flowers, for example, frequently exhibit yellow, red, or orange coloring. 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 inconsistencies in how authors of previous studies evaluated floral traits.

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

Like most dog breeds developed in the Americas, the dogo argentino descends from dogs brought from Europe during the colonial era. In contrast, the Xoloitzcuintli is among a handful of breeds that descend from non-European populations that predated colonization. In 2013, researchers added another breed to this list: the Carolina dog, which is native to rural pockets of the Southeastern US. This breed has a unique genetic link to East Asian populations that were themselves the ancestors of the precolonial dogs of the Americas.

What is the subject of the main distinction the text draws between the dogo argentino and the Xoloitzcuintli?

In the Greek village of Pyrgi, the buildings are embellished with xysta, a traditional design featuring rows upon rows of carved geometric shapes on the facades of buildings. Deeply rooted in Pyrgi's cultural history and handed down over generations, the techniques used for creating these precise patterns involve mathematical principles and tools, such as compasses and rulers. Studying the history of xysta, therefore, has given researchers an understanding of how mathematics has been used in this region dating to the medieval period.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

The desirability of minimizing the use of adverbs, especially those ending in -ly (e.g., "obediently"), in prose fiction is a point of agreement among many novelists, including Graham Greene, who described adverbs as "damaging to a writer." To investigate whether -ly adverb avoidance is associated with literary achievement, statistician Ben Blatt calculated the frequency with which such adverbs occur in the works of E.M. Forster and other prominent English-language novelists and found that there is a positive correlation between low -ly adverb frequency and novels' perceived literary merit.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

Andrea Sommese, Andrea Temesi, and team investigated head-tilting behavior in a group of forty dogs, which included thirty-four typical dogs from five different breeds (including Benhur, a kelpie) and six dogs that had previously demonstrated giftedness at learning words, all of which were border collies. The researchers recorded the dogs' head-tilting behavior in response to requests to fetch a toy that had been introduced early in the study. They found that all six gifted dogs tilted their heads at least some of the time when asked to retrieve the toy by name, while the typical dogs almost never tilted their heads. After reviewing the study, a student concludes that a tendency to tilt their heads is a characteristic trait of all border collies.

Which finding from the study, if true, would most directly challenge the student's conclusion?

Baltimore, Maryland, has installed shoreline-hardening structures—mainly jetties—along 71% of its shoreline to protect infrastructure from wave erosion and other hazards. To evaluate the responses of waterbirds at sites in the Chesapeake Bay on the US East Coast to shoreline hardening and other landscape alterations, Diann Prosser et al. surveyed waterbird communities consisting of sixty-four species, including the tundra swan and the great blue heron. Utilizing the index of Waterbird Community Integrity (IWCI), on which a low score corresponds to low community integrity, the researchers concluded that shoreline hardening more negatively affects waterbirds than does land development for uses such as housing or agriculture.

Which finding, if true, would most directly challenge the researchers' conclusion?

Dogs and modern gray wolves share a recent wolf ancestor from which dogs were domesticated. Noting that dogs tend to have darker irises than gray wolves do, Akitsugu Konno et al, presented facial images of dogs with a range of iris colors to human participants, who rated the dogs' personalty traits and their own attitudes toward the dogs. On the basis of their findings, Konno et al., concluded that the dog-wolf iris pattern may be an effect of human selection for a positively perceived trait during domestication.

Which choice best describes data from the table that support Konno et al.'s conclusion?

To measure whether countries in free trade agreements (FTAs)—agreements among nations to reduce tariffs, duties, and other trade barriers—experience changes in total agricultural exports, economist Kayode Ajewole and colleagues calculated average export growth rates for several countries over the five years before and the five years after entering an FTA with the United States. The graph shows the results for three countries in the study. Consulting the graph, a student claims that joining an FTA increases the rate of growth of a country's total agricultural exports.

Which choice best describes data from the graph that weaken the student's claim?

Poems of Experience is a 1910 collection of poetry by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, in one of her poems, the speaker suggests that there should be external negative consequences for holding uncharitable feelings, saying           

Which quotation from Poems of Experience most effectively illustrates the claim?

Neuroscientist Artin Arshamian and his team sought to determine what affects a person's perception of an odor as pleasant: is it culture, personal taste, or aspects of human anatomy? The team assessed odor preferences in ten groups of people with different modes of living (urban, agricultural, and hunter-gatherer) including the Mah Meri people from a small community in the Malay Peninsula and the lmbabura Quichua people from a small community in Ecuador. The team observed little cross-cultural variation in the relative ratings of odors such as linalool, which smells like citrus, and mushroom alcohol, which smells like fungus, suggesting that           

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) explored how multiple names can be used to refer to the same object or person yet still have different meanings. For instance, the fictional character Clark Kent and his alter ego Superman are the same person, yet the two personas are distinct. For Frege, this raises further questions about how         

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

Following the swing era of the 1930s, cool jazz emerged as yet another innovative style in jazz            larger ensembles than those of their predecessors, cool jazz composers like Chico Hamilton emphasized smooth melodies in their works.

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

For nearly nine years, Swedish runner Gunder Hägg held the world record for the mile, a record that stood at 4:01.4 until it was broken in 1954 by an English medical            who ran the first sub-four-minute mile.

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

Museo de Arte de Ponce, an art museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, is one of more than eighty museums in the US territory. Puerto Rico's museums           everything from the territory's art to its architecture to its coffee.

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

The city of Delhi, India, first opened its rapid transit          in 2002.

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

The El Chaco meteorite, discovered in Argentina in 1969, weighs approximately 63,580 pounds and is the fourth-largest iron meteorite ever discovered on Earth. The Fukang meteorite, discovered in China in 2000, is much smaller at 2,211 pounds.            the latter is a stony-iron meteorite, and a size difference between meteorites of different compositions isn't unexpected.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

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

·Tlahuelilpan is a municipality in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico.

·Municipalities are governmental regions responsible for providing many public services to their residents.

·Tlahuelilpan's population was 17,153 in 2010.

·Its population was 19,067 in 2020.

·Hidalgo is divided into 84 municipalities.

The student wants to compare Tlahuelilpan's 2020 population with its 2010 population. 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 Mohs scale of mineral hardness is a ten-point scale that orders minerals by hardness based on their ability to scratch other minerals.

·Minerals with larger numbers are harder than minerals with smaller numbers and can leave visible scratches on them.

·Minerals with smaller numbers are softer than minerals with larger numbers and cannot leave visible scratches on them.

·The mineral orthoclase has a Mohs scale number of 6.

·The mineral topaz has a Mohs scale number of 8.

·The mineral diamond has a Mohs scale number of 10.

The student wants to emphasize how hard topaz is in relation to other minerals, 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:

·Lighthouses send out crucial light signals to help ships and other watercraft navigate at night.

·Before automation, lighthouses were run by lighthouse keepers.

·Elizabeth Smith was the lighthouse keeper at Old Field Point Light in New York.

·She held this position from 1830 to 1856.

·Thelma Austin was the lighthouse keeper at Point Fermin Light in California.

·She held this position from 1925 to 1941.

The student wants to emphasize a difference between the two lighthouse keepers. 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.

·Julie, or The New Heloise (1761) is an epistolary novel by French author Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

·lt consists primarily of letters sent between a man and a woman living in a small French town.

·Parable ofthe 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?