SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

The following text is from Chinua Achebe's 1964 novel Arrow of God. The novel is set in Nigeria in the 1920s. Ezeulu, who is the religious leader for several villages, announces when the annual yam harvest can begin.Whenever Ezeulu considered the immensity of his power over the year and the crops and,therefore, over the people he wondered if it was real. It was true he named the day for the feast of the Pumpkin Leaves and for the New Yam feast; but he did not choose it. He was merely a watchman. His power was no more than the power of a child over a goat that was said to be his.

©1964 by Chinua Achebe

 

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

The following text is adapted from John Matheus's 1925 short story "Fog."

The fog extended its tentacles over city and river, gradually obliterating traces of familiar landscapes. At five-thirty the old Panhandle bridge, supported by massive sandstone pillars, stalwart, as when erected fifty years before to serve a generation now passed behind the portals of life, had become a spectral outline against the sky.

 

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

Microplastics are a common pollutant in large masses of water like glaciers. High concentrations and ______ among particles—variations in size, shape, and material—make it onerous to comprehensively classify the microplastics in a water sample, so Ojeda-Benítez et al. are exploring a device to help quickly and accurately identify certain characteristics.

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

The following text is adapted from Henry James's 1881 novel The Portrait of a Lady.

Everything Osmond did was pose—pose so subtly considered that if one were not on the lookout one mistook it for impulse. Ralph had never met a man who lived so much in the land of consideration. His tastes, his studies, his accomplishments, his collections, were all for a purpose.

 

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

Louisa May Alcott contributed A Modern Mephistopheles to the No Name Series, a collection of novels published anonymously between 1876 and 1887. The series challenged readers to guess authors' identities, reflecting the era's fascination for literary mystery. This ______approach to publishing allowed Alcott to experiment beyond her established style.

 

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

Though copies of The Adventures of Indiana Jones in Wenceslas Square in Prague on January 16, 1989—an underground computer game that was created anonymously in 1989 as an act of political protest against the authoritarian regime of what was then Czechoslovakia were originally distributed ______, the game is now readily available online for anyone to play.

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

In their study of caterpillars in fragmented forests (formerly contiguous forests that have been broken into isolated patches by roads or other interruptions), Riley M. Anderson et al. stress that although fragmentation inevitably ______ alterations to local ecological processes, the changes will likely have a greater impact on Nola triquetrana, a specialist feeding on a limited number of plant species, than on a species like Himella intractata that feeds on several.

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

Tomi Adeyemi's first published work, the inventive West African–inspired fantasy novel Children of Blood and Bone, has intriguing things to say about the relationship between identity and power. Adeyemi works in a decades-long tradition going back to writers such as Samuel Delany and Octavia Butler, who wove cultural elements of the Black diaspora into their science fiction and fantasy in a movement known as Afrofuturism. At its core, the movement is characterized by speculation, not just about distant futures or other planets but also about alternate versions of our shared past. Afrofuturism's meditations on authority reinvigorate the creative potential of fiction.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

In a 2024 study, Corrine Walsh and colleagues examined whether the composition of soil microbial communities could affect plants' flavor chemistry. Whereas Baslam et al. (2011) showed that adding specific bacterial or fungal strains to soil can yield increased flavonoid content in spinach crops, Walsh and team applied intact microbial communities gathered from ecologically distinct settings across Colorado, including areas of ponderosa pine forest and irrigated pasture, to mustard plants and evaluated the flavor compounds in the plants' seeds. This ensured that the microbial conditions in their experiment would better reflect the variation and complexity of naturally occurring communities.

Based on the text, what is the most likely reason Walsh and colleagues chose to avoid the method used in the spinach study?

A student is writing a paper on the global rise of the home video game industry during the 1980s. The student is researching the relative popularity of various genres of console and computer games. Looking at the information in the table, the student finds that the games in the genres of ______

 

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

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?

Working in Ghana, Emmanuel Hanyabui and colleagues compared the impact on pineapple growth of different combinations of soil additives, including NPK fertilizer (an inorganic fertilizer containing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), organic compost, and biochar (a carbon-rich material produced from organic waste matter). Based on data in the table, pineapple farmers with no access to inorganic soil additives would likely increase the weight and size of their fruits by the greatest amount by using ______

 

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

Founded in 1904, the Hispanic Society of America showcases the arts and cultures of Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking regions around the world, including Latin America. It is located in New York City and has more than 18,000 objects in its museum collection. Since 2000, a number of other institutions devoted to Latino cultures have opened in the United States. A notable example is LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles. It focuses on Mexican American art and culture.

Which statement about the Hispanic Society of America is best supported by the text?

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 urban dwellers from a large city in Thailand and the Seri people from a small community in Mexico. The team observed that across cultures, people generally rated odors about the same: vanillin, which smells like vanilla, was typically rated more pleasant than galbazine, which smells like peanuts. The team therefore concluded that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Recordings of electrical activity in the brain, ______ increased activity in brain areas associated with suppressing motor functions.

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

Jesse Treviño's 1976 painting Mis Hermanos was featured in the Smithsonian's 2013 exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art. The piece ______ chosen for the exhibition by curator E. Carmen Ramos.

 

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

Mia Heavener's 2019 novel Under Nushagak Bluff, which takes place in a mid-twentiethcentury rural Alaskan fishing ______ the story of three Yup'ik women who grapple with the rise of commercial fisheries and other changes affecting their community.

 

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

Many works of the Greek historian Strabo (1st century BCE) are ______ his Geographica, a descriptive history of the ancient world, is an extant work: it can still be read.

 

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

Enacted in 1944, Iceland's 4,089-word constitution, in contrast to Spain's, which was enacted in 1978 and contains a far greater number (17,608) of words, ______ as the 2nd shortest in the world. Such data are studied by constitutional scholars like George Tsebelis, who can use them to draw broader conclusions.

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

Working on an unimaginably small scale of billionths of a meter, nanoengineers have found ways to leverage cerium oxide ______ to improve treatments for certain conditions related to oxidative stress.

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

A team led by Portuguese researcher Isabel C.F.R. Ferreira found that many species of mushrooms contain chemicals called phenolic compounds, such as cinnamic acid and catechin. ______ Ferreira detected cinnamic acid in Agaricus blazei mushrooms and catechin in Lentinus edodes mushrooms.

 

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

While some researchers have identified the planet Kepler-296e as potentially habitable, it's unlikely that humanity will be able to take advantage of its favorable conditions anytime soon —it's 737 light years away. ______ humanity must first focus on making planets within our solar system more habitable.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

The Tres Zapotes archaeological site is located in our home state of Veracruz, Mexico. ______ an 8.5-ton stone statue of a human head was left behind by the ancient Olmec civilization. In the nearby state of Tabasco was another stone statue that weighs 19.8 tons.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

In a 1948 article titled "The Language of Lines," Brazilian photographer José Yalenti argued that black-and-white photography's distinctive—and in his view, superior—use of lines is what elevates the medium to the status of fine art. ______ Yalenti insisted that conveying perspective through linear forms is photography's "indisputable and exclusive domain," creating a visual language surpassing even celebrated painters' works.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

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

 

·A merchant ship is any ship hired to carry cargo or passengers.

·A ship's carrying capacity is also known as its deadweight tonnage (DWT).

·In 2021, there were a total of 1,323 merchant ships registered in the Bahamas.

·The combined DWT of these ships was 74.3 million tons.

 

The student wants to emphasize the combined deadweight tonnage of the Bahamas' merchant ships in 2021. 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:

 

·Louis Ballard was a classical composer and citizen of the Quapaw Tribe.

·Ballard's composition Desert Trilogy was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in music in 1971.

·His composition Devil's Promenade incorporates a Seneca cow-horn rattle, a traditional Native instrument.

·Ethnomusicologist Tara Browner claims that Ballard's compositions rely on elements originating within Native musical traditions.

 

The student wants to support Browner's claim about Louis Ballard's compositions. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?