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?

The following text is adapted from Alice Dunbar Nelson's 1899 short story "The Fisherman of Pass Christian." Pass Christian is a city in the US state of Mississippi.

The swift breezes on the beach at Pass Christian meet and conflict as though each strove for the mastery of the air. The land-breeze blows down through the pines, resinous, fragrant, cold, bringing breath-like memories of dim, dark woods shaded by myriad pine-needles. The breeze from the Gulf is warm and soft and languorous, blowing up from the south with its suggestion of tropical warmth.

 

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

Science fiction has long served as a ______ real-world technological advancements. Indeed, from Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon inspiring developments in aerospace engineering to the television show Star Trek sparking the design of the ancestor of today's smartphones, these narratives have spurred many actual innovations.

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

Any effort to raise the toll that drivers must pay to use the Lewis and Clark Bridge, which spans the Ohio River to connect Indiana and Kentucky, should explain why a higher toll is necessary; no amount of justification, however, is likely to persuade some drivers who believe the current toll is ______.

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

The Rarámuri language of northern Mexico has 20 vowel and consonant sounds. In contrast, the Taa language of southern Africa has over 100. Why would languages differ in this way? One researcher has claimed that when modern humans arose in Africa, they spoke a single language, but as humans gradually spread throughout Africa and then around the globe, that language developed into new languages. Those developed into still more languages as small bands of humans spread even farther, with each new language retaining fewer sounds from humanity's original language.

Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the researcher's claim?

Seesaw Girl was Linda Sue Park's debut novel. It was published in 1999. A debut novel is the first book that an author has published. Debut novels are especially interesting to literary critics (people whose job it is to evaluate books) and readers because these books offer a look at new voices in the literary world.

According to the text, what is someone who professionally evaluates books called?

Moving beyond a simple "present or absent" designation, researchers created a new classification system that allows for a nuanced understanding of bioluminescence in marine organisms that was unavailable under binary classification systems. The new six-point scale considers varying levels of supporting evidence used to identify bioluminescent species. For example, the firefly squid scores 1 because of inconsistent reports, the emperor squid scores 4 because of its anatomical similarity to known luminous relatives, and the shaggy anglerfish scores 6 because of substantiated direct observations.

 

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

Postcranial skeletal pneumaticity (PSP) refers to the presence of extensions of an animal's lungs and air sacs inside its bones. These extensions are known as pneumatic diverticula. Vascularity and other identifying characteristics of pneumatic diverticula tend not to fossilize, so paleontologists have relied on studies of living bird species to document these qualities, augmenting their findings from fossil analysis to glean additional insights into the respiratory systems of extinct genera such as Tyrannosaurus, Euhelopus, and other Cretaceous theropods and sauropods that may have also exhibited PSP.

 

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

Adult glass eels can be found off the coast of Maine, but the eels begin their lives in the Sargasso Sea, a biodiverse area in the North Atlantic Ocean where they are born and later return to breed. Though biologists believe they have identified the general area in the Sargasso Sea that is crucial to the endangered eels' survival, little is yet known about how the animals spawn there. Scientists believe that solving the mystery will lead to better conservation of glass eels and their habitat, helping in turn to sustain several other species that rely on them as a food source.

 

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

While doing research for a paper about metal exports, a student finds a table indicating how much copper was mined in each of four countries in 1995 and 2020. The student notes that in 1995, Mexico mined ______

 

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

Peter Pan is a 1911 novel by J.M. Barrie. In the fantasy novel, Peter is a young boy who can fly. He brings Wendy, John, and Michael to Neverland, the mythical island where he lives. The narrator suggests that activity on the island stops when Peter is away and starts again when he is about to return: ______

Which quotation from Peter Pan best supports the claim?

The Underdogs is a 1915 novel by Mariano Azuela, originally written in Spanish. In the novel, Azuela depicts the character Camilla as experiencing a change in how she perceives her immediate surroundings: ______

Which quotation from a translation of The Underdogs most effectively illustrates the claim?

Antonia Olivia Dolan and colleagues had musicians and nonmusicians with clinically average hearing listen to recordings of nature sounds and music in popular genres like acoustic folk and funk and adjust the volume to optimize their listening enjoyment. The researchers found that for a given recording that a musician and nonmusician identified as their favorite among those included in the study, optimal volume tended to be higher for the musician than for the nonmusician. Thus, if a musician and nonmusician both identified Jose Gonzalez's "Heartbeats" as their favorite recording and the musician preferred to listen to it at a volume of 82.2 decibels, the nonmusician would be expected to ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Outi Tervo and team studied the effect of human-caused noise on narwhals (Monodon monoceros), arctic marine mammals that are sensitive to acoustic changes in their environment. Hypothesizing that elevated sound levels affect foraging among narwhals, Tervo's team compared narwhal diving behaviors in natural sound conditions with those behaviors in two human-caused sound exposure conditions—ship sounds and ship sounds coupled with sonic pulses. Both exposure conditions resulted in significant decreases in the number and target depth of deep dives (associated with foraging) relative to naturalconditions. However, differences between diving behaviors in the two exposure types were negligible, a finding that could be attributed to the fact that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Many works of the Greek mathematician Euclid (3rd century BCE) are ______ his Elements, a treatise of mathematical knowledge, is an extant work: it can still be read.

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

A 2024 study cataloged all the trees in Amsterdam to evaluate the biodiversity of the city's urban forest. The researchers, finding that administrative unit GK13 had a 0.62 ratio of native to non-native trees, ______ efforts to improve the biodiversity of the trees in that unit and other areas with a similarly moderate ratio.

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

Growing as large as three meters in diameter, the leaves of the giant Amazonian waterlily feature a complex network of radiating veins that provide structural ______ in thickness from the center to the edges, these veins allow the leaves to maintain their large size and buoyancy with minimal material, optimizing light capture and photosynthesis.

 

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 December 12, 1787, was thereby empowered, via its representatives to the US Congress, to vote on whether to admit Louisiana as a state on April 30, 1812.

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

Though largely eclipsed by her success as a novelist, Jessie Redmon Fauset's contributions as literary editor of The Crisis, a New York City–based periodical whose influence was arguably at its peak during her Harlem Renaissance–era tenure, ______ in recent scholarship that explores Fauset's instrumental role in shaping the magazine's aesthetic and debuting the work of Langston Hughes and other emerging Black writers.

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

Resins play several important roles in maintaining the health of conifers and many other kinds of trees. ______ resins quickly seal wounds, which helps prevent harmful insects and fungi from entering trees. These sticky substances also help trees retain water that is needed for them to survive.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Giant dust plumes from the Sahara Desert that blow across the Atlantic Ocean can have complex and opposing effects on tropical cyclones. On one hand, the dust can enhance the formation of ice clouds in the cyclone's core, increasing precipitation. ______ the dust can lower sea surface temperatures around the cyclone's core, weakening the storm.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Elvis Presley's iconic jumpsuit Red Pinwheel featured rhinestones arranged in pinwheel patterns. Historians note that adornments such as these added between twenty-five and fifty pounds to each of Elvis's stage outfits. ______ the fabric used to make the outfits was light and flexible, enabling freedom of motion.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

In a 1998 study by Smith et al., the researchers used microhistological fecal analysis to determine the ratio of three plant subtypes (graminoids, forbs, and browse) within the diets of North American ungulates. The researchers did not perform this analysis on all such ungulates, ______ they focused exclusively on pronghorns and wild horses in New Mexico.

 

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Though its onboard laboratory allowed it to analyze rock samples on-site, the 2011 Mars Curiosity rover was unable to preserve samples for future analysis. ______ when creating the 2020 Mars Perseverance rover, robotics technologist Yumi Iwashita and other members of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sought to implement a mechanism that could do exactly that.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

As Iestyn Barr and his team of researchers discovered when establishing the glacial timeline of Antarctica, the Transantarctic Mountains—a 3,500-km mountain range spanning the continent—are home to glaciers of at least 60 million years in age. ______ the researchers concluded, Antarctica had glaciers long before the formation of its continent-wide ice sheet 34 million years ago.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

·Thomas Edison is regarded as one of the most important inventors in US history.

·Having received little formal schooling, Edison relied on specialist employees at his various laboratories and offices to complete the technical work for many of his inventions.

·William Joseph Hammer was a laboratory assistant who worked at the Menlo Park laboratory.

·He is best known for curating the most comprehensive collection of historic light bulbs anywhere in the world.

·William Symes Andrews was an electrical engineer who worked at the Edison Electric Light Company.

·He is best known for establishing more than thirty power plants across New York and Pennsylvania.

 

Which choice most effectively uses information from the given sentences to emphasize Edison's reliance on Hammer?