SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

Native Hawaiian fiber artist Marques Hanalei Marzan creates art using the techniques of lauhala weaving. Lauhala weaving is a traditional Hawaiian art form that uses leaves of the hala tree. Often, Marzan doesn't have a specific__________what the final product will look like when he starts a new piece. Instead, he makes up his designs as he weaves, allowing inspiration to take him in unexpected directions.

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

The following text is from Lilliam Rivera's 2020 novel Never Look Back. The text describes the narrator's friend Pheus, a young musician, after finishing a performance during a church service.

 

Pheus pulls a handkerchief from his back pocket and wipes his forehead. I mime a quiet clap for him. He does a slight bow and flashes his dimples. This is where Pheus truly shines. When Pheus is in front of an audience, it's as if he becomes another person, a more heightened version of himself.

 

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

The following text is from Shirley Jackson's 1951 novel Hangsaman.

 

Natalie was leaving for her first year in college a week after her brother went back to high school; sometimes twenty-one days resolved itself into three weeks, and seemed endless; sometimes it seemed a matter of minutes slipping by so swiftly that there would never be time to approach college with appropriate consideration, to form a workable personality to take along.

 

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

Humans aren't the only ones who use tools. Other animals also find tools helpful. Octopuses use two halves of a seashell to provide protection or a place to hide. And despite sometimes being thought of as simple, many birds make clever use of tools as well. New Caledonian crows are well known for creating hooks and spears from twigs. Furthermore, palm cockatoos have been observed using leaves to pad their beaks when opening nuts.

According to the text, what are New Caledonian crows known for?

The Marsalis family is often referred to as "the first family of jazz." Four of the children of celebrated pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr. went on to become performers who are also critically acclaimed: drummer Jason, trombonist Delfeayo, saxophonist Branford, and trumpeter Wynton. Wynton notably went on to become the first jazz composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music (for his oratorio Blood on the Fields).

Which choice best describes the main purpose of the text?

Community science, which involves professional scientists collaborating with members of the public to study a topic, is often an effective and engaging way to conduct research. It can increase the amount of data researchers can collect, offer insight into the daily life of a scientist, and spark youth interest in science. This approach was essential to the success of biologist Abbigail Merrill and colleagues' study of how weather relates to a butterfly's flower choice, which included findings from hundreds of students and community members in northwestern Arkansas.

 

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

Text 1

Scientists can learn a lot about the Hispaniolan ground sloth and other prehistoric sloths from their fossils. But it can be hard to study sloths alive today. In the wild, the Linnaeus's two-toed sloth and other sloths spend most of their time in trees. They're difficult to observe because of their excellent camouflage and slow movements.

Text 2

Rebecca Cliffe and other scientists can now record the previously hidden activities of tree-dwelling sloths by using a backpack monitor. Such monitors can provide information to correct misconceptions. It was long believed that sloths are slow because of laziness. But, in fact, sloths' slow movements are useful. Being slow protects them from predators with keen eyesight.

The author of Text 1 and the author of Text 2 both discuss which topic?

 

Most bird species that are capable of flight weigh less than a kilogram (kg), which is not surprising considering the burden that extra body weight puts on a flying animal. But not all flying birds are so light, as we can see most clearly in the example of the___________.

 

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

Women like Minnie McNeal Kenny made important early contributions to the history of US cryptology, a field concerned with secure data communication and storage. Kenny worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) and received the NSA's two highest awards. She also held administrative positions at the National Cryptologic School. In this way, Kenny and others like her helped make it possible for more women—such as Anna Lysyanskaya, who currently works in and teaches digital cryptography—to enter the field of cryptology.

According to the text, what is the relationship between Kenny and Lysyanskaya?

Optimal foraging theory (OFT) holds that animals' foraging behaviors reflect cost-benefit trade-offs that vary by species and with dynamic ecological circumstances. One such circumstance is lunar intensity, which Mahmoud-Reza Hemami and colleagues found to be negatively associated with foraging by Iranian jerboas but Deborah J. Curtis and colleagues found to be positively associated with foraging by mongoose lemurs. This discrepancy is explicable in terms of OFT: the lemurs' greater reliance on vision means that higher lunar intensity benefits them more than it benefits the jerboas.

Information in the text best supports which statement about OFT?

Terrestrial plants typically carry a negative electrical charge, while bees and other pollinators tend to accumulate a positive charge. A team of researchers therefore hypothesized that electrostatic attraction (mutual attraction between objects with opposite charges) might enhance pollen transmission between plants and their pollinator species. The team's experiments showed that the maximum positive charge of wintering honeybees is sufficiently high to facilitate electrostatic pollen transfer, a finding that suggests that_________.

 

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

A student is writing a research paper on the history of irrigation in the United States, situating the development of Lake Yosemite (created in Merced County, California, in 1888) in a larger historical context. The student claims that California's climate renders irrigation an essential component of agriculture in some parts of the state but not in others.

Which quotation from a study of California agriculture best supports the student's claim?

Password strength meters (PSMs) provide real-time feedback to users during the password-creation process about how secure a potential password is. PSMs often include"nudges"—design elements meant to encourage the creation of robust passwords. Other PSMs provide direct guidance on how to create strong passwords. A research team found that the strongest passwords resulted from a combination of these approaches. The team also found that the specific type of nudge (reciprocity, compensation, etc.) did not significantly affect user behavior. It therefore follows that when creating passwords, users receiving_________.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Namibia has classified the house sparrow as an invasive species that could harm some of the country's native species. But researchers Alejandro Camacho and Jason McLachlan have pointed out that "invasive"and "native" are labels that describe temporary circumstances. Changes in Earth's climate may force animals from their current ranges. Climate changes may also create good habitats in areas where a species couldn't live previously. These observations suggest that_________.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Known in Taiwan for hosting its first televised cooking show, renowned_________Fu Pei-mei taught viewers how to cook Chinese cuisine for almost 40 years. Fu gained acclaim outside of Taiwan as well, particularly from the success of her first bilingual Mandarin-English cookbook, published in 1969.

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

The relationship between grassland arthropod populations and agricultural fertilizers containing macronutrients—such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium—was the focus of a 1992 study in the__________by the researcher Walther van Wingerden, the study examined a variety of arthropod specimens, which had beend collected by hand.

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

Robert B. Elliott was one of the nearly two thousand African Americans who won a public office during the Reconstruction era, the twelve-year period that followed the Civil War. A politician from South Carolina,_________.

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

After screening Stellar by Anishinaabe filmmaker Darlene Naponse, the members of the selection committee for the Native Women in Film Festival were so impressed by the feature-length romance that they chose__________as one of the films to be shown at the festival.

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

The Okavango Delta is a vital water source and hub for biodiversity in southern Africa. Koketso Mookodi, a director of the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project (NGOWP) in Botswana, helps educate the public about________important place.

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

Al-Andalus, the historical region of the lberian Peninsula that includes most of modern-day Spain,was ruled by various Arabic-speaking Muslim states between the eighth and fifteenth centuries.___________many Arabic words, such as "alacrán"—meaning "scorpion"—made their way into the Spanish language.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

In the West African country of Sierra Leone, the percentage of the population living in cities rose from 40.8% to 42.9% between 2015 and 2020. _________urbanization rates climbed across West Africa as a whole, rising 3.2 percentage points in that five-year period.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Broadcasting from the Yankton Sioux Tribe's lands in southern South Dakota, the Native-run radio station KDKO 89.5FM does much to serve the local Dakota-speaking community.__________it broadcasts local news and music as well as programming in the Dakota language.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

The World Cup of men's soccer, one of the biggest sporting events on the planet, brought 32 national teams from six continents to the host country, Germany,in 2006._________only 16 teams, all from Europe and the Americas, competed in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Anthropologist, activist, and musician Lila Downs draws on a variety of Mexican musical genres in her 2023 album La Sánchez.________she draws on corridos, rancheras, and other genres of northern Mexico, even though she is from the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca. "La Sánchez is my contribution," Downs says in an interview, "as a southern woman, that also considers this music as hers."

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

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

· 2024: Spain and Portugal sponsored a workshop to address recent encounters between Iberian orcas and marine vessels off the Iberian Peninsula.

· Many of the 637 documented incidents involved pods of orcas damaging vessels by ramming, nudging, or biting the rudders.

· Studies of Iberian orcas suggest recent increases in tuna populations have reduced the time the orcas spend hunting by 99%.

· Researchers believe this shift has increased the number of interactions between marine vessels and understimulated orcas.

· The workshop advised mariners to avoid orcas pending further testing of the efficacy of TAST, a harmless acoustic deterrent.

The student wants to make and support a claim about Iberian orca behavior. 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 Dnieper River is in Europe.

· It ranks No. 48 among the longest rivers in the world.

· It is 2,287 kilometers long.

· The Indus River is in Asia.

· It ranks No. 19 among the longest rivers in the world.

· It is 3,610 kilometers long.

The student wants to compare the lengths of the two rivers. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?