SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

Investigating whether shared false visual memories—specific but inaccurate and widely held recollections of images such as product logos—are caused by people's previous ______ incorrect renditions of the images, researchers Deepasri Prasad and Wilma Bainbridge found that, in fact, such memories are often not explained by familiarity with erroneous versions of the images.

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

Some scientists have suggested that mammals in the Mesozoic era were not a very ______ group, but paleontologist ZheXi Luo's research suggests that early mammals living in the shadow of dinosaurs weren't all ground-dwelling insectivores. Fossils of various plant-eating mammals have been found in China, including species like Vilevolodon diplomylos, which Luo says could glide like a flying squirrel.

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

The author's claim about the relationship between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens is ______, as it fails to account for several recent archaeological discoveries. To be convincing, his argument would need to address recent finds of additional hominid fossils, such as the latest Denisovan specimens and Homo longi.

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

Raymond Antrobus, an accomplished poet and writer of prose, recently released his debut spoken word poetry album, The First Time I Wore Hearing Aids, in collaboration with producer Ian Brennan. The album contains both autobiographical and reflective pieces combining Antrobus's spoken words with Brennan's fragmented audio elements and pieces of music to convey how people who are deaf may experience sound, both its presence and absence. Some critics suggest that the album questions the function of sound in the world, highlighting that the experience of sound is multifaceted.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

Space scientists Anna-Lisa Paul, Stephen M. Elardo, and Robert Ferl planted seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana in samples of lunar regolith—the surface material of the Moon—and, serving as a control group, in terrestrial soil. They found that while all the seeds germinated, the roots of the regolith-grown plants were stunted compared with those in the control group. Moreover, unlike the plants in the control group, the regolith-grown plants exhibited red pigmentation, reduced leaf size, and inhibited growth rates—indicators of stress that were corroborated by postharvest molecular analysis.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

The following text is adapted from Indian Boyhood, a 1902 memoir by Ohiyesa (Charles A. Eastman), a Santee Dakota writer. In the text, Ohiyesa recalls how the women in his tribe harvested maple syrup during his childhood.

 

Now the women began to test the trees—moving leisurely among them, axe in hand, and striking a single quick blow, to see if the sap would appear. The trees, like people, have their individual characters; some were ready to yield up their life-blood, while others were more reluctant. Now one of the birchen basins was set under each tree, and a hardwood chip driven deep into the cut which the axe had made. From the corners of this chip—at first drop by drop, then more freely—the sap trickled into the little dishes.

 

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

Several scholars have argued that conditions in England in the late ninth through early eleventh centuries—namely, burgeoning literacy amid running conflicts between England's Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and Danish invaders—were especially conducive to the production of the Old English epic poem Beowulf, and they have dated the poem's composition accordingly. It is not inconceivable that Beowulf emerged from such a context, but privileging contextual fit over the linguistic evidence of an eighth- or even seventh-century composition requires a level of justification that thus far has not been presented.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

In a research paper, a student criticizes some historians of modern African politics, claiming that they have evaluated Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, primarily as a symbol rather than in terms of his actions.

Which quotation from a work by a historian would best illustrate the student's claim?

Researchers used anonymized location data from the US and Côte d'Ivoire to document people's daily patterns of mobility, using these results to test the efficacy of the researchers' predictive computer model. In each country, unidirectional cycles among two, three, or four locations were empirically the most common pattern types; the graph shows each of these pattern types as a proportion of all pattern instances found for that country (e.g., the measured value for CI 3 in the graph, 0.12, indicates that the three-location pattern constituted 12% of all pattern instances in the Côte d'Ivoire data). The researchers ran their model twice under different assumptions, concluding that emphasizing the salience of local population density over personal preferences generally yielded the best results.

 

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to illustrate the researchers' conclusion?

Mycorrhizal fungi in soil benefits many plants, substantially increasing the mass of some. A student conducted an experiment to illustrate this effect. The student chose three plant species for the experiment, including two that are mycorrhizal hosts (species known to benefit from mycorrhizal fungi) and one nonmycorrhizal species (a species that doesn't benefit from and may even be harmed by mycorrhizal fungi). The student then grew several plants from each species both in soil containing mycorrhizal fungi and in soil that had been treated to kill mycorrhizal and other fungi. After several weeks, the student measured the plants' average mass and was surprised to discover that ______.

 

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

Text 1

Like the work of Ralph Ellison before her, Toni Morrison's novels feature scenes in which characters deliver sermons of such length and verbal dexterity that for a time, the text exchanges the formal parameters of fiction for those of oral literature. Given the many other echoes of Ellison in Morrison's novels, both in structure and prose style, these scenes suggest Ellison's direct influence on Morrison.

 

Text 2

In their destabilizing effect on literary form, the sermons in Morrison's works recall those in Ellison's. Yet literature by Black Americans abounds in moments where interpolated speech erodes the division between oral and written forms that literature in English has traditionally observed. Morrison's use of the sermon is attributable not only to the influence of Ellison but also to a community-wide strategy of resistance to externally imposed literary conventions.

 

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely characterize the underlined claim in Text 1?

There is a growing belief that teaching medical students about art alongside standard science and clinical coursework helps them become more observant, develop greater patient empathy, and strengthen their communication skills. But some medical program educators are skeptical, questioning if arts and humanities experiences can be clearly shown to have any worthwhile advantages for their students. Research into the effectiveness of arts programs for medical students by Neha Mukunda and her colleagues found that evidence is largely anecdotal and based on studies that were short in duration, limited to single institutions, or restricted to small numbers of students. To strengthen the evidence base in support of incorporating humanities into the coursework for medical students, then, ______.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Art collectives, like the United States- and Vietnam-based collective The Propeller Group or Cuba's Los Carpinteros, are groups of artists who agree to work together: perhaps for stylistic reasons, or to advance certain shared political ideals,or to help mitigate the costs of supplies and studio space. Regardless of the reasons, art collectives usually involve some collaboration among the artists. Based on a recent series of interviews with various art collectives, an arts journalist claims that this can be difficult for artists who are often used to having sole control over their work.

Which quotation from the interviews best illustrates the journalist's claim?

Aerogels are highly porous foams consisting mainly of tiny air pockets within a solidified gel. These lightweight materials are often applied to spacecraft and other equipment required to withstand extreme conditions, as they provide excellent insulation despite typically being brittle and eventually fracturing due to degradation from repeated exposure to high heat. Now, Xiangfeng Duan of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues have developed an aerogel with uniquely flexible properties. Unlike earlier aerogels, Duan's team's material contracts rather than expands when heated and fully recovers after compressing to just 5% of its original volume, suggesting that ______.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

On July 23, 1854, a clipper ship called the Flying Cloud entered San Francisco ______ left New York Harbor under the guidance of Captain Josiah Perkins Creesy and his wife, navigator Eleanor Creesy, a mere 89 days and 8 hours earlier, the celebrated ship set a record that would stand for 135 years.

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

The neurotechnology company Kernel is working on an exciting new technology: headsets that analyze the brain's blood flow and electrical patterns to map cortical activity. Kernel's technology, alongside other such brain-computer interfaces that function by interpreting and executing brain signals, ______the way for future advancements in neurotechnology.

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

In assessing the films of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, ______ have missed his equally deep engagement with Japanese artistic traditions such as Noh theater.

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

When they were first discovered in Australia in 1798, duck-billed, beaver-tailed platypuses so defied categorization that one scientist assigned them the name Ornithorhynchus paradoxus: "paradoxical bird-snout." The animal, which lays eggs but also nurses ______ young with milk, has since been classified as belonging to the monotremes group.

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

Ten of William Shakespeare's plays are classified as histories. Although each one of these plays, which include Henry V and Richard III, ______ on a single historical figure (specifically, an English king), some, such as Henry VI Part One and Henry VI Part Two, feature different episodes from the same monarch's life.     

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

As can be seen in the case of Poetry, a Chicago magazine published from 1912 to the present day, some small periodicals influential in the development of the modernist movement have been explored in depth by scholars. The Florentine magazine The Mask (1908–1929), ______ remains among those modernist periodicals "of interest and significance about which relatively little is known," according to scholars Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Architect Victor Gruen, the designer of New Jersey's Cherry Hill shopping mall, conceived of the mall as an indoor version of the European town square, a communal space that encouraged visitors to stroll and linger. _______he designed Cherry Hill Mall with long, pedestrian-friendly promenades and ample seating areas clustered around fountains and greenery.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

James Warren employed the pseudonym "Helvidius Priscus"—the name of an ancient Roman philosopher—in political essays he wrote in 1787, a choice that accomplished far more than simply concealing his authorship. ______it wasn't an arbitrary pen name but rather a complex rhetorical strategy through which Warren aligned his anti-federalist views with the venerated republican ideals of the ancient world, thereby bolstering the authority of his writing.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

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

·A thermal inversion is a phenomenon where a layer of atmosphere is warmer than the layer beneath it.

·In 2022, a team of researchers studied the presence of thermal inversions in twenty-five gas giants.

·Gas giants are planets largely composed of helium and hydrogen.

·The team found that gas giants featuring a thermal inversion were also likely to contain heat-absorbing metals.

·One explanation for this relationship is that these metals may reside in a planet's upper atmosphere, where their absorbed heat causes an increase in temperature.

The student wants to present the study's findings to an audience already familiar with thermal inversions. 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 commodity chain is the series of links connecting the production and purchase of a commodity on the world market.

·Chinese American anthropologist Anna Tsing studies the contemporary commodity chain of matsutake mushrooms.

·At one end of the matsutake chain are mushroom pickers in Oregon.

·At the other end are wealthy consumers who buy the costly matsutake in Japan.

·According to Tsing, "Japanese traders began importing matsutake in the 1980s, when the scarcity of matsutake in Japan first became clear."

The student wants to provide an overview of the matsutake commodity chain. 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:

·Archaeologist Jon Erlandson and colleagues argue that humans first arrived in the Americas by sea.

·They propose that humans traveled between Pacific Ocean islands and coastlines from northeast Asia to the Americas.

·Many of these islands and coastal zones were later submerged as glaciers melted and sea levels rose.

·The researchers think that "a coastal route, including kelp forests and estuaries, would have provided a rich mix of marine, estuarine, riverine, and terrestrial resources" such as seaweeds, fish, and birds.

·This proposed scenario is known as the kelp highway hypothesis.

The student wants to summarize the kelp highway hypothesis. 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:

·Astronomers estimate that the number of comets orbiting the Sun is in the billions.

·81P/Wild is one of many comets whose orbit has changed over time.

·81P/Wild's orbit once lay between the orbits of Uranus and Jupiter.

·The comet's orbit is now positioned between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.

The student wants to make and support a generalization about the orbits of comets. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish these goals?