SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

Scholarly discussions of gender in Shakespeare's comedies often celebrate the rebellion of the playwright's characters against the rigid expectations ______ by Elizabethan society. Most of the comedies end in marriage, with characters returning to their socially dictated gender roles after previously defying them, but there are some notable exceptions.

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

Given that the conditions in binary star systems should make planetary formation nearly impossible, it's not surprising that the existence of planets in such systems has lacked_________explanation. Roman Rafikov and Kedron Silsbee shed light on the subject when they used modeling to determine a complex set of factors that could support planets' development.

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

For her 2021 art installation Anthem, Wu Tsang joined forces with singer and composer Beverly Glenn-Copeland to produce a piece that critics found truly________: they praised Tsang for creatively transforming a museum rotunda into a dynamic exhibit by projecting filmed images of Glenn-Copeland onto a massive 84-foot curtain and filling the space with the sounds of his and other voices singing.

 

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

The following text is adapted from Herman Melville's 1857 novel The Confidence-Man. Humphry Davy was a prominent British chemist and inventor.

Years ago, a grave American savant, being in London, observed at an evening party there, a certain coxcombical fellow, as he thought, an absurd ribbon in his lapel, and full of smart [banter], whisking about to the admiration of as many as were disposed to admire. Great was the savant's disdain; but, chancing ere long to find himself in a corner with the jackanapes, got into conversation with him, when he was somewhat ill-prepared for the good sense of the jackanapes, but was altogether thrown aback, upon subsequently being [informed that he was] no less a personage than Sir Humphry Davy.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

Mathematician Claude Shannon is widely regarded as a foundational figure in information theory. His most important paper, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication," published in 1948 when he was employed at Bell Labs, utilized a concept called a "binary digit" (shortened to "bit") to measure the amount of information in any signal and determine the fastest rate at which information could be transmitted while still being reliably decipherable. Robert Gallagher, one of Shannon's colleagues, said that the bit was "[Shannon's] discovery, and from it the whole communications revolution has sprung."

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

Text 1

Growth in the use of novel nanohybrids—materials created from the conjugation of multiple distinct nanomaterials, such as iron oxide and gold nanomaterials conjugated for use in magnetic imaging—has outpaced studies of nanohybrids'environmental risks. Unfortunately, risk evaluations based on nanohybrids' constituents are not reliable: conjugation may alter constituents' physiochemical properties such that innocuous nanomaterials form a nanohybrid that is anything but.

 

Text 2

The potential for enhanced toxicity of nanohybrids relative to the toxicity of constituent nanomaterials has drawn deserved attention, but the effects of nanomaterial conjugation vary by case. For instance, it was recently shown that a nanohybrid of silicon dioxide and zinc oxide preserved the desired optical transparency of zinc oxide nanoparticles while mitigating the nanoparticles' potential to damage DNA.

 

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the assertion in the underlined portion of Text 1?

Mosasaurs were large marine reptiles that lived in the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 100 million to 66 million years ago. Celina Suarez, Alberto Pérez-Huerta, and T. Lynn Harrell Jr. examined oxygen-18 isotopes in mosasaur tooth enamel in order to calculate likely mosasaur body temperatures and determined that mosasaurs were endothermic—that is, they used internal metabolic processes to maintain a stable body temperature in a variety of ambient temperatures. Suarez, Pérez-Huerta, and Harrell claim that endothermy would have enabled mosasaurs to include relatively cold polar waters in their range.

 

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Suarez, Pérez-Huerta, and Harrell's claim?

The following text is adapted from María Cristina Mena's 1914 short story "The Vine-Leaf."

It is a saying in the capital of Mexico that Dr. Malsufrido carries more family secrets under his hat than any archbishop.

The doctor's hat is, appropriately enough, uncommonly capacious, rising very high, and sinking so low that it seems to be supported by his ears and eyebrows, and it has a furry look, as if it had been brushed the wrong way, which is perhaps what happens to it if it is ever brushed at all. When the doctor takes it off, the family secrets do not fly out like a flock of parrots, but remain nicely bottled up beneath a dome of old and highly polished ivory.

Based on the text, how do people in the capital of Mexico most likely regard Dr. Malsufrido?

Research suggests that REM sleep in animals is homeostatically regulated: animals compensate for periods of REM sleep deprivation by increasing subsequent REM sleep. When on land, fur seals get enough REM sleep, but during the weeks they're in the water, they get almost none. In a study of fur seals' sleep habits, researchers recorded the REM sleep (as a percentage of baseline) of fur seals once they had returned to land. They concluded that REM sleep may not be homeostatically regulated in fur seals, citing as evidence the fact that the seals in the study ______

 

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

Urbanization, industrialization, and the warming climate create thermal pollution (excess heat) in the shallow subsurface soil. Susanne A. Benz and colleagues analyzed thousands of sites on three continents under one scenario in which surface temperature remains at the current level and under another in which the surface reaches the maximum plausible temperature. They then categorized each site according to the percentage of local home heating needs that could be met using this excess subsurface heat. The team concluded that if surface temperature approaches the maximum plausible level, the percentage of sites where thermal pollution could feasibly contribute to meeting home heating needs will increase.

 

Which choice best describes data in the graph that support Benz and colleagues' conclusion?

Early Earth is thought to have been characterized by a stagnant lid tectonic regime, in which the upper lithosphere (the outer rocky layer) was essentially immobile and there was no interaction between the lithosphere and the underlying mantle. Researchers investigated the timing of the transition from a stagnant lid regime to a tectonic plate regime, in which the lithosphere is fractured into dynamic plates that in turn allow lithospheric and mantle material to mix. Examining chemical data from lithospheric and mantle-derived rocks ranging from 285 million to 3.8 billion years old, the researchers dated the transition to 3.2 billion years ago.

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

O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by Willa Cather. In the novel, Cather depicts Alexandra Bergson as a person who takes comfort in understanding the world around her: _______.

Which quotation from O Pioneers! most effectively illustrates the claim?

The domestic sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) descends from a wild plant native to South America. It also populates the Polynesian Islands, where evidence confirms that Native Hawaiians and other Indigenous peoples were cultivating the plant centuries before seafaring first occurred over the thousands of miles of ocean separating them from South America. To explain how the sweet potato was first introduced in Polynesia, botanist Pablo Muñoz-Rodríguez and colleagues analyzed the DNA of numerous varieties of the plant, concluding that Polynesian varieties diverged from South American ones over 100,000 years ago. Given that Polynesia was peopled only in the last three thousand years, the team concluded that ______.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

One theory behind human bipedalism speculates that it originated in a mostly ground-based ancestor that practiced fourlegged "knuckle-walking," like chimpanzees and gorillas do today, and eventually evolved into moving upright on two legs. But recently, researchers observed orangutans, another relative of humans, standing on two legs on tree branches and using their arms for balance while they reached for fruits. These observations may suggest that ______.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

After the first petroleum well was drilled in 1867, one of the first uses for petroleum oil was in making candles. When oil cools, paraffin wax gathers on its surface. This wax burns much more cleanly and efficiently than tallow or beeswax, which had been used for centuries. As electric lighting did not become widespread until the 1920s, many people depended on wax candles for ________ candles a major component of the petroleum industry.

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

Although the quantum mechanical model of the atom, with its probabilistic electron clouds, is the most accurate representation currently ________ such as the Bohr model, still have an important role to play. While it neglects some details, the Bohr model can be very useful for understanding how atoms bond together and how molecules interact.

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

Despite being cheap, versatile, and easy to produce, ______ they are made from nonrenewable petroleum, and most do not biodegrade in landfills.

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

The haiku-like poems of Tomas Tranströmer, which present nature- and dream-influenced images in crisp, spare language, have earned the Swedish poet praise from leading contemporary ______ them Nigerian American essayist and novelist Teju Cole, who has written that Tranströmer's works "contain a luminous simplicity."

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

During the American Civil War, Thomas Morris Chester braved the front lines as a war correspondent for the Philadelphia Press. Amplifying the voices and experiences of Black soldiers ______ of particular importance to Chester, who later became an activist and lawyer during the postwar Reconstruction period.

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

Iraqi artist Nazik Al-Malaika, celebrated as the first Arabic poet to write in free verse, didn't reject traditional forms entirely; her poem "Elegy for a Woman of No Importance" consists of two ten-line stanzas and a standard number of syllables. Even in this superficially traditional work, ______ Al-Malaika was breaking new ground by memorializing an anonymous woman rather than a famous man.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A 2017 study of sign language learners tested the role of iconicity—the similarity of a sign to the thing it represents—in language acquisition. The study found that the greater the iconicity of a sign, the more likely it was to have been learned.______ the correlation between acquisition and iconicity was lower than that between acquisition and another factor studied: sign frequency.

 

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Historically, most conductors of major orchestras and opera companies have been European men, but a new, more diverse generation of artists is stepping up to the podium. Mexico's Alondra de la Parra took over as conductor for the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in 2017, ______ and Colombia's Lina Gonzalez-Granados did the same for the Los Angeles Opera in 2022.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

"Tulip mania"—the rapid rise and sudden fall of the price of tulip bulbs in seventeenth-century Amsterdam—is often cited as an example of the perils of rampant market speculation. However, recent research has demonstrated that the episode was neither as frenzied nor as disastrous as has been thought. The popular myth surrounding it, ______ should be regarded with some skepticism.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

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

·Nissologists are scientists who study islands.

·Some nissologists define an island as any piece of land surrounded by water.

·Using that definition, they determined that Sweden has 221,000 islands.

·Other nissologists define an island as being 1 kilometer square, a certain distance from the mainland, and having at least 50 permanent residents.

·Using that definition, they determined that Sweden has 24 islands.

The student wants to make and support a generalization about nissologists' definition of an island. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish these goals?

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

·Cambodia's Angkor Wat was built in the 1100s to honor the Hindu god Vishnu.

·It has been a Buddhist temple since the sixteenth century.

·Decorrelation stretch analysis is a novel digital imaging technique that enhances the contrast between colors in a photograph.

·Archaeologist Noel Hidalgo Tan applied decorrelation stretch analysis to photographs he had taken of Angkor Wat's plaster walls.

·Tan's analysis revealed hundreds of images unknown to researchers.

The student wants to present Tan's research to an audience unfamiliar with Angkor Wat. 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:

·Stars form in a galaxy when gravity causes a massive cloud of dust and gas to collapse.

·A galaxy in a phase of rapid star formation is called a starburst galaxy.

·Quenching is a process in which a galaxy loses star-forming gas.

·A galaxy that no longer forms stars is called a quenched galaxy.

·A quenched galaxy has entered the poststarburst phase.

The student wants to explain what a quenched galaxy is. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?