SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

The adult emperor moth appears brown and orange with multiple eyespots as a result of pigmented scales that cover its wings and body. Although scales are widely known as the source of a moth's color and pattern, the ______of these scales goes beyond visual display: they also absorb the sun's heat for moths active during the day.

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

The following text is from Charles Chesnutt's 1905 novel The Colonel's Dream.

Mr. French and Mr. Kirby work together. Mr. French, the senior partner, who sat opposite Kirby, was an older man—a safe guess would have placed him somewhere in the debatable ground between forty and fifty; of a good height, as could be seen even from the seated figure,the upper part of which was held erect with the unconscious ease which one associates with military training.

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

Despite a growing view among young people and others in South Africa that celebrated anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela should have taken greater strides as president to effect more substantive structural changes in the country's stratified society, years after his death in 2013 Mandela continues to be ______by many worldwide.

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

In the past, historians who wanted to examine Frederick Douglass's diary and other personal papers had to visit the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, to view them on microfilm (film containing scaled-down reproductions of documents). But traveling to the library often added time and costs to research projects. Now, by going to the library's website, researchers can access digitized versions of Douglass's papers without physically going anywhere.

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

The following text is adapted from Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play Beyond the Horizon. Andrew and Robert Mayo are brothers who grew up on their family's farm.

ANDREW: Farming ain't your nature. There's all the difference shown in just the way us two feel about the farm. You—well, you like the home part of it, I expect; but as a place to work and grow things, you hate it. Ain't that right?

ROBERT: Yes, I suppose it is. For you it's different. You're a Mayo through and through. You're wedded to the soil. You're as much a product of it as an ear of corn is, or a tree. Father is the same. This farm is his life-work.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

When people think of dinosaurs with feathers, they typically think of winged dinosaurs, such as the bat-like Yi qi. However, many dinosaurs that didn't have wings also had feathers on their bodies. For instance, research indicates that the wingless, herbivorous Kulindadromeus likely had feathers.

Which choice best states the main topic of the text?

Text 1

Middlemarch, Cecilia De Noel, and twenty-three other works of the late 1800s and early 1900s were rereleased in 2020 as publicity for a prestigious prize for women writers of fiction. Recognizing that women long had to use male pseudonyms for their works to be granted serious consideration (by publishers and readers alike), the campaign restored the authors' given female names in place of such pseudonyms and brought visibility to identities that should not have been hidden.

Text 2

The belief that women historically were barred from publishing under names perceived as female is persistent. That it is also an overgeneralization becomes obvious when considering writers such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who published Poems and many other works under her own name in the 1800s, and Sara Payson Willis, who elected to use the female pseudonym Fanny Fern for her novels and newspaper columns in the mid-1800s.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the overall characterization in Text 1 of the publicity campaign?

Built in the 1970s, Raccoon Mountain is a pumped-storage hydropower facility (a "water-battery") located in the United States along the Tennessee River. When energy demand is low, excess power from the regional electric utility's nuclear plants is used to pump water (from a lower reservoir filled from the Tennessee River) up a shaft to the summit lake,where the water is stored as gravitational potential energy. When energy demand peaks,the water drains down from the summit lake, spinning turbines and generating upward of 1,700 megawatts of power—enough to power one million homes for twenty hours.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A student in an economics course is examining the decline since 1950 in average hours worked per person per year in various nations due to both increased productivity and the adoption of policies that limit working hours. The first task in this investigation is to determine how the decline in the United Kingdom compares to that in other countries. The student finds that ______

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

Don Mariano Alamar was silently walking up and down the front piazza of his house at the rancho; his hands listlessly clasped behind and his head slightly bent forward in deep thought. He had pushed away to one side the many arm-chairs and wicker rockers with which the piazza was furnished. He wanted a long space to walk. That his meditations were far from agreeable, could easily be seen by the compressed lips, slight frown, and sad gaze of his mild and beautiful blue eyes.

Based on the text, why does Don Mariano push aside the furniture on the piazza?

The nearly forty tribes located in Oklahoma, including the Chickasaw Nation and the Quapaw Tribe, operate numerous businesses, employ tens of thousands of people, and generate billions of dollars in revenue. A student in an economics class is researching the tribes' collective activity as a single industry. The student wants to compare that industry's role in Oklahoma in 2017 with the roles of other industries in the state. Looking at a table with information about three industries, the student finds that compared with the other two industries, tribal economic activity______.

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

Filtration is a widely used method for removing microplastics—plastics with a width less than 5 millimeters (mm)—from waterways. However, filtration systems are typically unable to capture very small microplastics. Menake Piyasena and Nelum Perera designed a device that applies sound waves to water as it flows through a metal tube. The sound waves cause microplastics in the water to gather in the middle and along the sides of the tube. The microplastics can then be separated out by channeling polluted and clean water though different outlets. Testing indicated that the system removes even tiny microplastics, including ones as small as 10 microns, or 0.01 mm, wide. This result suggests that ______.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A creole language is an amalgam of a lexifier, or primary contributor of grammar and vocabulary, with one or more substrates, or secondary contributors. English-lexifying creoles in the Caribbean, such as Jamaican Patois, rely on West African substrates, while Hawaiian Pidgin relies on 'Ōlelo Hawai'i, the Polynesian language of the Native Hawaiian people, with further contributions from Cantonese and other East Asian languages, Portuguese, and Spanish. This is a heterogeneous history, even for a creole language. Moreover, numerous similarities are found among the East Asian substrates, as well as between Portuguese and Spanish. Thus, it can be challenging to credit certain words or features of grammar or pronunciation to any one substrate.

Which statement, if true, would best illustrate the challenge described in the text?

The great blue heron and the small dark heron are long-legged birds that live in wetlands, like the Everglades in Florida. Laura D'Acunto and colleagues wanted to know how these birds choose an area in which to live. They looked at features of the birds' habitats, such as the geographic location of the area and how deep the water is during the birds' breeding season. They found that great blue herons prefer areas with deep water during breeding season, but that was not true for small dark herons. The researchers concluded that water management strategies that increase the depth of water in potential wetland bird habitats during breeding season are therefore more likely to ______.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

When, in 2018, scientists in Germany discovered a fossilized brittle star with three thick, spine-studded arms positioned opposite three thin, undeveloped ones, they found something never before seen in the fossil ______clonal fragmentation, a type of asexual reproduction, an animal splits itself in two, each half then regrowing its missing limbs—just what the brittle star was doing.

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

Most of the ice found on Earth is ice Ih, distinguished by a crystalline structure in which molecules form a hexagonal pattern. Amorphous ice, on the other hand, constitutes most of the ice in the ultrafrigid environment of outer space. Defined by a disorganized molecular structure, ______.

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

Sociologist Alton Okinaka sits on the review board tasked with adding new sites to the Hawai'i Register of Historic Places, which includes the Gulick-Rowell House and the Kukui Heiau. However, Okinaka doesn't make such decisions ______all historical designations must be approved by a group of nine other experts from the fields of architecture, archaeology, history, and Hawaiian culture.

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

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

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

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• In the 1800s, some actors also managed theaters.

• They were known as actor-managers.

• William Charles Macready managed the Covent Garden Theatre (London) from 1837 to 1839.

• He starred in a production of Henry V there in 1838.

• Laura Keene managed Laura Keene's Theatre (New York) from 1856 to 1863.

• She starred in a production of The Seven Sisters there in 1860.

The student wants to emphasize a similarity between Macready and Keene. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

• Uku Randmaa is an Estonian sailor who completed a true circumnavigation of the globe in 2019.

• One of the requirements of a true circumnavigation is that the journey must begin and end in the same port.

• Randmaa's circumnavigation began and ended in the port of Les Sables d'Olonne, France.

• On his journey, Randmaa passed the three great capes of the Southern Ocean.

• His journey took 254 days.

The student wants to provide evidence that Randmaa's journey was a true circumnavigation. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

• Ike Taiga (1723–1776) was a Japanese painter.

• Li Bai (701–762) was a Chinese poet.

• Taiga created the artwork titled Landscape and Couplet of Chinese Verse.

• The artwork is made up of two scrolls.

• Scroll 1 features a painting of a lone figure walking among tall, narrow mountains.

• Scroll 2 features a poem from Li Bai that is about being in nature.

The student wants to emphasize a difference between the two scrolls. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

• J.D. Salinger was an acclaimed writer.

• His first published work of fiction was a short story.

• It was called "The Young Folks."

• It first appeared in Story in 1940.

The student wants to identify the title of J.D. Salinger's first published short story. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

• The human tongue contains taste receptors for a rich, savory flavor called umami.

• Umami is triggered by the compounds in a variety of foods, including pork and soy sauce.

• Participants in a study tasted a sample of winged kelp, a type of brown seaweed.

• They rated its umami intensity as moderate.

• The participants tasted a sample of arame, another type of brown seaweed.

• They rated its umami intensity as high.

The student wants to emphasize a difference between the two seaweeds. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?