SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

The recovery program led by Marisel López-Flores has dramatically increased the population size of the endangered Amazona vittata,the endemic parrot of Puerto Rico. Given that A. vittata corresponds in physiology, behavior,and ecology to endangered Amazona species elsewhere in the Caribbean, the conservation approach developed by López-Flores may be__________across the genus.

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

Steiger Butte Drum, a family ensemble from the Klamath Tribes of the Pacific Northwest, collaborated with composer Michael Gordon to create Natural History, a work featuring traditional drumming and vocals alongside an orchestra and chorus. Steiger Butte Drum's participation is__________to the piece: members not only contributed to its composition but also must be included in all performances.

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

The following text is adapted from Susan Glaspell's 1917 play The People. Oscar, a writer at a newspaper called The People, is writing at a table when a woman enters the office to speak to the editor.

 

THE WOMAN: This is the office of The People?

OSCAR: Um-hum.

THE WOMAN: (Excitedly.) I came to see the author of those wonderful words.

OSCAR: (Rising.) Which wonderful words?

THE WOMAN: About moving toward the beautiful distances.

OSCAR: (Loses interest and returns to his writing.): Oh. Those are Mr. Wills' wonderful words.

THE WOMAN: Could I see him?

OSCAR: He isn't here yet. He's just back from California. Won't be at the office till a little later.

 

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

Some researchers posit that the species inhabiting the South Pacific island of Grande Terre belong to clades that predate the island's split from remnants of the former supercontinent Gondwana around 80 million years ago. A study conducted by Yohan Pillon et al. found, however, that the crown age (the age of the most recent common ancestor of all living and extinct species in the clade) of the clade of Geissois trees on Grande Terre is 7.3 million years; Pillon et al. further found that the crown age of the clade of Geissois trees in the South Pacific generally is also approximately 7.3 million years.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

Vertical gene transfer involves the transmission of genetic material from a parent to offspring; horizontal gene transfer, on the other hand, involves the exchange of genetic material between organisms not in a parent-offspring relationship. While horizontal gene transfer is common among prokaryotes—single-celled organisms, such as the bacteria Brevundimonas diminuta and Lactobacillus curvatus—it has rarely been observed among eukaryotes (multicellular organisms). However, new studies suggest that horizontal gene transfer is more common in eukaryotes than originally thought.

 

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

Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2015 hip-hop musical Hamilton depicts historical political figure Alexander Hamilton as a self-made man who, through sheer determination, transcends his humble origins to become a key participant in the founding of the United States. This depiction of Hamilton establishes him as a compelling and well-defined protagonist but obscures other facets of the historical person's views, namely his elitism and mistrust of the democratic politics of some of his contemporaries. In effect, the musical's portrayal of Hamilton fails to convey the ideological complexity that a more nuanced portrayal might have suggested.

The text most strongly suggests that particular aspects of Hamilton's political beliefs may have been omitted from the musical in part to achieve which effect?

Text 1

In a seminal 1979 study, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky presented students and college faculty from Israel, Sweden, and the United States with hypothetical questions involving financial decisions. Finding that participants' responses indicated that losses have a greater psychological impact than equivalent gains do, the researchers formulated the concept of loss aversion, which has since informed research in fields ranging from behavioral economics to law.

 

Text 2

Fieke Harinck et al. conducted an experiment in which Dutch study participants were exposed to financial choices that involved potential losses of either relatively minor sums of money, such as 2 euros (low-stakes contexts), or more substantial sums, such as 50 euros (high-stakes contexts). The researchers concluded that only the latter contexts were associated with loss aversion.

Based on the texts, how would Harinck et al. (Text 2) most likely respond to Kahneman and Tversky's finding (Text 1)?

LaRose is a 2016 novel by Ojibwe writer Louise Erdrich. It explores how historical events affect families on a reservation in rural North Dakota. LaRose is typical of Erdrich's work.

Her writing usually focuses on portrayals of everyday life in Ojibwe communities. Yet some of her novels have fantastical plots and take place outside Ojibwe communities. For example, her 2017 novel Future Home of the Living God is essentially science fiction, and the otherworldly events in its plot are set in urban Minneapolis.

According to the text, what is one way that Future Home of the Living God differs from most of Erdrich's work?

The US Department of Agriculture's Fruit and Tree Nuts Outlook is a document that covers a variety of subjects, from the increasing availability of fresh fruit to the forecast for yields of apple crops. A student studying agricultural economics is consulting a graph in the document that shows the prices for which several types of nuts have been sold by growers in the United States over four growing seasons from 2016 to 2020. The student wishes to determine in which season walnuts reached their lowest price. Consulting the graph, the student finds that this season was the_________.

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

Lin-Tai Ho and colleagues counted fish in a tide pool in Taiwan at several times during the year and found that some species had a significantly higher maximum population count than others. For example, the highest count for the dusky frillgoby was 38 individuals in January of 2001, whereas the highest count for the Bengal sergeant was_________.

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

The following text is from Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1841 essay "The Method of Nature."

The scholars are the priests of that thought which establishes the foundations of the earth. No matter what is their special work or profession, they stand for the spiritual interest of the world, and it is a common calamity if they neglect their post in a country where the material interest is so predominant as it is in America.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

Declining fishing technology costs and overexploitation of near-shore fishing grounds have made isolated oceanic reefs, which often lack regulatory protections, increasingly attractive to commercial and sport fishers. A team led by Octavio Aburto-Oropeza surveyed the biomass density and species composition of two isolated reefs: Alacranes, a protected (fishing prohibited) reef 135 kilometers from the Yucatan Peninsula, and Bajos del Norte, an unprotected reef 25 kilometers further out to sea. Species at the highest level of the trophic pyramid constituted 34% of the biomass at Alacranes and 10% of the biomass at Bajos del Norte. Aburto-Oropeza and colleagues attribute this difference to the two reefs' difference in regulatory status.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Aburto-Oropeza and colleagues' explanation?

Research into whether floating mats of macroalgae affect the prevalence of microphytobenthos (MPB)—benthic, or bottom-dwelling, microalgae—has produced varying results: Amber Hardison and colleagues determined that macroalgae do not impact MPB, whereas Kristina Sundbäck and colleagues observed that benthic chlorophyll concentrations (a common measure of MPB biomass) decreased in the presence of macroalgae. Hypothesizing that macroalgal mats have a negative effect on MPB biomass, Alice F. Besterman and Michael L. Pace surveyed mudflats in Curlew Bay and other coastal sites in Virginia. Because Besterman and Pace did not find a significant correlation between benthic chlorophyll concentrations and the abundance of macroalgal mats, it can be concluded that__________.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Researchers Eugeni Vidal-Tortosa and Robin Lovelace looked at the relationship between street lighting in a city and people's willingness to ride a bicycle. Their results suggest that poor street lighting can deter new or inexperienced cyclists from riding in a city but has little effect on experienced cyclists. Therefore, increasing the number of streetlights in a city could potentially________.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Trade with neighboring civilizations contributed to the success of the Sasanian Empire,which reigned in Mesopotamia from around 224 CE to 651CE. By supplying silk, textiles,and leather to societies that lacked these valuable___________Sasanian Empire grew not only in wealth but also in power and influence.

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

Many ranching terms come from Spanish. For example, the word "stockade"(a fence)__________from the Spanish word estacada, and "cinch"(a belt) derives from cincho. This is because the first Anglo, African, and Native American cattle ranchers in the southwestern US learned the trade from Spanish-speaking Mexican vaqueros, or cowboys.

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

Though it was designated as mission___________mission was actually the forty-second flight under NASA's Space Shuttle Program.

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

The epic poem The Poem of the Cid dates back to the 12th century. Originally__________in Old Spanish, it has since been translated into other languages.

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

A voluntary workforce established to make improvements to public lands, parks, and forests across the US, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)—though widely popular—was not without its critics. For Aldo Leopold, the CCC was implicated in what__________"Idle CCC camps,"he wrote,"presented a widespread temptation to build new and often needless roads."

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

In his 2023 collection The Diaspora Sonnets, Filipino American poet Oliver de la Paz leverages the sonnet form's "diamond-like quality of precision," as he describes it. The poems often adhere scrupulously to the form's centuries-old conventions, such as its characteristic fourteen-line length. In the twelve-line poem "Diaspora Sonnet at the Feeders Before the Freeze," ___________de la Paz playfully subverts sonnet conventions, the poem's truncated length conveying a sense of abruptness.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

· A wind farm uses turbines to convert wind into electrical power.

· Offshore wind farms tend to produce more electricity than farms on land (onshore).

· Offshore wind farms tend to be more expensive to build and maintain than onshore ones.

· Lake Bonney Wind Farm is an onshore wind farm in Millicent, Australia.

Which choice most effectively uses information from the given sentences to explain the advantages of onshore wind farms over offshore ones?

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

· The dinosaur ant is an insect species.

· It was believed to be extinct until a living dinosaur ant was identified in Australia in 1977.

· Mount Diablo buckwheat is a plant species.

· It was believed to be extinct until a living Mount Diablo buckwheat was identified in the United States in 2005.

· They are considered Lazarus species.

· "Lazarus species" is a term for living species of organisms that were once believed to be extinct.

The student wants to specify when the dinosaur ant was identified. 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 Mohs scale of mineral hardness is a ten-point scale that orders minerals by hardness based on their ability to scratch other minerals.

· Minerals with larger numbers are harder than minerals with smaller numbers and can leave visible scratches on them.

· Minerals with smaller numbers are softer than minerals with larger numbers and cannot leave visible scratches on them.

· The mineral apatite has a Mohs scale number of 5.

· The mineral quartz has a Mohs scale number of 7.

· The mineral diamond has a Mohs scale number of 10.

The student wants to emphasize quartz's Mohs scale number. 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:

·Stop motion animation (SMA) is a filmmaking technique that involves manipulating characters (puppets, clay figures, etc.) by hand in minute increments.

·Each change in position is meticulously captured in a series of images that, when played back, give the illusion of motion.

·Producer Travis Knight: "It's a process that dates back to the dawn of cinema, with a charm and a warmth and a beauty that other forms of animation... do not have. And because you effectively get one opportunity to get it right, every shot is a high-wire act."

·Knight: SMA is "raw and it's imperfect. It's also undeniably human."

The student wants to emphasize the aesthetic qualities of SMA by quoting Knight. 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:

· An isthmus is a strip of land that connects two larger pieces of land across an expanse of water.

· It is also known as a land bridge.

· The Isthmus of Catalina Island is located in the United States.

· It connects the northwestern part of Santa Catalina Island to the main part of the island.

The student wants to provide a specific example of an isthmus. 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:

·Founded in 2016, Kernel is a neurotechnology company that develops brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

·BCIs interpret and execute brain signals to allow users to control external software or hardware with their thoughts.

·Founded in 2008, Neuros Medical is a neurotechnology company that develops neuromodulation technologies.

·Neuromodulation technologies use neural interfaces to stimulate nervous system structures and influence neural activity.

·Founded in 2014, SensArs is a neurotechnology company that develops neuroprostheses.

·Neuroprostheses act as replacement brain functions to restore the user's lost sensory, motor, or neural functions.

The student wants to contrast the type of neurotechnology Kernel develops with the type of neurotechnology Neuros Medical develops. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?