SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

Writer Lydia Davis observed that while_________literary forms, such as the poem, are recognizable as such even as they evolve, there are pathbreaking "intergeneric" forms that might, for example, use elements of both fables and realist narratives to create something unclassifiable. Davis's own very short literary pieces arguably fit in this category, since they straddle the line between prose and poetry.

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

Mauricio Drelichman and Hans-Joachim Voth's analysis of the debt repayments and expenditure of the government of Philip II (who ruled an empire including Spain and Milan from 1556 to 1598) found a seeming contradiction: although the government had several short-term cash shortages, it ran an even larger surplus than did the government of eighteenth-century Britain, a nation considered_________of fiscal virtue.

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

Although oil shocks—such as the 10% rise in oil prices in November 1970—can strongly affect individual consumers, Gbadebo Oladosu and colleagues have shown that at the level of national economies, their effects are often quite________. The effect of recent oil shocks on the gross domestic product of Germany, for example, was only slightly greater than zero.

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

The Skin I'm In was Sharon G. Flake's debut novel. It was published in 1998. A debut novel is the first book that an author has published. Debut novels are especially interesting to literary critics (people whose job it is to evaluate books) and readers because these books offer a look at new voices in the literary world.

According to the text, what is someone who professionally evaluates books called?

The following text is adapted from L.M. Montgomery's 1923 novel Emily of New Moon. Emily, a young girl who lives on a farm run by her aunt Elizabeth, wants to be a published writer someday.

One of the things they [argued] about was the fact that Emily, as Aunt Elizabeth discovered one day, was in the habit of using more of her egg money to buy paper than Aunt Elizabeth approved of. What did Emily do with so much paper? They had a fuss over this and eventually Aunt Elizabeth discovered that Emily was writing stories. Emily had been writing stories all winter under Aunt Elizabeth's very nose and Aunt Elizabeth had never suspected it. She had fondly supposed that Emily was writing school compositions.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

The following text is from Anthony Trollope's 1855 novel The Warden. Charles James is the son of a high-ranking clergy member.

Charles James was an exact and careful boy; he never committed himself; he well knew how much was expected from the eldest son of the Archdeacon of Barchester, and was therefore mindful not to mix too freely with other boys. He had not the great talents of his younger brothers, but he exceeded them in judgment and propriety of demeanour; his fault, if he had one, was an over-attention to words instead of things; there was a thought too much finesse about him, and, as even his father sometimes told him, he was too fond of a compromise.

 

Which choice best states the function of the phrase "if he had one" in the text as a whole?

The establishment of urban green spaces for the abatement of fine particulate matter and other major air-pollutant concentrations is gaining public support, but urban planners must proceed with caution given subtleties in the body of evidence for the strategy's efficacy. High-level reports have attributed pollutant reductions to cities' inclusion of green spaces; however, one study found that while trees are negatively associated with air pollutants when considered on a citywide scale, at the street level, this association is minimal and at times positive. Because research tends to focus on large-scale effects in cities, decision-makers may be unaware that those outcomes are not always generalizable across spatial scales.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

Neuroscientist Artin Arshamian and his team sought to determine what affects a person's perception of an odor as pleasant: is it culture, personal taste, or aspects of human anatomy? The team assessed odor preferences in ten groups of people with different modes of living (urban, agricultural, and hunter-gatherer) including urban dwellers from a large city in Thailand and Chachi people from a small community in Ecuador. The team observed that across cultures, people generally rated odors about the same: vanillin, which smells like vanilla, was typically rated more pleasant than isovaleric acid, which smells like human sweat. The team therefore concluded that___________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Students in a biology class investigated why individual house mice (Mus musculus) can differ from one another in their circulating sodium level. The students compared wild-type mice and knockout mice, which are mice with specific genes deactivated, when mice of each type were placed in similar naturalistic environments and taken for periodic blood sampling. Finding that knockout mice with the gene Asb5 deactivated tended to have lower concentrations of sodium in their blood than did wild-type mice, the students concluded that differences in circulating sodium level among house mice in nature are solely attributable to variations in the level of expression of Asb5.

Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the students' conclusion?

Calculations may be inexact due to rounding.

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 Finland compares to that in other countries. The student finds that__________

 

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the student's conclusion?

Ratified in 2017 by two-thirds of World Trade Organization member nations, the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) is a trade-reform measure that aims to reduce redundant customs procedures and other costly aspects of international trade. In a 2021 report, economist Jayson Beckman modeled global market prices of several agricultural commodities under both the TFA and an alternative trade-reform scenario: removal of agricultural tariffs (taxes on imports that generally increase prices on imported goods). After reviewing data from the report, a student concludes that overall, consumers of the commodities listed in the table would likely benefit more from the TFA than they would from tariff removal.

 

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support the student's claim?

Issuing a one-dollar coin yields positive seigniorage—the profit generated when the face value of a coin exceeds the unit cost of producing it—for Singapore's government, which in turn can be used to fund such services as transportation. Some countries, such as the Netherlands, have ceased manufacturing certain coins because their production created negative seigniorage. In an economics class discussing the data in the table, one student argues that in 2023, the one-cent coin was the least financially sensible for the US to produce, while another student argues that the five-cent coin was.

 

Based on the information in the text and the table, the two students most likely disagree about the answer to which question?

Describing adverbs as "silly," novelist Chuck Palahniuk is one of several authors and literary critics who have recommended minimizing the use of adverbs, especially those ending in -ly (e.g., "graciously"), in works of fiction. To investigate the prevalence of -ly adverbs in novels, author and statistician Ben Blatt used natural language processing—machine learning technology that reads and interprets text—to calculate the rates at which these words occur in the novels of William Faulkner, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. Blatt concluded that in Faulkner's oeuvre, there is a negative correlation between -ly adverb proliferation and perceived literary merit.

Which finding, if true, would most directly illustrate the pattern Blatt identified?

In 1991, New Jersey_____________official fossil: the Hadrosaurus foulkii, which is a Cretaceous period dinosaur.

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

Nicosia is home to roughly 27 percent of Cyprus's total population. This means that about 1 in 4__________live in Cyprus live in Nicosia!

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

The towns Entebbe and Jamame are both located almost directly on the__________they are in different countries. Entebbe is in Uganda, while Jamame is in Somalia.

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

Having trained as astronauts for years,____________

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

Enacted in 1868, Luxembourg's 5,601-word constitution, in contrast to Canada's, which was enacted in 1867 and contains a far greater number (19,565) of words,____________as the 9th shortest in the world. Such data are studied by constitutional scholars like Giovanni Sartori, who can use them to draw broader conclusions.

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

In the Persian language, people commonly begin a folktale with a phrase that roughly translates to "there was and there was not." In English, beginning with the phrase "once upon a time" is common. Indeed, how a folktale begins depends largely on the language in which_________being told.

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

Thraxas by Martin Scott, Richard Matheson, Collected Stories by Richard Matheson, and Strange Tales by Rosalie Parker are all pieces of literature that have won the prestigious World Fantasy__________the works received the honor in the categories of novel, collection, and anthology, respectively.

 

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

If you were to view the Namarunu volcano in Kenya from above, you might notice that its low profile and gently sloping sides make it look a bit like a shield lying flat on the ground.___________it makes sense that Lydia Jennings and other volcanologists classify Namarunu as a shield volcano.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

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

·When the electrons of a chemical element change energy states, certain wavelengths of light are released.

·This unique collection of wavelengths is known as the emission spectrum of the element.

·Magnesium's emission spectrum includes the 517.2 nanometer (nm) wavelength.

·Helium's emission spectrum includes the 587.5 nm wavelength.

·The green portion of the visible spectrum is made up of light with wavelengths of 500-570 nm.

The student wants to identify an emission spectrum that includes a wavelength in the green portion of the visible spectrum. 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 Future of Nostalgia is a scholarly book by literary theorist Svetlana Boym.

·The book provides a multifaceted exploration of the concept of nostalgia.

·Chapter 8 explores nostalgia and Europe's largest shopping mall.

·Chapter 17 discusses various skeptics' takes on the concept of nostalgia.

·In chapter 17, Boym writes, "The poethics of nostalgia combines estrangement and human solidarity, affect and reflection."

The student wants to provide a quotation from chapter 17. 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:

·Urban natural areas are city spaces that feature elements of nature.

·Facade-bound green walls are urban natural areas defined as exterior walls that have plants growing on them.

·They can benefit cities by enhancing air quality.

·Urban grasslands are urban natural areas defined as areas of pastures or meadows in cities.

·They can benefit cities by increasing diversity among bird species.

The student wants to emphasize a similarity between facade-bound green walls and urban grasslands. 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 Incarnations (2015) is an epistolary novel by English author Susan Barker.

·Epistolary novels are novels written primarily as a series of fictional documents.

·These documents can be letters, journal entries, newspaper clippings, and more.

·The Incarnations consists primarily of letters.

·The letters are sent between a taxi driver named Wang Jun and a mysterious woman.

The student wants to define the term "epistolary novel." 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:

·Jane is the nickname of a dinosaur fossil specimen housed at the Burpee Museum of Natural History.

·The Burpee Museum of Natural History is located in Rockford, Illinois.

·Jane is a member of the genus Tyrannosaurus.

·Big Mike is the nickname of a dinosaur fossil specimen housed at the Museum of the Rockies.

·The Museum of the Rockies is located in Bozeman, Montana.

·Big Mike is a member of the genus Tyrannosaurus.

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