SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

In her critical assessment of late-nineteenth-century realist fiction, scholar Mireille Haddon argues that authors of the period did not view photographic verisimilitude as an end in itself; rather, they regarded the exhaustive enumeration of domestic objects as a__________tool intended to reveal the invisible socio-economic pressures governing everyday domestic life.

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

The presumptive functionality of khipu, the semiotic system of knotted cords once used by the Inka, to encode language (perhaps, like ancient Chinese script, in units of discrete words) now has an empirical basis: Manuel Medrano's statistical data on Spanish translations of khipu content, as recited by Quechua-speaking scribes,__________historical reports of khipu's status as a linguistic record.

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

Despite the marked divergence of such ballads as "The House Carpenter" from their antecedents in Britain, the balladry of the Appalachian South long figured as a proxy for the music naturalized there in the colonial era. More recent scholarship offers a __________ directly acknowledging Appalachian innovations to British ballads as well as the influence of spirituals sung in Black churches in the South.

 

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

One popular hypothesis concerning animal cognition is that the complexity of species' social networks is the primary driver of cognitive evolution, an idea addressed by Borgeaud and many others. This view holds that the demand of behaviors related to living in groups—trading grooming for access to food, for example—selects for, and thus accounts for, greater cognition. Now, a growing body of research suggests that interactions between species members without a social connection also present challenges that contribute significantly to sophisticated cognitive adaptations.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

In environments ranging from shallow tidal areas to the deep ocean, single-celled marine foraminifera have been found to contain phosphate at concentrations many times greater than those in the surrounding water. Notably, though, species from oxygen-rich environments like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge show lower phosphate concentrations than species from oxygen-poor areas. Scientists have thus suggested that especially high internal phosphate concentrations enable foraminifera to offset the effects of low oxygen.

 

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

The following text is from William Carlos Williams's 1925 creative nonfiction book In the American Grain.

 

History follows governments and never men. It portrays us in generic patterns, like effigies or the carvings on sarcophagi, which say nothing save, of such and such a man, that he is dead. That's history. It is concerned only with the one thing: to say everything is dead. Then it fixes up the effigy: there that's finished. Not at all. History must stay open; it is all humanity. Are lives to be twisted forcibly about events, the mere accidents of geography and climate?

 

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

Text 1

Metaphorical language carries remarkable persuasive power, particularly when a single metaphor or system of related metaphors remains consistent. In 2019 research, Paul Thibodeau revealed that a single series of metaphors and similes (speaking of crime in an urban area as a "virus" requiring "treatment," in his demonstration) significantly impacted how listeners interpreted a problem that could have been approached more blandly otherwise. A figurative treatment of this sort (extending Thibodeau's ideas) also facilitates a more intuitive and emotional response to the issue at hand.

 

Text 2

Theoretically enticing, extended metaphors more frequently evolve into awkward displays of loosely linked images than into brilliant showcases of varied rhetoric. Research, such as that by Jeffrey Mio, indicates that extended metaphors register with hearers who may be impressed by the cleverness of improvised and interlocking figurative language. More often, extended metaphors rigidly and unimaginatively apply expected images (a social problem as a "disease," a crowd as a "sea" of people) to discussions that would benefit from greater directness.

 

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 respond to the underlined statement in Text 1?

In 2005, Swedish researchers studying flawed choice recall devised an experiment in which participants were shown two photos of different faces and asked to select the one they found more attractive. The researchers appeared to give the participants the photo they had chosen, but in fact used sleight of hand to give them the photo of the person they had not chosen. Most participants accepted the swap and, when asked to explain their initial preference, gave justifications for having chosen the face in the photo they were given. Subsequent researchers have replicated this finding with other choices, including jam preferences.

Based on the text, why was the sleight-of-hand step an important part of the experiment?

A student is studying igneous rock formations on Elba Island, ltaly, and reviews published data on the ratio of strontium isotopes (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ) in minerals from a specific rock sample. These isotope ratios provide information about the composition of the magma that formed the rock. Ratios below 0.710 suggest more material from the mantle in the magma, while ratios increasing above that number usually indicate greater proportions of material from the continental crust. The minerals in the rock sample record three growth stages: crystal core zones formed first, then rim zones, and finally the surrounding matrix. The student concludes that the rock sample __________.

 

Based on the information given, which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the student's conclusion?

High entropy alloys (HEAs) typically combine five or more elements in roughly equal proportions, and medium entropy alloys (MEAs) typically combine three or four elements in similar proportions. HEAs and MEAs are known for withstanding cracking at extremely low (cryogenic) temperatures relatively well, though their fracture toughness generally falls as temperature does. Dong Liu et al. investigated the fracture toughness (both the initiation and propagation toughness) of the HEA CrMnFeCoNi and its MEA derivative CrCoNi and concluded that the alloys' toughness performance differs from that of most HEAs and MEAS.

 

Which choice best describes data in the graph that support Liu et al's conclusion?

Aurora Leigh is an 1856 poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In the text, Aurora Leigh serves as the narrator. At one point, she emphasizes her enthusiasm for poetry but admits that her own powers as a poet had at times been deficient: _________.

Which quotation from Aurora Leigh most effectively illustrates the claim?

Based on findings from fossil sites, paleobotanists had developed the so-called partition hypothesis, which holds that there were two distinctly different kinds of biomes during the Devonian period (circa 360 to 420 million years ago). One was a tropical deltaic forest biome home to plants such as the fernlike Eospermatopteris, and the other was an arid floodplain forest biome home to plants such as the coniferlike Archaeopteris. Recently, however, evolutionary ecologist Khudadad Khudadad examined the remnants of a Devonian forest in what is now Cairo, New York, and concluded that evidence from the Cairo site is inconsistent with the partition hypothesis.

Which finding about the Cairo site, if true, would most directly support Khudadad's conclusion?

The human brain contains billions of neurons, while the brain of one fruit fly species, Drosophila melanogaster, houses 130,000 to 140,000 of these nerve cells. Mapping the location and functions of D. melanogaster neurons was thus a comparatively simple task for the researchers who completed this task in 2024. Yet for the international team of geneticists and biologists behind this pursuit, understanding the wiring of the brain of a single fruit fly species—though a challenge in its own way—was never the sole goal. A map of the neurons in D. melanogaster could offer new insights into the working of the human brain, even though___________.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

In 2014, Marianne Dehasque et al. challenged earlier theories on causes of woolly mammoth extinction that emphasized isolation and inbreeding and a resulting increase in genetic variation and increase in chances of harmful genetic mutations. Focusing on Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia, where the last mammoths lived, the team used genome-based simulations to evaluate mutations in the population there. The analysis showed that particularly damaging mutations became less frequent, while moderate ones accumulated over time within the isolated population, which quickly grew from about 8 founding individuals to the 200-300 individuals it maintained until its extinction. The team thus concluded that despite its isolation, the Wrangel Island mammoth population likely _________.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Designating part of a city a "low emission zone," as research by Luk Bruyneel et al. indicates, successfully leads to improved public health, less psychological stress among residents, and superior air quality while, even more surprisingly, _______ wealth inequality among the people who live in such a zone, though the strategies for enforcing low vehicle emissions vary city to city.

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

How likely it is that Earth will be struck by an asteroid—a scenario at the heart of many sensational films and equally sensational speculations—naturally garners more attention than another _______ of an asteroid striking the Moon, which seems less dramatic but might indeed occur in the case of 2024 YR4, an asteroid that could be Moon-bound in the year 2032.

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

On the basis of one suggestive 2010 experiment, there is a possible causal association between handwashing and clearer thinking. Because that experiment's seemingly farfetched connection of two disparate activities quickly intrigued _______ a new team attempted to replicate the 2010 foray's results around 2012, only to find that handwashing did not, in new trials, result in lucid thoughts.

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

Large portions of the world's paper supply originate from relatively common softwood trees—pines, firs, and spruces. These do not represent the only trees harvested for the sake of paper _____ hardwood species such as aspens and birches, as well as some exotic varieties of eucalyptus, can be useful in paper manufacturing.

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

Protein-based treatments at the cellular level guide the development of measures to mitigate problems such as heart disease. _____ John Elrod and Joanne Garbincius have studied the mitochondrial proteins NCLX and TMEM65 not simply for the sake of intellectual interest but because understanding these proteins could help to prevent heart failure.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Documentary filmmaking assumes the form of social activism with a minimal artistic component for some directors. _____ artist Ai Weiwei set out to lend power and emphasis to a humanitarian message through his keen sense of form, space, and movement with his 2017 documentary Human Flow.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Despite her considerable body of work, the writer Felicia Hemans (1793-1835) was largely overlooked by twentieth-century scholars of British Romantic poetry, whose research tended to focus on the Romantic era's most prominent figures (such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the author of "The Eolian Harp" and other well-known poems). __________ a 2006 analysis of Hemans's poems by scholar Susan Wolfson helps illuminate Hemans's significant contributions to Romanticism.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

In several respects, shampoo is traceable to practices originating in India. By its very name, "shampoo" recalls the Hindi word chāmpū, which refers to India's hair-washing practices. _____ the entrepreneur widely credited with introducing shampoo to Europe, Sake Deen Mahomed, was a man of Indian descent.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

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

·Charlotte Gage founded the advocacy organization Adfree Cities in 2020.

·Adfree Cities is based in the United Kingdom and seeks to replace the "sight pollution" of large billboard advertisements with appealing "community arts" projects, according to Gage.

·The UK cities of Bristol and Norwich are receptive to the ad replacement movement.

·The Brazilian metropolis of Sao Paulo banned all billboard advertisements in 2006.

·The capital of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, banned some billboard advertisements for automobiles and airlines in 2021.

 

The student wants to explain Gage's work in the context of initiatives outside the UK. 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:

·Child psychologist Angela J. Narayan has analyzed the factors that make specific gift-giving experiences satisfying.

· In the 2025 article "How to Reduce Gift-Giving Stress," Narayan acknowledges that individual temperament determines how a child will respond to gifts but still provides a few broad guidelines.

·Age Guidelines: Narayan recommends buying an infant or a very young child relatively few gifts and increasing the number of presents until a child is five years old.

·Games Guidelines: Narayan suggests that interactive gifts such as multi-person card games and board games can be particularly rewarding.

 

The student wants to explain the role of age in Narayan's gift-giving guidelines. 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:

·Sea angels and sea butterflies are ocean-dwelling snails that move by flapping two wing-like appendages.

·These organisms possess shells made of aragonite, a substance that dissolves more readily than the calcite that land-dwelling snails use to create their shells.

·A research team led by Katja Peijnenburg performed genetic analysis to better understand the evolutionary history of sea angels and sea butterflies.

·The research team determined that sea angels and sea butterflies "are much older than previously thought and must have survived previous episodes of widespread ocean acidification," according to a report by Peijnenburg.

·Two of the "previous episodes" cited by Peijnenburg took place 66 million years ago and 56 million years ago.

 

The student wants to summarize the aim and findings of Peijnenburg's research. 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:

·Filmmaker and actor Christopher Guest has appeared in several comedy films formatted as documentaries.

·Films of this sort are known as "mockumentaries."

·Guest played a leading acting role in the 1984 film This Is Spinal Tap, which depicts a fictional hard rock band.

·Rob Reiner directed This Is Spinal Tap.

·Guest played a supporting acting role in the 2000 film Best in Show, which depicts a fictional dog show.

·Guest himself directed Best in Show.

 

The student wants to make and support a generalization about Guest's involvement in "mockumentaries." Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?