SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

The American continents are home to a huge diversity of languages, from Mayo, found in places like Mexico in North America, to Koreguaje, found in places like Colombia in South America. Much like the continents themselves, the variety of native languages in the Americas is________.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

Though few critics consider Vasily Grossman's novel Stalingrad-which focuses on the experience of the Soviet Union in the early years of World War II---to be as well written as his later book Everything Flows, some compliment it despite the damage________Soviet censors: Gary Saul Morson in The New York Review of Books called the novel "remarkably bold."
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

The minor planet 1095 Tulipa was named after the plant genus that includes tulips, but given the sheer number of minor planets that have been discovered (more than 500,000 so far), most are given only an identification number. Because any name given to a minor planet needs to be unique to that body, naming each would be________.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

The following text is from Julia Alvarez's 2000 novel In the Name of Salome. Salomé, a poet, is hosting guests in the front parlor of her family home, and Ramona is her sister. A salon is a social gathering for the exploration of intellectual ideas.

It was evening when the two men got up to leave. Tia Ana had already come into the room several times to see if these guests had departed yet. The front parlor had always been her special province, as she used it for her little school. Now, every evening, it turned into Salomé's salon, as Ramona called it, and it was never in order for its transformation back to a classroom the following morning.

Based on the text, what most likely motivates Tia Ana's behavior during Salome's salon?

Why do flat-headed cats purr but jaguars roar? Researchers hypothesize that this difference between the two feline species may be partly due to a U-shaped bone in their throats called the hyoid. Flat-headed cats, which are much smaller than jaguars, have a rigid hyoid that rumbles when the cat's larynx vibrates, resulting in a purr. By contrast, jaguars have a somewhat flexible hyoid, and the bone is attached to the skull with a stretchy ligament that flat-headed cats lack. These traits allow jaguars and most other species of big cats to produce powerful roars. The same traits may also prevent most big cats from purring.

According to the text, which trait do researchers think may contribute to a flatheaded cat's ability to purr?

Marine biologists have identified a previously unknown species of jellyfish residing at extreme depths in the Pacific Ocean. Found more than 3,000 meters below the surface, where sunlight is entirely absent, this organism exhibits remarkable bioluminescent properties. Its luminous display and distinctive physiological adaptations provide scientists with critical insights into survival mechanisms in one of Earth's most inhospitable environments.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

Karl Polanyi and other historians of capitalism rarely discuss domestic capitalism in Africa before the period of European colonization, implicitly presenting capitalism as external to and imposed on Africa. Mariana Candido and other Africanist scholars have shown, however, that in parts of Africa, centrally administered industrial production, the legal treatment of land as private property, and other features of capitalism predated colonization. One reason for this discrepancy is that historians of capitalism tend to focus on longitudinal economic data drawn from archival records, which do not exist for much of precolonial Africa.
Which choice best describes the main purpose of the text?

The following text is adapted from George Eliot's 1857 short story "The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton." The Countess Czerlaski is a newcomer to the town of Milby.

I am by no means sure that if the good people of Milby had known the truth about the Countess Czerlaski, they would not have been considerably disappointed to find that it was very far from being as bad as they imagined. Nice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbour is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., offers an extensive collection of artworks spanning centuries. In recent years, the gallery has developed a mobile app that allows users to virtually explore its exhibits. Critics initially worried that the app might reduce the number of in-person visitors. However, gallery officials report that surveys show the app has had the opposite effect, with many users choosing to visit the gallery after using the app.

Which statement, if true, would most directly support the officials' report?

Companies involved in petroleum extraction include drilling equipment among their assets. But petroleum extraction is a very carbon-intensive industry, so as social attitudes increasingly favor using less carbon-intensive sources of energy, demand for petroleum falls and the drilling equipment will eventually, or even suddenly, become a liability as reduced petroleum prices make it more difficult to recover the expense of maintaining such equipment.

What claim does the text make about the demand for petroleum?

Hawaiian home lands are areas of public land in the state of Hawaii that have been reserved for use by the Känaka Maoli, or the Native Hawaiian people. The largest of the home lands, Homula-Upper Piihonua, covers nearly 100 square miles on the island of Hawai'i. Most of the home lands are much smaller. For example, the total area of Kamoku-Kapulena is 7.47 square miles, and the total area of Nanakuli is ________

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

Water flowing around an obstruction creates vortices (patterns of swirls) of varying size; by detecting the vortices, fish can determine the size and position of the obstruction. Testing by Yuzo R. Yanagisuru, Otar Akanyeti, and James C. Liao using models of three head shapes-narrow (low ratio of width to length), intermediate, and wide (high ratio of width to length) - showed that for large vortices, fish with intermediate heads would be better able than wide-headed fish to distinguish between vortices and general turbulence in the water: A second research team has therefore hypothesized that in low-visibility conditions, intermediate-headed fish will be more likely than wide-headed fish to detect obstructions that create large vortices.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the second research team's hypothesis?

As the second-most populous continent in the world, Africa was home to an estimated 1.186 billion people in 2015 . In a paper for a social studies class, a student nonetheless notes that countries with very large populations may be less densely populated than are countries with much smaller populations, as can be seen by comparing ________

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

Nigerian American artist Toyin Ojih Odutola uses black-ink pens to create highly detailed drawings of human figures. Her portrait of novelist Zadie ________ is displayed in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

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

The Amazon Rainforest, located in South America, is home to a vast variety of plants and animals. It is a tropical__________with an area of approximately 5.5 million square kilometers, making it one of the largest rainforests in the world. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

Used in everything from food to cleaning products, emulsifiers are compounds that serve to stabilize an emulsion-a mixture of two or more liquids that otherwise would not easily blend together. The emulsifiers used by________like palmitic acid, allow these scientists to blend oil and water into homogeneous formulations such as lotions and perfumes.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

Many mechanical calculators were powered by a notched cylinder mechanism called the Leibniz wheel. Leibniz wheel calculators were popular in the first half of the twentieth ________ these ingenious devices were eventually replaced by electronic calculators.

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

While most animals prefer the safety of nighttime migration, many poisonous amphibians-a category that includes the red-bellied newt and the fire salamander-safely engage in migratory behavior during the day. ________ with the sun in the sky, the amphibians' striking color patterns deter visually oriented daytime predators by serving as a warning of toxicity.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Between June 22 and July 2 each year, particles shed by comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke enter Earth's atmosphere at a velocity of 18 kilometers per second. Relatively few of these particles are likely to reach Earth's________since the meteoroids' compression of the air surrounding them causes the vast majority to burn up in the mesosphere, producing the June Boötid meteor shower.

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

Box modeling, used by digital artists to develop 3D assets for video games, yields objects with precise mathematical proportions. Granted, as they are formed from perfect geometric shapes, such 3D elements lack organic realism;________post modeling processes such as UV surface mapping are needed to achieve the level of verisimilitude gamers expect.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Residents of Cairo, Egypt, rely on its rapid transit system, the Cairo Metro, for millions of trips each year.________city officials strive to maintain the system's 71 stations to ensure each of these journeys is as smooth as possible.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

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

· If a moon orbiting a planet comes close enough to that planet, tidal forces can cause the moon to break apart.

· In a 2022 study, researchers proposed that Saturn was once orbited by a large moon they named Chrysalis.

· Their simulations indicated that Chrysalis would likely have come very close to Saturn around 160 million years ago.

· At that distance, Chrysalis would have been broken apart by tidal forces.

· The researchers hypothesized that the resulting debris formed Saturn's rings.

The student wants to recount the sequence of events proposed by the researchers. 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:

· Little is known about the life of Wong Fei-hung (1847-1925).

· He was born near Foshan, China, and gained local recognition as a physician and Hung Ga (also known as Hung Gar) Kung Fu master.

· He achieved many incredible martial arts feats-some confirmed and some rumored.

· He has become an internationally known folk hero thanks to his depiction in over a hundred films, television shows, and other media.

· In the 1991 film Once Upon a Time in China, actor Jet Li portrays Wong Feihung using superhuman kung fu abilities to save his community.

The student wants to emphasize the effect media had on building Wong Feihung's legacy. 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:

· Lighthouses send out crucial light signals to help ships and other watercraft navigate at night.

· Before automation, lighthouses were run by lighthouse keepers.

· Betsy Morrow Humphrey was the lighthouse keeper at Monhegan Island Light in Maine.

· She held this position from 1862 to 1880.

· Thelma Austin was the lighthouse keeper at Point Fermin Light in California.

· She held this position from 1925 to 1941.

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

Birds of Northern South America is an identification guidebook by ornithologists Robin Restall, Clemencia Rodner, and Miguel Lentino.

· It lists the thirty-five hummingbird species found in Suriname.

· The brown violetear is a large hummingbird found in Suriname.

· It is identifiable by its dark violet ear patches and its short, black, straight bill.

· The little hermit is a small hummingbird found in Suriname.

· It is identifiable by its white central tail feathers and its long, black, curved bill.

Which choice most effectively uses information from the given sentences to emphasize a similarity between the two birds?