SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

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: Luke Harding in The Guardian called the novel "a work of lyrical art."

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

The American continents are home to a huge diversity of languages, from Inuktitut, found in places like Canada in North America, to Tupi-Mondé, found in places like Brazil 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?

The minor planet 8649 Juglans was named after the plant genus that includes walnut trees, 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 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 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?

Archaeologists studying the ancient city of Pompeii in Italy recently discovered a well-preserved food shop known as a thermopolium. The site contains food remains, artworks, and decorations. These items give researchers a better understanding of what daily life in Pompeii may have been like. For example, the archaeologists found a ceramic jar that they believe likely contained a meat and seafood stew.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

Companies involved in petroleum extraction include storage facilities among their assets. But petroleum extraction is a very carbon-intensive industry, so as renewable energy becomes more economically competitive, demand for petroleum falls and the storage facilities will eventually, or even suddenly, become liabilities as reduced petroleum prices make it more difficult to recover the expense of maintaining such facilities.

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

Jeffrey Sachs 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. Crislayne Alfagali and other Africanist scholars have shown, however, that in parts of Africa, surplus goods creation, the formalization of individual land ownership, 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 Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by Edith Wharton set in New York City in the 1870s. In the novel, Newland Archer attends an opera; in the audience is May Welland, with whom he is romantically involved. Newland visualizes the details of a future with May: ________.

Which quotation from The Age of Innocence best illustrates the claim?

In 1934 physicist Eugene Wigner posited the existence of a crystal consisting entirely of electrons in a honeycomb-like structure. The so-called Wigner crystal remained largely conjecture, however, until Feng Wang and colleagues announced in 2021 that they had captured an image of one. The researchers trapped electrons between two semiconductors and then cooled the apparatus, causing the electrons to settle into a crystalline structure. By inserting an ultrathin sheet of graphene above the crystal, the researchers obtained an impression-the first visual confirmation of the Wigner crystal.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

Why do jungle cats purr but lions 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. Jungle cats, which are much smaller than lions, have a rigid hyoid that rumbles when the cat's larynx vibrates, resulting in a purr. By contrast, lions have a somewhat flexible hyoid, and the bone is attached to the skull with a stretchy ligament that jungle cats lack. These traits allow lions 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 jungle cat's ability to purr?

Hawaiian home lands are areas of public land in the state of Hawaii that have been reserved for use by the Kânaka Maoli, or the Native Hawaiian people. The largest of the home lands, Homuula-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 Makuu is ________.

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

A group of primate conservationists recently began a long-term study of the effects of different conservation strategies on the Perrier's sifaka (Propithecus perrieri). The species population is currently estimated to be around 500. It is challenging to accurately count these primates, however, which makes it difficult to tell whether the population is increasing, decreasing, or staying stable. The study may thus ________.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

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 oleic 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?

Humans have a very strong bias toward right-handedness, with approximately 85-90% having right as their dominant hand. Among studies of nonhuman primates, James Welles's 1976 study of captive chimpanzees and catarrhine monkeys reported more right-handed individuals than left-handed ones, but Jane Goodall's 1963 study of wild chimpanzees did not find a tendency toward righthandedness. It's important to note, however, that captive animals spend significantly more time with humans than wild animals do, and therefore ________.

Which choice most logically completes the text?

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 constitution of Australia, enacted in 1901, enshrines 11 total rights across 17,318 words of text. According to constitutional scholar George Tsebelis, who examines the implications of constitutional length on civil rights, ________ 102nd in a global ranking of the shortest constitutions.

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?

Residents of Jaipur, India, rely on its rapid transit system, the Jaipur Metro, for millions of trips each year. ________ city officials strive to maintain the system's 11 stations to ensure each of these journeys is as smooth as possible.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Digital sculpting, 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?

Between November 28 and December 9 each year, particles shed by comet 289P/Blanpain 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 Phoenicid meteor shower.

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

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?

·Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, populations of Black Americans increased in many cities throughout the state of New York.

·During this time, many Black newspapers were founded.

·The newspapers were largely by and for the Black communities in which they were based.

·The Northern Star and Freeman's Advocate ran from 1842 to 1843 in Albany, New York.

·The Crusader ran from 1853 to 1854 in New York City, New York.

Which choice most effectively uses information from the given sentences to emphasize the geographic similarities between the two newspapers?

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.

·Elizabeth Riley was the lighthouse keeper at North Point Light in Maryland.

·She held this position from 1834 to 1857.

·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?

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 Fei-hung's legacy. 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 green-throated mango is a large hummingbird found in Suriname.

·It is identifiable by its green throat and its long, black, curved bill.

·The horned sungem is a medium-sized hummingbird found in Suriname.

·It is identifiable by its distinctive multicolored, tufted crown and its short, black, straight bill.

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