SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

Web developers often encourage users to create passwords that are fairly complicated and therefore difficult to guess. Nonetheless, research has shown that the more_________approach to password selection seems to favor convenience over security: for example, the fifth most commonly used password in 2013 was the easily remembered "abc123,"

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

Writer Lydia Davis observed that while traditional literary forms, such as the poem, are recognizable as such even as they evolve, there are more ________ forms that might, for example, borrow elements from both fables and realist narratives to make something unconventional. 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?

Text 1
Scholarship today overrepresents experimentally fragmented narrative structures, such as that of Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds, beyond the degree to which they actually influenced fiction in Britain and Ireland during the modernist period (roughly 1900-1945). Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September, whose coherent, linear narrative structure recalls the fiction of previous centuries, attracts woefully little attention from scholars of modernism.
Text 2
Distant reading, or computer-assisted quantitative analysis of massive collections of digitized texts, can reveal stylistic elements that have heretofore escaped notice, despite being shared by numerous texts from the modernist period. For too long, scholars have focused on narrative fragmentation versus coherence, inhibiting inquiry into other points of stylistic correspondence among works that would enrich our understanding of the modernist canon.

Based on the texts, both the author of Text 1 and the author of Text 2 would most likely agree with which statement about scholarship on works from the modernist period in Britain and Ireland?

The following text is adapted from Matthew Arnold's 1869 nonfiction book Culture and Anarchy.

   The Times [a British newspaper], replying to some foreign strictures on the dress, looks, and behaviour of the English abroad, urges that the English ideal is that every one should be free to do and to look just as he likes. But culture indefatigably tries, not to make what each raw person may like the rule by which he fashions himself; but to draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, graceful, and becoming, and to get the raw person to like that.

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

Neurobiologists Laura Cuaya, Raúl Hernández-Pérez, and colleagues investigated the language detection abilities of eighteen dogs raised in similar settings. The researchers monitored the brain activity of Barack (a golden retriever), Alma (a mixed breed), and other dogs while the animals listened to threetecordings: one of The Little Prince being read in Spanish, the second in Hungarian, and a third made up of short, randomly selected fragments of the first two, scrambled so that they didn't resemble human speech. Each dog was familiar with either Spanish or Hungarian, but not both. The team concluded that the amount of previous language exposure a dog has received may influence its ability to distinguish familiar languages from unfamiliar ones.

Which finding from the study, if true, would most directly support the team's conclusion?

Text 1
For thousands of years, O'odham farmers in the Sonoran desert of the southwestern US and northern Mexico have cultivated elderberries and chia seeds, sometimes planting these species together so that the elderberry bushes provide shade for chia flowers. Doing so helps protect chia flowers from the harshest heat and light and thereby helps prevent soil moisture from evaporating.
Text 2
Chia flowers are well adapted to growing in the desert but grow best when shaded. Inspired by O'odham farmers, who often strategically plant chia flowers in the shade of sun-hardy species like elderberry bushes for protection from the sun and heat, Gary Nabhan and colleagues planted chia flowers in the shade of solar panels in the Sonoran desert and found that the plants grew well, suggesting to Nabhan and colleagues that the panels provide a benefit similar to that provided by elderberry bushes.

Based on the texts, the author of Text 1 and the author of Text 2 would most likely agree on which point?

Drosophila (fruit flies) have generation times of 10-12 days, so seasonal changes in humidity and other environmental conditions can drive seasonal fluctuations in chromosome rearrangements in species such as D. persimilis and D. mediopunctata. Drosophila body size (for which wing centroid size serves as a proxy measure) correlates with life span. Banu Şebnem Önder and Cansu Fidan Aksoy measured the wing sizes of members of a D. melanogaster population in Yeşilöz, Turkey, that were collected monthly between May and October over three years. Their research suggests that Drosophila collected in relatively cooler months should tend to have a shorter life span, as is illustrated by the finding that________

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

It is common for freshwater lakes near or above a latitude of 45°north of the equator, like Lake Stechlin in Germany, to accumulate surface ice in winter. A study from 1980 to 2006 showed that, in general, the number of days per winter that such lakes have measurable amounts of surface ice is declining. However, a researcher claimed that some lakes have instead seen an increase in the duration of ice, citing as an example________

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

One antipredator defense that the grey-headed lapwing uses to protect its nest and young chicks is called "broken-wing display"; this form of deceptive defense involves an adult bird pretending to be injured and unable to fly in order to distract an approaching predator. Broken-wing display has been documented in 285 bird species from 13 different avian orders. A student predicts that bird species with mean body masses greater than 150 grams do not use deceptive defenses because larger birds tend to be more effective than smaller birds at using aggressive defenses to protect nests from predators, making deceptive defenses unnecessary.

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table that weaken the student's prediction?

In June of 1986, India liberalized its stock market, meaning that it began allowing foreign individuals and businesses to invest money in Indian companies. This was part of a wave of stock market liberalizations from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s-Colombia in 1991, Nigeria in 1995, and so on. In an analysis of economic data from 1976 to 1993, Ross Levine and Sara Zervos found that liberalization did not lead to enduring increases in investment in companies based in countries that liberalized. Peter Blair Henry, however, found that, on average, investment in companies in liberalized countries increased significantly in the three years following liberalization. Taken together, these results suggest that_________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Although the language of the Olmec civilization, which flourished in southern Mexico circa 1500 BCE-400 BCE, hasn't been identified, it likely belonged to the Mixe-Zoquean family, a group of related languages whose present-day representatives are spoken in an area corresponding to ancient Olmec sites. The family can be subdivided into a Zoque branch, which includes Francisco Leon Zoque, and a Mixe branch, which includes North Central Mixe. Many words in the Mayan languages-languages spoken in the region but otherwise unrelated to the Mixe-Zoquean family-are Mixe-Zoquean in origin and were likely borrowed during the period when the Olmecs dominated the entire area. Tellingly, all those words derive from the Zoque branch, suggesting that________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Each year, the Nobel Prize in Literature is given to an author who has, in the word of its founder Alfred Nobel, "produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic___________in 1909, for instance, judges recognized Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf "[for] the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings."

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

Data collected by the Mars rover Curiosity at the Gale Crater's Murray Formation are suggestive of hydrological deposition of sediment in the distant past. To characterize the nature of the depositional environment, Frances Rivera-Hernandez et al. analyzed the grain size of Murray Formation sediment, finding that although there are intervals of coarse grains, most of the sediment consists of fine grains that show signs of cracking due to episodic desiccation. Rivera-Hernandez et al. concluded that the coarse grains are sandstone, which tends to be deposited by flowing water, whereas the fine grains are mudstone, which is slowly deposited by settling out of suspension in low-flow water, leading the researchers to posit that_________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Mathematician Grigori Perelman, sometimes in conjunction with mathematicians Richard S. Hamilton and Shing-Tung Yau, ________ credited with proving the Poincare conjecture. Having built on Hamilton's previous work to solve the proof, Perelman has insisted that Hamilton receive credit. Yau later found and closed gaps in Perelman's proof, persuading some mathematicians that he deserves credit as well.

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

Researchers studying how agricultural fertilizers impact grassland arthropod populations have employed several collection methods. A team led by researcher Maria K . Hartley collected arthropods with________another research team, led by Kimberly J. La Pierre, gathered them with bug vacuums.

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

On most of the world's beaches, sand is a predictable cream or beige color. The sand at Vermelha Beach in Brazil is a strikingly different________sand gets its shade from deposits gray- and tan-hued quartz and feldspar, deposits of iron oxide and other organic matter lend the sand at Vermelha Beach a colorful red tint.

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

A student in a political science course is writing a paper on Aristotle's The Politics, in which Aristotle offers his opinion on political instability and gives advice on how constitutions can be preserved. Aristotle observes that different forms of government can fall in different ways-for example, oligarchies might grant power to military leaders during wartime who refuse to relinquish that power during peacetime-but some methods of preserving order apply across all forms of government. The student claims that in particular Aristotle asserts that in a healthy state obedience to law must be as close to absolute as possible and that even minor infractions should not be
ignored.

Which quotation from a philosopher's analysis of The Politics would best support the student's claim?

Marcel Duchamp intended his 1917 so-called ready-made sculpture Fountain to challenge then-prevailing conceptions about the nature of art. ________ Duchamp's Fountain did just that, raising the question of whether displaying any object in an art gallery could be said to transform the object-even, as Duchamp's sculpture was, a urinal-into a legitimate work of art.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

The parks of San Jose, California, seem to be making people happier. In a 2022 study,researchers________for a relationship between the physical location in which a social media post was created and the content of that post analyzed geotagged social media posts from San Jose. The team found that posts from the city's parks contained more words associated with happiness than other posts did.

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

Drosophila (fruit flies) have generation times of 10-12 days, so seasonal changes in exposure to ultraviolet light and other environmental conditions can drive seasonal fluctuations in chromosome rearrangements in species such as D. robusta and D. subobscura. Drosophila body size (for which wing centroid size serves as a proxy measure) correlates with life span. Banu Şebnem Önder and Cansu Fidan Aksoy measured the wing sizes of members of a D. melanogaster population in Yeșilöz, Turkey, that were collected monthly between May and October over three years. Their research suggests that Drosophila collected in relatively cooler months should tend to have a shorter life span, as is illustrated by the finding that________

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

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

· A copyright prevents a book's contents from being reproduced (published) without permission from the copyright holder.

· When a book's copyright expires, the book enters the public domain and can be legally reproduced by anyone.

· The Prophet is a collection of prose poems by Kahlil Gibran.

· It entered the public domain in 2019.

· The Professor's House is a novel by Willa Cather.

· It entered the public domain in 2021.

The student wants to emphasize a similarity between The Prophet and The Professor House. 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 talc has a Mohs scale number of 1.

· The mineral fluorite has a Mohs scale number of 4.

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

The student wants to emphasize how hard fluorite is in relation to other minerals. 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:

· A sailing trip that goes in a complete circle around the world is called a circumnavigation.

· Most circumnavigations include stops on land.

· Anne Liardet is a French sailor.

· Liarder sailed the boat Roxy on a nonstop, 119-day circumnavigation.

· Asia Pajkowska is a Polish sailor.

· Pajkowska sailed the boat FanFan on a nonstop, 216-day circumnavigation.

The student wants to make a generalization about circumnavigation. 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:

· Hyde Park is a 1931 color linocut print by Canadian artist Sybil Andrews,

· It depicts a tranquil, everyday scene (a spring day in a city park).

· Amanzi Amthatha ("The cold water takes him") is a 2001 black-and-white linocut print by South African artist Nomathemba Tana.

· It features a scene with an explicitly political point of view (a Xhosa warrior fighting British colonial rule).

· Relief printing is a technique in which an image is carved onto a printing block, covered in ink or paint, and stamped onto paper.

· Lino cutting is a type of relief printing that uses linoleum tile as the printing block.

The student wants to contrast the subject matter of the two prints. 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:

· Malapportionment is the over- or underrepresentation (relative to population size) of electoral districts in a governing body.

· It is a common feature of representative governments.

· There are 169 seats in Norway's supreme legislature (the Storting).

· Seats are distributed by a formula that awards 1 point per resident and 1.8 points per unit of land.

· Less populated rural districts with large tracts of land receive a disproportionate number of seats compared to smaller but more populated urban districts.

The student wants to refute a claim that malapportionment in the Storting favors small urban districts. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?