SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

The sloping tile roofs and picturesque façade of Mission Santa Inés in Solvang, California, exemplify the Spanish contribution to Californian architecture, an influence that is________throughout the state-architectural tourists visiting the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse in San Gabriel, for example, can easily recognize how its style draws inspiration from the Spanish missions.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

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?

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

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?

Neurobiologists Laura Cuaya, Raull Hernández-Pérez, and colleagues investigated the language detection abilities of eighteen dogs raised in similar settings. The researchers monitored the brain activity of Sander (a golden retriever), Alma (a mixed breed), and other dogs while the animals listened to three recordings: 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?

In May of 1987, Malaysia liberalized its stock market, meaning that it began allowing foreign individuals and businesses to invest money in Malaysian companies. This was part of a wave of stock market liberalizations from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s Thailand in 1988, Mexico in 1989, 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?

Elaine Ostrander led an international collaboration with Greger Larson and other researchers to study the evolutionary history of size differences in modern dogs, including very small breeds such as Pomeranians. The researchers determined that among dogs as a whole, there are many different variations of the gene that regulates the production of IGF1 (insulin growth factor 1), a hormone that promotes growth. After reviewing the study, a student concludes that these variations must account for the observed variance in body size among dog breeds.

Which quotation from a scientist not involved in the study would most directly undermine the student's conclusion?

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Objects orbiting in the outer solar system between Jupiter and Neptune, such as 49036 Pelion, a 46-kilometer-wide body first detected in 1998 ,________both asteroidal and comet-like characteristics, being closer in size and appearance to asteroids but traveling in an elliptical orbit more closely resembling that of comets.

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

Unlike in Bolivia, where members of the national legislature are elected by a proportional representation system, legislators in Malaysia are elected via a single-member plurality voting system. ________ candidates in Malaysia are elected when they receive a plurality (i.e., greatest number) of votes.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

· 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 apatite has a Mohs scale number of 5 .

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

· The mineral diamond has a Mohs scale number of 10 .

The student wants to emphasize how hard quartz is in relation to other minerals. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

· 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?

· 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.

· Cane is a novel by Jean Toomer.

· It entered the public domain in 2019.

· Billy Budd, Sailor is a novella by Herman Melville.

· It entered the public domain in 2020.

The student wants to emphasize a similarity between Cane and Billy Budd,Sailor. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

· The Love Is Approaching is a 1974 black-and-white linocut print by Namibian artist John Muafangejo.

· It depicts a tranquil, everyday scene (two seated figures reaching for each other).

· La Protesta ("The Protest") is a 1937 black-and-white linocut print by Mexican artist Leopoldo Méndez.

· It features a scene with an explicitly political point of view (a laborer raising his fist in protest).

· 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?

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

· Most circumnavigations include stops on land.

· Clarisse Cremer is a French sailor.

· Cremer sailed the boat Banque Populaire X on a nonstop, 87-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 circumnavigations.Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?