SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

The fact that publications by University of Minnesota economist Ellen R. McGrattan, who studies financial policy, are so frequently cited in other scholars' work________the usefulness of her research for her peers---other economists clearly find her studies valuable for their own scholarship.

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

Computer support specialists often encourage users to create passwords that are fairly complicated and therefore difficult to guess. Nonetheless, research has shown that the more more_________approach to password selection seems to favor convenience over security: for example, the fifth most commonly used password in 2016 was the easily remembered "football."

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 short story, 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?

Text 1
For thousands of years, Oodham 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?

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?

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?

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-Hernández 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, wherefs 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?

In June of 1987, South Korea liberalized its stock market, meaning that it began allowing foreign individuals and businesses to invest money in South Korean companies. This was part of a wave of stock market liberalizations from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s Venezuela in 1990, Jamaica in 1991, 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?

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 Șebnem 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?

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 Șebnem 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?

In their 2019 study of butterfly diversity at Rupa Lake in Nepal, researcher Bijaya Neupane and his colleagues counted one bluetail jester ________ to the Nymphalidae family, the bluetail jester (Symbrenthia niphanda) is known to be very rare.

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

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?

Although the language of the Olmec civilization, which flourished in southern Mexico circa 1500 BCL-400 BCL, 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 León Zoque, and a Mixe branch, which includes Isthmus 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 words of its founder Alfred Nobel, "produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic ________ in 1996, for instance, judges recognized Wisława Szymborska "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality."

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 Mark A. Lee collected arthropods with________another research team, led by Pablo Cuevas-Reyes, gathered them by hand.

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

Featured among the more than 120 photographs in the 2021 exhibition The New Woman Behind the Camera, Lola Alvarez Bravo's ________"The Freeloaders" offers a glimpse back in time to 1955. 

 

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

The parks of San Diego, 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 Diego. 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?

Objects orbiting in the outer solar system between Jupiter and Neptune, such as 2010 BK118, a 46-kilometer-wide body first detected in 2010, ________ both asteroidal and cometlike 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?

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?

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

 

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:

 

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

· Most circumnavigations include stops on land.

· Jessica Watson is an Australian sailor.

· Watson sailed the boat Ella's Pink Lady on a nonstop, 210-day circumnavigation.

· Lisa Clayton is a British sailor.

· Clayton sailed the boat Spirit of Birmingham on a nonstop, 285-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:

 

· 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 topaz has a Mohs scale number of 8.

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

The student wants to emphasize how hard topaz 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:

 

· 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?

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.

· 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?

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

 

· Fireplug is a 1940 black-and-white linocut print by Black American artist Samuel Joseph Brown.

· It depicts a tranquil, everyday scene (children playing in water).

· iSera toda nuestra! ("It will all be ours!") is a 1977 color linocut print by Mexican American artist Carlos Cortéz.

· It features a scene with an explicitly political point of view (a group of laborers preparing to go on strike).

· 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?