SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

The following text is adapted from John Matheus's 1925 short story "Fog." A train has stopped at a station, where heavy fog has set in.

 

The little conductor stood on tiptoe in an effort to keep one hand on the signal rope, craning his neck in a vain and dissatisfied endeavor to pierce the miasma of the fog. The motorman chafed in his box, thinking of the drudging lot of the laboring man. He registered discontent.

As used in the text, what does the word "registered" most nearly mean?

Researchers César A. Hidalgo, Elisa Castañer, and Andres Sevtsuk created a computer model to predict the mix of businesses and places of interest found in a given neighborhood. The team used data from the Google Places API service to help identify florists, beauty salons, and other businesses and map their locations. This approach has some limits---data from Places API tend to be restricted to places that are customer facing ---but the data set nonetheless provides an extremely reliable source to study colocation patterns of neighborhood amenities.

 

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

Known for the albums Someday My Prince Will Come and Milestones, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis collaborated several times with pianist Gil Evans. Their 1958 adaptation of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess bears little resemblance to the 1935 original. Davis and Evans felt no desire to please listeners expecting an exact duplication of the opera. They omitted parts, such as the aria "I Got Plenty of Nuthin'," and sometimes made only brief gestures toward Gershwin's melodies. But Davis and Evans's willingness to recompose Gershwin's work led to one of the most enduring albums in Davis's catalog.

 

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

In a 2018 article about films depicting the experiences of Black Americans, critics for the New York Times praise Madeline Anderson's 1970 film I Am Somebody as "galvanizing" and Reginald Hudlin's 1990 film House Party as "exuberant." Fans of the two films hope that such _____ will attract new audiences to these works.

 

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

As a member of Indigenous Photograph, artist Tshepiso Mabula ka Ndogngeni (Xhosa) can _____ her work more broadly than she could without the organization's reach. Photography editors around the world can search for Indigenous photographer members on the organization's website to find images that document and reflect the lives of Indigenous communities.

 

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

Superlubricity, the state of virtually no friction between materials, has desirable applications in many industries. For example, it can make aircraft engines more efficient. To produce a coating that achieves superlubricity, Chanaka Kumara and colleagues broke down carbon nanotubes into fragments of graphene to fully cover two surfaces that would rub together. Friction between pieces of graphene is generally extremely low, and when the researchers added a drop of oil as lubrication, that friction nearly vanished. This new coating may drastically lower friction-related energy costs.

 

According to the text, what happened when the researchers added oil to the surfaces covered in graphene fragments?

The following text is from George Eliot's 1857 short story "The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton." In the text, the narrator addresses the reader directly and alludes to a discussion among Rev. Amos Barton's neighbors.

 

It was happy for the Rev. Amos Barton that he did not, like us, overhear the conversation recorded in the last chapter. Indeed, what mortal is there of us, who would find his satisfaction enhanced by an opportunity of comparing the picture he presents to himself of his own doings, with the picture they make on the mental retina of his neighbours? We are poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit: alas for us, if we get a few pinches that empty us of that windy self-subsistence! The very capacity for good would go out of us.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

A road was recently built in a Maryland woodland that is home to the house finch. Some finches' nests were situated close to the new road and others were deeper in the woodland. Common ravens, which eat finch eggs, can spot nests near the open spaces of roads more easily than they can spot nests surrounded by woodland. Accordingly, researchers in Maryland trying to predict the impact of the new road on finches have suggested that _____

 

Which choice most logically completes the text?

 

Study of interactions between plants, researchers Carolina Laura Morales and Anna gathered data about flowering plants growing alongside each other in various locations. In each case, the researchers identified one plant as a "target species" and another plant as a "neighboring species." An example of a neighboring species is the musk thistle which grows alongside the Peruvian lily in_______

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

Roy McLendon's Moonlit St. Lucie, a riverscape featuring the silhouette of a single palm tree against the backdrop of shimmering water and a brilliant moonlit sky, is typical of paintings by the Florida Highwaymen, an informal collective of landscape artists mainly active in the 1950s and '60s. Remarkable for anticipating and amplifying cultural perceptions of Florida that became pervasive in the public consciousness, paintings by the Highwaymen are readily identifiable by the natural iconography-placid inland rivers, windswept palm trees-that McLendon and colleagues perpetually revisited.

 

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

All stainless steel contains varying amounts of iron, carbon, and corrosion-inhibiting chromium. However, ferritic stainless steel, often used for induction cookers, contains a higher percentage of chromium (at least 10.5%) than does austenitic stainless steel as well as a higher concentration of iron. Unlike ferritic stainless steel, austenitic stainless steel has a face-centered cubic crystalline structure held stable by the presence of nickel and nitrogen. Austenitic stainless steel has two subtypes: the 200 series, often used for washing machines, and the 300 series, which has more nickel than the 200 series and is often used for storage containers or furnaces. Thus, stainless steel used to manufacture______

 

Which choice most logically completes the text?

The Akhundov National Library in Baku houses many historical newspapers, but it isn't necessary to travel to Baku to access them. Because these rare items are digitized, people around the world can access _____ regardless of where they live.

 

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

An emulsifier is a type of compound that serves to stabilize an emulsion-a mixture of two or more liquids that otherwise would not easily blend together. In the cosmetics industry, emulsifiers such as stellar alcohol _____ to blend oil and water into homogeneous formulations, like lotions and perfumes.

 

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 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 warmer months should tend to have a longer life span, as is illustrated by the finding that_____

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

Biologists Rebecca M. Calisi-Rodriguez and George E. Bentley examined research on species such as dark-eyed juncos and tucos, which have both been studied under laboratory conditions as well as in the wild, to see whether there were significant differences between findings in the wild and in the lab. And, for example, they found for tucos that daytime is the most active period for wild individuals but not for captive individuals. Calisi-Rodriguez and Bentley therefore concluded that the laboratory setting was likely _____

 

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Featuring works by the photographers Liselotte Grschebina and Else "Yva" NeuländerSimon, the 2021 exhibition The New Woman Behind the Camera set out to provide a wideranging overview of photography by women in the 1920s through the_____ given the collection's breadth of more than 120 photos, its efforts were largely successful.

 

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

Blair L.M. Kelley, a historian specializing in the history of
segregation in the US, conducted extensive research while writing a book
about the landmark Brown v: Board of Education court case. _____ when the book was released, colleagues in her field
regarded it as a reliable source of information on the subject.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

The decades since the Second World War have seen a range of outcomes
for the independence movements of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.
Many of the regions' islands and groups of islands have become
independent nations. _____ the Northern Mariana Islands, a
commonwealth in Micronesia consisting of fifteen islands, are part of
the US, and the Society Islands, a group of islands in Polynesia
including Tahiti and Bora Bora, are part of the territory of French
Polynesia.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

The constitution of Spain, enacted in 1978, enshrines 60 total rights
across 17,608 words of text. According to constitutional scholar George
Tsebelis, who examines the implications of constitutional length on
civil rights, _____ 105th in a global ranking of the shortest
constitutions.

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

Many English adjectives share a linguistic origin with their
associated nouns, like the adjective "monetary" and the noun
"money," both of which come from the Latin "monetarius." _____ some adjectives do not share an origin with their
associated nouns. For example, the adjective "bovine" ultimately comes
from the Latin "bos," while its associated noun, "cow," comes from
the Old English "cu."

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

The Austronesian language family comprises some 1,200
languages---including the_______Javanese and
Bikol, which are spoken by 100 million and 4.6 million speakers,
respectively---and accounts for one-fifth of the world's languages,
making it of keen interest to linguists like Li Jen-kuei.

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

Scholarly interest in literary juvenilia-writings by children and
teenagers-tends to focus on unpublished works by authors who became
famous as adults, such as W.H. Auden's poem "Autumn," which he wrote
around age 15, because they offer insights into their authors' artistic
development. But some scholars also argue that recovering juvenilia by
lesser-known writers is essential to understanding literary history:
Daisy Ashford's novels, which she published as a child, were widely
read by contemporaries and are therefore deserving of closer attention.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

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

• Element abundance is a relative measure of the occurrence of a
  chemical element in a given environment.

• An element's relative abundance can be expressed as a mass
  fraction, mole fraction, or volume fraction.

• Mass fraction is the ratio of an element's mass to the combined
  mass of all elements in a given environment.

• The mass fraction of calcium (Ca) is 17,100 parts per million (ppm),
  or 1.71%, on Earth.

• The mass fraction of potassium ( K ) is 160 ppm , or 0.016%, on
  Earth.

The student wants to specify an element's relative abundance on Earth.
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:

• Square Tower House is a former Ancestral Puebloan settlement in
  southwestern Colorado that was inhabited from approximately  CE.

• It contained elaborate multistory buildings primarily made of adobe
  and stone.

• The Ancestral Puebloan civilization (approximately  ) was the precursor of modern Pueblo tribal
  nations.

• These modern nations include Zuni Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo.

• Buildings in Zuni Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo often incorporate
  traditional elements, such as adobe and stone, alongside more
  contemporary elements.

The student wants to connect Square Tower House to modern-day Pueblo
buildings. 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:

• Ixmiquilpan is a municipality in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico.

• Municipalities are governmental regions responsible for providing
  many public services to their residents.

• One service they provide is water treatment.

• Ixmiquilpan's population was 98,654 in 2020.

• Hidalgo is divided into 84 municipalities.

The student wants to provide an example of a public service that
Ixmiquilpan is responsible for 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 supercontinent is a single landmass made up of most or all of
  Earth's continents.

• Over time, continents merge together to form supercontinents, which
  then break apart.

• This process is believed to take hundreds of millions of years and
  is known as the supercontinent cycle.

• Ur was a supercontinent that formed about 3.1 billion years ago.

• Euramerica was a supercontinent that formed about 300 million years
  ago.

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