SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

The work of Tobias Gerstenberg et al.on tracking eye movements supports a theory that people engage in ________ thinking when making causal judgments: when subjects were asked to look at two colliding billiard balls and judge whether one caused or prevented the other's movement through a gate, their eyes looked at where the target ball would have gone if the ball that altered its path did not exist.

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

The following text is from Sarojini Naidu's 1896 poem"Alabaster."

 

Like this alabaster box whose art

Is frail as a cassia-flower,is my heart,

Carven with delicate dreams and wrought

With many a subtle and exquisite thought.

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

Before the Mariner 2 mission completed a successful flyby of Venus in 1962, astronomers' ideas about the planet were little more than ________. Venus's atmosphere is so thick that Earth-based observations had yielded very little information about the planet.

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

Text 1

 

A conservation group representing 11 tribal nations in the Great Lakes region reported to various state and federal natural resources agencies operating in the region that the northern wild rice plant (manoomin in the Ojibwe language) will likely fare significantly worse than the American Crow (aandeg in Ojibwe) due to rising temperatures over the next 50 years. This collaborative approach has helped build trust between government and tribal groups, which will likely improve the quality of any joint conservation projects.

Text 2

State and federal natural resources agencies are increasingly incorporating traditional ecological knowledge from tribal groups in the agencies' plans to address threats to natural resources due to increasing temperatures. This approach has helped build positive relationships between tribal groups and these agencies and furthermore tends to lead to better conservation outcomes.

Based on the texts, both authors would most likely agree with which statement?

Like all species of baleen whales, the humpback whale feeds on tiny creatures known as krill by filtering water through bristlelike keratin structures called baleen plates. In this way, baleen whales can eat up to 30 percent of their total mass per day. And while no one would call the humpback whale small---it can have a mass as high as 30,000 kg---it is one of the smaller baleen whales and is much smaller than the fin whale, which can weigh a whopping 80,000 kg and consume as much as 24,000 kg of krill per day.

 

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

In what is now Minnesota, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community operates the Hocokata Ti, a cultural center. Relying on traditional knowledge to guide the design of exhibits, this institution presents Dakota history and culture to the tribe's citizens. The Comanche Nation, a tribe in Oklahoma, employs a similar strategy in its own cultural center. Both centers contrast with museums that aren't Indigenous-led; when displaying Indigenous artifacts, such museums tend to anticipate mainly non-Indigenous audiences and rely on Euro-centric strategies for designing exhibits.

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

The Reckoning and Resilience (2022) exhibition at Duke University's Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, North Carolina, is dedicated to the work of thirty North Carolina artists, including Lien Truong, Kennedi Carter, and Meg Stein. Although the Nasher Museum has focused exhibitions entirely on North Carolina artists before, as it did previously in the photography exhibition Across County Lines, the breadth of disciplines in Reckoning and Resilience sets it apart.

 

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the underlined claim?

The following text is adapted from Guy de Maupassant's 1884 short story" A Recollection," from the collection Guy de Maupassant Short Stories (translated by Albert M.C.McMaster et al. in 1903). The narrator is taking a boat down the Seine river from Paris, France, to the surrounding countryside.

 

I took up a position in the bows [front of the boat], standing up and looking at the quays, the trees, the houses and the bridges disappearing behind us. And suddenly I perceived the great viaduct of Point du Jour which blocked the river. It was the end of Paris, the beginning of the country, and behind the double row of arches the Seine, suddenly spreading out as though it had regained space and liberty, became all at once the peaceful river which flows through the plains, alongside the wooded hills, amid the meadows, along the edge of the forests.

Based on the text, which choice best expresses the narrator's characterization of the Seine?

Water flowing around an obstruction creates vortices (patterns of swirls)of varying size; by detecting the vortices, fish can determine the size and position of the obstruction. Testing by Yuzo R.Yanagisuru, Otar Akanyeti, and James C.Liao using models of three head shapes---narrow (low ratio of width to length), intermediate, and wide (high ratio of width to length)---showed that for large vortices, fish with intermediate heads would be better able than wide-headed fish to distinguish between vortices and general turbulence in the water. A second research team has therefore hypothesized that in low-visibility conditions, intermediate-headed fish will be more likely than wide-headed fish to detect obstructions that create large vortices.

 

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the second research team's hypothesis?

Over 600 languages are spoken in New York City in addition to English---one can find Bambara spoken in the neighborhood of Kingsbridge, for example, or Ghale in Jackson Heights .English is the most common, with 65% of New Yorkers speaking it at home; Spanish is second, at 20%. A linguist hypothesizes that a Spanish dialect---a variation differing from the parent language in some of its vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar---has developed in New York City, partly due to its linguistic interaction with English. Previous research shows that younger speakers of nonmajority languages are more likely to borrow words from the majority language of a region than are older speakers. If the linguist's hypothesis is correct, it is therefore likely to be the case that ________

 

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Rafael Núnez and colleagues studied how members of the Yupno, an Indigenous group in Papua New Guinea, conceptualize time. The researchers recorded Yupno speakers explaining certain temporal words and phrases, such as abjuk sonda, a present-oriented expression that translates to "this week," and coded each speaker's manual gestures.

 

Previous research has found a tendency in many cultures to make temporal distinctions using spatial concepts and gestures, particularly along egocentric axes (i.e., relative to the orientation of the speaker): for instance, Spanish speakers often refer to the left/right axis to describe events in time. In an anthropology paper, a student claims that the tendency toward ego-based conceptualizations of time is universal. Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the student's claim?

At London and New York Fashion Weeks, fashion designers debut new clothing collections.

 

• Color consultants create trend reports on the popular colors at a given Fashion Week.

• A report on 2018 New York Fashion Week noted the popularity of a delicate petal pink shade that was warm in tone and soft in intensity.

• A report on 2021 London Fashion Week noted the popularity of a stirring ocean blue shade that was cool in tone and bright in intensity.

Which choice most effectively uses information from the given sentences to describe a color that was popular at 2021 London Fashion Week?

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

 

• Chromosomes are cellular structures that contain genes.

• Genes carry critical instructions for determining an organism's physical traits.

• Members of the same species typically have the same number of chromosomes.

• The fennec fox(Vulpes zerda)and the red fox(Vulpes vulpes)are
   pecies of foxes.

• The fennec fox has sixty-four chromosomes.

• The red fox has thirty-four chromosomes.

The student wants to specify how many chromosomes the fennec fox has. 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 fifth Solvay Conference on Physics was held in 1927.

• It brought together twenty-nine of the era's preeminent scientists to discuss the emerging field of quantum theory.

• The conference famously featured a debate between physicists Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr.

• Bohr proposed that subatomic entities like electrons had only probable realities until they were observed.

• Einstein argued that subatomic entities like electrons had a reality independent of observation.

• Bohr's position, later called the Copenhagen interpretation, remains the most widely accepted theory of quantum mechanics.

The student wants to place Einstein's argument within its historical context. 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 calcite has a Mohs scale number of 3.

• The mineral apatite has a Mohs scale number of 5.

• The mineral topaz has a Mohs scale number of 8.

The student wants to make a generalization about 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:

• Documentary TV programs in the slow TV genre consist of uninterrupted broadcasts of ordinary events in real time.

• Reinflytting is a Norwegian slow TV program.

• The 9-day-long program documented a wild reindeer migration from their winter to summer pastures.

• It first aired in 2017.

• Slow TV has been called "the world's most boring television."

• American journalist Nathan Heller praises it, writing that "it affords a visceral kind of armchair tourism."

The student wants to use a quotation to refute the claim that slow TV programs are boring.Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

Mountain climbing routes that incorporate metal rungs and cables are known as via ferratas, from the Italian phrase for "iron path. " As climbing these routes has shifted from a mode of travel to a sporting activity, modern via ferratas are rarely designed to simply reach a summit.________ new routes favor recreation over utility, aiming to provide a challenging climb or showcase dramatic scenery.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

With his room-sized installation Unicorn/My Private Sky, Norwegian artist Borre Sæthre succeeds in creating a whimsical yet perplexing experience.________when visitors set foot inside the fantastically blue room and encounter the life-sized stuffed unicorn preening at the far end of it, they are both dazzled and confused—as if stepping into a strange and enchanting new world.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

William Kittredge's short essay on"krummholz,"a word referring to twisted and stunted trees growing near the tree line, is included in the collection Home Ground: A Guide to the American Landscape.The book wasn't written solely by________ other authors, such as Linda Hogan and Barry Lopez, also contributed essays.

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

Recent pollen analyses of the Aran Islands have led some researchers to propose that the now treeless islands were once wooded.This hypothesis________ that certain trees, such as P.sylvestris, survived without interruption or human intervention throughout the Holocene cannot stand, researchers Michael O'Connell and Karen Molloy counter, unless other explanations can first be ruled out.

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

Integrating insights from economics and psychology, researchers in the field of behavioral economics explore a variety of topics. Lucia Macchia of the University of Oxford studies socioeconomic________ other researchers investigate areas such as organizational behavior and personal finance.

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

If you had turned on the radio in the winter of 1970, chances are you would have heard the hit________ "Oh What a Day" by the Dells.The song spent ten straight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart that year.

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

Interest in mechanotransduction, the mechanism by which cells sense and convert mechanical stimuli into biochemical signals, is expanding because of innovative work by biomedical scientists—many of whom, like neuroscience and biophysics expert Elba Serrano,______this mechanism to better understand how the body's neurological and biomechanical systems interact.

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

Today, the Michelin Guide is widely known as the arbiter of fine dining,but when it was created in 1900, it was little more than a marketing gimmick; brothers Andre and Edouard Michelin sought to increase profits for their tire company by encouraging their customers to drive across France, visiting the guide's recommended hotels and restaurants along the way.   Nevertheless,the guide soon grew in scope and________its modest French eateries were replaced with some of the most esteemed restaurants from around the world, including La Yeon in Seoul and Sushi Shikon in Hong Kong.

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

Arthurian legends (tales related to the character of King Arthur) derive from many sources, such as Preiddeu Annwfn, composed around 900, and the Mabinogion from the 12th and 13th centuries. One of the most significant sources, Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, was written in Latin in the 1130s; some material from it was later adapted by the Norman poet Wace into the Roman de Brut in 1155. But while no source before 1155 includes references to the famous Round Table at which Arthur's knights assembled, both the Roman de Brut and Sir Thomas Malory's 15th-century compilation of Arthurian legends,Le Morte dArthur, do. It can therefore be inferred that________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

An analysis by Alain Elayi and colleagues of coins minted in Sidon in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE reveals a change in their composition over time: while a coin from circa 450 BCE contains about 98% silver and 1% copper, a coin from 367 BCE (the end of Ba'alšillem II's reign) contains 74.2% silver and 24.7% copper, giving it a relatively yellowish appearance that traders would have noticed. Because coins with a silver content below 80% were widely considered unsuitable for trade, Elayi et al. speculate that a crisis in confidence in the currency occurred in Sidon around 367 BCE, which was likely relieved—despite Sidon's persistent oppressive financial obligations—as a result of Ba'alšillem II's successor Abd'aštart I's decision to________

 

Which choice most logically completes the text?