SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

The Last of England, painted in the realist style by Ford Madox Brown, depicts a working-class family immigrating to Australia to start a new life. The realists' emphasis on accurately portraying the experiences of average working people was largely a rejection of the romantic style evident in many paintings by Léon Belly, which instead________ their subjects' beauty or heroism while hiding all imperfection.

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

The following text is adapted from Adib Khorram's 2018 novel Darius the Great Is Not

 

Okay. The narrator, Darius, is a teenager visiting family in Iran. He and his friend Sohrab are at the entrance of the ruins of the ancient city of Persepolis.

    "The Gate of All Nations," Sohrab said. He gestured to the lamassus [sculptures] and pillars surrounding us."That's the name in English."

It wasn't much of a gate anymore, since anyone of any nation could have easily Stepped around it instead of walking through. But it was still amazing.

Behind the lamassu, more columns sprouted from the ground like ancient trees in a petrified forest, forty feet tall, spindly but still miraculously upright. Giant stone slabs formed the remains of what must once have been a breathtaking structure.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

In a 2018 article celebrating films depicting the Black experience, critics for the New York Times ________ William Greaves's 1968 film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One and Spike Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X, praising the former as"a vital artifact of its time" and the latter as "electrifying."

 

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

The following text is adapted from Mary Seacole's 1857 autobiography Wonderful

 

Adventares of Mrs. Seacole in Many Dands.

That journey across the Isthmus [of Panama], insignificant in distance as it was, was by no means an easy one. It seemed as if nature had determined to throw every conceivable obstacle in the way of those who should seek to join the two great oceans of the world.

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

When people think of dinosaurs with feathers, they typically think of winged dinosaurs, such as the bat like Yi qi. However, many dinosaurs that didn't have wings also had feathers on their bodies. For instance, research indicates that the wingless, predatory Juravenator likely had feathers.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

Many believe that lullabies, characterized by their slow tempos, contain some acoustic features that are universally calming to infants. In a study, Constance M.Bainbridge and colleagues played both a lullaby sung in the Luk Saami language and a non-lullaby sung in the Tundra Nenets language to a group of infants. The researchers also measured the infants' heart rates, as a reduced heart rate is considered a measure of relaxation.They claim that the lullaby did indeed relax the infants.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Bainbridge and colleagues' claim? 

An upcoming exhibition will showcase Vincent van Gogh's drawing Building in Eindhoven, which Van Gogh________in the city of Nienen nearly 150 years ago.

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

A 2012 study led by ________ studied the impact of fertilizers containing nitrogen on Grassland arthropod populations. Another study, led by Kimberly J.La Pierre in 2015, looked at fertilizers containing nitrogen and two other macronutrients: phosphorus and Potassium.

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

British professional soccer team Arsenal Football Club, whose home uniform color is mainly red, won more than half its home matches between 1947 and 2003. This is a higher proportion than the proportion of home matches won by Watford Football Club, whose home uniform color is not red, during the same period. According to a study by Martin J. Attrill and colleagues, the color red can cause people to respond with fear and hesitation, which the researchers think helps explain Arsenal's success. Nadav Goldschmied and colleagues reanalyzed the published data from this study, however, and found no evidence that red-uniformed teams are more likely than other teams to win, suggesting that Watford's home match win percentage________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

At 1,666 years old, RCR 1, a foxtail pine (Pinus balfouriana) located in the United States, is one of the oldest known trees in the world. With almost two millennia of climate data in its tree rings, a single tree like ________ claims dendrochronologist Valerie Trouet, can tell the history of the world.

 

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

Scientists were able to isolate a relatively pure sample of cadmium in 1817, the same year they first discovered the element's existence. ________ the isolation process took longer for niobium, which was isolated in its pure form 63 years after scientists first discovered it.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Louise Arner Boyd, who led several scientific expeditions off the coast of Greenland in the 1930s, undoubtedly accomplished much, but to gain a lasting place in our historical memory, there is little that can _______ being the first to do something. For example, people will always remember that Enid Gordon-Gallien led the expedition that first mapped the area around Kalambo Falls between Zambia and Tanzania.

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

Researchers César A.Hidalgo, Elisa Castaner, and Andres Sevtsuk created a computer model to predict the mix of gyms, beauty salons, and other businesses found in a given neighborhood. How we define a neighborhood and its boundaries is subjective, so the team used a clustering algorithm to locate dense groupings of amenities that represent human identified neighborhoods like Boston's Central Square. The predictive model, which incorporates this algorithm, is sure to be invaluable in determining the optimal mix of a city's amenities.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge is an 1838 historical account by Elleanor Eldridge and

 

Frances Harriet Whipple Green. In the book, the authors assert that people don't need to be famous to be worthy of memoirs, writing,________

Which quotation from Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge most effectively illustrates the claim?

Studies have shown that when we listen to high-tempo music (songs with a high number of beats per minute, or bpm) during endurance exercise, we perceive our effort as lower than it actually is, which leads to an increased pace and a higher heart rate. Researchers recently designed a follow-up study in which participants jogged outdoors for 30 minutes While listening to Aerosmith's "Livin'on the Edge" (169 bpm) continuously. The next day, participants performed the same activity while listening to Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" (88 bpm). As expected, listening to that song resulted in participant ________

 

Which choice most logically completes the text?

When ordering the branches of the Colville River system by Hack's method, one begins with the riverway's lowest point, the Colville Rivers. ________ when using Strahler's method, one begins at the top of the river system, with the Okokmilaga River and other tributaries fed by the riverway's source, Alaska's De Long Mountains.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

In the Silurian hypothesis, astrophysicist Adam Frank and climatologist Gavin Schmidt suggest the geological record may contain evidence of prehuman advanced civilizations. This sensational hypothesis obscures the scientists' practical________ Frank and Schmidt don't believe such a civilization existed, and their "hypothesis" is a thought experiment exploring the traces our own civilization will leave on the geological record.

 

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

 

To understand the extent of deforestation in the Chorotega region of Costa Rica, Juan Pablo Arroyo-Mora and colleagues used historical aerial photography and remote sensing data to track changes in the forest cover area across different land use capability classes (categories that indicate possible uses of forest land ).Due to the Chorotega region's accessibility, various types of forested areas were converted to cattle pasture as rising international meat prices drove a cattle ranching boom in the 1960s and 1970s. By the mid-1980s, however, increased public awareness and environmental reforms , along with a decline in meat prices, triggered a natural regrowth process, as evident by the________

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

One way that young orangutans acquire foraging skills is through a behavior cientists call peering-closely watching older orangutans as they engage in an activity that the young have not yet mastered. Since male orangutans typically leave the area of their birth upon maturity and females do not, Beatrice Ehmann and her colleagues hypothesized that it is more advantageous for immature males than females to devote attention to orangutans who are immigrants to the home region of the immature individual, and this should be reflected in sex-specific differences in peering behavior.

Which choice best describes data from the table that support Ehmann and colleagues hypothesis?

Michelle Pereira et al. Hypothesized that introducing health improvements into workplaces would increase productivity by reducing absenteeism (sick employees not working) and presenteeism (sick workers working less productively due to illness). Pereira's team enrolled groups of Australian workers in two programs: one that gave employees exercise training(EET)and one that enrolled employees in health promotion seminars (EHP). They then calculated the productivity loss of those groups at 12 weeks and 12 months after the programs began (based on the 28 days preceding each point). They concluded that exercise training was more effective at restraining productivity loss than health promotion seminars were, though this result took time to become apparent.

Which choice best describes data from the table that most effectively strengthen Pereira and colleagues' conclusion?

In the 1960s and the 1970s, a loose-knit group of writers including Sonia Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks, and James Baldwin_____monumental works of poetry and fiction exploring the Black American experience and together came to be known as the Black Arts movement.

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:

 

• Elizabeth Catlett(1915-2012 )was a celebrated African American artist.

• She is best known for creating sculptures and prints that explore the Black experience.

• Face is a 1973 sculpture by Catlett.

• It is made of marble.

The student wants to describe a sculpture by Elizabeth Catlett. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

Antonio Stradivari(1644-1737) made about 1,000 violins in his lifetime.

 

• Musicians prize his Stradivariusviolins for their famed sound quality.

• Many of the 500 or so that exist today are named for a previous owner.

• The ex-Berglund Stradivarius is named for Paavo Berglund, a Finnish violinist.

Which choice most effectively uses information from the given sentences to explain how the ex-Berglund Stradivarius got its name?

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

 

• Buland Darwaza is a historic gateway.

• It is located in the city of Agra,India.

• It is one of the many remaining structures built by the Mughal Empire.

• The Mughal Empire was a South Asian empire.

• It lasted from the early sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century.

The student wants to specify the location of Buland Darwaza. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

Included among a particular group of mid-twentieth-century artists known as the New York School, French abstract________was known for using energetic brush strokes and for capturing the energy and chaos of modern life.

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:

 

• For centuries in Japan, it was common practice for farmers to cultivate terraced rice fields (tanada in Japanese).

• Tanada were built by carving the steep hillsides into a series of large, flat steps.

• This agricultural method allowed farmers to increase arable land and prevent landslides.

• The Sawajiri tanada in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, was developed during the Sengoku period.

•  The Sengoku period (1467 CE-1615 CE) was characterized by social upheaval and civil war.

The student wants to explain the design of the Sawajiri tanada. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?