SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

Writer Lydia Davis observed that while traditional literary forms, such as the novel, 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. The late period pieces of James Tate arguably fit in this category, since they straddle the line between prose and poetry.

Text 1

 

According to a study by a conservation group representing 11 tribal nations in the Great Lakes region, the firefly (waawaatesi in the Ojibwe language) will have significantly worse outcomes over the next 50 years if temperatures increase as much as some models suggest. By contrast, the white-tailed deer (waawaashkeshi in Ojibwe) should be able to withstand the highest predicted warming without much harm and so likely won't require the conservation efforts that the firefly will.

Text 2

US government agencies involved in conservation are unfortunately not able to address every possible threat to natural resources. They must use the best information available to decide which species are most threatened and therefore most in need of conservation efforts.

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

Some robots such as Justin (developed in 2008) and TALOS (developed in 2017) feature humanoid characteristics like the ability to respond to voice commands so that people will find it easier to interact with them. While these features can help to ________ feelings of comfort in people, a robot that looks too human can fall into the"uncanny valley," meaning that its appearance unintentionally unsettles those who encounter it.

 

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

A speaker at a recent children's book publishing conference noted that, while many illustrators do excellent work, in her mind, no one has ever ________ Amos Ferguson's work as the illustrator of Under the Sunday Tree: there is no better example of the form, according to the speaker.

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

Optimal foraging theory (OFT) holds that animals' foraging behaviors reflect cost-benefit trade-offs that vary by species and with dynamic ecological circumstances. One such Circumstance is lunar intensity, which Alexander Lang and colleagues found to be negatively associated with foraging by white-throated round-eared bats but Patricia C. Wright found to be positively associated with foraging by three-striped night monkeys. This discrepancy is explicable in terms of OFT: the monkeys' greater reliance on vision means that higher lunar intensity benefits them more than it benefits the bats.

According to the text, the difference between Lang and colleagues' findings and Wright's findings can be attributed to which difference between white-throated round-eared bats and three-striped night monkeys?

In 2015 Filipa Faleiro and colleagues published a study concluding that ocean acidification has a strong effect on the behavior of Hippocampus guttularus, a species of fish. However, Faleiro and colleagues' study relied on a mean sample size of only 6 fish. In a 2022 review of various scientists' conclusions about the impacts of ocean acidification on fish behavior, Timothy D.Clark and colleagues caution that relying on such a relatively small sample size can increase the potential for biased analysis. Such analysis, in turn, can contribute to reports of exaggerated effects.

 

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

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 narrow-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 narrow-headed fish to detect obstructions that create large vortices.

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

According to historical documents, Marietta Strozzi---a young woman who was prominent in fifteenth century Florentine culture-inspired several artworks, including a portrait bust sculpted by Desiderio da Settignano. Multiple sculptures dating to the period have been alleged to be the reported bust, but none have been authenticated as Desiderio's depiction of Strozzi. Given the historical importance of both Strozzi and Desiderio's sculpture of her, positively identifying the bust would be a notable accomplishment for art historians.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

Writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia's love of short fiction began when she read a collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories as a child, and she would develop into a prolific short story writer herself, publishing pieces like "In the Details" (2015) and "Shade of the Ceiba Tree" (2011). Yet she's best known as a novelist, in part due to her________Gothic (2020) earning a spot on the New York Times Best Sellers list.

 

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

Though he's performed on many respected albums, including DBIII: Live at the Cotton Club Tokyo by Dean Brown, drummer Dennis Chambers may be best known for his time as house drummer for the hip-hop label Sugar Hill Records. He did not play drums on the label's classic song "Rapper's Delight,"________ joined the label after the song's release.

 

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

The following text is adapted from Guy de Maupassant's 1884 short story "A Recollection," from the collection Guy de Maulpassant Short Stories (translated by Alber M.CMeMaster 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?

Psychologists Gregory Bryant, Dorsa Amir, and colleagues investigated cross-cultural Perceptions of spontaneous (real) laughter and volitional (fake or forced) laughter.Study participants from 21 societies, including those in Austria and Turkey, listened to randomized recordings of 18 spontaneous laughs taken from natural conversations between pairs of women and 18 volitional laughs produced separately by 18 different women in response to an experimenter's instruction to laugh. Analysis of the participants' evaluations of the laughs prompted the team to conclude that the ability to distinguish between spontaneous and volitional laughter appears to be universal across cultures.

Which quotation from a psychologist not involved in the team's study would most directly weaken the team's conclusion?

Within Earth's biomes, there are four main types of desert: arid, semiarid, coastal, and cold. The Australian Desert in Australasia is an arid ________it is one of the largest such deserts in the world, with a total area of about 2,700,000 km².

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

A report from an international organization that monitors the numbers of women serving as judges or magistrates on various nations' highest courts, such as the Supreme Court in Sweden and the Supreme Court in Honduras, indicates that among the countries that had a different number of women on these courts in 2013 than they had in 2009, the number increased in some countries but decreased in others. For instance, the number of women judges and magistrates on high courts in________

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

Arthurian legends (tales related to the character of King Arthur) derive from many sources; such as Annales Cambriae, composed around 970, and Perceval, the Story of the Grail from around 1181. 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 d'Arthur, do. It can therefore be inferred that________

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Exclusively inhabiting tropical countries such as Tanzania, wild chimpanzees lack adaptations to seasonal variations in ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiance from sunlight; since UVB exposure enables vertebrates to synthesize vitamin D, this raises questions about how chimpanzees in mid-latitude zoos are affected by the lower and more variable UVB irradiance in those locations. In a study of zoo chimpanzees in France and other mid-latitude countries, Sophie Moittié and colleagues found not only that chimpanzees' vitamin D levels correlate with UVB irradiance but also that vitamin D levels show no evidence of plateauing as UVB irradiance reaches its highest local levels, suggesting that_______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tracks comparative price list data for its thirty-eight member countries. For instance, in July 2021, a hypothetical basket of goods priced at 100 US dollars (USD) in the United States would have cost 39 USD and 130 USD in fellow OECD________and Iceland, respectively.

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

The title of " Of Moderation," an essay by French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, suggests a straightforward topic. However, Montaigne's expansive, curious mind meant that he never limited himself to one subject. ________ the essay is not just a discussion of moderation but a broad exploration of Montaigne's entire worldview.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

With one in Finland and another in Japan, the observatory sites that form the Super Dual Auroral Radar________or SuperDARN, as space physicists like Tadahiko Ogawa call it—number nearly five dozen. Located across the globe, the radars track gravity waves and other geospace phenomena.

 

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

In a 2022 analysis, researchers investigated how negative adjectives like "unhappy"evolve. ________the researchers applied a statistical model to a set of words to infer the gate of cognate replacement---the rate at which a word will be replaced over time with a noncognate form---in Indo-European languages.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

With their distinctive cone shapes and steeply sloping sides, the volcanoes Maungarei (New Zealand) and Fisher (Alaska) may look similar from afar. Pranabendu Moitra and other volcanologist,_________can tell by how each was formed that Maungarei is a cinder cone volcano, while Fisher is a composite volcano.

 

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

 

• Vexillology is the study of flags.

 

• The fags of many countries include symbols like animals, plants, or landforms.

 

• These symbols often represent an aspect of the region's history, culture, or landscape.

 

• The flag of Cyprus includes an olive branch.

 

• The flag of Andorra includes a cow.

Which choice most effectively uses information from the given sentences to make and support a generalization about symbols on flags?

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

• Modularity of mind is the notion that the mind is at least partly composed of innate neural structures (modules) that perform fast, necessary tasks.
  
  

• 1983: cognitive scientist Jerry A.Fodor hypothesized that low-level cognitive systems (e.g, perception, language) are modular.
  
  

• In Fodorian modularity, high-level systems (e.g., reasoning) are not modular.

 

• 2003: cognitive scientist Peter Carruthers proposed the massive modularity Hypothesis (MMH).
  
  

• MMH expands modularity to include all cognitive systems.

The student wants to compare Fodor's hypothesis with Carruthers's. 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:

• Singuilucan 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.

 

• Singuilucan covers an area of roughly 420 km².

 

• Hidalgo is divided into 84 municipalities.

The student wants to emphasize the size of Singuilucan. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

The Quadrantid meteor shower has a zenithal hourly rate(ZHR) of 110, meaning that at the shower's peak, 110 meteors per hour could potentially be seen by a hypothetical observer. A calculation that assumes ideal viewing conditions, ________

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:

• There are more than 500 National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) across the United States.

 

• The Mason Neck NWR is a 2,276-acre area in Virginia, on the Atlantic coast.

 

• It was established to protect the endangered bald eagle.

 

• The Coachella Valley NWR is a 3,592-acre area in California, on the Pacific coast.

 

• It was established to protect the endangered Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard.

The student wants to provide an overview of the NWR program. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?