SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

Some paleontologists thought that a sudden shift toward an arid climate on the Australian continent may have brought about the rapid extinction of several species of large kangaroos around 200,000 years ago. However, new evidence that the change in conditions occurred well before those species went extinct is forcing paleontologists to _____ that hypothesis.

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

The following text is from Mark Twain's 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom, a child, has been told by his aunt to paint their house's fence. Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high.

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

The invention in 1958 of the integrated circuit (or microchip) radically altered the semiconductor industry. In fact, some historians argue that it fundamentally___ the industry by enabling it to take advantage of mass production methods for the first time.

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

Text corpora such as the Corpus of Contemporary American English are enormous collections of electronically stored texts that can be used for empirical testing of hypotheses regarding how ___ a word is in spoken and written English. For instance, one might have a guess about the incidence of the word "day," but only an analysis of a corpus can prove that "day" is the fifth most commonly used noun.

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

why do ocelots purr but jaguars roar? Researchers hypothesize that this difference between the two feline species may be partly due to a U-shaped bone in their throats. This bone is called the hyoid. Ocelots, which are much smaller than jaguars, have a rigid hyoid that rumbles when the cat's larynx vibrates, resulting in a purr. By contrast, jaguars have a somewhat flexible hyoid, and the bone is attached to the skull with a stretchy ligament that ocelots lack. These traits allow jaguars and most other species of big cats to roar. The same traits may also prevent most big cats from purring.

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

In 2020, rap artist and professor A.D. Carson published the first peer-reviewed rap album about his experiences with Black masculinity called "i used to love to dream."Typically in peer review, experts evaluate scholarly articles prior to publication. For Carson's album, dubbed a "mix tap/e/ssay," peer review involved both scholars and rap artists. In combining elements of a mixtape album with scholarly essays that connect Carson's lyrics to historical and contemporary contexts for listeners both inside and outside academia, Carson's album helped redefine how scholarship is created and shared.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

The following text is adapted from Lady Gregory's 1904 play Spreading the News. Jack Smith and Bartley Fallon have encountered each other at the local fair.

JACK: It isn't to the fair I came myself, but up to the Five Acre Meadow I'm going.where I have a contract for the hay. We'll get a share of it into tramps [dryingstacks] to-day.
BARTLEY: You will not get it into tramps to-day. The rain will be down on it by evening, and on myself too. It's seldom I ever started on a journey but the rain would come down on me before Id find any place of shelter.
JACK: If it didn't itself, Bartley, it is my belief you would carry a leaky pail on your head in place of a hat, that way you'd not be without some cause of complaining.

Based on the text, what does Jack most likely believe about Bartley?

Horizontal gene transfer involves the exchange of genetic material between organisms not in a parent-offspring relationship. It is common among prokaryotes (single-celled organisms such as the bacteriaBrevibacillus borstelensis and  Massilia timonae). The process can have the effect of increasing bacterial resistance to antibiotics; as such, an understanding of how to prevent horizontal gene transfer might result in the mitigation of dangerous pathogens (organisms that cause disease).

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

For centuries, people in lreland and Northern lreland have been finding deposits of valuable objects, called hoards, that earlier people buried. These discoveries have persisted into the 2000s; for example,_           

Examples of Hoards found in Ireland and Northern lreland

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

The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by Edith Wharton set in the 1870s in the northeastern United States. In the novel, Newland Archer and May Welland have just been married. They are spending a summer with May's relatives in Newport, Rhodelsland. May is puzzled by Newland's lack of enthusiasm for Newport: _____

Which quotation from The Age of Innocence best illustrates the claim?

A telescope allows us to see very faint objects mostly due to the large size of the opening that light passes through, known as the aperture. Like the pupil in the human eye, the larger the diameter of a telescope's aperture, the fainter the objects we can detect with it. An amateur astronomer claims that she likely could see most, but not all, of the stars in the table while using a telescope with a 160-millimeter (mm)aperture.

Which choice best describes data from the table that support the amateur astronomer's claim?

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 of Justice in Mexico and the Supreme Court in the Philippines, found that the overall trend is toward more women serving on the high courts in 2010 than in 1980. For example, none of the countries in the graph had more than 2 women in these positions in 1980, but            

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

The great blue heron and the small dark heron are long-legged birds that live in wetlands, like the Everglades in Florida. Laura D'Acunto and colleagues wanted to know how these birds choose an area in which to live. They looked at features of the birds' habitats, such as the geographic location of the area and how deep the water is during the birds' breeding season. They found that great blue herons prefer areas with deep water during breeding season, but that was not true for small dark herons. There searchers concluded that water management strategies that increase the depth of water in potential wetland bird habitats during breeding season are therefore less likely to _____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Light of Truth is a bronze and marble sculpture by artist Richard Hunt. It honors civil rights icon lda B Wells. The sculpture___in a tree-lined plaza in Chicago, just a few blocks from where Wells lived.

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

Within Earth's biomes, there are four main types of desert: arid, semiarid, coastal, and cold. The roughly _____ is classified as an arid desert.

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

Named for the number of hoofed toes they possess, even-toed ungulates, such as the domestic goat (Capra aegagrus hircus), __to a vast and diverse order of animals.

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

Included in  We wanted a Revolution!, a 2018 group exhibition at the Albright-Knox ArtGallery in Buffalo, New York, was the work of multimedia artist Lorna Simpson. The impact of Simpson's work is ______ the horizons of conceptual photographic art, challenging conventional notions of race, gender, history, and memory, and shedding light on the experience of African American women in contemporary society.

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

Researchers Tammy Kernodle and Paul Austerlitz have lent their expertise on Black history and music to an important new project:

Carnegie Hall's Timeline of African American Music, a digital resource that, ____ text and music clips, traces the history of specific musical genres (such as funk and swing).

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 Quintessence in Tokyo and Gaon in Seoul.

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

In their 2022 study of Indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus),_ _____ _found that the dolphins' tendency to rub their heads against corals with antimicrobial properties may confer health benefits.

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

Just as the state of Texas has a designated state flower, tree, and bird, it also has a state soil: Houston Black soil. Houston Black is a fitting choice for state soil, in large part because it can be found in abundance across the state. ___ it plays an important role in Texas's agricultural industry and is used to grow a variety of crops, like cotton and sorghum.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Generally, sleek vehicles are more aerodynamic than bulkier ones. The streamlined nose of the T-45 Goshawk jet, ___ helps it glide through wind with relative ease, while a boxy pickup truck encounters more wind resistance, making it less aerodynamic.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Legislators in Antigua are elected via a first-past-the-post electoral system. In this winner-take-all voting system, the seat is awarded to the candidate who receives not a majority but a plurality (i.e., greatest number) of votes. ___ if several popular candidates are vying for the same seat, it is possible for a candidate to win an election despite receiving less than 50% of the votes.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: Asparagus is a vegetable that contains ascorbic acid, an essential nutrient for humans. Every 100 grams (g) of asparagus contains 6 milligrams (mg) of ascorbic acid. Many animals can make ascorbic acid in their bodies, but humans cannot. Humans must get ascorbic acid from foods, including fruits and vegetables. Ascorbic acid is also known as vitamin C

The student wants to provide an example of a vegetable that contains vitamin C. 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: Hina Hanta is an online archive curated by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Hina Hanta means "bright path" in Choctaw. It features images of cultural artifacts relevant to the history of the Choctaw people. It includes a shawl (anchi in Choctaw) made from cloth. It includes a fanner basket(ufko) made from cane.

The student wants to specify the shawl's name in Choctaw. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

Since 1931, the New York Times (NYT) Best Sellers list has been a measure of the most successful books in the US. Kwame Alexander and Diana Ross are Black authors who have reached the NYT Best Sellers list. The Crossover is a children's book by Kwame Alexander. It reached the NYT Best Sellers list on August 27, 2017. Secrets of a Sparrow is a memoir by Diana Ross. lt reached the NYT Best Sellers list on November 21, 1993.

Which choice most effectively uses information from the given sentences to emphasize the different years in which the books reached the NYT Best Sellers list?