The Reading and Writing Section

The Reading and Writing section presents short reading passages (or passage
pairs) followed by a single multiple-choice question. Questions on the Reading
and Writing section represent one of four content domains—Craft and Structure,
Information and Ideas, Standard English Conventions, and Expression of Ideas. To
help you budget your time, questions that test similar skills and knowledge are
grouped together and arranged from easiest to hardest.

The test is divided into 2 modules, each of which includes questions from all four
different domains.

What the Reading and Writing Passages Are Like

The passages in the Reading and Writing section range from 25 to 150 words.
Passages represent the subject areas of literature, history/social studies, the
humanities, and science.

What the Reading and Writing Questions Are Like

The questions on the Reading and Writing section fall into four content domains:

1. Information and Ideas

Measures comprehension, analysis, and reasoning skills and knowledge and
the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, and integrate information and ideas
from texts and informational graphics (tables, bar graphs, and line graphs).
Comprises of Command of Evidence; textual, Command of Evidence;
quantitative, Central Ideas & Details, Inferences.

2. Craft and Structure

Measures the comprehension, vocabulary, analysis, synthesis, and reasoning
skills and knowledge needed to understand and use high-utility words and
phrases in context, evaluate texts rhetorically, and make connections
between topically related texts. Comprises of Craft & Structure, Words in
Context, Text Structure & Purpose, and Cross-Text Connections.
3. Expression of Ideas
Measures the ability to revise texts to improve the effectiveness of written
expression and to meet specific rhetorical goals. This comprises Transitions;
Rhetorical Synthesis; and Boundaries.

4. Standard English Conventions

Measures the ability to edit text to conform to core conventions of Standard
English sentence structure, usage, and punctuation. Comprises Form,
Structure, &Sense

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test items, the correct answers, and a thorough explanation of the answer.
 Craft and Structure
Words in context | Lesson
A guide to "words in context" questions on the digital SAT

What are "words in context" questions?

On the Reading and Writing section of your SAT, some questions will ask you to
select the most logical and precise word or phrase in a given context.

Words in context questions will look like this:

In recommending Bao Phi’s collection Sông I Sing, a librarian noted that pieces by
the spoken-word poet don’t lose their ______ nature when printed: the language
has the same pleasant musical quality on the page as it does when performed by
Phi.

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

A. jarring
B. scholarly
C. melodic
D. personal

Answer: C
How should we determine the most "precise" word?

A "precise" word is one that means exactly what it should in a given situation: it
will fit its sentence perfectly and reinforce the text's meaning.

This last bit is important. We're not just looking for a word that sounds right or
looks good. Instead, we need to understand the text and select the word with a
meaning that best matches the point the text is making. This means that, when
attempting words in context questions, reading comprehension is just as
important as our knowledge of vocabulary.

To help us identify the best word in context, we should focus on two things:
context and connotation.

Context

Context refers to the specific scenario we're attempting to match a word or

phrase to. To understand the context, we must read the provided text carefully.

Because we need to know the meaning of the word we're looking for, that
meaning will be provided a second time within the text. This results in many
prompts for words in context questions following a similar pattern of

Statement. Restatement.

The trick then is to match the word we're looking for with the equivalent idea in
the other statement.

For example, let's look back at our example item prompt:

In recommending Bao Phi’s collection Sông I Sing, a librarian noted that pieces by
the spoken-word poet don’t lose their ______ nature when printed: the language
has the same pleasant musical quality on the page as it does when performed by
Phi.

We have two matching statements here:

  The poems keep their _____ nature when printed.

 The poems have the same pleasant musical quality when "on the page".

Notice how the blank in the first statement lines up with the phrase pleasant
musical quality in the second statement. This is the context that tells us what
word that we should choose: the word that most closely means "pleasant" and
"musical".

Connotation

"Connotations" are the associations that we have with different words. One
common example of connotation is whether a word feels positive or negative.
Words can have similar meanings but vastly different connotations.

For example, the words "promising" and "ominous" both mean that something is
predictive of the future. However, while "promising" has a strongly positive
connotation, "ominous" has a strongly negative connotation. Therefore, these
words can't logically applied to the same context.

If you're stuck on a words in context question, try focusing on these connotations.

Is the sentence positive? Then the word we choose should be positive too!

For example:

 The basketball star's promising play this season suggests a bright future.

 The dark, ominous clouds on the horizon suggest a storm is coming.

Based on context clues like "bright" and "storm", it's clear where the positive and
negative words are most appropriate.
How to approach words in context questions

To solve a “words in context” question, follow these three steps:

Step 1: Summarize the text in your own word.

Don't just skim the text. Read it closely, and try to summarize the main idea in
your own words. This can be tricky, since an important word is likely missing. If
you're struggling to understand the text, try and translate each idea into a simple
bullet point.

Remember, words in context prompts tend to follow a similar pattern. They will
make a claim, and then they will expand upon or restate that claim in different
words.

Step 2: Identify the key word, phrase, or idea.

The text provides all the information you need to know. Whatever point the text
is making, the correct answer will reinforce that idea. Often, there will be one
word or phrase in the text that has nearly the same meaning as the correct
answer. Find the right context clues, and the next part should be easy.

Step 3: Select the word that matches

If a choice changes the meaning of the text, or introduces a new idea or

perspective, then it's not the most precise word in context. Only one of the
choices will match and emphasize the idea being expressed in the text. You can
select that choice with confidence!
Top tips

Charge it (+/-)

Sometimes connotation alone is enough to answer a words in context question. Is

the text expressing something positive? If so, we can eliminate any choices that
are too negative or neutral.

 Explanation

Let's look back at our example question:

We can tell the text is trying to say something positive (+) about Bao Phi's poetry:
it has a "pleasant musical quality".

Which of the choices is a positive word?

"Jarring" is a negative word. "Scholarly" and "personal" aren't negative, but

they're not exactly positive either...

That leaves us with "melodic", which is positive and is the answer.

Avoid unknowns

On test day, you may encounter some words that you don't know. Many test-
takers make the mistake of selecting words that they don't know in the choices
instead of ones they know better and "feel right". These students think the words
they know better must be "traps", because they might "seem too easy". This
strategy can often backfire.

To raise your chances of getting words in context questions correct, try this
instead:

 Eliminate what you can from the words you do know

 Select an option from what remains.

Note: The only time you should select a word you don't know is if you can
confidently eliminate all of the other choices.
Your Turn

 The following text is from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby.

[Jay Gatsby] was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that
resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American—that comes, I
suppose, with the absence of lifting work in youth and, even more, with the
formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality was continually
breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness.

As used in the text, what does the word “quality” most nearly mean?

A. Characteristic
B. Standard
C. Prestige
D. Accomplishment

Answer: A

 The Iguazu Falls, which lie on the border between Argentina and Brazil, are
a popular and ______ tourist destination. The waterfalls have been visited
by people from all over the world for over a century, and they are often
cited as one of the most impressive natural wonders on Earth.

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

A. Fleeting
B. Revered
C. Obscure

Answer: B
Exercise
1. Charles “Teenie” Harris was a photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier from
1936 to 1975. During his career he took over 70,000 photographs
documenting everyday life in Pittsburgh’s Black communities. The Carnegie
Museum of Art maintains thousands of his photographs, carefully ______
them so that audiences can continue to view them well into the future.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?

A. Inventing
B. Counting
C. Replacing
D. Preserving

2. In the award-winning puzzle game Monument Valley, players navigate the

silent princess Ida through a series of puzzles and optical illusions. The game
is known for its ______ art design: beautiful, fantastical architecture and
calming pastel colors that make the game both challenging and pretty to look
at.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?
A. Violent
B. Mundane
C. Intricate
D. Distracting
 3. In traditional Ukrainian culture, embroidery is esteemed as a _____ of
cultural identity, with intricate designs and patterns often serving as symbolic
representations of nature, spirituality, and community heritage.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?
A. Trivialization
B. Manifestation
C. Suppression
D. Divergence

4. According to statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the best way to predict the
amount of time a nonperishable entity (such as a building or a technology)
will continue to exist is to examine how long it has survived so far. In this
view, an item’s age is the strongest ______ how much longer it will last.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?
A. uncertainty about
B. motivation for
C. indicator of
D. criticism of
 5. Visual artist Gabriela Alemán states that the bold colors of comics, pop art,
and Latinx culture have always fascinated her. This passion for the rich
history and colors of her Latinx community translates into the ______
artworks she produces.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?
A. Unknown
B. Reserved
C. Definite
D. Vivid

6. Dance choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar aims to give people the

opportunity to be ______ her creative process. For example, live
performances of her dance HairStories, which debuted in 2001, featured
videos of people across the United States talking about their hair and
audience members sharing pictures of their interesting hairstyles.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?
A. involved in
B. nervous about
C. delayed by
D. completed by
 7. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, established in 2008 on a remote Norwegian
island in the Arctic Svalbard archipelago, currently stores over one million
frozen seed samples from almost every country on Earth, serving as a backup
for the world’s crop diversity. Its location was chosen as _____ against
potential natural or human-made disasters, with Svalbard’s permafrost and
thick rock ensuring that the samples would remain frozen even without
power.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?

A. an enticement
B. a catalyst
C. a safeguard
D. an homage

8. The following text is from Yann Martel’s 2001 novel Life of Pi. The narrator’s
family owned a zoo when he was a child.
It was a huge zoo, spread over numberless acres, big enough to require a train to
explore it, though it seemed to get smaller as I grew older, train included.
©2001 by Yann Martel
As used in the text, what does the word “spread” most nearly mean?
A. Extended
B. Coated
C. Discussed
D. Hidden
 9. The Iguazu Falls, which lie on the border between Argentina and Brazil, are a
popular and ______ tourist destination. The waterfalls have been visited by
people from all over the world for over a century, and they are often cited as
one of the most impressive natural wonders on Earth.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?
A. Fleeting
B. Revered
C. Obscure

10.The Appalachian Trail is a hiking path in the eastern United States. Much of
the 2,000 mile trail passes through wilderness areas. In order to ______
those areas, the United States Congress passed the National Trails System
Act in 1968, ensuring that the trail would not be sold or commercially
developed.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?
A. Protect
B. Borrow
C. Postpone
D. Decorate
 11. In the late 19th century, the movement known as Aestheticism advocated
for a strict ______ artistic and functional objects, promoting instead the idea
that art should serve no other purpose than to be beautiful.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?
A. division between
B. integration of
C. manipulation of
D. correspondence with

12.Scientists previously thought that all electric eels belong to a single species,
but a team of researchers led by zoologist C. David de Santana proved this
idea wrong by ______ that there are in fact three distinct species of electric
eels.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?
A. Requiring
B. Demonstrating
C. Complaining
D. Pretending
 Text structure and purpose

What are "text structure and purpose" questions?

On the Reading and Writing section of your SAT, some questions will present a
short text for you to read. The question will then ask you to identify the main
purpose or overall structure of the text.

Text structure and purpose questions will look like this:

The following text is from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1910 poem “The Earth’s
Entail”.

No matter how we cultivate the land,

Taming the forest and the prairie free;

No matter how we irrigate the sand,

Making the desert blossom at command,

We must always leave the borders of the sea;

The immeasureable reaches

Of the windy wave-wet beaches,

The million-mile-long margin of the sea.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A. The speaker provides examples of an admirable way of approaching nature

and then challenges that approach.
B. The speaker describes attempts to control nature and then offers a
reminder that not all nature is controllable.
 C. The speaker argues against interfering with nature and then gives evidence
supporting this interference.
D. The speaker presents an account of efforts to dominate nature and then
cautions that such efforts are only temporary.

Answer: B

How should we think about text structure and purpose questions?

Text structure and purpose questions are all about seeing past the surface of a
passage. Instead of just what a text says, these questions dig
into why and how the text says it.

Since these questions might ask about purpose or structure, let's look at each in
turn.

Purpose

Purpose is the why behind the passage. Why did the author write it? What did
they want to accomplish? What’s the point?

A text's purpose can often be framed using active verbs that demonstrate the
goals of the author. Some examples include

 to explain ______

 to illustrate ______

 to criticize ______

 to argue ______

 to introduce ______
The author wants you to have a particular experience when you read their
writing. Maybe they want to help you understand a new concept, or maybe they
want to convince you of something. What were your takeaways from reading the
text? Chances are, those takeaways are closely related to the text's purpose.

Structure

Structure is how a passage works to achieve its purpose. How does the text flow
from one idea to the next? Where does the author place particular emphasis?

A text's structure can often be described as a sort of motion, following the focus
as it shifts from one place to another.

Separating a text's structure from its content can be difficult, but it often helps to
consider how the ideas within the text relate to one another. Do they disagree?
Does one idea cause or build upon another? These relationships create a shape
for the text which serves to support the goals of the author.

How to approach text structure and purpose questions

To solve a text structure and purpose question, consider following these steps:

Step 1: Identify the task

The first thing you should do is glance at the question to see if it asks about
"overall structure" or "main purpose". While structure and purpose are closely
linked, you may find it helpful to read the passage while focusing on just the one
the question asks about.

Step 2: Summarize the text

Read the passage closely and summarize the ideas you encounter. Try to boil the
whole text down to one or two simple points. You already know whether the
question asks about structure or purpose, so keep that in focus as you form your
summary.
Rephrasing things in your own words will give you a strong understanding
of what the passage is about, and this is the first step to understanding
the why and how of the text.

Step 3: Test the choices

Compare your summary to each of the choices. While a summary isn't exactly the
same as a structure or purpose, you should find a significant resemblance.

A text's purpose will include reference to the main ideas in the passage. A text's
structure will often be made obvious by a straightforward summary.

One of the choices should jump out as the most clearly linked to your summary.
You can select this choice with confidence!

Top tips

Stay specific

Don't stray beyond the focus of the text. Eliminate choices that describe a
purpose or structure that introduces information not directly addressed in the
passage. Likewise, avoid choices that shift or blur the purpose of a text by
emphasizing details that aren't a central focus.

Explanation

Let's look at the choices in our example question:

 Choice A introduces the word "admirable", which makes a judgment about

whether these attempts to control nature are good or bad. But the poem
doesn't discuss whether things are good or bad. We can eliminate this
choice.
Be strict

Choices in structure questions often break the text into two parts. Make sure the
description of both parts of the text is accurate. If a choice correctly describes the
first part of the text, but doesn't feel quite as accurate for the second part,
eliminate that choice. Every part of the answer needs to accurately describe the
text.

Explanation

 Choice D describes the first part of the text pretty well. The first four lines
of the poem do discuss "efforts to dominate nature". However, the second
half of choice D disqualifies the whole choice; the poem never claims that
anything is "temporary". We can eliminate this choice.

Lean on transitions

Transitions like "however" and "therefore" contribute significantly to the

structure of a text by showing how one idea flows into the next. Take note of any
transition words you encounter while reading; these can be very helpful when
trying to map out the structure of the text.

Explantion

Let's look at the text in our example question:

The text uses the subordinating conjunction "no matter" to link the first half of
the poem to the second half. "No matter" is very similar to "despite" or
"regardless", and it very clearly signals that there will be a contrast between the
first half of the poem and the second half. This contrast is reflected in the correct
answer.
 Part-to-whole relationships
What are "part-to-whole relationships" questions?

On the Reading and Writing section of your SAT, some questions will require you
to read a short text with one underlined sentence. The question will then ask you
to identify the function of the underlined sentence within the text as a whole.

Part-to-whole relationships questions will look like this:

The following text is from Herman Melville’s 1854 novel The Lightning-rod Man.

The stranger still stood in the exact middle of the cottage, where he had first
planted himself. His singularity impelled a closer scrutiny. A lean, gloomy figure.
Hair dark and lank, mattedly streaked over his brow. His sunken pitfalls of eyes
were ringed by indigo halos, and played with an innocuous sort of lightning: the
gleam without the bolt. The whole man was dripping. He stood in a puddle on the
bare oak floor: his strange walking-stick vertically resting at his side.

Which choice best states the function of the underlined sentence in the overall
structure of the text?

A. It sets up the character description presented in the sentences that follow.

B. It establishes a contrast with the description in the previous sentence.
C. It elaborates on the previous sentence’s description of the character.
D. It introduces the setting that is described in the sentences that follow.

Answer: A

How should we think about part-to-whole relationships questions?

Part-to-whole relationships questions are a type of text structure and purpose

questions. To succeed on these questions, we need to understand what the
author is trying to achieve in the text, as well as how the text works to achieve
that purpose.
But while other text structure and purpose questions focus on the entire passage,
part-to-whole relationships questions require us to focus on one specific part of
the text: the underlined portion.

 What information does the underlined portion contain?

 How does that information relate to the rest of the text? What is its
function? In other words, what does it do?

Answering these questions will allow us to determine what role the underlined
portion plays in the flow of the text.

How to approach part-to-whole relationships questions

To solve part-to-whole relationships questions, consider following these steps:

Step 1: Summarize the text

Read the passage closely and summarize the ideas you encounter. Try to boil the
whole text down to one or two simple points. Give some extra attention to the
underlined portion: you know the question will focus on it!

Rephrasing things in your own words will give you a strong understanding of the
"whole" of the passage. This will make it much easier to identify how the "part"
functions within that whole.

Step 2: Make a prediction

Once you have a firm understanding of the entire passage, you should try to state
the function of the underlined portion in your own words.

 How does the underlined portion fit into the text?

 Does it introduce what comes next?

 Does it contradict what came before?

Comparing the information in the underlined portion with what comes
immediately before and immediately after will often reveal how that information
contributes to the flow of the text.

Step 3: Test the choices

Compare your prediction to each of the choices. Which choice most closely
matches your prediction? You can select that choice with confidence!

Top tips

Stay within the underline!

Make sure the choice you select applies directly and specifically to the underlined
portion. Other choices may correctly identify the function of other sentences
within the text, so make sure you're looking in the right place!

Show me

Let's look at the choices from our example question:

 Choice B is interesting. It accurately describes the function of a number of

sentences in the text (pretty much every sentence after the underlined
one). However, the underlined portion doesn't "elaborate" on the
description of the stranger: it initiates the description of the stranger. The
sentences that follow do all the elaboration. We can eliminate this choice.

Be strict

Choices on part-to-whole relationships may often seem partly correct. Maybe

they describe the "part" accurately, but not the "whole". Eliminate any choices
that feel kind of correct, but that contain a detail or two that doesn't match the
text. A choice must be entirely accurate to be the answer.
Show me

Let's look at the choices from our example question:

 Choice D is very nearly accurate. The underlined portion does indeed

introduce the description that comes in the following sentences. However,
choice D says that description is focused on "setting". But the text describes
the appearance of the stranger, not the setting of the story. We can
eliminate this choice.

Exercise

1. Historians Tiya Miles and Roy E. Finkenbine have both documented the
assistance Indigenous peoples gave to Black freedom seekers leaving the
South before the US Civil War. Much of the historical evidence of this help
comes from Indigenous oral traditions and from autobiographies written by
the freedom seekers. One such narrative is Jermain Loguen’s autobiography,
which tells about how Neshnabé (Potawatomi) villagers offered him food,
lodging, and directions during his 1835 journey from Tennessee to Canada.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence?

A. It suggests that most historians believe that Neshnabé villagers were more
successful in assisting freedom seekers than other people were.

B. It shows why Loguen decided to write in great detail about his experiences
traveling from Tennessee to Canada in his autobiography.

C. It provides an example of an autobiography that describes help given by an

Indigenous people to a Black freedom seeker.

D. It argues that autobiographies are particularly important sources of

information about geography in the United States before the Civil War.
 2. Jackie Ormes’s Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem (1937–38) was the first comic
strip by a Black woman to appear in a widely read newspaper. The strip tells
the story of Torchy, a young woman who leaves Mississippi to become a
performer in New York City. Torchy’s story reflects the experience of the
Great Migration (1910–1970), when millions of Black Americans left the
South in search of opportunities in other parts of the United States. Torchy
Brown thus shows how Ormes used comics to comment humorously on
issues affecting Black Americans, which she continued to do throughout her
career.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. To give an example of how Ormes presented the experiences of Black

Americans in her comic strips

B. To show how Ormes’s Torchy Brown inspired other Black women to write
comic strips in the 1930s

C. To claim that several characters in Torchy Brown were based on people that
Ormes knew personally

D. To illustrate how the subjects Ormes addressed in her comic strips changed
over the course of her career

3. In most building demolitions, the building materials are destroyed and sent
to landfills. City officials in Portland, Oregon, wanted to reduce this waste.
The officials passed a law requiring demolition companies to deconstruct
some buildings instead. Deconstruction involves carefully taking buildings
apart piece by piece. Damage to the materials is avoided so that they can be
reused in new constructions. A 2019 study found that 27 percent of materials
from deconstructions in Portland were able to be reused. The remaining
materials were processed for recycling instead of going to a landfill.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

 A. To explain an effort made by the city of Portland to reduce demolition
waste and some results of that effort

B. To discuss laws aimed to reduce demolition waste in Portland and compare

them to similar laws in other cities

C. To show that popular support for measures that reduce demolition waste
has increased since 2019

D. To argue that building deconstruction is not as effective as other measures

at reducing demolition waste

4. The following text is from the 1884 poem "Solitude" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the brave
old earth must borrow its mirth, It has troubles enough of its own. Sing, and the
hills will answer; Sigh, it is lost on the air; The echoes rebound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. To explore how people use laughter and song to cope with difficult
emotions

B. To make the case that it is only through solitude that we can come to truly
appreciate the full range of our emotions

C. To argue that people should be equally sympathetic toward the positive

emotions and the negative emotions of others

D. To claim that positive emotions are well-received by the world, while

negative emotions are shunned
 5. Hiroshi Senju is known worldwide for his paintings of waterfalls. These
paintings are large and tend not to show the entire waterfall. Instead, Senju
focuses on just the point where the falling water reaches the pool below,
keeping the top of the waterfall out of view. While Senju’s paintings are
rooted in art movements originating in the United States, the artist uses
traditional Japanese techniques and materials that make his work instantly
recognizable.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A. It gives an opinion on an artist and then suggests multiple reasons why the
artist’s work has been largely overlooked.

B. It explains a specific painting technique and then provides examples of

artists who use the technique.

C. It describes a famous painting and then compares it to a lesser-known

painting from the same time period.

D. It introduces an artist and then explains some common characteristics of

well-known paintings by that artist.

6. The following text is excerpted from The Red Badge of Courage, an 1895
novel by Stephen Crane. In the text, a young Civil War soldier named Henry
reflects in the aftermath of fighting a battle.

The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and

muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown mud under a
low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world
for him, though many discovered it to be made of curses and walking sticks. He
had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past.
He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He
turned now with great thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool
brooks—an existence of soft and eternal peace.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as
a whole?

A. It contrasts Henry's emotional state with that of the other soldiers.

B. It highlights the physical and emotional toll that the war has taken on the
soldiers.

C. It presents a shift in Henry's perception of the natural world.

D. It emphasizes Henry’s sense of exhaustion in the aftermath of the battle.

7. Researchers have found a nearly 164,000-year-old molar from a member of

the archaic human species known as Denisovans in a cave in Laos, suggesting
that Denisovans lived in a wider range of environments than indicated by
earlier evidence. Before the discovery, Denisovans were thought to have
lived only at high altitudes in relatively cold climates in what are now Russia
and China, but the discovery of the tooth in Laos suggests that they may have
lived at low altitudes in relatively warm climates in Southeast Asia as well.

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

A. It defines a term used in the description that follows in the rest of the
sentence.

B. It emphasizes the main goal of the research introduced in the previous

sentence.

C. It provides context that clarifies the significance of the information that

follows in the rest of the sentence.

D. It dismisses as untrue the research presented in the previous sentence.

8. The following text is from Holly Goldberg Sloan’s 2017 novel Short.
More than two years ago my parents bought a piano from some people who were
moving to Utah. Mom and Dad gave it to my brothers and me for Christmas. I had
to act really happy because it was such a big present, but I pretty much hated the
thing from the second it was carried into the hallway upstairs, which is right next
to my bedroom. The piano glared at me. It was like a songbird in a cage. It wanted
to be set free.

©2017 by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. It suggests that the narrator’s brothers are talented piano players.

B. It describes the event that led the narrator’s parents to buy a piano.

C. It explains why the narrator always wanted a piano close to her bedroom.

D. It establishes how the narrator feels about the piano.

9. The following text is from Srimati Svarna Kumari Devi’s 1894 novel The Fatal
Garland (translated by A. Christina Albers in 1910). Shakti is walking near a
riverbank that she visited frequently during her childhood.

She crossed the woods she knew so well. The trees seemed to extend their
branches like welcoming arms. They greeted her as an old friend. Soon she
reached the river-side.

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

1. It suggests that Shakti feels uncomfortable near the river.

2. It indicates that Shakti has lost her sense of direction in the woods.

3. It emphasizes Shakti’s sense of belonging in the landscape.

4. It conveys Shakti’s appreciation for her long-term friendships.

 10.In many agricultural environments, the banks of streams are kept forested to
protect water quality, but it’s been unclear what effects these forests may
have on stream biodiversity. To investigate the issue, biologist Xingli Giam
and colleagues studied an Indonesian oil palm plantation, comparing the
species richness of forested streams with that of nonforested streams. Giam
and colleagues found that species richness was significantly higher in
forested streams, a finding the researchers attribute to the role leaf litter
plays in sheltering fish from predators and providing food resources.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. It explains the differences between stream-protection strategies used in oil

palm plantations and stream-protection strategies used in other kinds of
agricultural environments.

B. It presents a study that addresses an unresolved question about the

presence of forests along streams in agricultural environments.

C. It discusses research intended to settle a debate about how agricultural

yields can be increased without negative effects on water quality.

D. It describes findings that challenge a previously held view about how fish
that inhabit streams in agricultural environments attempt to avoid
predators.

11.Many films from the early 1900s have been lost. These losses include several
films by the first wave of Black women filmmakers. We know about these
lost movies only from small pieces of evidence. For example, an
advertisement for Jennie Louise Touissant Welcome’s documentary Doing
Their Bit still exists. There’s a reference in a magazine to Tressie Souders’s
film A Woman’s Error. And Maria P. Williams’s The Flames of Wrath is
mentioned in a letter and a newspaper article, and one image from the
movie was discovered in the 1990s.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A. The text discusses several notable individuals, then explains commonly

overlooked differences between those individuals.

B. The text describes a general situation, then illustrates that situation with
specific examples.

C. The text identifies a complex problem, then presents examples of

unsuccessful attempts to solve that problem.

D. The text summarizes a debate among researchers, then gives reasons for
supporting one side in that debate.

12.Genetic studies have led researchers to suggest that turtles are most closely
related to the group that includes modern crocodiles. But studies of fossils
have suggested instead that turtles are most closely related to other groups,
such as the one that contains modern snakes. However, many of the fossil
studies have relied on incomplete data sets. For a 2022 investigation,
biologist Tiago R. Simões and colleagues examined more than 1,000 reptile
fossils collected worldwide. From this large data set, they found clear
agreement with the results of the genetic studies.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence?

A. It offers an overview of the tools scientists use to examine fossils.

B. It describes a limitation of some studies about the origin of turtles.

C. It criticizes a widely held belief about genetic studies of reptiles.

D. It summarizes previous research on the evolution of crocodiles.

 Cross-text connections
What are "cross-text connections" questions?

On the Reading and Writing section of your SAT, some questions will present two
short texts for you to read. The question will then ask you to compare the points
of view of the authors of the two texts.

Cross-text connections questions will look like this:

Text 1

What factors influence the abundance of species in a given ecological

community? Some theorists have argued that historical diversity is a major driver
of how diverse an ecological community eventually becomes: differences in
community diversity across otherwise similar habitats, in this view, are strongly
affected by the number of species living in those habitats at earlier times.

Text 2

In 2010, a group of researchers including biologist Carla Cáceres created artificial

pools in a New York forest. They stocked some pools with a diverse mix of
zooplankton species and others with a single zooplankton species and allowed the
pool communities to develop naturally thereafter. Over the course of four years,
Cáceres and colleagues periodically measured the species diversity of the pools,
finding—contrary to their expectations—that by the end of the study there was
little to no difference in the pools’ species diversity.

Based on the texts, how would Cáceres and colleagues (Text 2) most likely
describe the view of the theorists presented in Text 1?

A. It is largely correct, but it requires a minor refinement in light of the

research team’s results.
B. It is not compelling as a theory regardless of any experimental data
collected by the research team.
 C. It may seem plausible, but it is not supported by the research team’s
findings.
D. It probably holds true only in conditions like those in the research team’s
study.

Answer: C

How should we think about cross-text connections questions?

Cross-text connections questions give us twice as much text to consider, but both
texts will cover the same subject, and this close interrelation means that each
text will build your understanding of the other.

Additionally, cross-text connections questions will always focus on point of view,

which allows us to read the passages with this particular aspect in mind.

Point of view

Point of view refers to the opinions and perspectives of a given person. In the
context of the SAT, the point of view we'll tend to focus on is that of the author of
the passage or that of specific individuals named in the passage. For instance, in
our example question, we're asked to consider the views of the "theorists" from
Text 1 and "Cáceres and colleagues" from Text 2.

Once we've identified the individuals whose points of view the question asks
about, we'll usually need to consider whether those points of view agree or
disagree.

Remember, the points of view we identify must be directly supported by the

text. Avoid choices that express opinions that are too extreme, that swap the
points of view of different people, or that make claims that go beyond the specific
focus of the text.
How to approach cross-text connections questions

To solve cross-text connections questions, consider following these steps:

Step 1: Summarize the texts

Read each passage closely and summarize the ideas you encounter. Try to boil
each text down to one or two simple points. Give some extra attention to the
point of view expressed in each text: you know the question will focus on it!

If a passage introduces a particular person, it’s a good idea to focus on the

opinions of that person.

By the end of this step, you should have a short summary in mind for each of the
two texts.

Step 2: Determine the relationship

Now that you have summarized the points of view that the question focuses on,
you must determine how those summaries relate to one another.

 Do the points of view agree?

 Do they disagree?
 Does one point of view elaborate on or modify the other?

Answering these questions should allow you to determine how the two texts
are connected to each other, and how the ideas they contain interact. Once
we can state this relationship in our own words, we can move on to the next
step.

Step 3: Test the choices

Compare your results to each of the choices. Which choice most closely matches
the relationship between points of view that you identified? You can select this
choice with confidence!

If you're still struggling to decide between the choices, try eliminating choices that
go beyond what is expressed by the text or that exaggerate how extreme
different points of view might be. Remember, the correct answer will be directly
supported.

Top tips

Look for positives (+) and negatives (–)

Pay attention to the specific words used in a text. Are the words positive,
negative, or neutral? Word choice that reveals a particular tone or attitude is
highly useful for identifying point of view because it can tell us how the author (or
whoever else we're focused on) feels about the subject being discussed. Positive
and negative words can be particularly useful when looking for agreement or
disagreement.

Show me

Let's look back at Text 2 in the example question. There's one interesting piece of
Text 2 that gives us some really useful information:

"contrary to their expectations"

This interjection tells us specifically about what "Cáceres and colleagues" thought
about their experiment results. And the negative word "contrary" should jump
out at us.

This excerpt reveals that the results were not what the researchers expected, and
the results do not conform to the theory in Text 1. This gives us a huge clue to the
answer!

Stick to the text

Avoid choices that go beyond what's directly stated in the text. While it might be
tempting to infer what an author's opinion might be, incorrect choices will
frequently make claims that are too extreme or that cover cases not explicitly
covered in the text. Don't fall into these traps!
Show me

Let's look back at the choices in our example question:

 Choice B might be tempting. It does manage to reflect the disagreement

between the claim of the theorists in Text 1 and the findings of the
researchers in Text 2. However, it takes that position too far, making
it more extreme than the text suggests. There's no proof in the passages
that Cáceres and colleagues think the theory is so bad that it's "not
compelling". All we know is that their findings (which they found surprising)
don't match the theory. We can eliminate this choice.

Exercise

1.

Text 1

A team led by Bernardo Strassburg has found that rewilding farmland (returning
the land to its natural state) could help preserve biodiversity and offset carbon
emissions. The amount of farmland that would need to be restored, they found, is
remarkably low. Rewilding a mere 15% of the world’s current farmland would
prevent 60% of expected species extinctions and help absorb nearly 299 gigatons
of carbon dioxide—a clear win in the fight against the biodiversity and climate
crises.

Text 2

While Strassburg’s team’s findings certainly offer encouraging insight into the
potential benefits of rewilding, it’s important to consider potential effects on
global food supplies. The researchers suggest that to compensate for the loss of
food-producing land, remaining farmland would need to produce even more
food. Thus, policies focused on rewilding farmland must also address strategies
for higher-yield farming.
Which choice best describes a difference in how the author of Text 1 and the
author of Text 2 view Strassburg’s team’s study?

A. The author of Text 2 approaches the study’s findings with some caution,
whereas the author of Text 1 is optimistic about the reported potential
environmental benefits.

B. The author of Text 2 claims that the percentage of farmland identified by

Strassburg’s team is too low for rewilding to achieve meaningful results,
whereas the author of Text 1 thinks the percentage is sufficient.

C. The author of Text 2 focuses on rewilding’s effect on carbon emissions,

whereas the author of Text 1 focuses on its effect on biodiversity.

D. The author of Text 2 believes that the results described by Strassburg’s

team are achievable in the near future, whereas the author of Text 1 argues
that they likely aren’t.

2.

Text 1

On April 26th, 1777, Sybil Ludington rode 40 miles by horse through Putnam
County, New York, to gather up local militia. British forces were burning nearby
Danbury, Connecticut, and Ludington wanted to rally rebel troops to meet them.
Although she was only 16 years old at the time, her brave feat made Ludington
one of the heroes of the American Revolution. Since then, Ludington has been
widely celebrated, inspiring postage stamps, statues, and even children’s TV
series.

Text 2

Historian Paula D. Hunt researched the life and legacy of Sybil Ludington but
found no evidence for her famous ride. Although many articles and books have
been written about Ludington, Hunt believes writers may have been inventing
details about Ludington as they retold her story. Ludington is revered by
Americans today, but there simply isn’t a strong historical record of her heroic
ride.

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

A. Sybil Ludington was likely not a real person.

B. Sybil Ludington was crucial to the outcome of the Revolutionary War.

C. Historians have confirmed which route Sybil Ludington took

D. Many people have come to admire the story of Sybil Ludington’s ride.

3.

Text 1

Movies based on books are never as good as the original stories. They often
change important details or leave out essential parts of the plot. The directors
and actors rarely capture the true spirit of the characters or the themes. Reading
a book is a much more immersive and rewarding experience than watching a
movie.

Text 2

Movies based on books are a great way to introduce new audiences to the world
of literature. They can spark interest in the original source material and
encourage people to read more. The directors and actors also bring their own
creativity and interpretation to the stories; in the same way that authors use
prose, filmmakers use visual and audio elements to express the tone and style of
the narratives. So while a movie adaptation may stray from its source material, it
often offers a fresh and enriching artistic interpretation of the original narrative.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the
claims of the author of Text 1?
 A. By arguing that a movie adaptation can still be faithful to the book even
if it makes some changes to the plot or the characters

B. By explaining that it’s much harder to make a movie based on a book

than to write a book

C. By insisting that movies based on books are not meant to duplicate the
books but to complement them

D. By admitting that most fans of movies based on books don’t appreciate

the depth and complexity of the book

4.

Text 1

Crop rotation is a vital practice for sustainable agriculture. By rotating different

crops in and out of a given field, farmers can avoid depleting the soil of essential
nutrients. Crop rotation also prevents pests and diseases from becoming
established in one area, which minimizes the need for harmful pesticides. While it
may take a bit more planning and effort, the long-term benefits of crop rotation
are clear.

Text 2

While the environmental and agricultural benefits of crop rotation are well-
documented, increasing the practice is unfortunately not a simple fix. Farmers
often face market constraints that make it impractical to rotate crops regularly.
For example, they may have contracts to produce a certain amount of a particular
crop, or they may find that only one or two crops are profitable enough to sustain
their farm. Thus, urging farmers to rotate crops more frequently is often easier
said than done.

Based on the texts, the author of Text 1 and the author of Text 2 would most
likely agree with which statement?
 A. Crop rotation has well-established environmental and agricultural
benefits.

B. Market constraints make crop rotation impractical for many farmers.

C. The reduction of pesticide use in agriculture is beneficial for consumers.

D. Farms are more likely to fail commercially if they employ crop rotation.

5.

Text 1

American sculptor Edmonia Lewis is best known for her sculptures that represent
figures from history and mythology, such as The Death of Cleopatra and Hagar.
Although Lewis sculpted other subjects, her career as a sculptor is best
represented by the works in which she depicted these historical and mythical
themes.

Text 2

Art historians have typically ignored the many portrait busts Edmonia Lewis
created. Lewis likely carved these busts (sculptures of a person’s head) frequently
throughout her long career. She is known for her sculptures that represent
historical figures, but Lewis likely supported herself financially by carving portrait
busts for acquaintances who paid her to represent their features. Thus, Lewis’s
portrait busts are a central aspect of her career as a sculptor.

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

A. Sculpting representations of historical figures was a short-lived trend.

B. Lewis’s works are varied in the subjects they depict.

C. The Death of Cleopatra is Lewis’s most famous piece.

D. Lewis’s portrait busts have overshadowed her other work.

6.

Text 1

Italian painters in the 1500s rarely depicted themselves in their work. Even more
rare were self-portrait paintings that portrayed the artist as a painter. At the time,
painting was not yet respected as a profession, so painters mostly chose to
emphasize other qualities in their self-portraits, like their intellect or social
status. In the city of Bologna, the first artist to depict themself painting was a man
named Annibale Carracci. A painting of his from around 1585 shows Carracci in
front of an easel holding a palette.

Text 2

In their self-portraits, Bolognese artists typically avoided referring to the act of

painting until the mid-1600s. However, Lavinia Fontana’s 1577 painting, Self-
Portrait at the Keyboard, stands out as the earliest example of such a work by an
artist from Bologna. Although the artist is depicted playing music, in the
background, one can spot a painting easel by a window.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the
underlined claim in Text 1?

A. Self-Portrait at the Keyboard was painted earlier than Carracci’s painting

and also refers to the artist’s craft.

B. Carracci and Fontana were among the most well-respected painters in

Bologna at the time.

C. Fontana likely inspired the reference to an easel and palette in Carracci’s

painting.

D. The depiction of Fontana in Self-Portrait at the Keyboard was intended to

underscore the artist’s creativity.
7.

Text 1

Most scientists agree that the moon was likely formed after a collision between
Earth and a large planet named Theia. This collision likely created a huge debris
field, made up of material from both Earth and Theia. Based on models of this
event, scientists believe that the moon was formed from this debris over the
course of thousands of years.

Text 2

Researchers from NASA’s Ames Research Center used a computer to model how
the moon could have formed. Although simulations of the moon’s formation have
been done in the past, the team from NASA ran simulations that were much more
detailed. They found that the formation of the moon was likely not a slow process
that took many years. Instead, it’s probable that the moon’s formation happened
immediately after impact, taking just a few hours.

Which choice best describes a difference in how the author of Text 1 and the
author of Text 2 view the evidence for the formation of the moon?

A. The author of Text 1 believes that the moon formed more slowly than
the author of Text 2 believes.

B. The author of Text 1 suggests there is more evidence confirming the

existence of Theia than the author of Text 2 suggests.

C. The author of Text 1 claims that the moon’s surface is more similar to
Earth’s surface than the author of Text 2 claims.

D. The author of Text 1 argues that the formation of the moon occurred
much earlier than the author of Text 2 argues.
8.

Text 1

Public policy researcher Anthony Fowler studied the history of elections in

Australia, a country that requires citizens to vote. Fowler argues that requiring
citizens to vote leads to a significant increase in voters who would otherwise not
have the time or motivation to vote. Thus, election results in countries that
require citizens to vote better reflect the preferences of the country as a whole.

Text 2

Governments in democratic countries function better when more people vote.

However, forcing people to vote may have negative consequences. Shane P. Singh
and Jason Roy studied what happens when a country requires its citizens to vote.
They found that when people feel forced to vote, they tend to spend less time
looking for information about their choices when voting. As a result, votes from
these voters may not reflect their actual preferences.

Based on the texts, how would Singh and Roy (Text 2) most likely respond to the
research discussed in Text 1?

A. People who are forced to vote are likely to become politically engaged
in other ways, such as volunteering or running for office.

B. Countries that require voting must also make the process of voting
easier for their citizens.

C. Requiring people to vote does not necessarily lead to election

outcomes that better represent the preferences of the country as a
whole.

D. Only countries of a certain population size should implement

mandatory voting.
9.

Text 1

Dance choreographer Alvin Ailey’s deep admiration for jazz music can most
clearly be felt in the rhythms and beats his works were set to. Ailey collaborated
with some of the greatest jazz legends, like Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, and
perhaps his favorite, Duke Ellington. With his choice of music, Ailey helped bring
jazz to life for his audiences.

Text 2

Jazz is present throughout Ailey’s work, but it’s most visible in Ailey’s approach to
choreography. Ailey often incorporated improvisation, a signature characteristic
of jazz music, in his work. When managing his dance company, Ailey rarely forced
his dancers to an exact set of specific moves. Instead, he encouraged his dancers
to let their own skills and experiences shape their performances, as jazz musicians
do.

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

A. Audiences were mostly unfamiliar with the jazz music in Ailey’s works.

B. Ailey’s work was strongly influenced by jazz.

C. Dancers who worked with Ailey greatly appreciated his supportive

approach as a choreographer.

D. Ailey blended multiple genres of music together when choreographing

dance pieces.
10.

Text 1

Historians studying pre-Inca Peru have looked to ceramic vessels to understand

daily life among the Moche people. These mold-made sculptures present plants,
animals, and human faces in precise ways—vessels representing human faces are
so detailed that scholars have interpreted facial markings to represent scars and
other skin irregularities. Some historians have even used these objects to identify
potential skin diseases that may have afflicted people at the time.

Text 2

Art historian and archaeologist Lisa Trever has argued that the interpretation of
Moche “portrait” vessels as hyper-realistic portrayals of identifiable people may
inadvertently disregard the creativity of the objects’ creators. Moche ceramic
vessels, Trever argues, are artworks in which sculptors could free their
imagination, using realistic objects and people around them as inspiration to
explore more abstract concepts.

Based on the texts, what would Lisa Trever (Text 2) most likely say about the
interpretation presented in the underlined portion of Text 1?

A. Markings on depictions of human faces are not necessarily intended to

portray particular details about the physical appearance of individuals.

B. Some vessels may have been damaged during their excavation and thus
provide little insight into Moche culture.

C. Depictions of human faces are significantly more realistic than depictions of

plants and other animals are.

D. It is likely that some depictions of human faces with extensive markings are
intended to portray the same historical individual.
11.

Text 1

Today the starchy root cassava is found in many dishes across West Africa, but its
rise to popularity was slow. Portuguese traders brought cassava from Brazil to the
West African coast in the 1500s. But at this time, people living in the capitals
further inland had little contact with coastal communities. Thus, cassava
remained relatively unknown to most of the region’s inhabitants until the 1800s.

Text 2

Cassava’s slow adoption into the diet of West Africans is mainly due to the nature
of the crop itself. If not cooked properly, cassava can be toxic. Knowledge of how
to properly prepare cassava needed to spread before the food could grow in
popularity. The arrival of formerly enslaved people from Brazil in the 1800s, who
brought their knowledge of cassava and its preparation with them, thus directly
fueled the spread of this crop.

Based on the texts, the author of Text 1 and the author of Text 2 would most
likely agree with which statement?

A. The climate of the West African coast in the 1500s prevented cassava’s
spread in the region.

B. Several of the most commonly grown crops in West Africa are originally
from Brazil.

C. The most commonly used methods to cook cassava today date to the
1500s.

D. Cassava did not become a significant crop in West Africa until long after
it was first introduced.
12.

Text 1

Some animal species, like the leopard, can be found in many kinds of areas. On
the other hand, tropical mountain bird species tend to be limited in the types of
spaces they can call home. This is because many mountain bird species are only
able to survive at very specific elevations. Over time, these species have likely
become used to living at a specific temperature. Therefore, these species struggle
to survive at elevations that are warmer or colder than they are used to.

Text 2

A new study reviewed observations of nearly 3,000 bird species to understand

why tropical mountain bird species live at specific elevations. They noted that
when a mountain bird species was found in an area with many other bird species,
it tended to inhabit much smaller geographic areas. It is thus likely that
competition for resources with other species, not temperature, limits where
these birds can live.

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

A. Little is known about how tropical mountain birds build their nests.

B. Tropical mountain bird species are restricted in where they can live.

C. Tropical mountain bird species that live at high elevations tend to be

genetically similar.

D. Scientists have better tools to observe tropical mountain birds than they
did in the past.
 Information & Ideas
Measures comprehension, analysis, and reasoning skills and knowledge and the
ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, and integrate information and ideas from
texts and informational graphics (tables, bar graphs, and line graphs). Comprises
of Command of Evidence; textual, Command of Evidence; quantitative, Central
Ideas & Details, Inferences.

A.Command of evidence: textual | Lesson

What are "textual evidence" questions?

On the Reading and Writing section of your SAT, some questions will introduce a
claim about an unfamiliar subject. The question will then ask you to identify the
piece of evidence that most strongly supports that claim.

Textual evidence questions will look like this:

Jan Gimsa, Robert Sleigh, and Ulrike Gimsa have hypothesized that the sail-like
structure running down the back of the dinosaur Spinosaurus
aegyptiacus improved the animal’s success in underwater pursuits of prey species
capable of making quick, evasive movements. To evaluate their hypothesis, a
second team of researchers constructed two battery-powered mechanical models
of S. aegyptiacus, one with a sail and one without, and subjected the models to a
series of identical tests in a water-filled tank.

Which finding from the model tests, if true, would most strongly support Gimsa
and colleagues’ hypothesis?

A. The model with a sail took significantly longer to travel a specified distance
while submerged than the model without a sail did.
 B. The model with a sail displaced significantly more water while submerged
than the model without a sail did.
C. The model with a sail had significantly less battery power remaining after
completing the tests than the model without a sail did.
D. The model with a sail took significantly less time to complete a sharp turn
while submerged than the model without a sail did.

Answer: D

How should we think about textual evidence questions?

There are two types of textual evidence questions, and we need to think about
each type a little differently.

Scientific evidence

In these textual evidence questions, a hypothesis will be presented about a

subject in science or social science, usually in the context of new research or
experimentation.

We won't need to rely on any previous science knowledge: everything we need

will be contained in the short passage. Our task is to interpret the researchers'
hypothesis, identify the research outcome that would support that hypothesis,
and then select the choice that offers that outcome.

This task should remind you of your science classes, in which you've likely needed
to confirm or refute a hypothesis based on the outcomes of an experiment.
Literary evidence

In these textual evidence questions, the passage will make an argument

concerning a particular literary work, like a poem or novel. The choices will then
offer a set of quotations from that literary work.

We don't need any previous knowledge of the literary work under discussion.
What we will need is the ability to evaluate whether the content of each
quotation serves as direct evidence for the argument identified in the question.

This task should remind you of your English classes, in which you've likely needed
to pull quotations from a text to support your arguments in an analytical essay.

While these two types of questions might seem quite different, the skills we
need to succeed on them, and our approach to finding the answer, should be
quite similar for both.

How to approach textual evidence questions

To solve a textual evidence question, consider following these steps:

Step 1: Identify the argument

Every textual evidence question, whether scientific or literary, will introduce a

central argument for the question. It might be a research hypothesis, or it might
be an interpretation of a literary text, but either way it will be clearly stated. Your
first job is to identify that argument and draw it out from the text.

For instance, in the example question at the start of this article, you can identify
the following hypothesis: "the sail-like structure running down the back of the
dinosaur Spinosaurus aegyptiacus improved the animal’s success in underwater
pursuits of prey species capable of making quick, evasive movements".
Step 2: Create a test phrase

Once you've identified the argument you want to support, you should rephrase
that argument in the simplest terms possible.

For example, consider that hypothesis about Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. The claim
is that a sail would help the dinosaur hunt quick prey while underwater. You could
simplify that as follows:

Sail on back = quicker underwater movement

The best choice will make this same argument.

Step 3: Test the choices

Read each choice while keeping your test phrase in mind. Does the choice say
something different than the test phrase? If so, eliminate that choice.

Once you find a choice that makes the same argument as your test phrase, you've
found the answer. You can select that choice with confidence.

Top tips

Stay specific

Don't stray beyond the focus of the passage. Eliminate choices that broaden or
blur the argument you're meant to be supporting. And look out for small twists
and turns that make a choice seem relevant when it actually changes the focus of
the argument.

Show me

Look at the choices in the example question:

 Choice B introduces the idea of "water displacement", which isn't discussed

in the passage. We can eliminate this choice.
  Choice C introduces a measurement of "battery power remaining" without
connecting it to speed of movement. We can eliminate this choice.

Be strict

Remember, we're looking for the strongest and most direct evidence. If a choice
"almost" or "kind of" feels like evidence, you can likely eliminate it. If you need to
connect too many dots to make the evidence match the argument, then it's
probably not strong evidence.

Show me

In our example question, choice C introduces the idea of "battery power

remaining".

Now, if we made a whole bunch of extra leaps, we might be able to connect the
idea of "battery power" to the main argument about "speed". You could say:

The sail used up more power, so maybe it's more powerful, and that might mean
that the sail makes the dinosaur swim faster"

But this type of extended, indirect reasoning isn't what we want when we're
looking for strong support.

See how you had to use the word "might"? "Maybe" isn't strong enough, and it's
a good indication that there's not enough evidence in the passage to support this
choice. For example, the additional power consumption also might imply that the
sail is inefficient.
Your turn

Textual evidence: Literary

 “Mr. Cornelius Johnson, Office-Seeker” is a 1900 short story by Paul

Laurence Dunbar. In the story, the narrator describes Mr. Cornelius
Johnson’s appearance as conveying his exaggerated sense of his
importance: ______

Which quotation from “Mr. Cornelius Johnson, Office-Seeker” most effectively

illustrates the claim?

A. “He carried himself always as if he were passing under his own triumphal
arch.”

B. “The grey Prince Albert was scrupulously buttoned about his form, and a
shiny top hat replaced the felt of the afternoon.”

C. “Mr. Cornelius Johnson always spoke in a large and important tone.”

D. “It was a beautiful day in balmy May and the sun shone pleasantly on Mr.
Cornelius Johnson’s very spruce Prince Albert suit of grey as he alighted
from the train in Washington.”

Answer: A
Exercise

1. The Milky Way galaxy is composed of millions of stars in a relatively flat

structure containing a thin disk and a thick disk. Based on computer
simulations and analysis of data on the brightness, position, and chemical
composition of about 250,000 stars in the thick disk (collected from two
telescopes, one in China and one orbiting in space), astrophysicists Maosheng
Xiang and Hans-Walter Rix claim that the thick disk of the Milky Way formed
in two distinct phases rather than a single one.

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

A. There’s an age difference of about 2 billion years between certain stars

in the thick disk.

B. The stars in the Milky Way tend to have very similar chemical
compositions.

C. The thin disk contains about twice as many stars that can be seen from
Earth as the thick disk does.

D. The telescopes used by the researchers have detected stars of similar

ages in galaxies other than the Milky Way.

2. Many scientists have believed that giraffes are solitary creatures, preferring to
spend their time alone instead of with others. But observations of giraffes and
their behavior in recent years have suggested that these animals may be more
social than we once thought. For example, scientists Zoe Muller and Stephen
Harris claim that giraffes may even help each other care for one another’s
newborns.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Muller and Harris’s
conclusion?

A. Giraffes are able to make sounds but are rarely observed

communicating with others.
 B. Some female giraffes have been observed sniffing and licking their
newborn offspring.

C. Confrontations between a younger and an older male giraffe are

frequently observed.

D. Female giraffes have been observed feeding young giraffes that aren’t
their direct offspring.

3. A 2019 study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution looked at data from
more than 1,500 species of birds, mammals, and fish in order to determine
whether their rate of evolutionary change was linked to species survival. The
study found that while some species did evolve faster than others, there was
no clear relationship between evolutionary rate and survival. Instead, the
study suggests that previous species success predicts species survival much
more accurately than speed of adaptation does.

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

A. Endangered and extinct species displayed a significantly slower

evolutionary rate than other species.

B. Evolutionary rate only impacted species survival when adaptations

were linked to environmental pressures.

C. Successful species tended to remain more successful than more

quickly-evolving competitors.

D. Invasive species that overtook competitors tended to exhibit a higher

evolutionary rate than other species.
 4.
In her 1921 poem “Spring,” Edna St. Vincent Millay subverts conventional
depictions of springtime. Instead of celebrating growth and renewal, Millay
disputes the merit of the season entirely: ______

Which quotation from “Spring” most effectively illustrates the claim?

A. “To what purpose, April, do you return again? / Beauty is not enough.”

B. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe / The spikes of the crocus.

C. The smell of the earth is good. / It is apparent that there is no death.

D. Life in itself / Is nothing, / An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

5.
Some residents in a neighborhood in Atlanta recently founded a community
garden inside a local park. The residents agreed to volunteer to take care of the
garden together. Students at a local high school surveyed some of the volunteers
as part of a project to understand the impact of the new garden. The students
concluded that the new garden benefited the community overall by fostering
connections and relationships between the volunteers and other residents of the
neighborhood who weren’t volunteering at the garden.

Which quotation from a survey respondent would best illustrate the students’
conclusion?

A. “I love getting the opportunity to be outside and around nature, especially

on days when the weather is nice.”

B. “We’re lucky to have a few expert gardeners living in the neighborhood.

Some volunteers and I have gone to them a few times with questions, and
they’ve been eager to help us and to learn more about the project.”
 C. “My favorite thing about the garden is the feeling of pride I get when I walk
by each day. As I see the plants growing, I feel good knowing I had a small
part in creating this beautiful space in the neighborhood.”

D. “Our first challenge was deciding what plants would be most suitable to the
climate and soil here in Atlanta. We needed plants that could survive the
hot and humid summers.”

6.

American fashion designer Patrick Kelly was known for his love of colorful
buttons. Many of his signature dresses feature bold assortments of buttons
throughout the garment. In a paper, a fashion design student claims that Kelly’s
use of buttons as decoration was inspired by his childhood observations of the
styles and actions of the women in his family.

Which quotation from a work by a historian would be the most effective evidence
for the student to include in support of this claim?

A. “Kelly’s grandmother, who would repair clothing when he was a child,

frequently added mismatched buttons to the clothes to draw attention
away from any flaws in the garments.”

B. “Kelly was destined to be a designer from a young age: he learned how to

sew clothing from his aunt Bertha, and his love of drawing was developed
by his mother.”

C. “Although some of the assortments of buttons appear to be mismatched

pieces scattered randomly throughout Kelly’s dresses, his most famous
designs feature carefully crafted patterns of matching buttons.”

D. "Many of Kelly’s contemporaries were inspired by his designs to

incorporate buttons, as well as zippers and snaps, as decorative items in
their work."
 7. Roasted green chiles are a popular ingredient in Southwestern cuisine, but
the traditional roasting method of burning propane is not environmentally
friendly. To see if solar power could provide a better alternative, engineer
Kenneth Armijo and his team roasted batches of green chiles using between
38 and 42 heliostats, which are devices that concentrate sunlight. The team
was successful in reaching the same roasting temperature used in traditional
propane roasting, but they found that propane yielded faster results. While
the fastest solar-roasted green chiles took six minutes, batches using
propane took only four. Armijo hypothesizes that they can reduce the
roasting time for solar-roasted green chiles by using more heliostats.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Armijo’s hypothesis?

A. Attempts to roast green chiles using 50 heliostats yields results in fewer

than six minutes.

B. Green chile connoisseurs prefer the flavor of solar-roasted green chiles

over the flavor of propane roasted green chiles.

C. The skins of solar-roasted green chiles are easier to peel than the skins of
propane-roasted green chiles.

D. The temperature inside the roasting drum is distributed more evenly

when roasting green chiles with solar power than with propane.

8. As a monthly newsletter formed in 1969 by a group of Asian American

students at the University of California, Los Angeles, Gidra helped raise
awareness about social and political issues concerning the Asian American
community on campus and at large. The newsletter had an expansive reach
for a publication of its kind: around 4,000 copies were published each month.
A student writing a history paper, however, hypothesizes that Gidra’s
influence cannot be measured by the number of newsletters published
monthly alone.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the student’s hypothesis?
 A. The students who initially formed Gidra each contributed financially to its
creation.

B. Gidra was initially based out of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA.

C. People would often give their copies of Gidra to others once they had
finished reading an issue.

D. In addition to covering current events, Gidra also featured works of art and
literature

9. Hip-hop pedagogy is a form of teaching that’s gaining popularity across

school subjects. It involves incorporating hip-hop and rap music into lessons
as well as using hip-hop elements when teaching other subject matters. For
example, Quan Neloms’s students look for college-level vocabulary and
historical events in rap songs. Researchers claim that in addition to
developing students’ social justice awareness, hip-hop pedagogy encourages
student success by raising students’ interest and engagement.

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

A. Courses that incorporate hip-hop and rap music are among the courses
with the highest enrollment and attendance rates.

B. Educators report that they enjoy teaching courses that involve hip-hop and
rap music more than teaching courses that don’t.

C. Students tend to be more enthusiastic about rap music than they are about
hip-hop music.

D. Students who are highly interested in social justice issues typically don’t
sign up for courses that incorporate hip-hop and rap music.
 10.A researcher conducted an experiment inspired by studies suggesting that
people may benefit from feeling frightened in certain circumstances, such as
when watching scary movies or visiting haunted attractions. The researcher
recruited several participants and had them walk through a local haunted
house attraction. Immediately after exiting the attraction, each participant
completed a survey about their experience. Based on the survey responses,
the researcher claims that feeling frightened in controlled situations can
boost a person’s mood and confidence.

Which quotation from a participant would best illustrate the researcher’s claim?

A. “My friends kept laughing as we were walking through the haunted house.”

B. “The haunted house was scary at first, but I knew everyone was just acting,
so I felt less scared after a few minutes.”

C. “The sense of relief I felt at the end of the haunted house was similar to the
feelings I have when I finish a scary movie.”

D. “After I came out of the haunted house, I felt very accomplished and less
stressed.”

11.“The Rock and the Sea” is an 1893 poem by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the
poem, a rock is portrayed as intending to confront and restrain the sea:
______

Which quotation from “The Rock and the Sea” most effectively illustrates the
claim?

A. “I am the Rock. Black midnight falls; / The terrible breakers rise like walls; /
With curling lips and gleaming teeth / They plunge and tear at my bones
beneath.”
 B. “I am the Sea. The earth I sway; / Granite to me is potter’s clay; / Under the
touch of my careless waves / It rises in turrets and sinks in caves.”

C. “I am the Sea. I hold the land / As one holds an apple in his hand, / Hold it
fast with sleepless eyes, / Watching the continents sink and rise.”

D. “I am the Rock, presumptuous Sea! / I am set to encounter thee. / Angry

and loud or gentle and still, / I am set here to limit thy power, and I will!”

12.The Land of Enchantment is a 1906 travel book by Lilian Whiting. In the book,
which describes the experience of traveling through the southwestern United
States by train, Whiting reflects on the escape from everyday life that such a
journey provides: ______

Which quotation from The Land of Enchantment most effectively illustrates the
claim?

A. “The social and the picturesque charm of the long journey is singularly
enhanced by the leisurely stops made for refreshment.”

B. “One experiences a certain sense of detachment from ordinary day and

daylight duties that is exhilarating.”

C. “The real journey begins, of course, at Chicago, and as these trains leave in
the evening the traveller fares forth in the seclusion of his berth.”

D. “The opportunities and advantages already offered and constantly

increasing are greater than would at first be considered possible.”
 B.Command of evidence: quantitative | Lesson
A guide to "command of evidence: quantitative" questions on the digital SAT

What are "quantitative evidence" questions?

On the Reading and Writing section of your SAT, some questions will provide you
with a graph or table that presents information about an unfamiliar topic. The
question will then offer some context for that information and ask you to
complete a sentence by effectively using data from the graph or table.

Quantitative evidence questions will look like this:

Daily Distance Traveled by Adult Mountain Lions in Three Seasons

Kilometers per day traveled by Kilometers per day traveled by

Season adult females adult males

cold-dry 9.28 15.81

monsoon 12.64 18.93

hot-dry 12.48 18.87

Wildlife researcher Dana L. Karelus and her colleagues tracked the movements of
female and male adult mountain lions over three seasons: the cold-dry season,
the hot-dry season, and the monsoon season. They found that the least amount
of travel per day occurred in ______

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

A. the cold-dry season for females and the hot-dry season for males.
B. the cold-dry season for both females and males.
C. the monsoon season for both females and males.
D. the hot-dry season for females and the monsoon season for males.
Answer: B

How should we think about quantitative evidence questions?

The challenges of answering quantitative evidence questions can be split into

three parts. Let's look at each challenge separately.

Understanding the argument

Every quantitative evidence question will provide more information than we

need. One of the keys to successfully answering these questions is knowing what
data to look for, so we can avoid being distracted by all the extra details and find
the answer more quickly.

The way to do this is by carefully reading the prompt text. This paragraph will
provide the context we need to understand the data in the graph or table. This
paragraph will also outline the argument that our quantitative evidence must
support.

This argument is the most important part of the question. Whichever data we use
to complete the sentence must provide evidence in support of that argument. In
other words: it tells us what to look for.

Reading the data

The data provided in a quantitative evidence question can be presented in a

variety of forms. The question might include a bar graph, a line graph, a table, or
any number of other formats that can be used to visually represent data.

Luckily, you've almost certainly encountered all of these types of data

visualizations in your math and science courses. You can rely on this experience to
help you accurately read graphs and tables on test day.

Remember, though: graphs and tables will include more data than you need,
which will require you to sift through and read around that extra information. If
you're working quickly, or looking back and forth between the question and the
graph, your eyes can easily drift. Double check that you're looking in the right
place and at the right data.
Evaluating the choices

Quantitative evidence questions will offer two different types of incorrect choices
alongside the correct answer.

1. False statements*

These choices are false according to the information in the graph or table. They
misread or misrepresent data.

2. True statements

These choices are true according to the information in the graph or table. They
accurately represent data, but they fail to provide direct evidence for the
argument being made.

False statements are easy to eliminate. You can simply compare the claim in the
choice to the data in the graph. If those things disagree, you can eliminate that
choice.

True statements, however, are trickier to handle. Instead of deciding if they're

true or false, you'll need to decide if they support the argument made in the
paragraph. This is why the first challenge of "understanding the argument" is so
important.

*Note: If a question includes false statements among the choices, then all
incorrect choices for that question will be false.

How to approach quantitative evidence questions

To solve a quantitative evidence question, follow these steps:

Step 1: Skim the graph

You don't need to dig into the graph or table yet, as you don't know what data to
look for. However, it can still be useful to familiarize yourself with what the graph
or table contains. You can read the title, the labels, the units, and the key. Those
should give you a good idea of what the graph contains without taking up too
much of your time.

Step 2: Read the paragraph

The text should be your main focus. It will tell you what data to look for.

Sometimes, like in our example question, the text will explicitly direct you to a
specific piece of information: a certain time, place, or set of conditions that can be
pinpointed within the graph or table. In these cases, you can simply identify the
correct information in the graph or table and/or test the choices against the
provided data.

Other times, the text will present a general argument, and you'll need to select
data that backs up that argument. In these cases, there may be multiple pieces of
information that could potentially serve as evidence, so you won't be able to just
pull the correct data from the graph. The best thing to do here is to summarize
the argument being made in your own words. Then you can test that summary
against each of the choices to see which provides effective evidence.

Step 3: Validate the choices

As we identified earlier, quantitative evidence choices can contain both true

statements and false statements.

Read the choices and check them against the information in the graph. Are the
choices true or false?

 If they're false, eliminate the false choices.

 If they're true, proceed to step 4.

Step 4: Find the best evidence

Once you've validated the choices, you should have eliminated any statements
that are false according to the graph or table. This leaves you with choices that
are true, but that may not provide effective evidence for the argument in the text.

Take your summary of the argument and test it against each remaining choice.
Only one choice will provide direct support for that argument. You can select this
choice with confidence.

Top tips

Use your finger/cursor

When you're looking at a graph or table that contains multiple data points, your
eyes can easily drift. Placing your finger or your cursor directly on the information
you're looking for can help you avoid silly mistakes due to looking in the wrong
place.

Check if the choices are true or false

Usually, when one incorrect choice makes a false statement, all the incorrect
choices for that question will make false statements. And when one incorrect
choice is true, all the incorrect choices will be true.

Determining this early can be helpful, as it changes the nature of your task. If the
choices are false, you can easily eliminate your way to the correct answer. If the
choices are true, you'll need to think more deeply about the argument being
made.
 C.Central ideas and details | Lesson
A guide to "central ideas and details" questions on the digital SAT

What are "central ideas and details" questions?

On the Reading and Writing section of your SAT, some questions will present a
short passage for you to read. The passage may be excerpted from a work of
literature or from a scholarly essay.

Once you read the passage, you'll be asked either to identify the main idea of the
text or to answer a specific question based on the text.

Central ideas and details questions will look like this:

Many intellectual histories of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s
rely heavily on essays and other explicitly ideological works as primary sources, a
tendency that can overrepresent the perspectives of a small number of thinkers,
most of whom were male. Historian Ashley D. Farmer has shown that expanding
the array of primary sources to encompass more types of print material—
including political cartoons, advertisements, and artwork—leads to a much better
understanding of the movement and the crucial and diverse roles that Black
women played in shaping it.

Which choice best describes the main idea of the text?

A. Before Farmer’s research, historians had largely ignored the intellectual

dimensions of the Black Power movement.
B. Farmer’s methods and research have enriched the historical
understanding of the Black Power movement and Black women’s
contributions to it.
C. Other historians of the Black Power movement have criticized Farmer’s
use of unconventional primary sources.
D. The figures in the Black Power movement whom historians tend to cite
would have agreed with Farmer’s conclusions about women’s roles in
the movement.
Answer : B

How should we think about central ideas and details questions?

Central ideas and details questions focus on reading comprehension, and they do
so in a fairly straightforward way.

We won't need any outside knowledge. We won't need to analyze the text too
deeply or do any complex reasoning. We'll simply need to read the passage
carefully.

Central ideas

Central ideas questions ask us to identify "the main idea" of the passage. Since
the passages for these questions are fairly short, finding this main idea shouldn't
be too tricky.

The main idea should

 cover a majority of the details introduced in the text.

 mention any particular points of emphasis from the text.

The main idea should not

 focus too intently on just one detail from the text.

 introduce new ideas not addressed within the text.

 contradict information from the text.

Details

Details questions ask us to answer a specific question about an idea contained in

the passage. Details questions can usually be answered using information from
one particular sentence in the text.

These questions will contain words, phrases, or ideas that direct us to the
appropriate part of the text. Once there, we simply need to find the correct detail
needed to answer the question.

How to approach central ideas and details questions

To solve a central ideas and details question, consider following these steps:

Step 1: Summarize the text in your own words

Don't just skim the passage. Read it closely, and try to summarize the ideas you
encounter in your own words. By the time you finish reading, you should have a
strong understanding of the information contained in the passage.

Step 2: Determine the task

The question that follows the passage will reveal your task. Does it ask about the
"main idea"? Or does it ask about a particular piece of information?

Step 3: Revisit the text

If the question is about the main idea, then revisit your summary of the text to
find the overarching theme.

If the question asks about something specific, then head to that section of the
passage to search out the correct detail.

Step 4: Predict and eliminate

Based on your understanding of the passage, you should be able to answer to the
question fairly accurately without even looking at the choices. If someone asked
you to summarize the text, what would you say?
For instance, in the example question above, we might predict that the main idea
is something like

"Ashley D. Farmer has improved the study of the Black Power movement by
exploring the roles of women."

Once you predict the answer in your own words, it should be pretty easy to find a
match among the choices. If you're still not sure, you can eliminate your way to
the answer by getting rid of choices that contradict the passage or introduce new
ideas.

Top tips

Stay specific

Don't stray beyond the focus of the passage. Eliminate choices that broaden or
blur the ideas in discussed in the text. And look out for small twists and turns that
make a choice seem relevant when it actually expresses something unsupported
by the passage.

Show me

Look at the choices in our example question:

Choice C introduces information not included in the passage. The text doesn't
mention what "other historians" think of Farmer's research.

If it's not mentioned, then it can't be a "main idea". We can eliminate this choice.

Keep your prediction as short and simple as possible

If your prediction is just as long as the passage itself, it’s not simple enough! Keep
simplifying it until you can sum it up in one brief idea, then use that prediction as
a test. The more concise your prediction, the quicker and easier it will be to check
it against the choices.
Use keywords as a map

When a question asks about a detail from the passage, it will often do so by
referencing key words and phrases from the text. Find those words in the
passage: they'll direct you towards the answer you seek!

Your turn

Central Ideas and Details

 The following text is adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883

novel Treasure Island. Bill is a sailor staying at the Admiral Benbow, an inn
run by the narrator’s parents.

Every day when Bill came back from his stroll he would ask if any seafaring men
had gone by along the road. At first we thought it was the want of company of his
own kind that made him ask this question, but at last we began to see he was
desirous to avoid them. When a seaman did [stay] at the Admiral Benbow (as now
and then some did) he would look in at him through the curtained door before he
entered the parlour; and he was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any
such was present.

According to the text, why does Bill regularly ask about “seafaring men”?

A. He isn’t sure that other guests at the inn will be welcoming of sailors.
B. He’s trying to secure a job as part of the crew on a new ship.
C. He’s hoping to find an old friend and fellow sailor.
D. He doesn’t want to encounter any other sailor unexpectedly.

Answer: D
  Bicycles were first mass-produced in the late nineteenth century
throughout Europe and North America, allowing individuals remarkable
freedom to travel longer distances quickly and comfortably. This freedom,
coupled with the affordability of the vehicle, made the bicycle immensely
popular. Individuals were able to live farther from their workplaces, easily
visit neighboring towns, and participate in new leisure and sport activities.
Bicycling quickly became a popular social endeavor, with enthusiasts
forming local cycling clubs to enjoy these newfound activities with others.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

A. The widespread adoption of the bicycle in the late nineteenth century

provided new opportunities for people.

B. The popularity of the bicycle in the late nineteenth century gave rise to the
first cycling clubs.

C. The affordability of the bicycle in the late nineteenth century made it the
preferred way to travel.

D. The mass production of the bicycle in the late nineteenth century made it
safer for people to use.

Answer: C
Exercise
1. NASA’s Cassini probe has detected an unusual wobble in the rotation of
Mimas, Saturn’s smallest moon. Using a computer model to study Mimas’s
gravitational interactions with Saturn and tidal forces, geophysicist Alyssa
Rhoden and colleagues have proposed that this wobble could be due to a
liquid ocean moving beneath the moon’s icy surface. The researchers believe
other moons should be examined to see if they too might have oceans
hidden beneath their surfaces.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
A. Rhoden and colleagues were the first to confirm that several of Saturn’s
moons contain hidden oceans.
B. Research has failed to identify signs that there is an ocean hidden beneath
the surface of Mimas.
C. Rhoden and colleagues created a new computer model that identifies
moons with hidden oceans without needing to analyze the moons’ rotation.
D. Research has revealed that an oddity in the rotation of Mimas could be
explained by an ocean hidden beneath its surface.

2. Scent is tightly interwoven with our daily lives, often evoking significant
memories and important social events. This connection is of growing interest
to archaeologists who hope to use it to better understand ancient rituals,
trade, social hierarchies, and medicine. Although the speed at which odor
molecules dissipate makes identifying ancient scents challenging,
advancements in biomolecular technologies show promise in unlocking
ancient aromas from preserved artifacts. Archaeological studies making use
of these advancements may provide new insights into past societies.
According to the text, what is one reason some archaeologists are interested in
recovering scents from ancient artifacts?
A. They are investigating whether people’s sense of smell has declined in
recent centuries.
B. They believe the scents could illuminate important aspects of ancient life.
C. They hope to develop new medicines using ancient scent molecules.
D. They think that ancient scents would be enjoyable to people today.

3. For centuries, Polynesian wayfinders navigated the Pacific Ocean using only
the stars, the currents, and other natural clues for guidance. Today, some
wayfinders use modern technology, such as GPS and solar panels, to enhance
the safety and speed of their journeys. Nonetheless, they continue to
practice traditional wayfinding techniques, keeping their ancient art alive and
preserving an important part of Polynesian culture.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
A. Though some wayfinders use modern technology, they continue to practice
the traditional art of wayfinding.
B. By observing the stars, the currents, and other signs from nature,
wayfinders can navigate the Pacific Ocean without modern technology.
C. Wayfinders are responsible for preserving many aspects of ancient
Polynesian culture.
D. Instead of relying on traditional wayfinding methods, some wayfinders use
modern technology to navigate.
 4. The following text is from William Wordsworth's 1807 poem "I Wandered
Lonely as a Cloud."
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay.

Based on the text, in what way are the daffodils that the speaker encounters
similar to stars in the Milky Way?
A. They appear to twinkle in the light.
B. They can be seen during the night and day.
C. They flutter and dance in the breeze.
D. They seem to go on forever.

5. To make her art more widely available, graphic artist Elizabeth Catlett
turned to linocuts. In linocut printing, an artist carves an image into a sheet
of linoleum to create a stamp that is used to mass-produce prints. In the
linocut series The Black Woman (1946–1947), Catlett depicts the everyday
experiences of Black women alongside the achievements of well-known
Black women. This pairing invites the viewer to draw connections among
 the women. The linocut process enabled Catlett’s work to reach a wide
audience and supported her aim to unite Black women through her art.
According to the text, what is significant about Catlett’s use of linocut printing?
A. Linocut printing helped Catlett use art to connect people, especially Black
women.
B. Catlett was one of the first Black artists to use linocut printing.
C. Catlett became commercially successful once she started using linocut
printing.
D. Linocut printing involved using materials that were readily available to
Catlett.

6. The following text is from Shyam Selvadurai’s 1994 novel Funny Boy. The
seven-year-old narrator lives with his family in Sri Lanka. Radha Aunty is the
narrator’s aunt.
Radha Aunty, who was the youngest in my father’s family, had left for America
four years ago when I was three, and I could not remember what she looked like. I
went into the corridor to look at the family photographs that were hung there.
But all the pictures were old ones, taken when Radha Aunty was a baby or young
girl. Try as I might, I couldn’t get an idea of what she looked like now. My
imagination, however, was quick to fill in this void.
©1994 by Shyam Selvadurai.
According to the text, why does the narrator consult some family photographs?
A. He hopes the photographs will help him recall what his aunt looked like.
B. He is curious about how his father dressed a long time ago.
C. He wants to remind his aunt of an event that is shown in an old
photograph.
D. He wants to use the photographs as inspiration for a story he is writing.
 7. Microplastics are pieces of plastic that are smaller than a grain of rice. These
small plastics can be found in large quantities in ocean waters. Ecologist
Jessica Reichert and her team are studying the role reef-building corals have
in capturing microplastics from ocean waters. Through research, her team
has found that these corals may be storing up to 20 million kilograms of
microplastics each year in their skeletons and tissues.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
A. Ecologists are interested in learning more about how certain corals build
large reefs.
B. Microplastics are small pieces of plastic that can be found in ocean
waters.
C. Questions remain around the impact certain corals have on ocean
ecosystems.
D. Ecologists predict that corals store large amounts of microplastics from
ocean waters.

8. Psychologists wanted to test how young children think about rewards and
fairness. In an experiment, two teachers handed out rewards while children
(ages four to six) watched. The teachers gave out the same number of
rewards, but one of them counted the rewards out loud. The children were
then asked who was fairer. 73% chose the teacher who counted. The
psychologists think that counting showed the children that the teacher
wanted to be fair. The children may have believed that the teacher who did
not count did not care about fairness.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
 A. Psychologists think children cannot understand the concept of fairness until
they are six years old.
B. An experiment found that counting out loud is the best way to teach
mathematical concepts to children.
C. An experiment showed that the way rewards are given out may affect
whether young children think the situation is fair.
D. Psychologists think young children expect to be rewarded when the
children show that they care about fairness.

9. Artist Justin Favela explained that he wanted to reclaim the importance of

the piñata as a symbol in Latinx culture. To do so, he created numerous
sculptures from strips of tissue paper, which is similar to the material used
to create piñatas. In 2017, Favela created an impressive life-size piñata-like
sculpture of the Gypsy Rose lowrider car, which was displayed at the
Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California. The Gypsy Rose
lowrider was famously driven by Jesse Valadez, an early president of the
Los Angeles Imperials Car Club.
According to the text, which piece of Favela’s art was on display in the Petersen
Automotive Museum in 2017?

A. A painting of Los Angeles

B. A painting of a piñata
C. A sculpture of Jesse Valadez
D. A sculpture of a lowrider car
10.In 2022, researchers rediscovered ancient indigenous glyphs, or drawings, on
the walls of a cave in Alabama. The cave’s ceiling was only a few feet high,
affording no position from which the glyphs, being as wide as ten feet, could
be viewed or photographed in their entirety. However, the researchers used a
technique called photogrammetry to assemble numerous photos of the walls
into a 3D model. They then worked with representatives of tribes originally
from the region, including the Chickasaw Nation, to understand the
significance of the animal and humanoid figures adorning the cave.
According to the text, what challenge did the researchers have to overcome to
examine the glyphs?
A. The cave was so remote that the researchers couldn’t easily reach it.
B. Some of the glyphs were so faint that they couldn’t be photographed.
C. The cave’s dimensions prevented the researchers from fully viewing the
glyphs.
D. The researchers were unable to create a 3D model of the cave.

11.
The following text is from Edith Nesbit’s 1902 novel Five Children and It. Five
young siblings have just moved with their parents from London to a house in the
countryside that they call the White House.
It was not really a pretty house at all; it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it
was rather inconvenient, and was quite annoyed at there being no shelves, to
speak of, and hardly a cupboard in the place. Father used to say that the ironwork
on the roof and coping was like an architect’s nightmare. But the house was deep
in the country, with no other house in sight, and the children had been in London
for two years, without so much as once going to the seaside even for a day by an
excursion train, and so the White House seemed to them a sort of Fairy Palace set
down in an Earthly Paradise.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
A. The house is beautiful and well built, but the children miss their old home
in London.
B. The children don’t like the house nearly as much as their parents do.
C. Each member of the family admires a different characteristic of the house.
D. Although their parents believe the house has several drawbacks, the
children are enchanted by it.

12.
Shimmering is a collective defense behavior that researchers have observed in
giant honeybee colonies. When shimmering, different groups of bees flip their
bodies up and down in what looks like waves. This defense is initiated when
hornets hover near a colony, serving to deter the hornets from approaching the
bees. Researchers hypothesize that this behavior is a specialized defense
response to hornets, as it is not observed when other, larger predators approach
the colony.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
A. Hornets are known to be the main predator of giant honeybees.
B. Several different species of insects use shimmering to defend against
hornets.
C. Researchers think that shimmering in giant honeybees is a specific defense
against hornets.
D. Researchers are unsure how giant honeybees defend against predators
larger than hornets.
 D. Inferences | Lesson

What are "inferences" questions?

On the Reading and Writing section of your SAT, some questions will provide an
unfinished passage that introduces information about an unfamiliar topic. Based
on that information, you'll be asked to select the choice that most logically
completes the text.

Inferences questions will look like this:

Adaptations to cold temperatures have high metabolic costs. It is expensive, in

terms of energy use, for land plants and animals to withstand very cold
temperatures, and it gets more expensive the colder it gets, which means that the
lower the air temperature, the fewer species have evolved to survive it. This
factor, in conjunction with the decline in air temperature with increasing
elevation, explains the distribution of species diversity in mountain ecosystems:
you find fewer species high up a mountain than at the mountain’s base because
______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. there are relatively few environments hospitable to species that are

adapted to live in low air temperatures.
B. there are relatively few species with the adaptations necessary to tolerate
the temperatures at high elevations.
C. adaptations that allow plants and animals to survive in rocky environments
are metabolically costly.
D. some mountain environments are at elevations so high that no plants or
animals can survive them.

Answer: B
How should we think about inferences questions?

Inferences questions are all about how we connect information and ideas to
create arguments.

Some SAT preppers find it helpful to think about the components of the
argument. We can break arguments into two basic
parts: premises and conclusions.

Premises are the facts on which an argument is based. When premises are
connected, they should provide strong evidence for the argument's conclusion.

The conclusion is the heart of the argument. It's the overall claim that the
argument's author is trying to support.

Example

Our example question above presents the following pieces of information:

1. Cold temperatures are costly for organisms to survive in.

2. Few species have evolved to survive cold weather.

3. The temperature is colder at higher elevation.

4. Fewer species live at the top of a mountain than at the base of the
mountain.

In this case, we've been provided three premises (statements 1, 2, and 3) and the
argument's conclusion (statement 4).

Notice how the blank is preceded by the transition word "because". This means
we're looking for further support, not a further conclusion. Our job for this
question is to find the choice that completes the premises, tying them together in
a way that supports the conclusion already identified.
Others prefer not to distinguish between premises and conclusions: we can also
think of the points and information in the text as simply "clues" to the blank.

Either way, the basic task is the same: you need to identify what is missing from
the argument, and fill that gap with one of the choices.

How to approach inferences questions

To solve an inferences question, consider following these steps:

Step 1: Separate the text into bullet points

Everything you need to successfully answer an inferences question is contained

within the provided passage. Therefore, to find the answer, you'll need to read
closely and carefully consider the information contained in the text.

A great way to do this is to take each idea in the passage and turn it into its own
bullet point. This will create a step by step progression for the argument being
made and allow you to see where any gaps might exist.

Step 2: Examine the argument

Consider each piece of information offered in the passage. Then consider how
those pieces fit together. Do they add up to something? What's the connection
between them?

Each inferences question is like a mystery. Everything you need to solve that
mystery is provided for you. You just need to be a detective and piece the clues
together!

By the end of this step, you should have a solid understanding of the argument
being made. This should give you some idea of what might fit in the blank. At the
very least, you'll be better prepared to recognize what doesn't fit in the blank.
Step 3: Explore the choices

Look at the choices one by one. Ask yourself if the information contained in the
choice completes the argument in the passage.

Be wary of choices that broaden the discussion or introduce ideas not explicitly
mentioned in the rest of the passage. The arguments made in inferences passages
are often highly specific. Eliminate any choices that stray from or disagree with
the points made in the passage.

Step 4: Select the choice that strengthens the argument

The choice you select should fit in fairly obviously with the information provided
in the passage. But even further, the choice you select, when combined with the
rest of the passage, should make the argument both clearer and stronger. Once
you find such a choice, you can select it with confidence!

Top tips

Stay specific

Don't stray beyond what can be inferred. Be cautious with words like "most" or
"many" when a passage only discusses one thing in particular. And look out for
small twists and turns that make a choice seem relevant when it actually changes
the focus of the argument.

Show me

Look at the choices in our example question:

 Choice C changes the focus of the argument. Instead of discussing cold

environments, choice C introduces the idea of "rocky environments". We
can eliminate this choice.
Lean on transitions

Pay close attention to the transition words used throughout an inferences

passage. These transitions will show you how the ideas in the passage are related.
In particular, the transition words used before the blank at the end of the passage
will provide a useful clue to what information you're looking for.

Show me

 In our example question, the blank is introduced by the transition word

"because". This tells us that we're looking for further support for a
conclusion that's already introduced in the passage. Transitions like
"therefore", "thus", and "this suggests/implies" will introduce conclusions.
Transitions like "because", "due to", and "since" will introduce further
support.

Let the punctuation help

Similar to transitions, punctuation marks give shape to the ideas in the passage
and show how those details are connected. Colons, semicolons, and dashes can
all be used to inject conclusions, examples, and exceptions. Take a closer look at
these punctuation marks to see what type of information they signal within the
text.

Your turn!

 Many animals, including humans, must sleep, and sleep is known to have a
role in everything from healing injuries to encoding information in long-
term memory. But some scientists claim that, from an evolutionary
standpoint, deep sleep for hours at a time leaves an animal so vulnerable
that the known benefits of sleeping seem insufficient to explain why it
became so widespread in the animal kingdom. These scientists therefore
imply that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. it is more important to understand how widespread prolonged deep

sleep is than to understand its function.
B. prolonged deep sleep is likely advantageous in ways that have yet to
be discovered.
C. many traits that provide significant benefits for an animal also likely
pose risks to that animal.
D. most traits perform functions that are hard to understand from an
evolutionary standpoint.

Answer : B

 Companies whose products are similar to competing products often pursue

a marketing strategy of brand differentiation, trying to get consumers to
associate their brand with unique attributes (e.g., to think of their brand of
rice as the healthy brand, when in fact there is little difference among
brands of the same type of rice). Jaywant Singh and Francesca Dall’Olmo
Riley investigated consumer perceptions of such products, finding that
consumers view competing brands as having largely the same attributes
and that any differences in the strength of consumers’ associations of
brands with attributes are explained by differences in market share—the
more popular a brand is, the stronger people’s associations with it are—
suggesting that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. consumers tend to perceive products with high market share more

positively than they perceive products with low market share.
 B. marketing aimed at brand differentiation influences consumers’
perceptions of branded products but not consumers’ purchasing behavior.
C. marketing efforts focused on brand differentiation do not have much effect
on consumers’ perceptions of branded products’ attributes.
D. differences in consumers’ perceptions of products’ attributes are less
influenced by brand differentiation than by actual differences between
products.

Answer: C

Exercise

1. In many cultures, a handshake can create trust between people. Engineer

João Avelino and his team are designing a robot to shake hands with a
human in order to improve human-robot interactions. The robot hand
adjusts its movements and pressure to better imitate the feel of a human
hand. The researchers want the robot’s handshake to feel realistic because
______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. People are less likely to interact with robots that don’t look like humans.

B. It’s easier to program a robot to perform handshakes than it is to

program a robot to perform some other types of greetings.

C. The robot in the researchers’ study may have uses other than
interacting with humans.

D. Lifelike handshakes may make people more comfortable interacting

with robots.
 2. Microbes that live in shallow lakes and ponds produce methane, a harmful
greenhouse gas. Ecologist Ralf Aben and his team wanted to see how
different types of shallow-water plants might affect the amount of methane
that escapes into the atmosphere. Aben’s team set up some water tanks with
soil and microbes from local ponds. Some tanks had a type of underwater
plant that grows in the soil called watermilfoil. Other tanks had either
duckweed, a type of plant that floats on the water’s surface, or algae. Aben
and his team found that tanks with duckweed and algae released higher
levels of methane than tanks with watermilfoil did. This finding suggests that
______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. Shallow lakes and ponds are more likely to contain algae than to
contain either watermilfoil or duckweed.

B. Shallow lakes and ponds release more methane than deeper bodies of
water because shallow bodies of water usually have more plants than
deep bodies of water do.

C. The presence of some kinds of underwater plants like watermilfoil

helps prevent methane from escaping shallow lakes and ponds.

D. Having a mix of algae, underwater plants, and floating plants is the best
way to reduce the amount of methane in shallow lakes and ponds.

3. North American gray wolves usually have mixed gray and white fur, but some
members of the species have a version of a gene, or gene variant, that gives
them a mostly black coat instead. Sarah Cubaynes and her team studied
twelve populations of North American gray wolves. They found that the
black-furred wolves are more common in areas where outbreaks of
distemper virus happen regularly. The team also discovered that the black-
furred wolves are more likely to be immune to distemper than the gray-
furred wolves are. Taken together, these findings suggest that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. Gray-furred wolves will soon replace black-furred wolves across North

America.

B. The gene variant that results in black fur may be linked to immunity to
the distemper virus.

C. North American gray wolves experience more outbreaks of distemper

virus than other wolf species do.

D. The average life span of gray wolves is likely to increase over time
because of a particular gene variant.

4. Researchers wanted to study how consumers’ reactions to an ad may be

affected by other ads. The researchers began by showing study participants
an ad for a product, with some seeing a less detailed ad and others seeing a
more detailed one. Then, all participants viewed the same second ad for a
store and shared their opinion of the store based on this second ad.
Participants who had first seen an ad less detailed than the second ad had a
higher opinion of the store than the participants who had first seen a more
detailed ad. The researchers concluded that reactions to an ad may be
affected by ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. The amount of detail viewed in previous ads.

B. The time of day that the ad is viewed.

C. The length of time viewing previous ads.

D. The number of people who viewed the ad.

 5. In a study on the effects of stress on the brain, neuroscientists Sunita Kumar,
Ethan Wilson, and others examined the brains of rats exposed to stressful
situations. The researchers found that stress caused inflammation in the
hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory and learning. They also
discovered that this inflammation reduced the rats' ability to form new
memories. They concluded that stress is likely to ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. increase an individual’s ability to learn new information.

B. Decrease an individual's ability to form new memories.

C. Increase an individual's ability to combat inflammation in the brain.

D. Decrease an individual's hippocampal inflammation.

6. Off-off-Broadway theaters emerged in the late 1950s as a rebellion against

mainstream Broadway theaters in New York, freeing artists to create
productions that were more experimental than typical Broadway shows. One
such artist was playwright María Irene Fornés. Working with off-off
Broadway theaters enabled Fornés not only to direct her own plays but also
to direct them exactly as she intended them to be staged, regardless of how
strange the results might have seemed to audiences accustomed to
Broadway shows. In this way, Fornés ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. would have been more famous if she had created plays that were
mainstream instead of experimental.

B. recognized that staging an off-off-Broadway play was more complicated

than staging a Broadway play.

C. wrote plays that would have been too expensive to produce if someone
else had directed the production.

D. illustrates the artistic opportunity offered by off-off Broadway theaters.

 7. People are familiar with the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien, such as The Lord
of the Rings and The Hobbit. Tolkien was known for creating rich, intricate
fantasy worlds in his novels, which often featured themes of heroism and
courage. Fewer people, however, are aware that Tolkien was a professor of
Anglo-Saxon and Medieval English at Oxford University, and that he
incorporated elements of those languages and historical periods into his
works. Thus, those who read Tolkien’s novels without this knowledge ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. may not appreciate the extent to which his writing reflects the political
climate of his time.

B. may not recognize the influence that his academic background had on his
literary works.

C. may mistakenly believe that his literary works are grounded in historical
fact.

D. may underestimate the impact that the works of other fantasy authors had
on his writing.

8. Georgia Douglas Johnson wrote many plays in the 1920s and 1930s. At the
time, professional theater companies rarely put on plays by Black women,
so few of Johnson’s plays made it to the stage. Only a small number of her
plays were published in her lifetime. But that doesn’t mean that Johnson
never learned what other people thought of her plays. Johnson hosted
weekly get-togethers for fellow Black writers and artists in her Washington,
D.C., home. Attendees would read and discuss one another’s work, including
Johnson’s own. These gatherings could therefore serve as ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. an opportunity for Johnson to get feedback on her plays.

B. a way for Johnson to learn about plays that were produced in other cities.
 C. an occasion for professional theater companies to put on plays.

D. subject matter for future plays by Johnson.

9. Alice Guy-Blaché directed hundreds of films between 1896 and 1920. She
wanted audiences to feel like they were watching real people on screen. She
would encourage actors in her films to behave naturally. Guy-Blaché even
hung a large sign reading “Be Natural” in the studio where she made her
films. At the time, films lacked sound, so actors needed to rely solely on
their bodies and facial expressions to convey emotions. As a result, actors
tended to highly exaggerate their actions and expressions. The style of
acting in Guy-Blaché’s films was therefore ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. very unusual for the period.

B. copied by many of Guy-Blaché’s peers.

C. better than film acting today.

D. familiar to actors who had worked on other directors’ films.

10. One aspect of in-person shopping that online shopping can’t replicate is the
opportunity to touch a product before buying it. Does this difference
matter? In an experiment, researchers asked one group of participants to
touch a mug and a toy, while another group was prohibited from touching
the two items. The participants were then asked how much money they’d
pay for the items. People who got to touch the items were willing to pay
much more money for them than were people who weren’t allowed to
touch the items. This finding suggests that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

 A. retailers with in-person and online stores should charge the same price for
a given product in both places.

B. online retailers may be able to raise the prices they charge for products
that are only available online.

C. people who mainly shop online probably spend more money every month
than people who mainly shop in person do.

D. in-person shopping may make products seem more valuable than they
seem if only viewed online.

11.Martin Dančák, Wewin Tjiasmanto, and colleagues have identified a new

carnivorous plant species (Nepenthes pudica) in Indonesia. Like other
carnivorous plants, N. pudica has pitfall traps, or pitchers, that capture prey,
but unlike others, the pitchers of N. pudica are located underground. The
researchers unearthed the new species on fairly dry ridges with surfaces that
host few other plants and animals. Therefore, the researchers hypothesize
that the N. pudica species likely ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. is buried by nearby animals as they forage along the ridges for food.

B. evolved to have underground traps to access more prey than would surface
traps.

C. formed pitchers early in development to absorb more moisture.

D. represents one of many undiscovered carnivorous plant species in the

region.
 12 Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories about detective Sherlock Holmes were
published between 1887 and 1927. They have inspired countless successful
adaptations, including comic strips, movies, and a television series Sherlock
Hound, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, who is celebrated for his animated
movies. Until 2014, these stories were copyrighted. The right to adapt was
only available to those who could afford the copyright fee and gain approval
from the strict copyright holders of Doyle’s estate. Some journalists predict
that the number of Sherlock Holmes adaptations is likely to increase since
the end of copyright means that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. producing adaptations will become easier and less expensive.

B. people will become more interested in detective stories than they were in
the 1800s.

C. the former copyright holders of Doyle’s estate will return fees they
collected.

D. Doyle’s original stories will become hard to find.

 Expression of Ideas + Standard English
Conventions
Transitions | Lesson

What are "transitions" questions?

On the Reading and Writing section of your SAT, some questions will ask you to
select the most logical transition word or phrase to connect information and
ideas within a brief passage .

Transitions questions will look like this:

Iraqi artist Nazik Al-Malaika, celebrated as the first Arabic poet to write in free
verse, didn’t reject traditional forms entirely; her poem “Elegy for a Woman of No
Importance” consists of two ten-line stanzas and a standard number of syllables.
Even in this superficially traditional work, ______ Al-Malaika was breaking new
ground by memorializing an anonymous woman rather than a famous man.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. in fact,
B. though,
C. therefore,
D. moreover,

Answer: B
How should we think about transitions?

Transitions are the glue that holds ideas together. They connect sentences in
ways that tell the reader how those sentences are related. Is there an argument
being made? A story being told? The transitions used in the text should reflect
that relationship.

The relationships between ideas usually fall into the following categories:

Agreement or disagreement

 Do the sentences express the same underlying idea? If so, we may want to
use an agreement transition like "similarly".

Example

Lentils are an excellent way to add plant-based protein to one's diet. Similarly,
other legumes, like beans and chickpeas, can serve as integral protein sources for
vegans and vegetarians.

Other common agreement transitions include again, also, correspondingly,

equally, and likewise.

 Do the sentences identify a disagreement or contrast? If so, we may want

to use a disagreement transition like "however".

Example

The rock star Prince was a multi-instrumentalist, having played 27 instruments on

his debut album. However, he is primarily remembered as a guitarist and vocalist.

Other common disagreement transitions include but, yet, conversely, though,

still, in contrast, although, nevertheless, and on the other hand.
Sequence and order

Are the events in the sentences being organized by time or by position? If so, we
may want to use a sequence transition like "previously".

Example

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Confederacy of Dunces was published in 1980,

seventeen years after it was written. Previously, the novel had been rejected by
many different publishers.

Other common sequence transitions include then, later, before, first,

finally, and subsequently.

Addition and exemplification

 Does the second sentence elaborate on the first? If so, we may want to use
an addition transition like "furthermore".

Example

Moles are highly suited to their lifestyle, with short, powerful forelimbs adapted
for digging. Furthermore, moles have evolved to require less oxygen, allowing
them to avoid suffocation while underground.

Other common addition transitions include additionally, also, too,

moreover, and in fact.

 Does the second sentence provide an example? If so, we may want to use
an exemplification transition like "for instance".

Example

Throughout history, painters were endangered by poisonous ingredients in their

paints. The use of lead in white paint, for instance, caused lead poisoning in many
famous artists, including Vincent Van Gogh.
Other common exemplification transitions include for example, for one
thing, and to demonstrate.

Cause and effect

Is the second sentence caused by or a consequence of the idea in the first

sentence? If so, we may want to use a cause and effect transition
like "therefore".

Example

The Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomical insights for over 30 years,
but its eventual breakdown is inevitable. Therefore, its successor, the James
Webb Space Telescope, was launched in late 2021.

Other common cause and effect transitions include since, because, thus, as a
result, and consequently.

How to approach transitions questions

Transitions questions ask you to select the "most logical transition". However,
these questions are actually as much about how well you understand the text as
they are about the transitions themselves. So be sure to read carefully!

To answer a transitions question, follow these three steps:

Step 1: Summarize the text in your own words

Don't just skim the passage . Read it closely, and try to summarize the main idea
in your own words. This can be tricky since an important transition word is
missing. If you're struggling to understand the text, try to translate each sentence
into a simple bullet point.
Step 2: Identify the relationship between the passage’s ideas

The transition we're asked to select will connect two ideas from the passage. How
are those ideas related? Do they disagree? Does one cause the other? We should
be able to place the relationship into one of the four categories discussed above.

Step 3: Select the transition that matches the relationship

Only one of the choices will offer a transition that matches the relationship we
identified. We can select it with confidence!

If you find yourself stuck between two choices, try plugging them each into the
blank. Which transition creates the clearest meaning when placed in context?

Top tips

Be flexible

There is an enormous variety of transition words and phrases, and the exact
transition you expect to see might not be offered in the choices. If you think the
sentence needs a disagreement word, but "however" isn't an option, look for a
transition with a similar function (like "on the other hand").

Eliminate copycats

If two choices seem to function in a similar or interchangeable way (like "also"

and "in addition"), you can safely eliminate them both. They can’t both be right,
so they must both be wrong!

When you see transitions changing in the answer options, first check whether the
ideas being connected agree or disagree. Then, make sure the transition is

 CONSISTENT with the relationship between the ideas.

Your turn!

Practice: Transitions

 Reforestation efforts, while undeniably valuable, often result in forests with

limited biodiversity. ______ care should be taken to plant a wide variety of
native flora in depleted woodlands.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. However,
B. Accordingly,
C. Nevertheless,
D. Furthermore,

Answer:B

Practice: Transition words and phrases

 The "Gordie Howe hat trick", an unofficial statistic in which a hockey player
scores a goal, records an assist, and gets in a fight all in the same game, is
named after hockey great Gordie Howe. ______ Howe only achieved this
feat twice in his professional career, far fewer times than many other
players.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. However,
B. Therefore,
C. Afterwards,
D. As a result,

Answer: B
EXERCISE

1. Arkansas aviator Louise Thaden was already a record breaker when she
won the inaugural National Women’s Air Derby, a race from California to
Ohio, in August of 1929. ______ in December of 1928, Thaden had set an
aviation record when she reached an altitude of 20,269 feet in a Travel Air
biplane.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Earlier,

B. As a result,

C. Next,

D. However,

2. Some members of the scientific community urge caution around the use of
genetically modified (GM) crops, arguing that the long-term health effects
of consuming such crops are unknown. ______ they are concerned about
the environmental risks associated with GM crops, including their potential
to disrupt natural ecosystems by displacing or cross-pollinating with wild
plants.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Nevertheless,

B. Additionally,

C. In comparison,

D. For instance,
 3. British World War II propaganda called for British citizens to participate in
city-wide blackouts, encouraging them to “eat carrots,” as carrots were
believed to be essential for night sight. _____ while scientific studies have
shown that carrots are high in vitamin A, which is good for eye health, they
do not give people the ability to see in the dark.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Furthermore,

B. However,

C. As a result,

D. Similarly,

4. With darkness falling, a mother elephant loses sight of her calf and wants to
make sure it is safe. ______ she releases an infrasonic call for the calf to
hear. Infrasonic sound is below the range of human hearing, but many
animals can hear these sounds from several miles away.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Nowadays,

B. For example,

C. Similarly,

D. For this reason,

 5. It has long been thought that humans first crossed a land bridge into the
Americas approximately 13,000 years ago. ______ based on radiocarbon
dating of samples uncovered in Mexico, a research team recently suggested
that humans may have arrived more than 30,000 years ago—much earlier
than previously thought.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. As a result,

B. Similarly,

C. However,

D. In conclusion,

6. A potter choosing which type of clay to use for a piece considers two key
factors: the desired look of the piece and its intended use. ______
earthenware clay is often used for decorative pieces because of its rustic
look. This type of clay is not often used in industrial settings, though, because
it is less durable than other clays.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. In conclusion,

B. For example,

C. Regardless,

D. In other words,
 7. The ancient city of Petra, located in modern-day Jordan, is best known for its
rock-cut tomb façades, monuments carved into the landscape’s rose-colored
sandstone. ______, it is recognized for its complex water management
system, which included dams, cisterns, and water conduits to collect and
store rainwater for the city’s inhabitants.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Unfortunately,

B. Additionally,

C. Earlier,

D. Thus,

8. In 1891, dancer and choreographer Loie Fuller first performed her celebrated
Serpentine Dance, artfully twirling her long, flowing skirt to create striking
visual effects. ______ in 1896, cinema pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière
made a groundbreaking short film of Fuller’s dance.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Later,

B. However,

C. In conclusion,

D. In other words,
 9. Soursop is a popular fruit in Brazil, where it is eaten fresh or used in drinks
and desserts. The fruit is high in antioxidants and vitamin C, which are known
to have a variety of health benefits. ______ soursop is often recommended
by doctors in Brazil to patients concerned about their health.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Thus,

B. Instead,

C. Furthermore,

D. For instance,

10.In the 1850s, William Still was instrumental in helping nearly 1,000 people
escape from slavery, earning him the moniker “the Father of the
Underground Railroad.” ______ despite the fame of his contributions during
his lifetime, Still is discussed far less today than other prominent Black
abolitionists from his era, such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Similarly,

B. Specifically,

C. For example.

D. However,
 11.Honeybees play a crucial role in pollination, supporting both wild ecosystems
and human agricultural systems. ______ their activities affect 70% of the top
human food crops, which supply about 90% of the world’s nutrition. Hence,
their decline could have catastrophic consequences on global food security.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. However,

B. Therefore,

C. In fact,

D. Meanwhile,

12.Riley Black—the author of critically acclaimed books such as My Beloved

Brontosaurus (2013)— is best known for writing about dinosaurs, but she has
also conducted hands-on fieldwork. ______ her fieldwork has included
paleontological digs in Utah, Montana, and Wyoming, and her dinosaur fossil
discoveries can be seen at places such as the Carnegie Museum of Natural
History.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Specifically,

B. Conversely,

C. Subsequently,

D. Regardless,
 Rhetorical synthesis | Lesson

A guide to "rhetorical synthesis" questions on the digital SAT

What are "rhetorical synthesis" questions?

On the Reading and Writing section of your SAT, some questions will provide you
with a series of bulleted notes that contain related information about an
unfamiliar topic. The question will then ask you to effectively use relevant
information from the notes to accomplish a particular goal.

Rhetorical synthesis questions will look like this:

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

 The novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens focuses on the adventures

of its title character, David Copperfield.

 David Copperfield is considered a bildungsroman.

 In a bildungsroman, the main character grows, learns, and changes from

experience.

 The novel Tom Jones by Henry Fielding focuses on the adventures of its title
character, Tom Jones.

 Tom Jones is considered a picaresque novel.

 In a picaresque novel, the main character has many experiences but stays
fundamentally the same.

The student wants to emphasize a similarity between the two novels. Which
choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish
this goal?
 A. David Copperfield and Tom Jones are both considered picaresque
novels.
B. Both David Copperfield and Tom Jones focus on the adventures of
their title characters.
C. David Copperfield was written by Charles Dickens; Tom Jones was
written by Henry Fielding.
D. In David Copperfield, unlike in Tom Jones, the main character grows,
learns, and changes from experience.

Answer: B

How should we think about rhetorical synthesis questions?

Rhetorical synthesis questions throw a lot of information at us. If we focus too

much on that information, we can easily lose track of what the question is actually
asking us to do.

The key to success on these questions is to start by focusing in on

the goal identified in the question prompt.

If we understand how rhetorical synthesis questions are structured, finding this

goal should be easy.

Question structure

Every rhetorical synthesis question has the same parts:

 an introduction

 a series of bulleted facts

 a question prompt

 the choices
Many test-takers will instinctively be drawn to the bulleted information first.
However, we should instead start by reading the question prompt.

The question prompt will identify a goal for our solution sentence. For example,
we might be asked to emphasize a similarity or difference, or to introduce a
study and its findings, or to provide an explanation and example of some
particular idea. Only one of the choices will accomplish this goal.

With this goal in mind, we can then read the bulleted information, focusing on
identifying any information that is relevant to the goal. Finally, we look to the
choices for a match.

Let's break down this approach more in the next section.

How to approach rhetorical synthesis questions

If we actually had to compose the answer to a rhetorical synthesis question, our

job would be much harder and more open-ended. We'd need to examine the
presented information closely, decide which information is most relevant, and
write a clear and concise sentence of our own making.

But since rhetorical synthesis questions are multiple choice, we can avoid all that
complexity and be much more systematic.

To solve a rhetorical synthesis question, follow these three steps:

Step 1: Identify the goal

Start by reading the question prompt. What does the correct choice need to
accomplish?

This goal will be plainly stated. For instance, in the example item at the start of
this lesson, the goal is "to emphasize a similarity between the two novels".
Step 2: Read the bullet points and identify relevant info

Read the bullet points, looking for information is relevant to the goal you just
identified. Information that is relevant to the goal may be found in just one bullet
point, or it may be found across several points.

Step 3: Test the choices

Some wrong choices might accurately represent information from the bullet
points but fail to achieve the goal. Other wrong choices might seem to achieve the
goal but are not accurately using information from the bullet points to do so.

Read through each choice. As you do, ask yourself, "does this sentence
accomplish the identified goal AND accurately represent the information in the
bullet points?"

If the answer is no, eliminate that option.

Step 4: Select the choice that matches

Once you've tested each answer choice, you should find that only one choice
successfully accomplishes the goal defined in the question with the information
provided in the bullet points. You can select that choice with confidence!

Top tips

Do two "passes" to eliminate choices!

Some find it helpful to eliminate choices in two separate "passes": for the first
pass, focus on eliminating choices that don't accomplish the goal. Then, go back
and do another pass, focusing on eliminating choices that don't accurately
represent the information in the notes.

After both passes, there should only be one choice left: the choice that achieves
the goal and accurately reflects the information provided. That's the correct
answer!
Simplify the goal

The simpler you can make the goal, the easier it will be to test the choices in the
first pass. For example, if the question wants to "emphasize a difference
between thing X and thing Y", we can simplify our test to just "difference".

Does each choice describe "difference"? If not, we can eliminate it.

Simplifying the goal can help us eliminate a few choices very quickly. But we may
have to reexamine the bulleted information to distinguish among the remaining
choices.

Show me

Let's look back at our example question.

The goal is "to emphasize a similarity between the two novels". Let's simplify that
goal to just "similarity" and see what we can eliminate:

 Choice C emphasizes a difference between the two novels, not a

similarity. We can eliminate choice C.
 Choice D also emphasizes a difference between the two novels, not a
similarity. We can eliminate choice D.
Be strict!

Don't be generous with choices that "kind of" or "almost" accomplish the goal. If a
choice doesn't completely address all parts of the goal, we can eliminate it.
Details matter!

Ignore the grammar

All of the choices will be well-written and grammatically correct. Make your
choice based on the information the choices contain, not how good they sound in
the sentence.
Your turn

Practice: Rhetorical Synthesis

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

 Marine biologist Camille Jazmin Gaynus studies coral reefs.

 Coral reefs are vital underwater ecosystems that provide habitats to 25% of
all marine species.

 Reefs can include up to 8,000 species of fish, such as toadfish, seahorses,

and clown triggerfish.

 The Amazon Reef is a coral reef in Brazil.

 It is one of the largest known reefs in the world.

The student wants to introduce the scientist and her field of study to a new
audience. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes
to accomplish this goal?

A. Providing homes to 25% of all marine species, including up to 8,000 species

of fish, coral reefs are vital underwater ecosystems and thus of great
interest to marine biologists.

B. Marine biologist Camille Jazmin Gaynus studies coral reefs, vital

underwater ecosystems that provide homes to 25% of all marine species.
C. Camilla Jazmin Gaynus is a marine biologist who exclusively studies the
Amazon Reef, a coral reef that is home to 8,000 different species of fish.
D. As Camille Jazmin Gaynus knows well, coral reefs are vital underwater
ecosystems, providing homes to thousands of species of fish.

Answer: B
Helpful hint #1

Let's apply one of our tips: Eliminate choices in two passes!

The first pass is for eliminating choices that fail to achieve the goal. Here, the goal
is "to introduce the scientist and her field of study to a new audience".

Take a look through the choices. Which ones fail to introduce the scientist or fail
to introduce her field of study?

 Choice A doesn't mention the scientist at all. We can eliminate choice A.

Remember to be strict: the goal is to introduce the scientist AND her field of
study. Choice D names the scientist, but it doesn't introduce her field of study
(it doesn't say she's a marine biologist). We can eliminate choice D.

Helpful hint #2

Choice B and choice C both accomplish the goal, so we couldn't eliminate either
one in our first pass.

Now, let's do the second pass. Ask yourself: which choice misstates or distorts the
information in the notes?

Sure enough, choice C misstates the information. The Amazon Reef is introduced
in bullet points 5 and 6; however, the bullet points do NOT say that Camille
Jazmin Gaynus exclusively studies the Amazon Reef. In fact, the notes don't say
whether she studies the Amazon Reef at all, let alone exclusively! We can
eliminate choice C.
 1. While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

 Oracles of the Pink Universe was a 2021 exhibition at the Denver Museum
of Art in Colorado.

 It featured eight artworks by South African artist Simphiwe Ndzube.

 One of these works is a painting titled Assertion of Will.

 Assertion of Will depicts three standing figures.

 The figures wear clothing made of fabric pieces stitched to the painting’s
canvas.

The student wants to describe how fabric is used in Assertion of Will. Which
choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish
this goal?

A. In Assertion of Will, the figures’ clothing is made of fabric pieces

stitched to the painting’s canvas.

B. Depicting three standing, clothed figures, Assertion of Will is a painting

by Simphiwe Ndzube.

C. Simphiwe Ndzube’s Assertion of Will was one of eight artworks

exhibited in Oracles of the Pink Universe at the Denver Museum of Art.

D. The exhibition Oracles of the Pink Universe featured artworks by artist

Simphiwe Ndzube.

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

 Angora wool is a type of fiber that is harvested from rabbits.

 It is known for its long, silky, and soft fibers.

 Angora is often blended with other types of wool to produce warmer and
softer clothing.
  China is the world's largest producer of angora wool.

 Angora does not contain lanolin, a natural oil found in sheep's wool that
can cause allergic reactions.

The student wants to emphasize the unique advantages of angora wool. Which
choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish
this goal?

A. Angora wool is a type of fiber commonly produced in China and often

blended with other types of wool.

B. Angora is known for its long, silky, and soft fibers and for being less
allergenic than sheep's wool.

C. Angora is different from other types of wool because it comes from

rabbits rather than sheep.

D. China produces most of the world’s angora wool, which is a type of

fiber that is often used in clothing.

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

 The Lewis chessmen are a collection of 12th-century Scandinavian chess

pieces.

 They were part of a large hoard buried on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer
Hebrides, Scotland.

 Unearthed in 1831, the hoard consisted of 93 artifacts in total: 78 chess

pieces, 14 other game pieces,and one belt buckle.

 Most of the Lewis chessmen were carved from walrus ivory, and some are
made from whale tooth.

 The pieces are held in the British Museum in London and the National
Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The student wants to describe when and where the chessmen were found. Which
choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish
this goal?

A. Discovered in 1831, the Lewis chessmen were carved from walrus

ivory and whale tooth.

B. The Lewis chessmen were part of a discovery that included multiple

other gaming pieces and a belt buckle.

C. The Lewis chessmen were discovered on the Isle of Lewis in the

Outer Hebrides, Scotland in 1831.

D. Though currently held in the National Museum of Scotland in

Edinburgh and the British Museum in London, the Lewis chessmen
were discovered in the Hebrides.

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

 The Azores is a group of islands about 870 miles off the coast of Portugal.

 Historians have long believed that in the fifteenth century Portuguese

mariners were the first humans to populate the Azores.

 A 2015 study coauthored by Sofia Gabriel and Maria da Luz Mathias found
that Vikings from Scandinavia may have populated the Azores as early as
the ninth century.

 The researchers found a genetic connection between house mice in the

Azores and house mice in Scandinavia.

 House mice may have traveled from Scandinavia to the Azores on Viking
ships.
The student wants to specify who may have first populated the Azores, according
to the 2015 study. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from
the notes to accomplish this goal?

A. In their 2015 study, the researchers found a genetic connection

between house mice in the Azores and those in Scandinavia.

B. Historians have long believed that the first humans to populate the
Azores, a group of islands about 870 miles off the coast of Portugal,
arrived in the fifteenth century.

C. According to a 2015 study, the first humans to populate the Azores

may have been Vikings from Scandinavia, not mariners from Portugal
as previously believed.

D. Portuguese mariners may not have been the first humans to

populate the Azores.

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

 In 1897, African American inventor Andrew Beard invented an automatic

coupler.

 It improved on the existing design of train car couplers.

 It made the job of connecting train cars safer.

 In 1938, African American inventor Frederick Jones invented a mobile

refrigeration system.

 It improved on the existing design of food transport trucks.

 It enabled trucks to carry perishable foods farther.

The student wants to emphasize a similarity between Beard’s invention and

Jones’s invention. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from
the notes to accomplish this goal?
 A. Jones’s mobile refrigeration system, which he invented in 1938, made it
possible for food transport trucks to carry perishable foods farther.

B. In 1897, Beard invented an automatic coupler, which made the job of

connecting train cars safer.

C. Beard’s automatic coupler and Jones’s mobile refrigeration system both

improved on existing designs.

D. Beard’s invention made the job of connecting train cars safer, whereas
Jones’s invention enabled food transport trucks to carry perishables
farther.

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

 Novelist Willa Cather grew up in Nebraska and attended the University of

Nebraska-Lincoln.

 Some of Cather’s best-known novels are set in Nebraska.

 Two such novels are O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918).

 Cather’s novels describe the experiences of immigrants who settled in the

Great Plains.

The student wants to identify the setting of Cather’s novel My Ántonia. Which
choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish
this goal?

A. Cather attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and set some of her

novels in Nebraska.

B. Cather, author of My Ántonia, described the experiences of immigrants

in her novels.

C. Among Cather’s best-known novels are O Pioneers! (1913) and My

Ántonia (1918).

D. My Ántonia is set in Nebraska, where Cather grew up.

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

 High-key lighting and low-key lighting are two styles of lighting used in film,
television, and photography.

 In high-key lighting, the fill light (or secondary light) is raised to near the
same level as the key light (or primary light), producing a low-contrast look.

 High-key lighting is often used in comedies and musicals to create a bright,

cheerful mood.

 Low-key lighting is a style that uses a hard source of light to create strong
shadows and contrast.

 In low-key lighting, the key light is often the only source of illumination,
with fill lights used sparingly or not at all.

 Low-key lighting is commonly used in mysteries, thrillers, and film noir to

create a sense of tension or suspense.

The student wants to emphasize the differences between the two lighting
techniques. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the
notes to accomplish this goal?

A. High-key and low-key lighting are both important techniques in

cinematography that can guide the viewer's attention to specific areas
of the frame.

B. High-key lighting and low-key lighting are used across various film
genres to reinforce the tone of the narrative, as lighting can accentuate
the tension, suspense, or even cheerfulness of a given scene.

C. High-key lighting, which involves raising the fill light to near the same
level as the key light, is often used in comedies and musicals to create a
cheerful mood.
 D. While high-key lighting creates the bright, low-contrast look often seen
in comedies and musicals, low-key lighting produces the strong shadows
and contrast seen in mysteries, thrillers, and noirs.

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

 Bioluminescence is the emission of light by living organisms.

 This light is produced by chemical reactions in organisms’ cells.

 Jellyfish emit flashes of blue light.

 This behavior serves to startle predators.

 Black dragonfish emit a steady red light.

 This behavior helps them locate prey in deep waters.

The student wants to emphasize a difference between the behavior of jellyfish

and that of black dragonfish. Which choice most effectively uses relevant
information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

A. Black dragonfish emit a steady red light, which helps them locate prey in
deep waters.

B. Both jellyfish and black dragonfish are organisms that emit light, which is
produced by chemical reactions in these organisms’ cells.

C. Jellyfish emit light to startle predators, whereas black dragonfish do so to

locate prey.

D. Bioluminescence, the emission of light by living organisms, results from

chemical reactions in organisms’ cells.
 9. While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

 Biryani is a mixed rice dish popular in South Asia.

 Malabar biryani is a regional variation from the Malabar region in India.

 Malabar biryani is known for its use of short-grain rice, as well as the
inclusion of green chile paste.

 Hyderabadi biryani is another regional variation from the city of Hyderabad

in India.

 Hyderabadi biryani is known for its use of long-grain rice and spices like
cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves.

The student wants to emphasize the differences between Malabar and

Hyderabadi biryani. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from
the notes to accomplish this goal?

A. Both Malabar and Hyderabadi biryani are regional variations of a

mixed rice dish.

B. Malabar biryani, a mixed rice dish from the Malabar region in India, is
known for its use of green chile paste and short-grained rice.

C. Different types of biryani may use either short-grain rice or long-

grain rice.

D. While Malabar biryani is known for its use of short grain-rice and
green chili paste, Hyderabadi biryani uses long-grain rice and spices
like cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves.
 10. While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

 Archaeologist Dr. Sada Mire founded the Horn Heritage Foundation to

preserve the cultural history of regions in the Horn of Africa.

 Horn Heritage has overseen a preservation project to create 3D digital

scans of ancient rock art in Somaliland.

 Paintings found at the Laas Geel caves are included in the scans.

 The Laas Geel paintings feature human figures and animals.

 Paintings found at the Dhagah Nabi Galay caves are included in the scans.

 The Dhagah Nabi Galay caves feature what are thought to be the earliest
examples of writing in East Africa.

The student wants to emphasize a similarity between the Laas Geel paintings and
the Dhagah Nabi Galay paintings. Which choice most effectively uses relevant
information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

A. The Laas Geel paintings and the Dhagah Nabi Galay paintings are both
examples of ancient rock art found in Somaliland.

B. The paintings at the Dhagah Nabi Galay caves feature examples of writing,
while those at the Laas Geel caves feature humans and animals.

C. The earliest examples of writing in East Africa are thought to be featured in

the paintings at the Dhagah Nabi Galay caves in Somaliland.

D. In Somaliland, the paintings in the Laas Geel caves feature human figures
and animals.
11. While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

 “Moai” are statues of human figures located on Easter Island in Polynesia.

 They were carved between 1250 and 1500 CE by the Rapa Nui people.

 Hundreds of moai were moved from Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry,
and set on stone platforms around the island's perimeter.

 Their average height is about 4 meters and average weight is 13.8 tons.

 The figures are whole-body statues, although the overly large heads have
earned them the nickname “Easter Island heads.”

 Most moai were carved from tuff, a relatively soft rock formed of
compressed volcanic ash, using stone tools.

The student wants to describe the physical characteristics of moai. Which choice
most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this
goal?

A. Moai are statues that were carved at Rano Raraku and then moved to stone
platforms around the island’s perimeter.

B. Boasting an average height of 4 meters and an average weight of 13.8 tons,

moai are large rock-carved statues of human figures with outsized heads.

C. Carved between 1250-1500 AD, most moai were carved using tools made
of a compressed volcanic ash called tuff.

D. Nicknamed the “Easter Island heads,” moai are figures that were carved
between 1250 and 1500 CE by the Rapa Nui people.
12. While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

 Yellowstone is a national park in the northwest United States.

 In 1995, gray wolves were reintroduced into the park.

 Since then, the number of gray wolves in the park has stabilized at roughly
100.

 This number is believed to be the park’s carrying capacity.

 Carrying capacity describes the maximum number of a species that a

specific environment’s resources can sustain over time.

The student wants to specify the number of gray wolves in Yellowstone. Which
choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish
this goal?

A. As of 1995, there were gray wolves living in Yellowstone, a national park in

the northwest United States.

B. Yellowstone is a national park that has roughly 100 gray wolves living in it.

C. The carrying capacity of an environment, such as Yellowstone, describes

the maximum number of species that the environment can sustain over
time.

D. Gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone, a national park in the

northwest United States, in 1995.
13. While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

 In 2013, paleontology professor Hesham Sallam and his students from

Mansoura University in Egypt made a discovery.

 The team found a partial dinosaur skeleton at a site in Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis.

 The skeleton belonged to a dinosaur species that lived approximately 80

million years ago.

 The new species was named Mansourasaurus to recognize the team that
discovered it.

The student wants to explain the origin of the species’ name. Which choice most
effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

A. The new species was named Mansourasaurus to recognize the team that
discovered it, a professor and students from Mansoura University.

B. Mansourasaurus, a species that lived approximately 80 million years ago,

was discovered in 2013 by Egyptian paleontologist Hesham Sallam and a
team of university students.

C. Mansourasaurus, a new species discovered in Egypt in 2013, lived

approximately 80 million years ago.

D. A partial dinosaur skeleton found in Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis belonged to a

species named Mansourasaurus.
 14. While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

 Annie Wu is a prominent American flutist who graduated from the New

England Conservatory.

 She has won multiple national flute competitions.

 She is best known for a 2011 YouTube video that has been viewed over two
million times.

 The video shows her performing Three Beats for Beatbox Flute, an original
work by composer Greg Pattillo.

 Wu combines flute playing and beatboxing in the video.

The student wants to emphasize Wu’s most well-known achievement. Which

choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish
this goal?

A. Among her many achievements, prominent American flutist Annie Wu

graduated from the New England Conservatory and has won multiple
national flute competitions.

B. Composer Greg Pattillo’s original work Three Beats for Beatbox Flute
combines flute playing and beatboxing.

C. Annie Wu is best known for a 2011 YouTube video performance of Three

Beats for Beatbox Flute that has been viewed over two million times.

D. Annie Wu, who has won multiple national flute competitions, has also
combined flute playing and beatboxing.
15. While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

 The painter Frida Kahlo is one of the most influential artists of the
twentieth century.

 She was born in Coyoacán, Mexico, in 1907.

 She is best known for her vivid and richly symbolic self-portraits.

 The Two Fridas (1939) features two versions of Kahlo sitting together.

 One version wears a European-style dress and the other a traditional

Tehuana dress.

The student wants to introduce Kahlo to an audience unfamiliar with the artist.
Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to
accomplish this goal?

A. The 1939 painting The Two Fridas is one example of a self-portrait by Frida
Kahlo.

B. One painting by Frida Kahlo features two versions of herself, with one
version wearing a European-style dress and the other a traditional Tehuana
dress.

C. Known for being vivid and richly symbolic, Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits
include The Two Fridas (1939).

D. One of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, Mexican

painter Frida Kahlo is best known for her self-portraits, which are vivid and
richly symbolic.
16. While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

 The Pony Express was a mail delivery service that operated from April 3,
1860, to October 26, 1861 between Missouri and California in the United
States.

 The Pony Express employed some 80 horse-mounted riders and 400-500

horses to carry mail from the Missouri railroad stop in St. Joseph, Missouri,
to Sacramento, California.

 Before the Pony Express, mail was delivered from Missouri to California via
overland stagecoach, which took 22 to 25 days.

 The Pony Express had an average delivery time of just 10 days.

 Despite its remarkable efficiency, the Pony Express was closed after only 18
months of operation, when the transcontinental telegraph line was
established.

The student wants to emphasize the impact of the Pony Express on the speed of
mail delivery. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the
notes to accomplish this goal?

A. From April 1860 to October 1861, the Pony Express delivered mail between
Missouri and California.

B. The Pony Express reduced the time it took to deliver mail from Missouri to
California to just 10 days, down from 22 to 25 days by overland stagecoach.

C. Despite its brief 18-month existence, the Pony Express employed some 80
riders to deliver mail from Missouri to California.

D. The Pony Express took an average of 22-25 days to deliver mail between
Missouri and California—a significant increase in speed compared to
overland coach mail delivery, which could take as long as 18 months.
 Form, Structure, and Sense | Overview
What are "form, structure, and sense" questions?

On the SAT Reading and Writing Test, some questions will present you with a
short passage that contains a blank. The question will then ask you to complete
the text in a way that conforms to the conventions of Standard English.

On the SAT, these Standard English conventions are broken down into two
categories:

 Form, structure, and sense

 Boundaries

Form, structure, and sense questions focus on the rules surrounding various parts
of speech (nouns, verbs, etc.) and their usage.

Which Standard English conventions will be tested in form, structure, and sense
questions?

Form, structure, and sense questions focus on these Standard English

conventions:

 Subject-verb agreement

 Verb forms

 Pronoun-antecedent agreement

 Subject-modifier placement

 Plural and possessive nouns

How to approach form, structure, and sense questions

Because each question will focus on a specific convention of Standard English, it's
a great first step to identify which grammar rule is being tested.

Here's one way to do that:

Step 1: Investigate the blank

Read the text closely. What's missing that the blank needs to provide? A noun
phrase? A verb phrase? Something else?

Compare the choices. What changes from choice to choice? Are verbs conjugated
differently? Are different pronouns used?

Any patterns we can identify will be useful in the next step.

Step 2: Find the focus

Based on our observations in the previous step, we should be able to identify

which Standard English convention(s) is being tested.

For example, if the main difference between the choices is verb conjugation, we
should be focused on avoid errors in verb forms and in subject-verb agreement.

If we can narrow our focus to just the convention(s) being tested, we'll have less
to think about. This can save us both time and brainpower.

Step 3: Eliminate the obvious errors

Now it's time to take a closer look at the choices!

Plug each choice into the blank, and read the passage through. Keeping in mind
the focus grammar rules, eliminate any choice that creates an obvious error.

Once we eliminate choices that create errors, we'll be left with only one
remaining choice. We can select it with confidence!

Learn more:
Want to sharpen your skills on form, structure and sense questions? Keep
practicing, and check out our lessons for each of the grammar conventions below.

 Subject-verb agreement
What is subject-verb agreement?

Subject-verb agreement is a convention of Standard English that requires

a subject and verb to agree in number.

Incorrect:

 Apples is different from oranges.

Correct:

 Apples are different from oranges.

"Is" is the singular present tense of the verb "to be". "Are" is the plural present
tense of the verb "to be".

Since "Apples " is a plural subject, it needs to be paired with the plural form of
the verb.

This same logic must be applied to all subject-verb pairings.

Subject-verb agreement may be tested in one of the Form, structure, and

sense questions that you encounter on test day.

How to identify subject-verb agreement questions

When approaching form, structure, and sense questions, it's important to identify
which Standard English conventions are being tested.

You'll know to look for subject-verb agreement errors if different choices contain
singular and plural forms of the same verb.
If you don't see this difference among the choices, then the question doesn't deal
with subject-verb agreement.

Let's look at a subject-verb agreement question now:

When a fire burns red or green or blue, the color of its flames ______ the
chemical composition of the combustible material.

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

Standard English?

A. Indicate
B. indicates
C. have indicated
D. are indicating

Answer: B

What can make subject-verb agreement errors difficult to spot?

When a verb follows directly after its subject, agreement is pretty easy to verify
("apples is" vs "apples are"). However, when sentence structures become more
complex, subject-verb agreement errors can be much harder to spot.

Be extra cautious when you notice any of the following:

Extra words between the subject and verb

When additional words, especially other nouns, come between a subject and
verb, agreement errors are much easier to miss.
Show example

Incorrect:

 Istanbul, the most populous of all European cities, were founded in the first
millennium BCE.

Correct:

 Istanbul, the most populous of all European cities, was founded in the first
millennium BCE.

Explain

If you notice extra words or phrases, eliminate them from the sentence, and try
reading the subject straight into the verb.

Inverted sentences

Sometimes a subject will come after the verb. When this is the case, agreement
errors are trickier to identify.

Example

Incorrect:

 Separating the roads were a concrete median.

Correct:

 Separating the roads was a concrete median.

Explain

If you notice a subject that comes after its verb, try flipping the sentence and
reading the subject straight in to the verb.
Top tips

Place subject and verb side-by-side

Any time you're not sure if a subject and verb agree, place them next to each
other and see how they sound together. This tip helps cut through complex
sentence structures and tends to make subject-verb agreement errors much more
obvious.

Look out for prepositions

Prepositions like "with", "of", and "from" are often used to start phrases that
describe the subject of a sentence. These phrases can cause confusion, as the
object of the prepositional phrase ends up closer to the verb, and it's often a
noun with a different number.

For example: "The sound of the trumpets was deafening."

The prepositional phrase "of the trumpets" may include a plural noun, but it
describes the singular subject "sound", so we need to use the singular verb
"was".

Plurals and the letter 's'

If you're a fluent speaker of English, you'll often be able to pair plural nouns with
plural verbs based purely off of instinct and sound. But if that doesn't work, you
need to be able to identify singular and plural verbs.

With nouns, plurals are usually formed by adding an 's' to the end of the word:

elephant → elephants

With verbs, though, the pattern is exactly the opposite. Typically, we form a plural
verb by removing an 's':

 The elephant runs.

 The elephants run.

When you see verbs changing in the answer choices, make sure those verbs are
 CONSISTENT with their subjects
 CONSISTENT with other verbs in the sentence and surrounding sentences.

Your turn

Subject-verb agreement

 A Neapolitan pizza made with San Marzano tomatoes ______ considered

more traditional than one made with any other type of tomatoes.

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

Standard English?

A. are
B. have been
C. is
D. were

Answer: C

 The sum of money one donates to registered nonprofit organizations

______ a deduction that can be made from one's taxable income.

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

Standard English?

A. represent
B. represents
C. are representing
D. have represented

Answer: B
  Called embouchure, the shape of a skilled trumpet player's lips ______ for
playing a wide range of notes with clear tone and without muscle strain.

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

Standard English?

A. allows
B. are allowing
C. allow
D. have allowed

Answer: A

 Verb forms

What are verb forms?

Verbs can take many different forms. They can have different tenses
and aspects. They can also be finite or non-finite. There are modal
verbs, auxiliary verbs, and a dozen other possible categories.

The grammar science behind these different verb forms is

complex. Luckily, you don't need to actually do any of this tricky
classification to succeed on the SAT.

You've already been exposed to all these different verb forms in your
everyday studies, and you likely use them all the time without thinking
about it. If you rely on your instincts and familiarity with Standard
English, choosing the correct verb form should come pretty naturally.
Incorrect:

 Yesterday, I am running to the lake.

Correct:

 Yesterday, I ran to the lake.

The verb phrase "am running" is in the present tense and

the progressive aspect. However, the sentence tells us the action
happened "yesterday", so we should use the past tense and
the simple aspect: "ran".

Explanation

Past Present Future

Simple I ran I run I will run

Perfect I had run I have run I will have run

Progressive I was running I am running I will be running

Perfect- I had been I have been I will have been

progressive running running running

Verb forms may be tested in one of the Form, structure, and

sense questions that you encounter on test day.
How to identify verb form questions

When approaching form, structure, and sense questions, it's important

to identify which Standard English conventions are being tested.

You'll know to look for verb form errors if

 different choices use different verb tenses (past/present/future)

 some choices add or remove helping verbs

If you don't see one or both of these differences among the choices,
then the question doesn't deal with verb forms.

Let's look at a verb forms question now:

While many spiders use webs to catch their food, others capture prey
using hunting or burrowing techniques. Spiders from the family
Ctenizidae, often called trapdoor spiders, ______ their burrows with
doors, using their silk for hinges.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions

of Standard English?

A. cover
B. are covering
C. will have covered
D. had covered

Answer: A
What can make verb form errors difficult to spot?

Complex sentence structures

Verb form errors in simple sentences tend to be pretty obvious. But as

sentences get more complex, it becomes easier to miss those little
context clues that tell us when and how the verb is taking place.

Example

Incorrect:

 Author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, whose active

period spanned from 1925 to 1950, famously writes many
different types of literary works, including novels, plays, and
essays.

Correct:

 Author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, whose active

period spanned from 1925 to 1950, famously wrote many
different types of literary works, including novels, plays, and
essays.

Missing helping verbs

Only simple verbs can function without help.

Example

Incorrect:

 Phosphorous, an impurity which can cause steel to be too

brittle, commonly found in raw iron ore.
Correct:

 Phosphorous, an impurity which can cause steel to be too

brittle, is commonly found in raw iron ore.

Explanation

When a helping verb is missing from any other type of verb phrase, that
verb phrase can no longer function as the main verb of the sentence.
This often creates a sentence fragment error.

When we're reading quickly, our brains have a tendency to fill in these
missing verbs, which can cause us to overlook the error. Take your time
as you read and make sure that each verb phrase has everything it
needs to function.

Top tips

Conjugate in context

To determine if an action happens in the past, present, or future, we'll

need to rely upon context clues in the sentence. The same goes for
whether an action is completed or ongoing. Common context clues
include dates, times, and other conjugated verbs.

Match other verbs

If you're not sure how to conjugate a verb, match the tense of other
verbs in the same sentence or paragraph. Verb tense usually stays
consistent unless some shift in time occurs within the passage.
Simple present tense for general facts

General statements of fact use simple present tense (e.g., "the

sky is blue"). So, if there are no context clues that suggest a shift in
tense or aspect, simple present tense is likely the best way to go.

Your turn

Verb forms

 Botanists recognize over fifty different species of sunflower, and

variance exists even in those species. One species, the silverleaf
sunflower, ______ both an early-flowering ecotype that tends to
grow in coastal areas and a late-flowering ecotype that grows
inland.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions

of Standard English?

A. encompassing
B. to encompass
C. encompasses
D. having encompassed

Answer: C
  Antarctic pearlwort, a low-growing shrub with characteristic
yellow flowers, is one of only two native flowering plants which
______ in Antarctica.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions

of Standard English?

A. were occurring
B. occur
C. are occurring
D. will have occurred

Answer: B

 Before the museum closed permanently, it faced financial

challenges that ______ a large deficit and declining ticket sale
revenues.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions

of Standard English?

A. include
B. will include
C. would include
D. included

Answer: D
  Pronoun-antecedent agreement

What is pronoun-antecedent agreement?

Pronoun-antecedent agreement is a convention of Standard English

that requires a pronoun and antecedent to agree in person and
number.

Incorrect:

 Cranberries are both sour and bitter, so people rarely

eat it unsweetened.

Correct:

 Cranberries are both sour and bitter, so people rarely

eat them unsweetened.

In both of these sentences, the bolded pronouns stand in for the noun
"cranberries".

Since "cranberries" is a plural noun, it needs to be paired with

the plural pronoun "they".

This same logic must be applied to all pronouns and their antecedents.

Pronoun-antecedent agreement may be tested in one of the Form,

structure, and sense questions that you encounter on test day.
How to identify pronoun-antecedent agreement questions

When approaching form, structure, and sense questions, it's important

to identify which Standard English conventions are being tested.

You'll know to look for pronoun-antecedent agreement errors if

 one choice uses a singular pronoun (like "it") while another choice
uses a plural pronoun (like "they")

 a pronoun outside the blank refers to a noun contained within the

choices

If you don't notice either of these features, then the question doesn't
deal with pronoun-antecedent agreement.

Let's look at a pronoun-antecedent agreement question now:

It is hard to live in Antarctica. The cold, dry environment provides the

continent’s soil-dwelling microbes few nutrients, little water, and
almost no sunlight. In a 2017 study of these organisms, microbiologist
Belinda Ferrari reported that ______ able to survive on a diet of
atmospheric gases found in the soil.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions

of Standard English?

A. it is
B. this is
C. either is
D. they are
Answer: D

What can make pronoun-antecedent agreement errors difficult to

spot?

In simple sentences, the connection between a pronoun and its

antecedent is often very clear. However, as sentences become more
complex, errors in pronoun-antecedent agreement can be much more
difficult to identify.

Be extra cautious when you notice any of the following:

 Distance between pronoun and antecedent

The further apart a pronoun and its antecedent are in a sentence, the
harder agreement errors are to spot. Extra phrases and clauses
interfere with our ability to work off instinct.

Errors in these cases are less likely to just "sound wrong". So, if you
notice a pronoun way out on its own, track down its antecedent and
check for agreement.

Show me!

Incorrect:

 The record player largely fell out of style in the 1980s and 90s, but
there has since been a revival in their popularity.
 Correct:

 The record player largely fell out of style in the 1980s and 90s, but
there has since been a revival in its popularity.

In this compound sentence, the pronoun and its antecedent are in

different independent clauses, which makes the error harder to
see.

But once we identify the antecedent as the singular noun phrase

"the record player", we know to use the singular pronoun "it".

 Multiple nouns before the pronoun

When multiple nouns appear before a pronoun in a sentence,

identifying the correct antecedent can be tricky. Errors in pronoun-
antecedent agreement will be difficult to identify in these cases,
especially if some of the nouns are plural and others are singular.

When you notice multiple nouns before the pronoun, take the time to
identify the most logical antecedent.

Show me!

Incorrect:

 The cougar, the largest of all North American cats, has lost most
of their range in the eastern United States.

Correct:

 The cougar, the largest of all North American cats, has lost most
of its range in the eastern United States.
 Explanation: Even though “cats” is a plural noun close to the
pronoun, it isn’t the logical antecedent of the pronoun. The actual
antecedent, “cougar”, is a singular noun and requires
the singular "it".

 Pronoun before the antecedent

"Antecedent" literally means what comes before, but sometimes this

relationship gets flipped. And when a pronoun becomes before its
antecedent, we're less likely to notice an agreement error.

If you see a pronoun towards the beginning of the text, track down the
noun it refers to and double check for agreement.

Show me!

Incorrect:

 While it may not be widely associated with long life, ocean clams
have been known to live for over 500 years.

Correct:

 While they may not be widely associated with long life, ocean
clams have been known to live for over 500 years.

Since we read the pronoun before we know whether its

antecedent is plural or singular, this error can be hard to identify.
But once we notice that our antecedent is the plural noun
"clams", we know to use the plural pronoun "they".
Top tips

Find the antecedent

To recognize pronoun agreement errors, we must be able to identify

the antecedent of the pronoun in question—the noun that the pronoun
logically refers to.

Read carefully! Antecedents can be hard to find when multiple singular

and plural nouns are present.

Plug in the antecedent

If you're not sure you've identified the correct noun as the antecedent,
try plugging it in where the pronoun goes. If the sentence still makes
sense, you've found the antecedent!

For example:

The survival of the orangutan is threatened by the destruction

of its habitat.

The only noun that can logically replace "it" in this sentence is
"orangutan", so that's the antecedent:

The survival of the orangutan is threatened by the destruction of the

orangutan's habitat.

A note about gendered pronouns

The SAT won't ask you to choose between a gendered pronoun ("he" or
"she") and the non-gendered singular pronoun "they" when referring to
a single person.
When checking for pronoun-antecedent agreement, you'll only need to
determine A) if the noun is singular or plural, and B) if the noun is a
person or a thing.

When you see pronouns changing in the answer choices, make sure the
pronouns:
 CONCISTENT with the nouns they refer to
 Are as PRECISE as possible; if they could refer to more than one
thing, eliminate them!

Your turn

Pronoun-antecedent agreement

 Before a jury trial begins, lawyers for each side interview potential
jurors closely, ______ questions intended to reveal any biases.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions

of Standard English?

A. asking him or her

B. asking them
C. asking it
D. to ask him or her

Answer: B
  Thanks to ______ long legs, giraffes are very fast, running as
quickly as 35 miles per hour in short bursts.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions

of Standard English?

A. its
B. one's
C. their
D. his or her

Answer: C

 Subject-modifier placement

What is subject-modifier placement?

Subject-modifier placement refers to a convention of Standard English

that requires a modifier and its subject to be next to one another.

Incorrect:

 Consumed in the form of sugars and starches, the human

body uses carbohydrates as its primary source of energy.

Explaination

In this version of the sentence, the modifying phrase "consumed in the

form of sugars and starches" is next to "the human body". However,
the sentence isn't meant to suggest that "the human body is consumed
in the form of sugars and starches".
This is a modifier placement error.

Correct:

 Consumed in the form of sugars and

starches, carbohydrates serve as the primary source of energy for
the human body.

Explain

In this version of the sentence, the modifying phrase "consumed in the

form of sugars and starches" is logically followed by the noun it
describes: "carbohydrates".

Subject-modifier placement may be tested in one of the Form,

structure, and sense questions that you encounter on test day.

How to identify subject-modifier placement questions

When approaching form, structure, and sense questions, it's important

to identify which Standard English conventions are being tested.

You may want to look for subject-modifier placement errors if

 the blank is longer than a few words

 the choices rearrange words or phrases into different orders

If you don't see one or both of these features, then the question likely
doesn't deal with subject-modifier placement.
Let's look at a subject-modifier placement question now:

Subject-Modifier placement example

 Rabinal Achí is a precolonial Maya dance drama performed

annually in Rabinal, a town in the Guatemalan highlands. Based
on events that occurred when Rabinal was a city-state ruled by a
king, ______ had once been an ally of the king but was later
captured while leading an invading force against him.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the

conventions of Standard English?

A. Rabinal Achí tells the story of K’iche’ Achí, a military leader

who
B. K’iche’ Achí, the military leader in the story of Rabinal Achí,
C. there was a military leader, K’iche’ Achí, who in Rabinal Achí
D. the military leader whose story is told in Rabinal Achí, K’iche’
Achí,

Answer: A

Top tips

Double-check introductory modifiers

When modifying phrases come at the beginning of a sentence, our

brains will often do the work of connecting the modifier to whichever
noun it logically describes. But these modifying phrases don't apply to
the whole sentence: they still need to be placed right next to their
subjects.
Any time you see a blank come after an introductory modifying phrase,
double check the noun that follows to be sure it makes sense alongside
the modifier.

Show me!

Notice where the blank shows up in our example question:

Based on events that occurred when Rabinal was a city-state ruled by a

king, ______

The whole paragraph is focused on the dance drama Rabinal Achí, so

it's easy to connect that subject to this introductory modifier. However,
we still need to make sure that the noun phrase following the modifier
makes sense in the context of that particular sentence.

Only choice A correctly places Rabinal Achí in that spot.

Beware possessive nouns

When a noun phrase starts with a possessive noun, it can make

modifier placement extra confusing. Remember that possessive nouns
really function as adjectives: the noun that follows the possessive is the
actual focus of the noun phrase. That's the noun the modifier needs to
describe.

Explanation

Incorrect:

 Exhausted from running home in the rain, Erin's jacket was

soaking wet.
Correct:

 Exhausted from running home in the rain, Erin pulled off her
soaking wet jacket.

In the first version of this sentence, the modifier illogically applies to

the noun "jacket". It doesn't make sense to say that "Erin's jacket
was exhausted". It's Erin that's exhausted.

We can fix this error in modifier placement by adjusting the second

half of the sentence so that "Erin" is the noun that the modifier
logically describes.

Your turn

Subject-Modifier Placement

 Having returned from the ocean to the stream where it was

born, an adult salmon's life cycle ends when it spawns and
dies, after which its offspring start the cycle anew.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the

conventions of Standard English?

A. an adult salmon's life cycle ends when it spawns and dies,

B. an adult salmon spawns and dies, completing its life cycle,
C. the spawning and death of an adult salmon complete its life cycle,
D. the life cycle of an adult salmon is complete when it spawns and
die,

Answer: B
Subject-Modifier Placement

 While popular depiction might characterize surfing as a summer

sport, the reality is that winter conditions are considered better
for surfing. Generated by seasonal storms far off the coast,
______

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the

conventions of Standard English?

A. surfers highly prize the large, predictable sets of waves that

are created by winter swells.
B. winter swells reach the shore as large, predictable sets of
waves that are highly prized by surfers.
C. the shore causes large winter swells to break in predictable
sets of waves highly prized by surfers.
D. winter is highly prized by surfers for large swells that break
in large, predictable sets of waves.

Answer: B

 Plural and possessive nouns

What are plurals and possessives?

Plurals are nouns and pronouns that refer to more than one thing.

Possessives are nouns and pronouns that show possession.

There are similarities and differences in how plurals and possessives are
formed that can cause confusion. In particular, confusion can arise over
when to use or not use apostrophes.

Incorrect:

 One cannot overstate the importance of bee's to the pollination

of Michigans blueberry crop.

Explanation

 "bee's"

This noun should be plural, not possessive, so we shouldn't use an

apostrophe.

 "Michigans"

This noun should be possessive, not plural, so we should place an

apostrophe before the "s".

Correct:

 One cannot overstate the importance of bees to the pollination

of Michigan's blueberry crop.

Explanation

This version of the sentence correctly forms the plural noun "bees" and
the possessive noun "Michigan's".

The formation of plurals and possessives may be tested in one of

the Form, structure, and sense questions that you encounter on test
day.
How to form plurals and possessives

To succeed on questions about plural and possessive nouns, you'll need

to know the rules for using apostrophes in the following cases:

 Plural nouns

Explanation

Plural nouns do not require an apostrophe.

Example: The plants in the greenhouse are thriving.

 Singular possessive nouns

Explanation

Singular possessive nouns require an apostrophe followed by an "s".

Example: The company's most popular products include shampoo and

moisturizer.

Note: This rule applies even if the singular noun already ends in "s"
(e.g., the rhinoceros's horn).

 Plural possessive nouns

Explanation

Plural possessive nouns that end in "s" require an apostrophe after the
"s".

Example: On many superhero teams, the heroes' costumes are each a

different color.

Note: If a plural noun doesn't end in "s", then an "s" should be added
after the apostrophe (e.g., the men's swim team).
  Pronouns

Explanation

Never use apostrophes. His and hers don't use apostrophes. Yours,
ours, and theirs are in the same category.

Example: His favorite food is the same as hers.

How to identify questions about plurals and possessives

When we approach form, structure, and sense questions, it's important

to identify which Standard English conventions are being tested.

Make sure to look for errors with genitives and plurals if

 the choices add or remove apostrophes

 the choices change the placement of apostrophes

If you don't see one or both of these features, then the question likely
doesn't deal with plurals and possessives.

Let's look at a plurals and possessives question now:

Plurals and possessives example

 Slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo’s debut novel The Poet X, winner of

the 2018 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, is
composed of ______ protagonist, fifteen-year-old Xiomara
Batista.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions
of Standard English?

A. poem’s putatively written by the novel’s

B. poem’s putatively written by the novels’
C. poems putatively written by the novels’
D. poems putatively written by the novel’s

Answer: D

Top tips

Check all the nouns

SAT questions that ask us about plural and possessive nouns may
include two nouns in the underline. The choices will include variations
where one, both, or neither of the two are made plural or possessive.

Be sure that the answer you choose uses (or doesn't use) apostrophes
correctly in both nouns.

Explanation

Look at the choices in our example question:

 Choices A and C both use the correct form of "novel's"

 Choices C and D both use the correct form of "poems"

However, only choice D uses the correct form of both nouns.

Beware "its" and "their"

"Its" and "their" follow the same rule as other possessive

pronouns: they don't require an apostrophe. However, these pronouns
are frequently confused with the contractions "it's" and "they're".

Any time you see a form of "it's/its" or "there/their/they're" appear in

the choices, double check that you're using the appropriate form.

Explanation

Use the following tables to keep things straight!

 its:

its belongs to it

it's "it is"

 their:

their belongs to them

they're "they are"

there that place

Note: You may be offered variations of both "they" and "it" in the same
question, so you'll also need to pay attention to pronoun agreement.

 Is the noun being referred to singular? Use a version of "it".

 Is the noun being referred to plural? Use a version of "they".

Your turn

Plurals and possessives

 Labor unions are formed in order to protect ______ through

collective bargaining, which gives employees greater leverage
while ensuring they are treated equally by management.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions

of Standard English?

A. workers' rights
B. worker's rights
C. workers rights'
D. workers' rights'

Answer: A

 The striated ______ walls are the result of erosion and frost
weathering having exposed layers of multicolored sedimentary
rock.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions

of Standard English?

A. patterns' of a canyons
B. patterns of a canyons'
C. pattern's of a canyon's
D. patterns of a canyon's

Answer: D
Exercise

1. In recent years, economists around the world have created new tools that
quantify the overall well-being of a country’s citizens. Economists in India,
for example, use an Ease of Living Index. This tool ______ economic
potential, sustainability, and citizens’ quality of life.

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

Standard English?

A. will have been measuring

B. measures

C. had measured

D. would have measured

2. The neurotoxic venom of the blue-ringed octopus, which is named for its
distinctive blue markings, ______ it one of the deadliest sea creatures in
the world.

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

Standard English?

A. makes

B. make

C. have made

D. are making
 3. Some followers of the Yoruba faith reenact stories from Yoruba folktales
and myths during Nigeria’s Olojo Festival. Observed annually in October,
______

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

Standard English?

A. also included at the Olojo Festival are dancing, games, and other
revelries that draw an influx of tourists to the region.

B. the region draws an influx of tourists who play games, dance, and
enjoy other revelries at the Olojo Festival.

C. the Olojo Festival also includes dancing, games, and other revelries
that draw an influx of tourists to the region.

D. dancing, games, and other revelries draw an influx of tourists to the

region where the Olojo Festival takes place.

4. Earth is not a perfect circle. Due to the ______ gravitational pull, Earth
bulges out on the sides closest to and farthest from the Moon. This
distorting pull is known as a tidal force, and it is responsible for the changes
in water levels that are called high and low tides.

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

Standard English?

A. Moons’

B. Moons

C. Moon’s

D. Moon
 5. In 1990, California native and researcher Ellen Ochoa left her position as
chief of the Intelligent Systems Technology Branch at a NASA research
center ______ the space agency’s astronaut training program.

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

Standard English?

A. to join

B. is joining

C. joined

D. joins

6. In the late 1960s, inspired in part by the sight of laundry hanging on a

clothesline, African American abstract painter Sam Gilliam began to create
his iconic “Drape” paintings. He applied bold, saturated hues to large
canvases and ______ them from ceilings or walls, causing the drooping
fabric to cascade in dramatic loops and curves.

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

Standard English?

A. suspending

B. suspended

C. to suspend

D. to have suspended
 7. In 2016, scientists from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory installed
seismometers on the Pacific Ocean floor, recording seismic waves that
assisted in producing images of how the Earth’s mantle flows. While it was
thought that large-scale plate movement controlled the mantle’s flow,
imaging suggests that smaller-scale processes ______ more profound
effects.

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

Standard English?

A. have

B. has

C. is having

D. has had

8. American poet Emily Dickinson wrote many of her poems on scraps of

paper, but she also took steps to collect these works. From 1858 to around
1864, for example, she copied more than 800 of ______ into forty
homemade booklets (known as fascicles).

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

Standard English?

A. them

B. it

C. that

D. this
 9. Studying the deepest parts of the ocean is a daunting task. Humans cannot
survive the crushing pressure, freezing temperatures, and lack of light that
characterize what's called the “abyssal zone”. Specially designed
submarines and robots can explore this realm, but ______ highly expensive
and limited by technical challenges.

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

Standard English?

A. it is

B. they are

C. we are

D. this is

10.The dragon tree Dracaena cinnabari is an evergreen species known for its
umbrella-like appearance and dark red resin, which is harvested along with
its leaves to make rope. This practice, along with an increase in
development of the Socotra archipelago, to which D.

cinnabari is native, help explain why botanists predict the tree’s numbers ______
in years to come.

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

Standard English?

A. decrease

B. have decreased

C. will decrease

D. are decreasing
 11.Ten of William Shakespeare’s plays are classified as histories. Although each
one of these plays, which include Henry V and Richard III, ______ on a
single historical figure (specifically, an English king), some, such as Henry VI
Part One and Henry VI Part Two, feature different episodes from the same
monarch’s life.

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

Standard English?

A. focuses

B. focus

C. are focused

D. were focused

12.The artistic talents of Barbara Chase-Riboud, most known for her 1979
historical novel Sally Hemings and the conversation it inspired, ______
limited to the realm of prose: she first excelled in sculpture, where her
affinity for bronze—a material she described as “timeless” due to its use
across eras and cultures—became part of her artistic identity.

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

Standard English?

A. hasn’t been

B. isn’t

C. wasn’t

D. aren’t
 13.A second-generation Japanese American, Wataru Misaka ______ in World
War II (1941-45) and won two amateur national basketball championships at
the University of Utah when he joined the New York Knicks for the 1947-48
season, becoming the first non-white basketball player in the US’s top
professional league.

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

Standard English?

A. had already served

B. already serves

C. was already serving

D. already served

14.Wayang kulit is an Indonesian form of puppet-shadow theater in which

intricately carved leather puppets are manipulated behind a backlit screen.
Using this technique to depict stories from Hindu epics such as the
Ramayana and Mahabharata, ______

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

Standard English?

A. wayang kulit performances are traditionally a feature of religious

ceremonies.

B. religious ceremonies traditionally feature wayang kulit

performances.

C. there is a tradition of performing wayang kulit at religious

ceremonies.

D. featuring wayang kulit performances is traditional in religious

ceremonies.
 15.A system of apprenticeship may be either independent or cooperative:
independent apprenticeships, organized by an employer, have no association
with an educational institution, while a cooperative apprenticeship, usually
longer in duration, ______ managed by both an employer and an educational
institution.

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

Standard English?

A. were always

B. are always

C. is always

D. have always been

16.Known as Earth’s “living skin,” biocrusts are thin layers of soil held together
by surface-dwelling microorganisms such as fungi, lichens, and
cyanobacteria. Fortifying soil in arid ecosystems against erosion, ______

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

Standard English?

A. a recent study has estimated that these crusts reduce global dust
emissions by 60 percent each year.

B. these crusts reduce global dust emissions by an estimated 60 percent

each year, according to a recent study.

C. an estimated 60 percent reduction in global dust emissions each year

is due to these crusts, according to a recent study.

D. a recent study’s estimate is that these crusts reduce global dust

emissions by 60 percent each year.
 17.South African artist Gerard Sekoto, recognized for his contributions to urban
black art and social realism, based his 1947 painting Song of the Pick on a
photograph from the 1930s of black laborers working under the supervision
of a white foreman. Completed just before his selfimposed exile to Paris, the
work ______ the power and unity of the laborers with the diminished
presence of the foreman, an effect that evinces Sokoto’s command of line
and color.

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

Standard English?

A. has juxtaposed

B. was juxtaposing

C. juxtaposed

D. juxtaposes

18.In the canon of North African literature, Moroccan author Driss Chraïbi’s
1954 novel The Simple Past (Le Passé Simple) looms large. A coming-of-age
story, a social meditation, and a sober gaze into the dark maw of French
colonialism, ______ interrogates systemic power with memorable intensity.

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

Standard English?

A. Chraïbi’s debut novel, published two years before Morocco

gained its independence,

B. published two years before Morocco gained its independence,

Chraïbi wrote a debut novel that

C. Chraïbi wrote a debut novel that, published two years before

Morocco gained its independence,

D. Morocco gained its independence two years before the

publication of Chraïbi’s debut novel, which
 Boundaries | Overview

A guide to "boundaries" questions on the digital SAT

What are "boundaries" questions?

On the SAT Reading and Writing Test, some questions will present you with a
short passage that contains a blank. The question will then ask you to complete
the text in a way that conforms to the conventions of Standard English.

On the SAT, these Standard English conventions are broken down into two
categories:

 Form, structure, and sense

 Boundaries

Boundaries questions focus on how phrases, clauses, and sentences are linked
together in written English.

All boundaries questions revolve around linking ideas. When you are linking ideas,
you must use one of the following:

STOP HALF-STOP GO
 Period (.)  Colon (:)  Comma (,)
 Semicolon (;)  Long Dash (-)
 Comma (,) +
FANBOYS
 Question Mark (?)
 Exclamation Mark
(!)

FANBOYS – For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, and So

STOP punctuations can only link complete ideas.

HALF-STOP punctuation must be preceded by complete ideas.

GO punctuation can link anything except two complete ideas.

Now let’s look at these in detail.

Which Standard English conventions will be tested in boundaries questions?

Boundaries questions focus on these Standard English conventions:

 Linking clauses

 Supplements

 Punctuation

How to approach boundaries questions

Because each question will focus on a specific convention of Standard English, it's
a great first step to identify which grammar rule is being tested.

Here's one way to do that:

Step 1: Investigate the blank

Read the text closely. Where does the blank appear? Within a sentence? Between
clauses?

Compare the choices. What changes from choice to choice? Are conjunctions
added or removed? Is different punctuation used?

Any patterns we can identify will be useful in the next step.

Step 2: Find the focus

Based on our observations in the previous step, we should be able to identify

which Standard English convention is being tested.

For example, if the blank comes between two independent clauses, and the
choices offer a mix of commas and conjunctions, we should focus on avoiding
errors with linking clauses.

If we can narrow our focus to the specific convention being tested, we'll have less
to think about. This can save both time and brainpower.

Step 3: Eliminate the obvious errors

Now it's time to take a closer look at the choices!

Plug each choice into the blank, and read the passage through. Keeping in mind
the grammar rules we identified as the focus, eliminate any choice that creates an
obvious error.

Once we eliminate choices that create errors, we'll be left with only one
remaining choice. We can select it with confidence!

 Linking clauses

A guide to linking clauses on the SAT.

What are clauses?

A clause is a series of words that contains a subject and a conjugated verb. There
are two main types of clauses:

An independent clause can stand on its own as a complete sentence.

Example

Dolores went to the grocery store.

This independent clause has a subject ("Dolores") and a verb ("went") and makes
sense on its own as a complete thought.

A dependent clause must be linked to an independent clause.

Example

Where she bought milk and eggs

This dependent clause has a subject ("she") and a verb ("bought"), but it wouldn't
make sense on its own. To create a complete sentence, this clause would need to
be linked to an independent clause:

Dolores went to the grocery store, where she bought milk and eggs.

The SAT focuses on how clauses can be linked together (or kept apart). These
conventions may be tested in Boundaries questions that you encounter on test
day.

Linking clauses

There are several ways to link clauses. The SAT focuses on end of sentence
punctuation, coordination, subordination, and semicolons.

Let's look at each in turn:

End of sentence punctuation

Using end punctuation (like a period or question mark) is the simplest way to
separate clauses. You should be very familiar with using end punctuation in your
own writing.

There are only two rules for end punctuation:

1. The punctuation mark must match the function of the sentence it follows.
Explanation

Incorrect:

 I've often wondered how are birds able to navigate?

Correct:

 I've often wondered how birds are able to navigate.

This sentence is a statement: "I've often wondered."

The incorrect version confuses the purpose of the sentence, phrasing the second
half like a question and ending things with a question mark. The correct version
appropriately phrases the sentence to function as a statement, ending things with
a period.

2. End punctuation can only be used to separate two independent clauses.

Explanation

Incorrect:

 After sliced bread was introduced to the market in 1928. It quickly

eclipsed the popularity of unsliced bread.

Correct:

After sliced bread was introduced to the market in 1928, it quickly

eclipsed the popularity of unsliced bread.

The first clause in the sentence ("After . . . 1928") is a dependent clause. It can't
stand on its own as a sentence, so using a period creates an error.
Coordination

Coordination involves the linking of two independent clauses within a single

sentence. To coordinate independent clauses, we must use two things:

1. a comma (,)

2. a coordinating conjunction

The only coordinating conjunctions in English are known as the FANBOYS (for,
and, nor, but, or, yet, so).

Show me

Incorrect:

 Astronomical seasons are based on the position of the sun,

meteorological seasons are based on temperature and weather.

 Astronomical seasons are based on the position of the sun

but meteorological seasons are based on temperature and weather.

The first version of the sentence fails to use a coordinating conjunction, creating
a comma splice error. The second version of thet sentence fails to use a comma,
creating a run-on sentence error.

Correct:

 Astronomical seasons are based on the position of the sun,

but meteorological seasons are based on temperature and weather.

Subordination

Subordination involves linking two clauses by making one of the clauses

dependent. To subordinate an independent clause, we must use two things:

1. a subordinating conjunction

2. a comma (,)*
Subordinating conjunctions are words that turn an independent clause into a
dependent clause. There are many subordinating conjunctions, but some
examples include although, since, because, while, when, and after.

Show me

Incorrect:

 Broccoli, kale, and kohlrabi may seem like very different vegetables,
they are all cultivars of the same plant species.

This version of the sentence links two independent clauses using only a comma,
creating a comma splice error.

Correct:

 Though broccoli, kale, and kohlrabi may seem like very

different vegetables, they are all cultivars of the same plant species.

By adding the subordinating conjunction "though", the first clause is made

dependent. It can then be linked to the second clause with just a comma.

*Note: Some subordinating conjunctions can link clauses without a comma, but
only if the dependent clause comes second.

Example

 I went to the store because I ran out of peanut butter.

 I will go to the store if I run out of peanut butter.

Semicolons

Semicolons can be used to link two independent clauses without any conjunction.
Explanation

Incorrect:

 The Green Zebra tomato ripens without turning red; which makes it
difficult to know when one is ready to eat.

 The Green Zebra tomato ripens without turning red; and this makes it
difficult to know when one is ready to eat.

The first version of the sentence uses a semicolon to connect an independent

clause to a dependent clause, which creates a punctuation error. The second
version uses both a semicolon and a conjunction, which is unnecessary and
unconventional.

Correct:

 The Green Zebra tomato ripens without turning red; this makes it difficult
to know when one is ready to eat.

How to identify linking clauses questions

When approaching boundaries questions, it's important to identify which

Standard English conventions are being tested.

You may want to look for errors in linking clauses if

 the choices add or remove commas and FANBOYS conjunctions

 the choices add or remove end punctuation like periods or question marks

 any choice contains a semicolon

If you don't see any of these features, then the question likely doesn't deal with
linking clauses.
Let's look at a linking clauses question now:

Detroit natives Timothy Paule and Nicole Lindsey have combined their two
passions, Detroit and beekeeping, to improve the health of their city’s flowers and
other vegetation. In 2017, the couple converted a vacant lot in the city into an
______ in the years that followed they acquired nine additional lots and
established more than 35 hives.

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

Standard English?

A. apiary
B. apiary,
C. apiary and
D. apiary, and

Answer: D

Top tips

Use the before and after test

When you see choices that offer a variety of punctuation options, check if what
comes before and after the blank are independent clauses. If one side of the
blank is not an independent clause, then you're likely dealing with a supplements
or punctuation question ( which focus on different rules).
Your turn

Linking clauses

It is tempting to glamorize the hunt for dinosaur ______ majority of fieldwork is

characterized by a daily routine of heat, insects, and tedious labor.

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

Standard English?

A. fossils, the
B. fossils the
C. fossils but the
D. fossils, but the

Answer: D

 Though Paul Revere is best known today for his "midnight ride" during the
American _____ was famous in his own day as a prosperous silversmith and
businessman.

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

Standard English?

A. Revolution; he
B. Revolution, but Revere
C. Revolution, he
D. Revolution he

Answer: C

You may be asked to link clauses using coordination, subordination, or end

punctuation.
  Supplements

A guide to supplementary phrases on the SAT.

You may be asked to format and punctuate supplemental information provided

within a sentence.

What are supplements?

Supplements are words, phrases, and relative clauses that add extra information
to a sentence, often for the purpose of description or elaboration. There are two
main types of supplements:

Essential elements are necessary for the sentence to function and don't require
punctuation.

Example

In a basketball game, the team that scores the most points will win.

Without the relative clause "that scores the most points", we wouldn't
know which "team" the sentence was talking about. If we eliminate this
information, the sentence wouldn't make any sense:

In a basketball game, the team will win.

Nonessential elements are not necessary for the sentence to function. They must
be separated from the main sentence by punctuation.

Example

The basketball team, which won the state championship last year, got on the
bus.

The relative clause "which won the state championship last year" adds an
interesting description, but it's not essential to the sentence. If we eliminate this
information, the sentence still makes sense:

The basketball team got on the bus.

The SAT focuses on whether supplements should be separated from the rest of
the sentence by punctuation, as well as what punctuation marks should be used.
These conventions may be tested in Boundaries questions that you encounter on
test day.

How are supplements punctuated?

There are several factors that govern how supplements should be treated within a
sentence. Let's look at each in turn.

Essential or nonessential

The first question is whether a given supplement should be punctuated. Try

reading the sentence without the supplemental information.

 If the sentence no longer makes sense, then the supplement is an essential

element. No punctuation should be used.

 If the sentence still makes sense, then the supplement is nonessential. The
supplement must be separated from the rest of the sentence by
punctuation.

Position in the sentence

Once you determine a supplement is nonessential, you must decide how to

punctuate it.

 If the supplement begins or ends the sentence, it only requires one

punctuation mark (between the supplement and the rest of the sentence).

 If the supplement comes in the middle of the sentence, it requires

punctuation on both sides.
Example

A striker with 62 goals in international play, Megan Rapinoe is known for her
activism in addition to her soccer stardom.

Here, the supplement comes at the start of the sentence, so it only requires one
punctuation mark.

Megan Rapinoe, a striker with 62 goals in international play, is known for her
activism in addition to her soccer stardom.

Here, the supplement comes in the middle of the sentence, so it must be

separated with punctuation on both sides.

Type of punctuation

Nonessential elements can be separated from the rest of a sentence using three
different types of punctuation marks:

 Commas (,)

 Parentheses ()

 Dashes (—)

In formatting supplements, these punctuation marks are basically

interchangeable. However, there is one important rule: the same type of
punctuation must appear before and after a nonessential element.

In other words, we don't want to be mixing different punctuation marks together.

Example

Incorrect:

 The male chaffinch—with its blueish cap and rusty red feathering, is more
colorful than its female counterpart.
Correct:

 The male chaffinch—with its blueish cap and rusty red feathering—is more
colorful than its female counterpart.

 The male chaffinch, with its blueish cap and rusty red feathering, is more
colorful than its female counterpart.

Either dashes or commas can be used to punctuate this supplement, but we can't
use one of each!

How to identify supplements questions

When approaching boundaries questions, it's important to identify which

Standard English conventions are being tested.

You may want to look for errors in supplements if

 the choices add or remove commas, but not conjunctions

 the choices include multiple types of punctuation, like commas and dashes

If you don't see either of these features, then the question likely doesn't deal with
supplements.

Let's look at a supplements question now:

Luci Tapahonso is the inaugural poet laureate of the Navajo Nation. Her
book Sáanii Dahataal/The Women Are Singing—a combination of fiction and
memoir, poetry and ______ serves as a testament to her versatility as a writer.

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

Standard English?
 A. prose—
B. prose
C. prose,
D. prose;

Answer: A

Top tips

Be consistent!

SAT questions will often include just one side of a nonessential element in the
underlined portion of the sentence. Be sure to check the other side of the
element for consistency: the same punctuation mark should be used on both
sides!

Don't worry about the difference between commas, parentheses, and dashes

While commas, parentheses, and dashes are sometimes better in particular

contexts, the SAT won't test you on these minor differences. In other words, you'll
never be asked to choose between two types of punctuation marks if the choices
don't create other grammar errors. So don't sweat it!

Don't pair semicolons or colons!

Commas, parentheses, and dashes are the only options when separating a
nonessential element from the rest of the sentence. We should never use two
semicolons or colons around a nonessential element.
Your turn

Supplements

The sandhill ______ to North America, has the longest fossil history of any extant
bird at ten million years.

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

Standard English?

A. crane a large bird native

B. crane—a large bird native
C. crane, a large bird native,
D. crane, a large bird native

Answer: D

Supplements

Saint Lucia—a sovereign island in the ______ the only country in the world named
after a historical woman.

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

Standard English?

A. Caribbean, is
B. Caribbean—is
C. Caribbean is
D. Caribbean; is

Answer: B
  Punctuation

You'll need to know when and where to use (and not use) different punctuation
marks. Correct punctuation is essential for all boundaries questions.

A guide to punctuation on the SAT.

What punctuation marks are tested on the SAT?

Punctuation appears as part of a variety of questions on the SAT. Whether we're

linking clauses or adding supplements to a sentence, we'll need to appropriately
employ punctuation. We may also need to identify instances where no
punctuation is necessary.

The SAT may test your knowledge of

 Commas (,)

 Semicolons (;)

 Colons (:)

 Dashes (—)

Appropriate punctuation will be essential to all Boundaries questions that you

encounter on test day.

Punctuation marks

Different punctuation marks have different uses and different rules. Let's look at
each in turn.*

*Note: some punctuation marks have additional uses not named here (e.g.,
formatting dialogue with commas). This article focuses only on how these
punctuation marks are tested on the SAT.
Commas (,)

Commas should only be used to...

 Separate list items

Example

Crafting a chessboard requires a table saw, a sander, and lots of glue.

 Separate nonessential elements from the sentence

Example

The Bay of Fundy, a body of water between Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick, experiences the world's highest tidal range.

 Link dependent clauses to independent clauses

Example

While they were once endangered by commercial whaling, humpback whale

populations have recently grown at a rapid rate.

 Link independent clauses with help from a coordinating (FANBOYS)

conjunction

Example

Almonds are the world's most consumed tree nut, but walnuts are a close second.

Commas should not...

 Split a subject and a verb

Example

Incorrect:

 Mountain goats, are very nimble.

Correct:

 Mountain goats are very nimble.

 Mountain goats, which are only distantly related to domestic

goats, are very nimble.

Explanation: A comma shouldn't separate the subject "goats" from its verb "are".
The only exception is if two commas are being used to set off a nonessential
descriptive phrase.

 Come before prepositions

Example

Incorrect:

 The chicken crossed, to the other side of the road.

 The chicken crossed to the other side, of the road.

Correct:

 The chicken crossed to the other side of the road.

 Separate items in a list of two

Example

Incorrect:

 Learning archery requires skill, and practice.

Correct:

 Learning archery requires skill and practice.

Using a comma in any of these ways creates an error.

Semicolons (;)

Semicolons should only be used to...

 Link independent clauses (without a conjunction)

Example

Humans have always been troubled by dry skin; lotions and moisturizers have a
history reaching back into ancient times.

 Separate list items that already contain commas

Example

Incorrect:

 While the United Nations is headquartered in New York City, it also

has central offices in Nairobi, Kenya, Geneva, Switzerland, and
Vienna, Austria.

Correct:

 While the United Nations is headquartered in New York City, it also

has central offices in Nairobi, Kenya; Geneva, Switzerland; and
Vienna, Austria.

Explanation: Since we already use a comma when identifying a city and country, a
list of cities and countries can get confusing. We can use semicolons to more
clearly distinguish between cities in the list.
Note: We only use semicolons in a list if they're absolutely needed. Otherwise,
using commas is always the better choice.

Any other use of a semicolon creates an error.

Colons (:)

Colons can only come at the end of an independent clause. They can introduce...

 Explanations and extra information

Explanation

Many upstart tech companies fail for the same reason: a lack of market need for
their product.

 Lists

Explanation

The advent of cellular biology has led to the classification of organisms into three
distinct domains: bacteria, archaea, and eukaryota.

Any other use of a colon creates an error.

Dashes (—)

Dashes should only be used to separate nonessential elements from the rest of
the sentence.

Explanation

There are three characters—the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly
Lion—that accompany Dorothy on her way to Oz.
There are three characters that accompany Dorothy on her way to Oz—the
Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion.

Any other use of a dash creates an error.

How to identify punctuation questions

When approaching boundaries questions, it's important to identify which

Standard English conventions are being tested.

You may want to look for errors in punctuation if

 the choices add or remove punctuation

 the choices offer a variety of punctuation marks

If you don't see either of these features, then the question likely doesn't deal with
punctuation.

Let's look at a punctuation question now:

Punctuation example (supplements)

According to Naomi Nakayama of the University of Edinburgh, the reason seeds

from a dying dandelion appear to float in the air while ______ is that their porous
plumes enhance drag, allowing the seeds to stay airborne long enough for the
wind to disperse them throughout the surrounding area.

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

Standard English?

A. falling,
B. falling:
C. falling;
D. falling
Answer: D

Top tips

Use the before/after test for semicolons

Unless it appears in a list, a semicolon must have an independent clause both

before and after it. If you think a semicolon might be right, check to make sure
you have an independent clause on either side. If you don't, you can't use a
semicolon.

Use the before test for colons

A colon can only appear at the end of an independent clause. If you think a colon
might be right, check to make sure what comes before is a complete independent
clause. If it's not, you can't use a colon.

Double-check commas

Many writers overuse commas (or use them as a default punctuation mark).
Double-check to make sure a comma is both necessary and appropriate before
selecting it as your answer.

If the comma is linking clauses, make sure it has the coordinating or subordinating
conjunction it needs to do so.

If the comma isn't linking clauses, make sure it serves a purpose and doesn't
unnecessarily interrupt some other function of the sentence.
Your turn

Punctuation

 An element's atomic number is ______ the number of protons in its

nucleus, the number electrons in its uncharged state, and approximately
half of its atomic mass.

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

Standard English?

A. equal to:
B. equal to;
C. equal to,
D. equal to

Answer: D

 When he returned from the Galapagos islands in 1835, Charles Darwin

brought back a young tortoise named ______ would live over 170 years
before passing away at the Australia Zoo in 2006.

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

Standard English?

A. Harriet, she
B. Harriet; who
C. Harriet she
D. Harriet; she

Answer: D
Exercise

1. While one requires oxygen and one does ______ and anaerobic respiration
are both forms of cellular respiration—that is, they are processes by which
cells break down glucose to use as energy.

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

Standard English?

A. not. Aerobic

B. not; aerobic

C. not aerobic

D. not, aerobic

2. A subseasonal weather forecast attempts to predict weather conditions

three to four weeks in ______ its predictions are therefore more short-
term than those of the seasonal forecast, which attempts to predict the
weather more than a month in advance.

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

Standard English?

A. advance and

B. advance;

C. advance,

D. advance
 3. Emperor Ashoka ruled the Maurya Empire in South Asia from roughly 270
to 232 BCE. He is known for enforcing a moral code called the Law of Piety,
which established the sanctity of animal ______ the just treatment of the
elderly, and the abolition of the slave trade.

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

Standard English?

A. life;

B. life:

C. life

D. life,

4. Nine months before Rosa Parks made history by refusing to comply with
the segregated seating policy on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, a fifteen-
year-old Montgomery girl named Claudette Colvin was arrested for the
same ______ to some historians, Colvin’s arrest led to Parks’s action and
eventually to the desegregation of Montgomery’s bus system.

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

Standard English?

A. offense according

B. offense, according

C. offense. According

D. offense and according

 5. In her book The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts,
author Maxine Hong Kingston examines themes ______ childhood,
womanhood, and Chinese American identity by intertwining autobiography
and mythology.

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

Standard English?

A. of—

B. of

C. of:

D. of,

6. Archaeologists have estimated that the pre-Columbian Native American city

of Cahokia, located across the Mississippi River from modern-day St. Louis,
Missouri, had as many as 20,000 inhabitants in the year 1150 ______ it one
of the largest cities in North America at the time.

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

Standard English?

A. CE; making

B. CE. Making

C. CE, making

D. CE making
 7. Although slender and able to endure low oxygen levels for only short
______ have modified musculoskeletal attachments on their fins that
enable them to walk across land.

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

Standard English?

A. periods. Epaulette sharks

B. periods, epaulette sharks

C. periods epaulette sharks

D. periods; epaulette sharks

8. In 2008, two years after the death of science fiction writer Octavia Butler,
the Huntington Library in ______ received a collection of more than 8,000
items, including Butler’s private notes, research materials, manuscripts,
photos, and drawings. Today, the Octavia E. Butler Collection is one of the
most researched archives at the library.

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

Standard English?

A. California

B. California,

C. California:

D. California—
 9. In discussing Mary Shelley’s 1818 epistolary novel Frankenstein, literary
theorist Gayatri Spivak directs the reader’s attention to the character of
Margaret Saville. As Spivak points out, Saville is not the protagonist of
Shelley’s ______ as the recipient of the letters that frame the book’s
narrative, she’s the “occasion” of it.

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

Standard English?

A. novel

B. novel,

C. novel; rather,

D. novel, rather,

10.In a 2016 study, Eastern Washington University psychologist Amani El-Alayli

found that, among the study participants who experienced frisson (a
physiological response akin to goosebumps or getting the chills) while
listening to music, there was one personality trait that they scored
particularly ______ openness to experience.

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

Standard English?

A. high on;

B. high on

C. high. On

D. high on:
 11.Compiled in 1513, the Piri Reis world map was exceedingly accurate for its
time. While the Old World had been charted for centuries, sections of the
______ indicate Reis consulted the recent surveys of Portuguese explorers
to those regions.

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

Standard English?

A. map that depict the New World and the West Indies in particular

B. map, that depict the New World and the West Indies in particular,

C. map that depict the New World and the West Indies in particular,

D. map, that depict the New World and the West Indies, in particular

12.In botany, the term “resurrection plant” refers to any species of plant that
seems to come back to life after appearing fully withered and dead.
Resurrection plants do not truly return from the dead, ______ are simply
exhibiting an adaptation that allows them to survive in very dry conditions
for extended periods.

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

Standard English?

A. however they

B. however, they

C. however. They

D. however but they

 13.Researcher Lin Zhi developed a process for increasing the tensile strength—
measured in gigapascals, or GPa—of silkworm ______ dissolving and
reweaving the silk in a solution of iron metal ions, zinc, and sugar, Zhi
increased the amount of force required to stretch it from approximately 0.5
GPa to 2 GPa.

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

Standard English?

A. silk and by

B. silk by

C. silk, by

D. silk. By

14.The Tantaquidgeon Museum in Uncasville, Connecticut, was founded in

1931 with the goal of showcasing the culture and history of the Mohegan
______ today, nearly a century later, it is the oldest Native-owned and -
operated museum in the country.

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

Standard English?

A. Tribe, and

B. Tribe and

C. Tribe,

D. Tribe
 15.Lithium—an integral component of clean energy technologies—is
commonly extracted in Chile, where it is drawn from ______ where miners
blast lithium from the hard rock mineral, spodumene; and China, which
takes most of its lithium from salt lakes in the country’s northwestern
regions.

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

Standard English?

A. brine reservoirs; Australia,

B. brine reservoirs; Australia
C. brine reservoirs, Australia,
D. brine reservoirs, Australia

16.There is a concern with the placement of solar photovoltaic arrays near

airfields: reflective glare causing vision issues for pilots. However, the
results of light analyses should ease ______ photovoltaic panels are
constructed to absorb sunlight with textured glass and antireflective
coating, their glare intensity is minimal in contrast to buildings or snow.

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

Standard English?

A. this apprehension as

B. this apprehension. As

C. this apprehension and as

D. this apprehension, as
Course challenge
1. In 1973, poet Miguel Algarín started inviting other writers who, like him,
were Nuyorican—a term for New Yorkers of Puerto Rican heritage—to
gather in his apartment to present their work. The gatherings were so well
attended that Algarín soon had to rent space in a cafe to accommodate
them. Thus, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe was born. Moving to a permanent
location in 1981, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe expanded its original scope
beyond the written word, hosting art exhibitions and musical performances
as well. Half a century since its inception, it continues to foster emerging
Nuyorican talent.

Which choice best describes the overall purpose of the text?

A. To explain what motivated Algarín to found the Nuyorican Poets Café

B. To situate the Nuyorican Poets Cafe within the cultural life of New York
as a whole

C. To discuss why the Nuyorican Poets Cafe expanded its scope to include
art and music

D. To provide an overview of the founding and mission of the Nuyorican

Poets Cafe

2. Economist Marco Castillo and colleagues showed that nuisance costs—the

time and effort people must spend to make donations—reduce charitable
giving. Charities can mitigate this effect by compensating donors for nuisance
costs, but those costs, though variable, are largely ______ donation size, so
charities that compensate donors will likely favor attracting a few large
donors over many small donors.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or
phrase?
 A. predictive of

B. subsumed in

C. independent of

D. supplemental to

3. Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Héctor Tobar has built a multifaceted career as

both a journalist and an author of short stories and novels. In an essay about
Tobar’s work, a student claims that Tobar blends his areas of expertise by
applying journalism techniques to his creation of works of fiction.

Which quotation from a literary critic best supports the student’s claim?

A. “For one novel, an imagined account of a real person’s global travels, Tobar
approached his subject like a reporter, interviewing people the man had
met along the way and researching the man’s own writings.”

B. “Tobar got his start as a volunteer for El Tecolote, a community newspaper

in San Francisco, and wrote for newspapers for years before earning a
degree in creative writing and starting to publish works of fiction.”

C. “Many of Tobar’s notable nonfiction articles are marked by the writer’s use
of techniques usually associated with fiction, such as complex narrative
structures and the incorporation of symbolism.”

D. “The protagonist of Tobar’s third novel is a man who wants to be a novelist

and keeps notes about interesting people he encounters so he can use
them when developing characters for his stories.”
 4. Business researcher Melanie Brucks and colleagues found that remote video
conference meetings may be less conducive to brainstorming than in-person
meetings are. The researchers suspect that video meeting participants are
focused on staring at the speaker on the screen and don’t allow their eyes or
mind to wander as much, which may ultimately ______ creativity.

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

A. recommend

B. criticize

C. construct

D. impede

5. Classical composer Florence Price’s 1927 move to Chicago marked a turning

point in her career. It was there that Price premiered her First Symphony—a
piece that was praised for blending traditional Romantic motifs with aspects
of Black folk music—and ______ supportive relationships with other Black
artists.

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

Standard English?

A. developing

B. developed

C. having developed

D. to develop
 6. Text 1

Although food writing is one of the most widely read genres in the United States,
literary scholars have long neglected it. And within this genre, cookbooks attract
the least scholarly attention of all, regardless of how well written they may be.
This is especially true of works dedicated to regional US cuisines, whose
complexity and historical significance are often overlooked.

Text 2

With her 1976 cookbook The Taste of Country Cooking, Edna Lewis popularized
the refined Southern cooking she had grown up with in Freetown, an all-Black
community in Virginia. She also set a new standard for cookbook writing: the
recipes and memoir passages interspersing them are written in prose more
elegant than that of most novels. Yet despite its inarguable value as a piece of
writing, Lewis’s masterpiece has received almost no attention from literary
scholars.

Based on the two texts, how would the author of Text 1 most likely regard the
situation presented in the underlined sentence in Text 2?

A. As typical, because scholars are dismissive of literary works that achieve

popularity with the general public

B. As unsurprising, because scholars tend to overlook the literary value of

food writing in general and of regional cookbooks in particular

C. As justifiable, because Lewis incorporated memoir into The Taste of

Country Cooking, thus undermining its status as a cookbook

D. As inevitable, because The Taste of Country Cooking was marketed to

readers of food writing and not to readers of other genres
 7. In many of his sculptures, artist Richard Hunt uses broad forms rather than
extreme accuracy to hint at specific people or ideas. In his first major
work, Arachne (1956), Hunt constructed the mythical character Arachne, a
weaver who was changed into a spider, by welding bits of steel together into
something that, although vaguely human, is strange and machine-like. And
his large bronze sculpture The Light of Truth (2021) commemorates activist
and journalist Ida B. Wells using mainly flowing, curved pieces of metal that
create stylized flame.

Which choice best states the text’s main idea about Hunt?

A. He often depicts the subjects of his sculptures using an unrealistic style.

B. He uses different kinds of materials depending on what kind of sculpture he

plans to create.

C. He tends to base his art on important historical figures rather than on

fictional characters.

D. He has altered his approach to sculpture over time, and his works have
become increasingly abstract.

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

 Platinum is a rare and expensive metal.

 It is used as a catalyst for chemical reactions.

 Platinum catalysts typically require a large amount of platinum to be

effective.

 Researcher Jianbo Tang and his colleagues created a platinum catalyst that
combines platinum with liquid gallium.

 Their catalyst was highly effective and required only trace amounts of
platinum (0.0001% of the atoms in the mixture).
The student wants to explain an advantage of the new platinum catalyst
developed by Jianbo Tang and his colleagues. Which choice most effectively uses
relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

A. Like other platinum catalysts, the new platinum catalyst requires a

particular amount of the metal to be effective.

B. Platinum is a rare and expensive metal that is used as a catalyst for

chemical reactions; however, platinum catalysts typically require a large
amount of platinum to be effective.

C. While still highly effective, the new platinum catalyst requires far less of
the rare and expensive metal than do other platinum catalysts.

D. Researcher Jianbo Tang and his colleagues created a platinum catalyst

that combines platinum, a rare and expensive metal, with liquid
gallium.

9. The 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three pioneers in the field
of click chemistry: two- time Nobel Laureate Barry Sharpless, who coined the
term “click chemistry” in 1998; Carolyn Bertozzi, founder of The Bertozzi
Group at ______ and Morten Meldal, a professor at the University of
Copenhagen in Denmark.

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

Standard English?

A. Stanford;

B. Stanford,

C. Stanford

D. Stanford:
 10.Many archaeologists assume that large-scale engineering projects in ancient
societies required an elite class to plan and direct the necessary labor.
However, recent discoveries, such as the excavation of an ancient canal near
the Gulf Coast of Alabama, have complicated this picture. Using radiocarbon
dating, a team of researchers concluded that the 1.39-kilometer-long canal
was most likely constructed between 576 and 650 CE by an Indigenous
society that was relatively free of social classes.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A. It presents contradictory conclusions drawn by archaeologists, then

evaluates a study that has apparently resolved that contradiction.

B. It describes a common view among archaeologists, then discusses a recent

finding that challenges that view.

C. It outlines a method used in some archaeological fieldwork, then explains

why an alternative method is superior to it.

D. It identifies a gap in scientific research, then presents a strategy used by

some archaeologists to remedy that gap.

11.Biologist Natacha Bodenhausen and colleagues analyzed the naturally

occurring bacterial communities associated with leaves and roots of
wild Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant. The researchers found
many of the same bacterial genera in both the plants’ leaves and roots. To
explain this, the researchers pointed to the general proximity of A.
thaliana leaves to the ground and noted that rain splashing off soil could
bring soil-based bacteria into contact with the leaves. Alternatively, the
researchers noted that wind, which may be a source of bacteria in the
aboveground portion of plants, could also bring bacteria to the soil and roots.
Either explanation suggests that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

 A. A. thaliana leaves and roots are especially vulnerable to harmful bacteria.

B. bacteria carried by wind are typically less beneficial to A. thaliana than soil-
based bacteria are.

C. many bacteria in A. thaliana leaves may have been deposited by means

other than rain.

D. some bacteria in A. thaliana leaves and roots may share a common source.

12.Alexander Lawrence Posey (1873–1908) varied his focus and tone depending
on the genre in which he was writing. In his poetry, he used heartfelt
language to evoke the beauty and peacefulness of his natural surroundings;
in his journalism, ______ he employed humor and satire to comment on
political issues affecting his Muskogee Creek community.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. by contrast,

B. granted,

C. that is,

D. similarly,

13.Matthew D. Rocklage and team examined whether consumer ratings of

movies can predict box office success. The team considered both numeric
star ratings and written reviews in their research. To analyze the written
reviews, the team measured the emotionality—the degree to which a
written review expresses an emotional reaction—of user reviews on a movie
rating website, assigning each review an emotionality score. After reviewing
this research, a student argues that the emotionality of movie reviews is
unrelated to a movie’s success at the box office.
Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the student’s conclusion?

A. The average emotionality score of a movie’s reviews was a positive

predictor of that movie’s box office earnings.

B. More than half of the movies that the team examined received an average
star rating of 3 out of 5 stars.

C. The movies that were most successful at the box office tended to have high
average star ratings.

D. Movies that had the highest average emotionality scores received the
lowest average star ratings on the movie rating website.

14.Osage Nation citizen Randy Tinker-Smith produced and directed the

ballet Wahzhazhe, which vividly chronicles Osage history and culture. Telling
Osage stories through ballet is ______ choice because two of the foremost
ballet dancers of the twentieth century were Osage: sisters Maria and
Marjorie Tallchief.

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

A. an unpredictable

B. an arbitrary

C. a determined

D. a suitable
 15. Tadpole Body Mass and Toxin Production after Three Weeks in Ponds

Average
Average bufadienolide
number of Average concentration
Average distinct amount of (nanograms per
tadpole bufadienolide bufadienolide milligram of
Population body mass toxins per per tadpole tadpole body
density (milligrams) tadpole (nanograms) mass)

High 193.87 22.69 5,815.51 374.22

Medium 254.56 21.65 5,525.72 230.10

Low 258.97 22.08 4,664.99 171.43

Ecologist Veronika Bókony and colleagues investigated within-species competition

among common toads (Bufo bufo), a species that secretes various unpleasant-
tasting toxins called bufadienolides in response to threats. The researchers
tested B. bufo tadpoles’ responses to different levels of competition by creating
ponds with different tadpole population densities but a fixed amount of food.
Based on analysis of the tadpoles after three weeks, the researchers concluded
that increased competition drove bufadienolide production at the expense of
growth.

Which choice uses data from the table to most effectively support the
researchers’ conclusion?

A. The difference in average tadpole body mass was small between the low
and medium population density conditions and substantially larger
between the low and high population density conditions
 B. Tadpoles in the low and medium population density conditions had
substantially lower average bufadienolide concentrations but had greater
average body masses than those in the high population density condition.

C. Tadpoles in the high population density condition displayed a relatively

modest increase in the average amount of bufadienolide but roughly
double the average bufadienolide concentration compared to those in the
low population density condition.

D. Tadpoles produced approximately the same number of different

bufadienolide toxins per individual across the population density
conditions, but average tadpole body mass decreased as population density
increased.

16.In 2022, mountain guide Phil Henderson led the Full Circle expedition, a team
of ______ that became the first all-Black team of climbers to summit Mt.
Everest and that works to promote diversity and representation in outdoor
adventure sports.

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

Standard English?

A. mountaineers;

B. mountaineers and

C. mountaineers

D. mountaineers,
 17.Songbirds learn to respond to and imitate their species’ songs from an early
age. With each generation, small differences are introduced that result in
distinct variations—called dialects—among geographically isolated
populations of the same species. A research study examined whether twelve-
day-old Ficedula hypoleuca (pied flycatcher) nestlings prefer local dialects
over the unfamiliar dialects of nonlocal F. hypoleuca populations: the more
begging calls the nestlings made in response to a song, the stronger their
preference. The researchers found that nestlings produced more begging
calls in response to their own dialect than to nonlocal dialects. Since song
preference plays a role in songbird mate selection, the finding suggests that
______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. F. hypoleuca nestlings show a preference for both local F.

hypoleuca dialects and the songs of other local songbirds over the songs of
nonlocal birds of any species.

B. F. hypoleuca nestlings’ preference for their own dialect likely drives them
when they mature to reproduce with other F. hypoleuca from local rather
than nonlocal populations.

C. F. hypoleuca nestlings who show an early preference for their own dialect
are likely to receive more food from their caretakers than nestlings who
show no preferences among any F. hypoleuca dialects.

D. F. hypoleuca nestlings’ preference for their own dialect likely disappears as

they mature to promote socialization between different F.
hypoleuca populations.
 18.The African Games Co-production Market, one of over 180 annual
international conferences supporting video game development, ______ the
growth of the African gaming industry by helping start-up studios in Africa
find partners.

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

Standard English?

A. promotes

B. promote

C. are promoting

D. have promoted

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

 Muslins are woven cotton fabrics with a variety of uses.

 Dhaka muslin is a handmade fabric produced in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

 It has an extremely fine weave and is primarily used to make luxury

clothing.

 Sheeting muslin is a machine-made fabric produced in factories.

 It has a coarse weave and is primarily used to upholster furniture and

create backdrops for theater sets.

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

A. Muslins can be used in a variety of ways, from making luxury clothing

to upholstering furniture and creating backdrops for theater sets.
 B. Sheeting muslin is machine made, has a coarse weave, and is used
for furniture and theater sets.

C. Dhaka muslin is a handmade fabric with an extremely fine weave,

while sheeting muslin is machine made with a coarse weave.

D. Dhaka muslin and sheeting muslin are two different types of woven
cotton fabrics.

20.Text 1

Polar bears sustain themselves primarily by hunting seals on the Arctic sea ice, but
rising ocean temperatures are causing the ice to diminish, raising concerns about
polar bear population declines as these large predators’ seal-hunting habitats
continue to shrink. A 2020 study examining polar bear populations across the
Arctic concluded that populations affected by sea-ice loss are at great risk of
extinction by the end of the twenty-first century.

Text 2

Monitoring carried out by researchers from the Norwegian Polar Institute shows
that the polar bear population on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard remains
stable and well nourished despite rapidly declining sea ice in recent years. The
researchers attribute this population’s resilience in part to a shift in feeding
strategies: in addition to hunting seals, the Svalbard polar bears have begun
relying on a diet of reindeer meat and birds’ eggs.

Based on the texts, how would the researchers in Text 2 most likely respond to
the conclusion presented in the underlined portion of Text 1?

A. By suggesting that it is likely incorrect about the rates at which warming

ocean temperatures have caused sea ice to melt in the Arctic

B. By arguing that it fails to account for polar bears’ reliance on a single seal-
hunting strategy
 C. By noting that it neglects the possibility of some polar bear populations
adapting to changes in their environment

D. By asserting that it overlooks polar bear populations that have not yet been
affected by loss of seal hunting habitats

21.Biologists have predicted that birds’ feather structures vary with habitat
temperature, but this hadn’t been tested in mountain environments.
Ornithologist Sahas Barve studied feathers from 249 songbird species
inhabiting different elevations—and thus experiencing different
temperatures—in the Himalaya Mountains. He found that feathers of high-
elevation species not only have a greater proportion of warming downy
sections to flat and smooth sections than do feathers of low-elevation
species, but high elevation species’ feathers also tend to be longer, providing
a thicker layer of insulation.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

A. Barve’s investigation shows that some species of Himalayan songbirds have

evolved feathers that better regulate body temperature than do the
feathers of other species, contradicting previous predictions.

B. The results of Barve’s study suggest that the ability of birds to withstand
cold temperatures is determined more strongly by feather length than
feather structure, challenging an established belief.

C. Barve found an association between habitat temperature and feather

structure among Himalayan songbirds, lending new support to a general
prediction.

D. Barve discovered that songbirds have adapted to their environment by

growing feathers without flat and smooth sections, complicating an earlier
hypothesis.
 22.Using NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Mercedes
López-Morales and colleagues measured the wavelengths of light traveling
through the atmosphere of WASP-39b, an exoplanet, or planet outside our
solar system. Different molecules absorb different wavelengths of light, and
the wavelength measurements showed the presence of carbon dioxide (CO₂)
in WASP-39b’s atmosphere. This finding not only offers the first decisive
evidence of CO₂ in the atmosphere of an exoplanet but also illustrates the
potential for future scientific breakthroughs held by the JWST.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A. It outlines the steps taken in a scientific study, then presents a hypothesis

based on that study.

B. It discusses a method used by some researchers, then states why an

alternative method is superior to it.

C. It examines how a group of scientists reached a conclusion, then shows

how other scientists have challenged that conclusion.

D. It describes how researchers made a scientific discovery, then explains the

importance of that discovery.

23.After winning the 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln appointed

Edward Bates, Salmon P. Chase, and William H. Seward to his cabinet.
Lincoln’s decision was surprising, since each of these men had run against
him, but historians have praised it, noting that Lincoln ______ his rivals’
diverse talents to strengthen his administration.

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

Standard English?

A. will leverage

B. is leveraging
 C. has leveraged

D. leveraged

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

 Muckrakers were journalists who sought to expose corruption in US

institutions during the Progressive Era (1897–1920).

 Ida Tarbell was a muckraker who investigated the Standard Oil Company.

 She interviewed Standard Oil Company executives, oil industry workers,

and public officials.

 She examined thousands of pages of the company’s internal

communications, including letters and financial records.

 Her book The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904) exposed the
company’s unfair business practices.

The student wants to emphasize the thoroughness of Ida Tarbell’s investigation of

the Standard Oil Company. Which choice most effectively uses relevant
information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

A. Ida Tarbell not only interviewed Standard Oil executives, oil industry
workers, and public officials but also examined thousands of pages of the
company’s internal communications.

B. As part of her investigation of the Standard Oil Company, muckraker Ida

Tarbell conducted interviews.

C. Published in 1904, muckraker Ida Tarbell’s book The History of the Standard
Oil Company exposed the company’s unfair business practices.

D. Ida Tarbell, who investigated the Standard Oil Company, was a muckraker
(a journalist who sought to expose corruption in US institutions during the
Progressive Era, 1897–1920).
 25.Text 1

In a study of insect behavior, Samadi Galpayage and colleagues presented

bumblebees with small wooden balls and observed many of the bees clinging to,
rolling, and dragging the objects. The researchers provided no external rewards
(such as food) to encourage these interactions. The bees simply appeared to be
playing—and for no other reason than because they were having fun.

Text 2

Insects do not have cortexes or other brain areas associated with emotions in
humans. Still, Galpayage and her team have shown that bumblebees may engage
in play, possibly experiencing some kind of positive emotional state. Other studies
have suggested that bees experience negative emotional states (for example,
stress), but as Galpayage and her team have acknowledged, emotions in insects, if
they do indeed exist, are likely very rudimentary.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the
underlined portion of Text 1?

A. By objecting that the bees were actually experiencing a negative feeling

akin to stress rather than a positive feeling

B. By pointing out that even humans sometimes struggle to have fun while
engaging in play

C. By arguing that some insects other than bumblebees may be capable of

experiencing complex emotional states

D. By noting that if the bees were truly playing, any positive feelings they
may have experienced were probably quite basic
 26.To investigate the history of plate subduction—when one of Earth’s tectonic
plates slides beneath another—Sarah M. Aarons and colleagues compared
ancient rocks from the Acasta Gneiss Complex in Canada to modern rocks.
Using isotope analysis, the researchers found that Acasta rocks dating to
about 4.02 billion years ago (bya) most strongly resemble modern rocks
formed in a plume setting (an area in which hot rocks from Earth’s mantle
flow upward into the crust). By contrast, they found that Acasta rocks dating
to about 3.75 bya and 3.6 bya have an isotope composition that is similar to
that of modern rocks formed in a subduction setting. Aarons’s team
therefore concluded that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. the majority of the rocks in the Acasta Gneiss Complex formed through
subduction.

B. subduction-like processes began occurring in some locations no later than

3.75 bya.

C. the rocks in the Acasta Gneiss Complex are of a more recent origin than
scientists previously thought.

D. subduction replaced mantle plume formation as the most common

geological process by about 4.02 bya.

27.“Gestures” in painting are typically thought of as bold, expressive

brushstrokes. In the 1970s, American painter Jack Whitten built a 12-foot
(3.7-meter) tool he named the “developer” to apply paint to an entire canvas
in one motion, resulting in his series of “slab” paintings from that decade.
Whitten described this process as making an entire painting in “one gesture,”
signaling a clear departure from the prevalence of gestures in his work from
the 1960s. Some art historians claim this shift represents “removing gesture”
from the process. Therefore, regardless of whether using the developer
 constitutes a gesture, both Whitten and these art historians likely agree that
______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. any tool that a painter uses to create an artwork is capable of creating

gestures.

B. Whitten’s work from the 1960s exhibits many more gestures than his work
from the 1970s does.

C. Whitten became less interested in exploring the role of gesture in his work
as his career progressed.

D. Whitten’s work from the 1960s is much more realistic than his work from
the 1970s is.

28.Disco remains one of the most ridiculed popular music genres of the late
twentieth century. But as scholars have argued, the genre is far less
superficial than many people believe. Take the case of disco icon Donna
Summer: she may have been associated with popular songs about love and
heartbreak (subjects hardly unique to disco, by the way), but like many Black
women singers before her, much of her music also reflects concerns about
community and identity. These concerns are present in many of the genre’s
greatest songs, and they generally don’t require much digging to reveal.

What does the text most strongly suggest about the disco genre?

A. It gave rise to a Black women’s musical tradition that has endured even
though the genre itself faded in the late twentieth century.

B. It has been unjustly ignored by most scholars despite the importance of the
themes addressed by many of the genre’s songs.

C. It has been unfairly dismissed for the inclusion of subject matter that is also
found in other musical genres.
 D. It evolved over time from a superficial genre focused on romance to a
genre focused on more serious concerns.

29.Mineralogical differences are detectable in samples collected from two

locations on the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, but such differences may not
indicate substantial compositional variations in the asteroid. Cosmochemist
Kazuhide Nagashima and colleagues note that at the small scale of the
samples, the distribution of minerals is unlikely to be ______.

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

A. redundant

B. neglected

C. uniform

D. ongoing

30.Archeological excavation of Market Street Chinatown, a nineteenth-century

Chinese American community in San Jose, California, provided the first
evidence that Asian food products were imported to the United States in the
1800s: bones from a freshwater fish species native to Southeast Asia.*
Jinshanzhuang* —Hong Kong–based import/export firms—likely coordinated
the fish’s transport from Chinese-operated fisheries in Vietnam and Malaysia
to North American markets. This route reveals the (often overlooked)
multinational dimensions of the trade networks linking Chinese diaspora
communities.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as
a whole?
 A. It provides information that helps support a claim about a discovery’s
significance that is presented in the following sentence.

B. It explains why efforts to determine the country of origin of the items

mentioned in the previous sentence remain inconclusive.

C. It outlines a hypothesis that additional evidence discussed in the following

sentence casts some doubt on.

D. It traces the steps that were taken to locate and recover the objects that
are described in the previous sentence.

31.In the 1980s, many musicians and journalists in the English-speaking world
began to draw attention to music from around the globe—such as mbaqanga
from South Africa and quan họ from Vietnam—that can’t be easily
categorized according to British or North American popular music genres,
typically referring to such music as “world music.” While some scholars have
welcomed this development for bringing diverse musical forms to
prominence in countries where they’d previously been overlooked,
musicologist Su Zheng claims that the concept of world music homogenizes
highly distinct traditions by reducing them all to a single category.

Which finding about mbaqanga and quan họ, if true, would most directly support
Zheng’s claim?

A. Mbaqanga is significantly more popular in the English-speaking world than

quan họ is.

B. Mbaqanga and quan họ developed independently of each other and have

little in common musically.

C. Mbaqanga and quan họ are now performed by a diverse array of musicians

with no direct connections to South Africa or Vietnam.

D. Mbaqanga and quan họ are highly distinct from British and North American
popular music genres but similar to each other.
 32.For years, biologists have experimented with using grime-eating bacteria
rather than harsh chemicals to clean artworks, and results have been
impressive overall. ______ these bacterial strains—which can metabolize
centuries’ worth of oil, glue, dirt, and other surface impurities without
creating harmful byproducts—have proven more effective than traditional
chemical cleaning methods.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Additionally,

B. In many cases,

C. As a result,

D. However,

33.Scientists studying Mars long thought the history of its crust was relatively
simple. One reason for this is that geologic and climate data collected by a
spacecraft showed that the crust was largely composed of basalt, likely as a
result of intense volcanic activity that brought about a magma ocean, which
then cooled to form the planet’s surface. A study led by Valerie Payré
focused on additional information—further analysis of data collected by the
spacecraft and infrared wavelengths detected from Mars’s surface—that
revealed the presence of surprisingly high concentrations of silica in certain
regions on Mars. Since a planetary surface that formed in a mostly basaltic
environment would be unlikely to contain large amounts of silica, Payré
concluded that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. high silica concentrations on Mars likely formed from a different process

than that which formed the crusts of other planets.

B. Mars’s crust likely formed as a result of other major geological events in

addition to the cooling of a magma ocean.
 C. having a clearer understanding of the composition of Mars’s crust and the
processes by which it formed will provide more insight into how Earth’s
crust formed.

D. the information about silica concentrations collected by the spacecraft is

likely more reliable than the silica information gleaned from infrared
wavelengths detected from Mars’s surface.

34.Optical tweezers are specialized scientific tools—particularly useful in biology

and medicine—that use high-powered beams of light to trap and manipulate
minuscule particles for study. Use of the tool has led to several scientific and
medical breakthroughs over the last few decades, but the particles are often
under prolonged exposure to the intense heat of the light beams. To
overcome the risk of overheating, and thereby damage, researchers
sometimes attach nano-sized glass beads to particles, allowing the light to
focus on the beads instead of the particles.

Based on the text, what is one advantage of attaching glass beads to particles
when using optical tweezers?

A. It adds a material to which particles can transfer any heat absorbed from
the optical tweezers’ light beam.

B. It decreases the time it takes for the optical tweezers to locate and capture
the particles.

C. It allows researchers to use weaker light beams to manipulate particles.

D. It facilitates the maneuvering of particles without directly heating the

particles themselves.
 35.Neural networks are computer models intended to reflect the organization of
human brains and are often used in studies of brain function. According to an
analysis of 11,000 such networks, Rylan Schaeffer and colleagues advise
caution when drawing conclusions about brains from observations of neural
networks. They found that when attempting to mimic grid cells (brain cells
used in navigation), while 90% of the networks could accomplish navigation-
related tasks, only about 10% of those exhibited any behaviors similar to
those of grid cells. But even this approximation of grid-cell activity has less to
do with similarity between the neural networks and biological brains than it
does with the rules programmed into the networks.

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

A. The rules that allow for networks to exhibit behaviors like those of grid cells
have no equivalent in the function of biological brains.

B. The networks that do not exhibit behaviors like those of grid cells were
nonetheless programmed with rules that had proven useful in earlier
neural-network studies.

C. Once a neural network is programmed, it is trained on certain tasks to see if

it can independently arrive at processes that are similar to those performed
by biological brains.

D. Neural networks can often accomplish tasks that biological brains do, but
they are typically programmed with rules to model multiple types of brain
cells simultaneously.
 36.Algae living within the tissues of corals play a critical role in keeping corals,
and the marine ecosystems they are part of, thriving. Some coral species
appear brown in color when healthy due to the algae colonies living in their
tissues. In the event of an environmental stressor, the algae can die or be
expelled, causing the corals to appear white. To recover the algae, the
bleached corals then begin to produce bright colors, which block intense
sunlight, encouraging the light-sensitive algae to recolonize the corals.

What does the text most strongly suggest about corals that produce bright
colors?

A. These corals are likely more vulnerable to exposure from intense sunlight
than white corals are.

B. These corals have likely been subjected to stressful environmental

conditions.

C. These corals have likely recovered from an environmental event without

the assistance of algae colonies.

D. These corals are more likely to survive without algae colonies than brown
corals are.

37.Works of moral philosophy, such as Plato’s Republic or

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, are partly concerned with how to live a
morally good life. But philosopher Jonathan Barnes argues that works that
present a method of living such a life without also supplying a motive are
inherently useful only to those already wishing to be morally good—those
with no desire for moral goodness will not choose to follow their rules.
However, some works of moral philosophy attempt to describe what
constitutes a morally good life while also proposing reasons for living one.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

 A. It mentions two renowned works and then claims that despite their
popularity it is impossible for these works to serve the purpose their
authors intended.

B. It summarizes the history of a field of thought by discussing two works and

then proposes a topic of further research for specialists in that field.

C. It describes two influential works and then explains why one is more widely
read than the other.

D. It provides a characterization about a field of thought by noting two works

in it and then details a way in which some works in that field are more
comprehensive than others.

38.Stephen Hannock’s luminous landscape paintings are appealing to viewers

but have elicited little commentary from contemporary critics, a
phenomenon that may be due to the very fact that the paintings seem so
______. Many critics focus their attention on art that is cryptic or overtly
challenging.

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

A. innovative

B. accessible

C. profound

D. subversive
 39.Text 1

Philosopher G.E. Moore’s most influential work entails the concept of common
sense. He asserts that there are certain beliefs that all people, including
philosophers, know instinctively to be true, whether or not they profess
otherwise: among them, that they have bodies, or that they exist in a world with
other objects that have three dimensions. Moore’s careful work on common
sense may seem obvious but was in fact groundbreaking.

Text 2

External world skepticism is a philosophical stance supposing that we cannot be

sure of the existence of anything outside our own minds. During a lecture, G.E.
Moore once offered a proof refuting this stance by holding out his hands and
saying, “Here is one hand, and here is another.” Many philosophers reflexively
reject this proof (Annalisa Coliva called it “an obviously annoying failure”) but
have found it a challenge to articulate exactly why the proof fails.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 1 most likely respond to
proponents of the philosophical stance outlined in Text 2?

A. By pointing out that Moore would assert that external world skepticism is
at odds with other beliefs those proponents must unavoidably hold

B. By arguing that if it is valid to assert that some facts are true based on
instinct, it is also valid to assert that some proofs are inadequate based on
instinct

C. By agreeing with those proponents that Moore’s treatment of positions

that contradict his own is fundamentally unserious

D. By suggesting that an instinctive distaste for Moore’s position is preventing

external world skeptics from constructing a sufficiently rigorous refutation
of Moore
 40.Studying late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artifacts from an
agricultural and domestic site in Texas, archaeologist Ayana O. Flewellen
found that Black women employed as farm workers utilized hook-and-eye
closures to fasten their clothes at the waist, giving themselves a silhouette
similar to the one that was popular in contemporary fashion and typically
achieved through more restrictive garments such as corsets. Flewellen
argues that this sartorial practice shows that these women balanced
hegemonic ideals of femininity with the requirements of their physically
demanding occupation.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. To evaluate a scholarly work that offers explanations for the impact of

urban fashion ideals on Black female farmworkers in late nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century Texas

B. To describe an unexpected discovery that altered a researcher’s view of

how rapidly fashions among Black female farmworkers in late nineteenth-
and early twentieth-century Texas changed during the period

C. To summarize the findings of a study that explored factors influencing a

fashion practice among Black female farmworkers in late nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century Texas

D. To discuss research that investigated the ways in which Black female

farmworkers in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Texas used
fashion practices to resist traditional gender ideals
 41.A 2017 study of sign language learners tested the role of iconicity—the
similarity of a sign to the thing it represents—in language acquisition. The
study found that the greater the iconicity of a sign, the more likely it was to
have been learned. ______ the correlation between acquisition and iconicity
was lower than that between acquisition and another factor studied: sign
frequency.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. In fact,

B. In other words,

C. Granted,

D. As a result,

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

 In 1971, experimental musician Pauline Oliveros created Sonic Meditations.

 Sonic Meditations is not music but rather a series of sound-based exercises

called meditations.

 Each meditation consists of instructions for participants to make, imagine,

listen to, or remember sounds.

 The instructions for Meditation V state, “walk so silently that the bottoms
of your feet become ears.”

 Those for Meditation XVIII state, “listen to a sound until you no longer
recognize it.”

The student wants to provide an explanation and an example of Oliveros’s Sonic

Meditations. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the
notes to accomplish this goal?
 A. Sonic Meditations is not music but rather a series of sound-based
meditations that consist of instructions; Meditation XVIII, for instance,
instructs participants to “listen to a sound until you no longer recognize it.”

B. While both meditations consist of instructions, Meditation XVIII instructs

participants to “listen,” whereas Meditation V instructs participants to
“walk.”

C. In 1971, Oliveros created Sonic Meditations, a series of meditations that

consist of instructions for participants to make, imagine, listen to, or
remember sounds.

D. “Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears” is one
example of the instructions found in Oliveros’s Sonic Meditations.

43.In 1994, almost 200 years after the death of Wang Zhenyi, the International
Astronomical ______ the contributions of the barrier-breaking 18th-century
astronomer and author of “Dispute of the Procession of the Equinoxes,”
naming a crater on Venus after her.

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

Standard English?

A. Union, finally acknowledging

B. Union, having finally acknowledged

C. Union would finally acknowledge

D. Union to finally acknowledge

 44.Quantum particles of light—photons—provide an unhackable means of
transmitting encryption keys over networks, as attempts to observe particles
in quantum states will invariably alter the particles ______ dismantle any
information they transmit.

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

Standard English?

A. and in the process—

B. and, in the process

C. and in the process,

D. and, in the process,

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

 In 1978, Sámi activists staged protests to block the construction of a dam

on the Alta River in Norway.

 The dam would disrupt Sámi fishing and reindeer herding.

 The dam was ultimately built, but the Alta conflict had a lasting impact.

 It brought international attention to the issue of Sámi rights.

 It led to a set of 2005 legal protections establishing Sámi rights to lands,

waters, and resources.

The student wants to make and support a generalization about the Alta conflict.
Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to
accomplish this goal?
 A. Sámi rights to lands, waters, and resources received international attention
and legal protections as a result of the Alta conflict.

B. During the Alta conflict, Sámi activists staged protests to block the
construction of a dam on the Alta River in Norway that would disrupt local
fishing and reindeer herding.

C. Although the dam that the Sámi activists had protested was ultimately
built, the Alta conflict had a lasting impact.

D. The Alta conflict had a lasting impact, resulting in international attention

and legal protections for Sámi rights to lands, waters, and resources.

46.People who experience chromesthesia report seeing different colors and

shapes when they hear different sounds. Interestingly, studies have
identified two groups of people that chromesthesia is particularly ______
musicians and composers.

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

Standard English?

A. common in:

B. common in

C. common. In

D. common in;
 47.When one looks at the dark craggy vistas in Hitoshi Fugo’s evocative photo
series, one’s mind might wander off to the cratered surfaces of faraway
planets. ______ it’s the series’ title, Flying Frying Pan, that brings one back to
Earth, reminding the viewer that each photo is actually a close-up view of a
familiar household object: a frying pan.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

A. Alternatively,

B. Consequently,

C. Ultimately,

D. Additionally,

48.Some foraging models predict that the distance bees travel when foraging
will decline as floral density increases, but biologists Shalene Jha and Claire
Kremen showed that bees’ behavior is inconsistent with this prediction if
flowers in dense patches are ______: bees will forage beyond patches of low
species richness to acquire multiple resource types.

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

A. depleted

B. homogeneous

C. immature

D. dispersed
 49.Text 1

The fossil record suggests that mammoths went extinct around 11 thousand years
(kyr) ago. In a 2021 study of environmental DNA (eDNA)—genetic material shed
into the environment by organisms—in the Arctic, Yucheng Wang and colleagues
found mammoth eDNA in sedimentary layers formed millennia later, around 4 kyr
ago. To account for this discrepancy, Joshua H. Miller and Carl Simpson proposed
that arctic temperatures could preserve a mammoth carcass on the surface,
allowing it to leach DNA into the environment, for several thousand years.

Text 2

Wang and colleagues concede that eDNA contains DNA from both living
organisms and carcasses, but for DNA to leach from remains over several
millennia requires that the remains be perpetually on the surface. Scavengers and
weathering in the Arctic, however, are likely to break down surface remains well
before a thousand years have passed.

Which choice best describes how Text 1 and Text 2 relate to each other?

A. Text 1 presents findings by Wang and colleagues and gives another

research team’s attempt to explain those findings, whereas Text 2 provides
additional detail that calls that explanation into question.

B. Text 1 describes Wang and colleagues’ study and a critique of their

methodology, whereas Text 2 offers additional details showing that
methodology to be sound.

C. Text 1 argues that new research has undermined the standard view of
when mammoths went extinct, whereas Text 2 suggests a way to reconcile
the standard view with that new research.

D. Text 1 discusses two approaches to studying mammoth extinction without

advocating for either, whereas Text 2 advocates for one approach over the
other.
 50.Space scientists Anna-Lisa Paul, Stephen M. Elardo, and Robert Ferl planted
seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana in samples of lunar regolith—the surface
material of the Moon—and, serving as a control group, in terrestrial soil.
They found that while all the seeds germinated, the roots of the regolith-
grown plants were stunted compared with those in the control group.
Moreover, unlike the plants in the control group, the regolith-grown plants
exhibited red pigmentation, reduced leaf size, and inhibited growth rates—
indicators of stress that were corroborated by postharvest molecular
analysis.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. It discusses the findings of a study that evaluated the effects of exposing a

plant species to lunar soil conditions.

B. It presents evidence in support of the hypothesis that seed germination in

lunar habitats is an unattainable goal.

C. It describes an experiment that addressed an unresolved question about

the extent to which lunar regolith resembles terrestrial soils.

D. It compares two distinct methods of assessing indicators of stress in plants

grown in a simulated lunar environment.
Answer Key

Words In Text Structure Cross Text Command of Central Ideas

Evidence & Details
Context and Purpose Connections (Textual)

1. A 1. D
1. D 1. C 1. A
2. D 2. B
2. C 2. A 2. D
3. C 3. A
3. B 3. A 3. C
4. A 4. D
4. C 4. D 4. A
5. B 5. A
5. D 5. D 5. B
6. A
6. A
6. A 6. A 6. A
7. D
7. A
7. C 7. C 7. A
8. C
8. A 8. D 8. C 8. C
9. D
9. B 9. C 9. B 9. A
10. C
10. A 10. B 10. A 10. D
11. D
11. A 11. B 11. D 11. D
12. C
12. B 12. B 12. B 12. B

13. D

14. A
Inferences Transitions Rhetorical Form Boundaries
Synthesis Structure and
Sense

1. D 1. A 1. A 1. B 1. D
2. C 2. B 2. B 2. A 2. B
3. B 3. B 3. C 3. C 3. D
4. A 4. D 4. C 4. C 4. C
5. B 5. C 5. C 5. A 5.
6. D 6. B 6. D 6. B 6.
7. B 7. B 7. D 7. A
8. A 8. A 8. C 8. A
9. A 9. A 9. D 9. B
10.D 10.D 10.A 10.C
11.B 11.C 11.B 11.A
12.A 12.A 12.B 12.D
13.A 13.A
14.C 14.A
15.D 15.C
16.B 16.B
17.D
18.A
Course challenge
1. D 11.D 21.C 31.B 41.C
2. C 12.A 22.D 32.B 42.A
3. A 13.A 23.D 33.B 43.C
4. D 14.D 24.A 34.D 44.D
5. B 15.B 25.D 35.A 45.D
6. B 16.C 26.B 36.B 46.A
7. A 17.B 27.B 37.D 47.C
8. C 18.A 28.C 38.B 48.B
9. A 19.C 29.C 39.A 49.A
10.B 20.C 30.A 40.C 50.A