Question ID 48ead968
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
PSAT/NMSQT & Reading and Writing Information and Command of
PSAT 10 Ideas Evidence
ID: 48ead968
Simulated Change in Annual Aquifer Input and Irrigation Output if Precipitation Concentration Increases as Climate
Models Predict
% change in
Baseline concentration of % change in water % change in surface groundwater used for
annual precipitation entering aquifers water used for irrigation irrigation
Precipitation is currently
4.9 0.4 0.9
somewhat concentrated
Precipitation is currently
11.0 9.0 7.9
evenly distributed
Some climate models for the western United States predict that while total annual precipitation may remain unchanged
from the present level, precipitation will become concentrated into fewer but more intense rain and snow events.
University of Texas climate scientist Geeta Persad and her colleagues simulated how the amount of water entering
aquifers and the amount being used for irrigation purposes would change if this were to occur. Persad and her
colleagues concluded that concentration of precipitation into fewer events would result in a higher number of dry days,
triggering more irrigation, but that this change in irrigation output is highly sensitive to the baseline concentration of
precipitation that currently exists in an area.
Which choice best describes data from the table that support Persad and her colleagues’ conclusion?
If baseline precipitation is somewhat concentrated, the amount of water being used for irrigation will increase 0.4%
for surface water and 0.9% for groundwater, whereas the amount of water entering aquifers will increase 11.0% if
A. baseline precipitation is evenly distributed.
If baseline precipitation is somewhat concentrated, water use for irrigation will increase only slightly, whereas it will
B. increase 9.0% for surface water and 7.9% for groundwater if baseline precipitation is evenly distributed.
If baseline precipitation is somewhat concentrated, the amount of water entering aquifers will increase 4.9%, while
C. the amount being used for irrigation will increase 0.4% for surface water and 0.9% for groundwater.
If baseline precipitation is somewhat concentrated, water use for irrigation will decline by a small amount, whereas
D. it will increase 11.0% for surface water and 9.0% for groundwater if baseline precipitation is evenly distributed.
Question ID 3a4ad06d
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
PSAT/NMSQT & Reading and Writing Information and Command of
PSAT 10 Ideas Evidence
ID: 3a4ad06d
Plants like potatoes, tomatoes, and soybeans are susceptible to bacterial wilt disease caused by the bacteria Ralstonia
solanacearum. A multinational team of scientists led by Zhong Wei studied whether other microbes in the soil might
influence the degree to which plants are affected by the disease. The team sampled soil surrounding individual tomato
plants over time and compared the results of plants that became diseased with those that remained healthy. They
concluded that the presence of certain microbes in the soil might explain the difference between healthy and diseased
plants.
Which finding, if true, would most directly support the team’s conclusion?
The soil surrounding healthy plants contained significantly higher concentrations of microbes known to inhibit
A. Ralstonia solanacearum than the soil surrounding diseased plants did.
The soil surrounding the plants contained high concentrations of Ralstonia solanacearum regardless of whether the
B. plants were affected by wilt disease.
The soil surrounding healthy plants tended to have significantly higher moisture levels than the soil surrounding
C. diseased plants did.
By the end of the experiment, over half the plants had been affected by wilt disease regardless of differences in the
D. types and concentrations of microbes in the surrounding soil.
Question ID 94aba545
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
PSAT/NMSQT & Reading and Writing Information and Command of
PSAT 10 Ideas Evidence
ID: 94aba545
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 and quan họ developed independently of each other and have little in common musically.
B. Mbaqanga is significantly more popular in the English-speaking world than quan họ is.
Mbaqanga and quan họ are now performed by a diverse array of musicians with no direct connections to South
C. Africa or Vietnam.
Mbaqanga and quan họ are highly distinct from British and North American popular music genres but similar to
D. each other.
Question ID e75b4de6
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
PSAT/NMSQT & Reading and Writing Information and Command of
PSAT 10 Ideas Evidence
ID: e75b4de6
Sandra Cisneros’s 1984 novella The House on Mango Street made a lasting impact on US literature. Its depiction of
Mexican American culture inspired later authors to examine their own heritage within their fictional works. Also
influential was the book’s portrayal of the main character, Esperanza, during a pivotal year of her youth. This insightful
depiction of a preteen girl encouraged authors who, like Cisneros herself, are Latina to use fictional works to examine
experiences from their own youth.
Which statement, if true, would most strongly support the claim in the underlined sentence?
In interviews, a number of Latina authors say that The House on Mango Street inspired them to write about their own
A. adolescence in their novels.
In published writings, several prominent authors who are not Latina say that reading The House on Mango Street
B. influenced their approach to writing fiction.
The House on Mango Street has sold over six million copies and is one of the most commonly read books among
C. high school and university students in the US.
Since 1984, new novels about young Latina characters by Latina authors have often been compared to The House
D. on Mango Street.
Question ID 2ce657bc
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
PSAT/NMSQT & Reading and Writing Information and Command of
PSAT 10 Ideas Evidence
ID: 2ce657bc
Number of Infrared Beam Breaks by Mice
Treated with CNO or Saline, by Sex
1,500
Number of beam breaks
1,000
500
0
-4 10 24 38 52 66 80 94 108 122 136 150
Minutes from treatment
females with saline
males with saline
males with CNO
females with CNO
To investigate the influence of certain estrogen-responsive neurons on energy expenditure, biologist Stephanie Correa
et al. treated female and male mice with either saline solution or clozapine-N4-oxide (CNO), which activates the
neurons. Monitoring the activity levels of the mice by measuring how frequently the animals broke infrared beams
crossing their enclosures, Correa et al. found that the mice in their study showed sex-specific differences in response to
neuron activation: ______
Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the assertion?
the four groups of mice differed greatly in their activity levels before treatment but showed identical activity levels at
A. the end of the monitoring period.
saline-treated females showed substantially more activity at certain points in the monitoring period than saline-
B. treated males did.
CNO-treated females showed more activity relative to saline-treated females than CNO-treated males showed
C. relative to saline-treated males.
CNO-treated females showed a substantial increase and then decline in activity over the monitoring period, whereas
D. CNO-treated males showed a substantial decline in activity followed by a steep increase.
Question ID c7502ac8
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
PSAT/NMSQT & Reading and Writing Information and Command of
PSAT 10 Ideas Evidence
ID: c7502ac8
“Odalie” is an 1899 short story by Alice Dunbar-Nelson. In the story, a young woman named Odalie attends the annual
Mardi Gras carnival in New Orleans, where she lives with her guardian Tante Louise. Dunbar-Nelson portrays Odalie as
eager to escape the monotony of her everyday life: ______
Which quotation from “Odalie” most effectively illustrates the claim?
A. “Mardi Gras was a tiresome day, after all, she sighed, and Tante Louise agreed with her for once.”
“In the old French house on Royal Street, with its quaint windows and Spanish courtyard green and cool, and made
B. musical by the plashing of the fountain and the trill of caged birds, lived Odalie in convent-like seclusion.”
“When one is shut up in a great French house with a grim sleepy tante and no companions of one’s own age, life
C. becomes a dull thing, and one is ready for any new sensation.”
“It was Mardi Gras day at last, and early through her window Odalie could hear the jingle of folly bells on the
D. [participants’] costumes, the tinkle of music, and the echoing strains of songs.”
Question ID c959f10a
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
PSAT/NMSQT & Reading and Writing Information and Command of
PSAT 10 Ideas Evidence
ID: c959f10a
Effects of Mycorrhizal Fungi on 3 Plant Species
Plant Mycorrhizal Average mass of plants grown in soil Average mass of plants grown in
species host containing mycorrhizal fungi (in grams) soil treated to kill fungi (in grams)
Corn yes 15.1 3.8
Marigold yes 10.2 2.4
Broccoli no 7.5 7
Mycorrhizal fungi in soil benefits many plants, substantially increasing the mass of some. A student conducted an
experiment to illustrate this effect. The student chose three plant species for the experiment, including two that are
mycorrhizal hosts (species known to benefit from mycorrhizal fungi) and one nonmycorrhizal species (a species that
doesn’t benefit from and may even be harmed by mycorrhizal fungi). The student then grew several plants from each
species both in soil containing mycorrhizal fungi and in soil that had been treated to kill mycorrhizal and other fungi.
After several weeks, the student measured the plants’ average mass and was surprised to discover that ______
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?
broccoli grown in soil containing mycorrhizal fungi had a slightly higher average mass than broccoli grown in soil
A. that had been treated to kill fungi.
corn grown in soil containing mycorrhizal fungi had a higher average mass than broccoli grown in soil containing
B. mycorrhizal fungi.
marigolds grown in soil containing mycorrhizal fungi had a much higher average mass than marigolds grown in soil
C. that had been treated to kill fungi.
corn had the highest average mass of all three species grown in soil that had been treated to kill fungi, while
D. marigolds had the lowest.
Question ID 962e9f9e
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
PSAT/NMSQT & Reading and Writing Information and Command of
PSAT 10 Ideas Evidence
ID: 962e9f9e
There Is Confusion is a 1924 novel by Jessie Redmon Fauset. In the novel, the narrator portrays the character Joanna as
someone who admires ambition in other people to the exclusion of all other qualities: ______
Which quotation from There Is Confusion most effectively illustrates the claim?
A. “Joanna was mightily interested in people who had a ‘purpose’ in life. Otherwise not at all.”
B. “Indeed from the very beginning Joanna showed her preference for her father.”
C. “Joanna was like her father not only so far as ambition was concerned but also in her willingness to work.”
“She had a good sense of logic, a strong power of concentration, and a remarkably retentive and visualizing
D. memory.”
Question ID 7421329b
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
PSAT/NMSQT & Reading and Writing Information and Command of
PSAT 10 Ideas Evidence
ID: 7421329b
Rotor Diameters of Newly Installed Wind
Turbines in the United States, 2011–2021
90
Percent of newly installed
80
70
60
turbines
50
40
30
20
10
0
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
Year
>130 meters
<100 meters
100–115 meters
115–130 meters
All other things being equal, the larger a wind turbine’s rotor diameter (the diameter of the imaginary circle swept by the
turbine’s rotating blades), the greater amount of energy the turbine can generate. In a research paper on wind power, a
student claims that in the United States, the amount of energy generated per newly installed turbine increased
substantially between 2011 and 2021.
Which choice best describes data in the graph that support the student’s claim?
The percentage of newly installed turbines with rotor diameters greater than 130 meters increased every year
A. between 2011 and 2021.
In 2011, nearly 80% of turbines installed had rotor diameters of less than 100 meters, whereas only a little more than
B. 20% of turbines installed that year had rotor diameters of 100–115 meters.
No turbines installed in 2011 had rotor diameters greater than 115 meters, whereas the majority of turbines installed
C. in 2021 had rotor diameters greater than 130 meters.
Most turbines installed in 2011 had rotor diameters of less than 100 meters, whereas most turbines installed in
D. 2021 had rotor diameters of at least 115 meters.
Question ID 8ea0034d
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
PSAT/NMSQT & Reading and Writing Information and Command of
PSAT 10 Ideas Evidence
ID: 8ea0034d
Linguist Deborah Tannen has cautioned against framing contentious issues in terms of two highly competitive
perspectives, such as pro versus con. According to Tannen, this debate-driven approach can strip issues of their
complexity and, when used in front of an audience, can be less informative than the presentation of multiple
perspectives in a noncompetitive format. To test Tannen’s hypothesis, students conducted a study in which they
showed participants one of three different versions of local news commentary about the same issue. Each version
featured a debate between two commentators with opposing views, a panel of three commentators with various views,
or a single commentator.
Which finding from the students’ study, if true, would most strongly support Tannen’s hypothesis?
On average, participants perceived commentators in the debate as more knowledgeable about the issue than
A. commentators in the panel.
On average, participants perceived commentators in the panel as more knowledgeable about the issue than the
B. single commentator.
On average, participants who watched the panel correctly answered more questions about the issue than those who
C. watched the debate or the single commentator did.
On average, participants who watched the single commentator correctly answered more questions about the issue
D. than those who watched the debate did.
