Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

The Mission 66 initiative, which was approved by Congress in 1956, represented a major investment in the infrastructure
of overburdened national __ it prioritized physical improvements to the parks' roads, utilities, employee housing, and
visitor facilities while also establishing educational programming for the public.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. parks and

B. parks

C. parks;

D. parks,
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

A study led by scientist Rebecca Kirby at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that b�ack bears that eat human food
before hibernation have increased levels of a rare carbon isotope, __ due to the higher
3 C levels in corn and cane
sugar. Bears with these elevated levels were also found to have much shorter hibernation periods on average.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
13
A. carbon-13, ( C)
13
B. carbon-13 ( C)
13
C. carbon-13, ( C),
13
D. carbon-13 ( C),
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

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SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

Photosynthesis, the mechanism by which plants use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into __ is fueled in part
by an enzyme called Photosystem II that harvests energy-giving electrons from water molecules.

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

B. nutrients and

C. nutrients,

D. nutrients-
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

After a spate of illnesses as a child, Wilma Rudolph was told she might never walk again. Defying all odds, Rudolph didn't
just walk, she __ the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, she won both the 100- and 200-meter dashes and clinched first
place for her team in the 4x100-meter relay, becoming the first US woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympics.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. ran-fast-during

B. ran-fast during

C. ran-fast, during

D. ran-fast. During
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

Beatrix Potter is perhaps best known for writing and illustrating children's books such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902),
but she also dedicated herself to mycology, the study of __ more than 350 paintings of the fungal species she
observed in nature and submitting her research on spore germination to the Linnean Society of London.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. fungi; producing

B. fungi. Producing

C. fungi producing

D. fungi, producing
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

As British scientist Peter Whibberley has observed, "the Earth is not a very good timekeeper." Earth's slightly irregular
rotation rate means that measurements of time must be periodically adjusted. Specifically, an extra "leap second " (the
86,401 st second of the day) is __ time based on the planet's rotation lags a full nine-tenths of a second behind time
kept by precise atomic clocks.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A.added, whenever

B.added; whenever

C.added. Whenever

D.added whenever
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

Po'Pay was a Tewa leader from Ohkay Owingeh,a pueblo located about twenty-five miles north of present-day Santa Fe,
New Mexico. He was instrumental in organizing the Pueblo Revolt of __ as a result of his leadership,the Spanish
colonizers were expelled from the region for a time.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. 1680

B. 1680 and

C. 1680,

D. 1680,and
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

Gathering accurate data on water flow in the United States is challenging because of the country's millions of miles of
__ the volume and speed of water at any given location can vary drastically over time.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. waterways and the fact that,

B. waterways, and the fact that,

C. waterways, and, the fact that

D. waterways and the fact that

 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

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
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

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
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

Eli Eisenberg, a genetics expert at Tel Aviv University in Israel, recently discovered that __ have a special genetic ability
called RNA editing that confers evolutionary advantages.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. cephalopods, ocean dwellers that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish

B. cephalopods-ocean dwellers-that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish,

C. cephalopods, ocean dwellers that include: the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish,

D. cephalopods-ocean dwellers that include the squid, the octopus, and the cuttlefish-
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

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, and

C. apiary and

D. apiary
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

The city of Pompeii, which was buried in ash following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, continues to be studied by
archaeologists. Unfortunately, as __ attest, archaeological excavations have disrupted ash deposits at the site, causing
valuable information about the eruption to be lost.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. researchers, Roberto Scandone and Christopher Kilburn,

B. researchers, Roberto Scandone and Christopher Kilburn

C. researchers Roberto Scandone and Christopher Kilburn

D. researchers Roberto Scandone, and Christopher Kilburn

 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

Santa Clara Pueblo artist Roxanne Swentzell's sculpture Mud Woman Rolls On consists of five human figures made of clay
and plant fiber and arranged in descending size; each figure holds the smaller one in front of it. The arrangement of the
figures, according to __ represents her idea that "we all come from the Earth, generation after generation."

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Swentzel!

B. Swentzel!,

C. Swentzel!:

D. Swentzel!-
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

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, Calvin'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

 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

Humans were long thought to have begun occupying the Peruvian settlement of Machu Picchu between 1440 and 1450
CE. However, a team led by anthropologist Dr. Richard Burger used accelerator mass spectrometry to uncover evidence
that it was occupied __ 1420 CE, according to Burger, humans were likely inhabiting the area.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. earlier. In

B. earlier, in

C. earlier, which in

D. earlier in
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

Seneca sculptor Marie Watt's blanket art comes in a range of shapes and sizes. In 2004, Watt sewed strips of blankets
together to craft a 10-by-13-inch __ in 2014, she arranged folded blankets into two large stacks and then cast them in
bronze, creating two curving 18-foot-tall blue-bronze pillars.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. sampler later,

B. sampler;

C. sampler,

D. sampler, later,
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

In 2017, artists Isabel and Ruben Toledo redesigned the costumes and sets for The Miami City Ballet's production of The
__ to reviewers, the Toledos' designs helped infuse the production with elements of Miami's Latin American culture.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Nutcracker according,

B. Nutcracker, according

C. Nutcracker according

D. Nutcracker. According
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

It is generally true that technological change is a linear process, in which once-useful technologies are replaced by new and
better __ the reawakening of interest in the steam engine (from advocates of carbon-neutral rail travel) reminds us that
ostensibly obsolete technologies may be brought back into service to address society's changing needs.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. ones, even so;

B. ones even so,

C. ones; even so,

D. ones, even so,

 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

The first computerized spreadsheet, Dan Bricklin's VisiCalc, improved financial recordkeeping not only by providing users
with an easy means of adjusting data in spreadsheets but also by automatically updating all calculations that were
dependent on these __ to VisiCalc's release, changing a paper spreadsheet often required redoing the entire sheet by
hand, a process that could take days.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. adjustments prior

B. adjustments, prior

C. adjustments. Prior

D. adjustments and prior

 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

Materials scientist Marie-Agathe Charpagne and her colleagues believed they could improve on the multicomponent alloy
NiCoCr, an equal-proportions mixture of nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co), and chromium (Cr), by replacing chromium with ruthenium
__ the alloy that resulted, NiCoRu, turned out to be an unsuitable replacement for NiCoCr.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. (Ru)

B. (Ru) but

C. (Ru),

D. (Ru), but
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

The forty-seven geothermal springs of Arkansas' Hot Springs National Park are sourced via a process known as natural
groundwater recharge, in which rainwater percolates downward through the earth-in this case, the porous rocks of the
hills around Hot collect in a subterranean basin.

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

B. Springs: to

C. Springs-to

D. Springs, to
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

In 2010, archaeologist Noel Hidalgo Tan was visiting the twelfth-century temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia when he
noticed markings of red paint on the temple __ the help of digital imaging techniques, he discovered the markings to
be part of an elaborate mural containing over 200 paintings.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. walls, with

B. walls with

C. walls so with

D. walls. With
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

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
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

In 1727, dramatist Lewis Theobald presented a new play, Double Falsehood, at a London theater. Theobald claimed that
his drama was based on a little-known play by William Shakespeare, Cardenio. Many, including poet Alexander Pope, were
__ historians have determined that Shakespeare's company did perform a play called Cardenio in 1613.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. skeptical but

B. skeptical, but

C. skeptical,

D. skeptical
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

To humans, it does not appear that the golden orb-weaver spider uses camouflage to capture its __ the brightly
colored arachnid seems to wait conspicuously in the center of its large circular web for insects to approach. Researcher Po
Peng of the University of Melbourne has explained that the spider's distinctive coloration may in fact be part of its appeal.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. prey, rather,

B. prey rather,

C. prey, rather;

D. prey; rather,
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

How do scientists determine what foods were eaten by extinct hominins such as Neanderthals? In the past, researchers
were limited to studying the marks found on the fossilized teeth of skeletons, but in 2017 a team led by Laura Weyrich of
the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA tried something __ the DNA found in Neanderthals' fossilized dental plaque.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. new: sequencing

B. new; sequencing

C. new, sequencing:

D. new. Sequencing
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

Swedish scientists Eva Engvall and Peter Perlmann developed a method for measuring the concentration of different
proteins in a biological sample. Their __ ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), is used to detect and measure
proteins that indicate the presence of certain diseases.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. method (called

B. method-called

C. method, called

D. method called
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

Luci Tapahonso is the inaugural poet laureate of the Navajo Nation. Her book S6anii 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-
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

A conceptual artist and designer embraced by both the art world and the fashion __ Mary Ping was chosen to curate
the exhibition Front Row: Chinese American Designers for the Museum of Chinese in America.

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

B. world:

C. world;

D. world,
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

The Lion Light system, developed by Kenyan inventor Richard Turere, consists of LED lights installed around the perimeter
of livestock pastures. Powered with __ the blinking LEDs keep lions away at night, thus protecting the livestock without
risking harm to the endangered lions.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. energy collected, by solar panels, during the day

B. energy collected by solar panels during the day

C. energy collected by solar panels during the day,

D. energy, collected by solar panels during the day,

 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

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;
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

In ancient Greece, an Epicurean was a follower of Epicurus, a philosopher whose beliefs revolved around the pursuit of
pleasure. Epicurus defined pleasure as "the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the __ that all life's virtues
derived from this absence.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. soul," positing

B. soul": positing

C. soul"; positing

D. soul." Positing
 Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

II □
SAT Reading and Standard English Boundaries
Writing Conventions

In her analysis of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth (1905), scholar Candace Waid observes that the novel depicts the
upper classes of New York society as "consumed by the appetite of a soulless __ an apt assessment given that The
House of Mirth is set during the Gilded Age, a period marked by rapid industrialization, economic greed, and widening
wealth disparities.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. materialism"; and

B. materialism" and

C. materialism,"

D. materialism"