Question ID ff953239
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Central Ideas and Medium
Ideas Details
ID: ff953239
The recovery of a 1,000-year-old Chinese shipwreck in the Java Sea near present-day Indonesia has yielded a
treasure trove of artifacts, including thousands of small ceramic bowls. Using a portable X-ray fluorescence
analyzer tool, Lisa Niziolek and her team were able to detect the chemical composition of these bowls
without damaging them. By comparing the chemical signatures of the bowls with those of the materials still
at old Chinese kiln sites, Niziolek and her team can pinpoint which Chinese kilns likely produced the ceramic
bowls.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
A. Because of a new technology, researchers can locate and recover more shipwrecks than they could in the
past.
B. Researchers have been able to identify the location of a number of Chinese kilns in operation 1,000 years
ago.
C. With the help of a special tool, researchers have determined the likely origin of bowls recovered from a
shipwreck.
D. Before the invention of portable X-ray fluorescence, researchers needed to take a small piece out of an
artifact to analyze its components.
Question ID e0d51f42
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Inferences Hard
Ideas
ID: e0d51f42
Ancestral Puebloans, the civilization from which present-day Pueblo tribes descended, emerged as early as
1500 B.C.E. in an area of what is now the southwestern United States and dispersed suddenly in the late
1200s C.E., abandoning established villages with systems for farming crops and turkeys. Recent analysis
comparing turkey remains at Mesa Verde, one such village in southern Colorado, to samples from modern
turkey populations in the Rio Grande Valley of north central New Mexico determined that the latter birds
descended in part from turkeys cultivated at Mesa Verde, with shared genetic markers appearing only after
1280. Thus, researchers concluded that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. conditions of the terrains in the Rio Grande Valley and Mesa Verde had greater similarities in the past than
they do today.
B. some Ancestral Puebloans migrated to the Rio Grande Valley in the late 1200s and carried farming
practices with them.
C. Indigenous peoples living in the Rio Grande Valley primarily planted crops and did not cultivate turkeys
before 1280.
D. the Ancestral Puebloans of Mesa Verde likely adopted the farming practices of Indigenous peoples living
in other regions.
Question ID 93a05d57
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Inferences Medium
Ideas
ID: 93a05d57
When the Vinland Map, a map of the world purported to date to the mid-1400s, surfaced in 1957, some
scholars believed it demonstrated that European knowledge of the eastern coast of present-day North
America predated Christopher Columbus’s 1492 arrival. In 2021, a team including conservators Marie-France
Lemay and Paula Zyats and materials scientist Anikó Bezur performed an extensive analysis of the map and
the ink used. They found that the ink contains titanium dioxide, a compound that was first introduced in ink
manufacturing in the early 1900s. Therefore, the team concluded that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. mid-1400s Europeans could not have known about the eastern coast of present-day North America.
B. the Vinland Map could not have been drawn by mid-1400s mapmakers.
C. mapmakers must have used titanium compounds in their ink in the 1400s.
D. there isn’t enough information to determine when the ink was created.
Question ID 0d564c7f
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of Medium
Ideas Evidence
ID: 0d564c7f
Employment in Technology in
Hawaii in 2010 and 2019
7
Approximate number of jobs
6
(in thousands)
5
4
3
2
1
0
2010 2019
Year
engineering services
technical consulting services
computer services
A student in Hawaii is interested in pursuing a career in technology and decides to do some research on local
trends. The student notices that the number of jobs in computer services in 2010 was ______
Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the statement?
A. higher than the number of jobs in technical consulting services, and in 2019 was about the same as the
number of jobs in engineering services.
B. about the same as the number of jobs in engineering services, and in 2019 was about the same as the
number of jobs in technical consulting services.
C. lower than the number of jobs in engineering services, but in 2019 was higher than the number of jobs in
engineering services.
D. about the same as the number of jobs in technical consulting services, but in 2019 was lower than the
number of jobs in technical consulting services.
Question ID bda73a5a
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Central Ideas and Medium
Ideas Details
ID: bda73a5a
Archaeologists have discovered a runestone in Norway that may contain the earliest example of written
words in Scandinavia. Carbon dating at the discovery site revealed that the stone was likely carved between
1 and 250 CE. Runologist Kristel Zilmer believes the stone will be helpful in learning more about the use of
runic alphabets in early Iron Age Scandinavia.
Which choice best states the main topic of the text?
A. Battles of the Iron Age
B. A runestone found in Norway
C. A new method for dating rock samples
D. The research interests of Kristel Zilmer
Question ID 533d6d0e
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Central Ideas and Easy
Ideas Details
ID: 533d6d0e
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 involved using materials that were readily available to Catlett.
B. Linocut printing helped Catlett use art to connect people, especially Black women.
C. Catlett became commercially successful once she started using linocut printing.
D. Catlett was one of the first Black artists to use linocut printing.
Question ID e55ded58
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of Hard
Ideas Evidence
ID: e55ded58
Black beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) are a nutritionally dense food, but they are difficult to digest in part because
of their high levels of soluble fiber and compounds like raffinose. They also contain antinutrients like tannins
and trypsin inhibitors, which interfere with the body’s ability to extract nutrients from foods. In a research
article, Marisela Granito and Glenda Álvarez from Simón Bolívar University in Venezuela claim that inducing
fermentation of black beans using lactic acid bacteria improves the digestibility of the beans and makes
them more nutritious.
Which finding from Granito and Álvarez’s research, if true, would most directly support their claim?
A. When cooked, fermented beans contained significantly more trypsin inhibitors and tannins but
significantly less soluble fiber and raffinose than nonfermented beans.
B. Fermented beans contained significantly less soluble fiber and raffinose than nonfermented beans, and
when cooked, the fermented beans also displayed a significant reduction in trypsin inhibitors and tannins.
C. When the fermented beans were analyzed, they were found to contain two microorganisms, Lactobacillus
casei and Lactobacillus plantarum, that are theorized to increase the amount of nitrogen absorbed by the
gut after eating beans.
D. Both fermented and nonfermented black beans contained significantly fewer trypsin inhibitors and
tannins after being cooked at high pressure.
Question ID 23c33e5e
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Central Ideas and Medium
Ideas Details
ID: 23c33e5e
Recently, scientists looked at data collected by NASA’s InSight lander to learn more about seismic activity on
Mars, known as marsquakes. The data show that the marsquakes all started from the same location on the
planet. This discovery was surprising to scientists, as they expected that the marsquakes would originate
from all over the planet because of the cooling of the planet’s surface. Now, scientists believe that there
could be areas of active magma flows deep beneath the planet’s surface that trigger the marsquakes.
According to the text, what was surprising to scientists studying the seismic activity data from NASA’s
InSight lander?
A. The surface temperature of Mars has been rising.
B. There were different types of seismic waves causing marsquakes.
C. NASA’s InSight lander collected less data than scientists had expected.
D. All the marsquakes started from the same location on the planet.
Question ID 6736cf78
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of Medium
Ideas Evidence
ID: 6736cf78
“Mrs. Spring Fragrance” is a 1912 short story by Sui Sin Far. In the story, Mrs. Spring Fragrance, a Chinese
immigrant living in Seattle, is traveling in California. In letters to her husband and friend, she demonstrates
her concern for what’s happening at her home in Seattle while she is away: ______
Which quotation from Mrs. Spring Fragrance’s letters most effectively illustrates the claim?
A. “My honorable cousin is preparing for the Fifth Moon Festival, and wishes me to compound for the
occasion some American ‘fudge,’ for which delectable sweet, made by my clumsy hands, you have
sometimes shown a slight prejudice.”
B. “Next week I accompany Ah Oi to the beauteous town of San José. There will we be met by the son of the
Illustrious Teacher.”
C. “Forget not to care for the cat, the birds, and the flowers. Do not eat too quickly nor fan too vigorously now
that the weather is warming.”
D. “I am enjoying a most agreeable visit, and American friends, as also our own, strive benevolently for the
accomplishment of my pleasure.”
Question ID e4466b2f
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Central Ideas and Hard
Ideas Details
ID: e4466b2f
The following text is adapted from Countee Cullen’s 1926 poem “Thoughts in a Zoo.”
They in their cruel traps, and we in ours,
Survey each other’s rage, and pass the hours
Commiserating each the other’s woe,
To mitigate his own pain’s fiery glow.
Man could but little proffer in exchange
Save that his cages have a larger range.
That lion with his lordly, untamed heart
Has in some man his human counterpart,
Some lofty soul in dreams and visions wrapped,
But in the stifling flesh securely trapped.
Based on the text, what challenge do humans sometimes experience?
A. They cannot effectively tame certain wild animals because of a lack of compassion.
B. They cannot focus on setting attainable goals because of a lack of motivation.
C. They quickly become frustrated when faced with difficult tasks because of a lack of self-control.
D. They have aspirations that cannot be fulfilled because of certain limitations.
Question ID aefb6235
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Central Ideas and Medium
Ideas Details
ID: aefb6235
NASA’s Aspera mission, led by Carlos Vargas, will investigate the circumgalactic medium (CGM), the huge
swaths of low-density gas that fill and surround galaxies. Specifically, the team will focus on portions of the
gas that exist in a “warm-hot” phase: these portions haven’t previously been observable but are thought to
fuel new star formation and hold most of the mass that makes up a galaxy. Using a telescope capable of
revealing these parts of the CGM, the Aspera mission should help answer long-standing questions about how
galaxies emerge, change, and even interact.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
A. As the leader of NASA’s Aspera mission, Vargas will be the first person to investigate the makeup of the
CGM.
B. Although galaxies that are surrounded by the CGM have been studied, researchers have been unable to
directly observe low-density gas in the CGM in the “warm-hot” phase.
C. Researchers don’t yet have a complete understanding of the process of galaxy evolution but have raised
the possibility that galaxies interact with each other at times.
D. The Aspera mission is expected to produce the first direct observations of CGM gas in the “warm-hot”
phase, which likely has an important role in the evolution of galaxies.
Question ID f1be8b46
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of Hard
Ideas Evidence
ID: f1be8b46
Number and Origin of Clamshell Tools Found at Different Levels Below the Surface in Neanderthal Cave
Depth of tools found below Clamshells that Neanderthals Clamshells that Neanderthals
surface in cave (meters) collected from the beach harvested from the seafloor
3–4 99 33
6–7 1 0
4–5 2 0
2–3 7 0
5–6 18 7
Studying tools unearthed at a cave site on the western coast of Italy, archaeologist Paola Villa and
colleagues have determined that prehistoric Neanderthal groups fashioned them from shells of clams that
they harvested from the seafloor while wading or diving or that washed up on the beach. Clamshells become
thin and eroded as they wash up on the beach, while those on the seafloor are smooth and sturdy, so the
research team suspects that Neanderthals prized the tools made with seafloor shells. However, the team
also concluded that those tools were likely more challenging to obtain, noting that ______
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support the research team’s conclusion?
A. at each depth below the surface in the cave, the difference in the numbers of tools of each type suggests
that shells were easier to collect from the beach than to harvest from the seafloor.
B. the highest number of tools were at a depth of 3–4 meters below the surface, which suggests that the
Neanderthal population at the site was highest during the related period of time.
C. at each depth below the surface in the cave, the difference in the numbers of tools of each type suggests
that Neanderthals preferred to use clamshells from the beach because of their durability.
D. the higher number of tools at depths of 5–6 meters below the surface in the cave than at depths of 4–5
meters below the surface suggests that the size of clam populations changed over time.
Question ID f48d9861
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Central Ideas and Medium
Ideas Details
ID: f48d9861
Cats can judge unseen people’s positions in space by the sound of their voices and thus react with surprise
when the same person calls to them from two different locations in a short span of time. Saho Takagi and
colleagues reached this conclusion by measuring cats’ levels of surprise based on their ear and head
movements while the cats heard recordings of their owners’ voices from two speakers spaced far apart. Cats
exhibited a low level of surprise when owners’ voices were played twice from the same speaker, but they
showed a high level of surprise when the voice was played once each from the two different speakers.
According to the text, how did the researchers determine the level of surprise displayed by the cats in the
study?
A. They watched how each cat moved its ears and head.
B. They examined how each cat reacted to the voice of a stranger.
C. They studied how each cat physically interacted with its owner.
D. They tracked how each cat moved around the room.
Question ID 82148e88
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of Easy
Ideas Evidence
ID: 82148e88
Researchers Narelle Haworth and Amy Schramm studied bicycling behavior in Queensland, Australia.
Haworth and Schramm asked adult bike riders questions about their level of experience, reasons for riding a
bike, and route preferences. The researchers claim that experienced riders who mainly bike to work tend to
prefer routes that reduce their travel time.
Which survey response from a bike rider in Queensland would best support the underlined claim?
A. “I have a bike, but I don’t ride it very often. When the weather is nice, I sometimes use my bike to go into
town to do some shopping.”
B. “I just got a new bike, and I’m looking forward to going on rides with my friends soon.”
C. “I bike to my job every day. There’s a nice bike path that goes through a park, but I use the bike lane on the
main road because it’s faster.”
D. “I usually bike to work, but I’m taking the bus now because my bike has a broken part that needs to be
fixed.”
Question ID a450897e
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of Easy
Ideas Evidence
ID: a450897e
O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by Willa Cather. In the novel, Cather portrays Alexandra Bergson as having a deep
emotional connection to her natural surroundings: ______
Which quotation from O Pioneers! most effectively illustrates the claim?
A. “She had never known before how much the country meant to her. The chirping of the insects down in the
long grass had been like the sweetest music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there,
somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun.
Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.”
B. “Alexandra talked to the men about their crops and to the women about their poultry. She spent a whole
day with one young farmer who had been away at school, and who was experimenting with a new kind of
clover hay. She learned a great deal.”
C. “Alexandra drove off alone. The rattle of her wagon was lost in the howling of the wind, but her lantern,
held firmly between her feet, made a moving point of light along the highway, going deeper and deeper
into the dark country.”
D. “It was Alexandra who read the papers and followed the markets, and who learned by the mistakes of
their neighbors. It was Alexandra who could always tell about what it had cost to fatten each steer, and
who could guess the weight of a hog before it went on the scales closer than John Bergson [her father]
himself.”
Question ID b1068f41
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Inferences Medium
Ideas
ID: b1068f41
The Indus River valley civilization flourished in South Asia from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE. Many examples of
the civilization’s writing system exist, but researchers haven’t yet deciphered it or identified which ancient
language it represents. Nevertheless, archaeologists have found historical artifacts, such as clay figures and
jewelry, that provide information about the civilization’s customs and how its communities were organized.
The archaeologists’ findings therefore suggest that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. investigating an ancient civilization is easier without knowledge of the civilization’s language.
B. knowing an ancient civilization’s language isn’t necessary in order to learn details about the civilization.
C. archaeological research should focus on finding additional artifacts rather than deciphering ancient
languages.
D. examining the civilization’s historical artifacts has resolved the debate about this civilization’s language.
Question ID 1f246569
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Central Ideas and Medium
Ideas Details
ID: 1f246569
Using the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a team of astronomers mapped out the
magnetic field of G47, one of the Milky Way’s galactic bones (dense clouds of gas and dust that run through
the middle of the arm of a spiral galaxy). Surprisingly, the map revealed a magnetic field with no clear pattern
or direction. The researchers had expected the magnetic field to be similar to the more uniform fields seen in
galactic bones in other arms of the Milky Way.
According to the text, what was surprising about the researchers’ mapping of the magnetic field of galactic
bone G47?
A. It showed a weaker magnetic field than expected.
B. It implied that previous mappings of the magnetic field were inaccurate.
C. It produced magnetic field measurements similar to those for other galactic bones.
D. It revealed a magnetic field that wasn’t uniform.
Question ID 12b370c2
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Central Ideas and Hard
Ideas Details
ID: 12b370c2
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 has been unjustly ignored by most scholars despite the importance of the themes addressed by many
of the genre’s songs.
B. It evolved over time from a superficial genre focused on romance to a genre focused on more serious
concerns.
C. It has been unfairly dismissed for the inclusion of subject matter that is also found in other musical
genres.
D. It gave rise to a Black women’s musical tradition that has endured even though the genre itself faded in
the late twentieth century.
Question ID 349fa4d2
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Inferences Hard
Ideas
ID: 349fa4d2
Tatiana R. Feuerborn and colleagues analyzed the genomes of more than a hundred domesticated dogs from
sites in Siberia dating from 11,000 years ago to the present. They found that the dogs constituted a
genetically isolated population of Arctic breeds until approximately 2,000 years ago, at which point there was
substantial interbreeding with Near Eastern dog breeds. Furthermore, beginning around 2,000 years ago,
some sites contain artifacts consistent with a Near East origin, like glass beads, but the people show no
evidence of having traveled extensively outside Siberia. From this, Feuerborn and colleagues concluded that
around 2,000 years ago ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. dogs and artifacts like glass beads began to be transported from the Near East to Siberia.
B. people from Siberia began to reach the Near East, where they acquired dogs and artifacts such as glass
beads.
C. glass beads and other artifacts from the Near East began to be exchanged for dogs from Siberia.
D. dogs from the Near East began to be exchanged for glass beads and other artifacts from Siberia.
Question ID ce9b3b84
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of Medium
Ideas Evidence
ID: ce9b3b84
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 0 21
20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 202 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?
A. The percentage of newly installed turbines with rotor diameters greater than 130 meters increased every
year between 2011 and 2021.
B. In 2011, nearly 80% of turbines installed had rotor diameters of less than 100 meters, whereas only a little
more than 20% of turbines installed that year had rotor diameters of 100–115 meters.
C. No turbines installed in 2011 had rotor diameters greater than 115 meters, whereas the majority of
turbines installed in 2021 had rotor diameters greater than 130 meters.
D. Most turbines installed in 2011 had rotor diameters of less than 100 meters, whereas most turbines
installed in 2021 had rotor diameters of at least 115 meters.
