Question ID 8584f3ce

Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of

Ideas Evidence

ID: 8584f3ce
When digging for clams, their primary food, sea otters damage the roots of eelgrass plants growing on the seafloor.
Near Vancouver Island in Canada, the otter population is large and well established, yet the eelgrass meadows are
healthier than those found elsewhere off Canada’s coast. To explain this, conservation scientist Erin Foster and
colleagues compared the Vancouver Island meadows to meadows where otters are absent or were reintroduced only
recently. Finding that the Vancouver Island meadows have a more diverse gene pool than the others do, Foster
hypothesized that damage to eelgrass roots increases the plant’s rate of sexual reproduction; this, in turn, boosts
genetic diversity, which benefits the meadow’s health overall.

Which finding, if true, would most directly undermine Foster’s hypothesis?

At some sites in the study, eelgrass meadows are found near otter populations that are small and have only recently
A. been reintroduced.

At several sites not included in the study, there are large, well-established sea otter populations but no eelgrass
B. meadows.

At several sites not included in the study, eelgrass meadows’ health correlates negatively with the length of
C. residence and size of otter populations.

At some sites in the study, the health of plants unrelated to eelgrass correlates negatively with the length of
D. residence and size of otter populations.
Question ID c95995bc
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Inferences

Ideas

ID: c95995bc
Colonized by Spain in the 1600s, New Mexico is home to a dialect of Spanish that differs significantly from dialects
spoken in Spain’s other former colonies in the Americas. Most notably, the New Mexican dialect retains older features
of the language that other dialects lost in later centuries. But why would it have done so? New Mexico was so distant
from population centers in Spain’s other colonies that it attracted few colonists after its initial colonization.
Geographical isolation in turn would have limited the exposure of New Mexican colonists to changes occurring to
Spanish grammar and vocabulary elsewhere in the empire. Thus, the present-day uniqueness of the New Mexican
dialect suggests the extent to which ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. a language can protect itself from being influenced by other languages.

B. the grammar and vocabulary of any given language change from one generation to the next.

C. geographical isolation can influence how a language develops.

D. speakers of one dialect of a language can understand speakers of another dialect of that language.
Question ID e1546fd6
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of

Ideas Evidence

ID: e1546fd6

Average Nitrate and Phosphate Concentrations in Seawater after Volcanic Eruption

Seawater in lava- Seawater in lava- Seawater outside of Seawater outside of

affected area, 5– affected area, 75– lava-affected area, 5– lava-affected area,
45 meters below 125 meters below 45 meters below 75–125 meters below
Nutrient surface surface surface surface

Nitrate
(micromoles 3.1 0.4 ≤0.03 ≤0.01
per liter)

Phosphate
(micromoles 0.17 0.09 0.14 0.06
per liter)

After a volcanic eruption spilled lava into North Pacific Ocean waters, a dramatic increase of diatoms (a kind of
phytoplankton) near the surface occurred. Scientists assumed the diatoms were thriving on nutrients such as
phosphate from the lava, but analysis showed these nutrients weren’t present near the surface in forms diatoms can
consume. However, there was an abundance of usable nitrate, a nutrient usually found in much deeper water and
almost never found in lava. Microbial oceanographer Sonya Dyhrman and colleagues believe that as the lava plunged
nearly 300 meters below the surface it dislodged pockets of this nutrient, releasing it to float upward, given that ______

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

at 5–45 meters below the surface, the average concentration of phosphate was about the same in the seawater in
A. the lava-affected area as in the seawater outside of the lava-affected area.

for both depth ranges measured, the average concentrations of nitrate were substantially higher in the seawater in
B. the lava-affected area than in the seawater outside of the lava-affected area.

for both depth ranges measured in the seawater in the lava-affected area, the average concentrations of nitrate were
C. substantially higher than the average concentrations of phosphate.

in the seawater outside of the lava-affected area, there was little change in the average concentration of nitrate from
D. 75–125 meters below the surface to 5–45 meters below the surface.
Question ID 9391b7cc
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Inferences

Ideas

ID: 9391b7cc
If some artifacts recovered from excavations of the settlement of Kuulo Kataa, in modern Ghana, date from the
thirteenth century CE, that may lend credence to claims that the settlement was founded before or around that time.
There is other evidence, however, strongly supporting a fourteenth century CE founding date for Kuulo Kataa. If both the
artifact dates and the fourteenth century CE founding date are correct, that would imply that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

artifacts from the fourteenth century CE are more commonly recovered than are artifacts from the thirteenth century
A. CE.

B. the artifacts originated elsewhere and eventually reached Kuulo Kataa through trade or migration.

C. Kuulo Kataa was founded by people from a different region than had previously been assumed.

D. excavations at Kuulo Kataa may have inadvertently damaged some artifacts dating to the fourteenth century CE.
Question ID 9452092c
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of

Ideas Evidence

ID: 9452092c

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 2a075bd1
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Inferences

Ideas

ID: 2a075bd1
Indigenous cultures possess unique knowledge of the medicinal uses of plants. According to a 2021 study, 73 percent
of the medicinal uses of plants native to North America are reflected in the vocabulary of a single Indigenous language.
However, as more and more Indigenous people exclusively speak a globally dominant language, such as English, their
ancestral languages fade from daily use. These facts lend added importance to tribal nations’ efforts to preserve their
languages. By ensuring the continued use of Cherokee, Ojibwe, and the hundreds of other Indigenous languages in what
is now the United States, tribal nations are also ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. increasing the number of medicinal plants represented in the vocabularies of Indigenous languages.

B. transmitting terms for medicinal plants from Indigenous languages to globally dominant languages.

C. preserving knowledge about the medicinal value of plants native to the tribal nations’ lands.

D. ensuring that citizens of tribal nations have physical access to medicinal plants.
Question ID 8fbed1cb
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Inferences

Ideas

ID: 8fbed1cb
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 f2b3b53b
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of

Ideas Evidence

ID: f2b3b53b
External shopping cues are a type of marketing that uses obvious messaging—a display featuring a new product, for
example, or a “buy one, get one free” offer—to entice consumers to make spontaneous purchases. In a study, data
scientist Sam K. Hui and colleagues found that this effect can also be achieved with a less obvious cue: rearranging a
store’s layout. The researchers explain that trying to find items in new locations causes shoppers to move through more
of the store, exposing them to more products and increasing the likelihood that they’ll buy an item they hadn’t planned
on purchasing.

Which response from a survey given to shoppers who made a purchase at a retail store best supports the researchers’
explanation?

“I needed to buy some cleaning supplies, but they weren’t in their regular place. While I was looking for them, I saw
A. this interesting notebook and decided to buy it, too.”

“I didn’t buy everything on my shopping list today. I couldn’t find a couple of the items in the store, even though I
B. looked all over for them.”

“The store sent me a coupon for a new brand of soup, so I came here to find out what kinds of soup that brand
C. offers. I decided to buy a few cans because I had the coupon.”

“This store is larger than one that’s closer to where I live, and it carries more products. I came here to buy some
D. things that the other store doesn’t always have.”
Question ID 5432d1de
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Inferences

Ideas

ID: 5432d1de
It’s common for jazz musicians and fans to refer to certain songs as having “swing,” indicating that the songs provoke a
strong feeling, like the impulse to tap one’s foot or dance. The exact acoustic properties that give a song swing,
however, have long been thought to be undefinable. To investigate swing, a team led by physicist Corentin Nelias
delayed the downbeats and synchronized the offbeats in jazz piano solos and asked jazz musicians to compare the
intensity of swing in each modified piece with the intensity of swing in the original piece. They found that participants
were more than seven times likelier to characterize the modified songs as having swing than to characterize the original
versions as having swing, suggesting that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. synchronized offbeats tend to give a song swing regardless of whether downbeats are delayed.

B. the acoustic properties that give a song swing are not easy for jazz musicians to manipulate.

C. jazz songs that feature the piano are more likely to have swing than are jazz songs that do not feature the piano.

D. the timing of downbeats and offbeats may play a crucial role in giving a song swing.
Question ID 4e9afd7a
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Inferences

Ideas

ID: 4e9afd7a
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 3233c162
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of

Ideas Evidence

ID: 3233c162

Ratio of Manganese to Calcium in Samples

from Alboran Sea and Mauritanian Coast
Manganese to calcium ratio

100
(micromoles per mole)

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Approximate years before present
(in thousands)

Alboran Sea
Mauritanian coast

The population of the coral Lophelia pertusa declined significantly around 9,000 years ago in the Alboran Sea and
around 11,000 years ago near the Mauritanian coast. Using the ratio of manganese to calcium, which inversely
correlates with ocean oxygenation levels, marine scientist Rodrigo da Costa Portilho-Ramos and colleagues evaluated
whether oxygenation played a role in the declines of L. pertusa. The researchers concluded that oxygenation may have
been important in the Alboran Sea but not near the Mauritanian coast, since ______

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

a substantial increase in oxygenation in the Alboran Sea corresponded with the local decline in L. pertusa, but the
A. opposite relationship between oxygenation and L. pertusa was found near the Mauritanian coast.

L. pertusa declined in the Alboran Sea during a period of substantial local decline in oxygenation, but L. pertusa
B. declined near the Mauritanian coast during a period of little local change in oxygenation.

oxygenation in the Alboran Sea was higher before the decline in L. pertusa than after the decline, whereas
C. oxygenation near the Mauritanian coast was relatively low both before and after the decline in L. pertusa.

oxygenation in the Alboran Sea tended to be substantially higher than oxygenation near the Mauritanian coast
D. during the period studied.
Question ID a44bbd6b
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of

Ideas Evidence

ID: a44bbd6b
Several studies of sediment (e.g., dirt, pieces of rock, etc.) in streams have shown an inverse correlation between
sediment grain size and downstream distance from the primary sediment source, suggesting that stream length has a
sorting effect on sediment. In a study of sediment sampled at more than a dozen sites in Alpine streams, however,
geologists Camille Litty and Fritz Schlunegger found that cross-site variations in grain size were not associated with
differences in downstream distance, though they did not conclude that downstream distance is irrelevant to grain size.
Rather, they concluded that sediment influx in these streams may have been sufficiently spatially diffuse to prevent the
typical sorting effect from being observed.

Which finding about the streams in the study, if true, would most directly support Litty and Schlunegger’s conclusion?

The streams regularly experience portions of their banks collapsing into the water at multiple points upstream of the
A. sampling sites.

The streams contain several types of sediment that are not typically found in streams where the sorting effect has
B. been demonstrated.

The streams mostly originate from the same source, but their lengths vary considerably due to the different courses
C. they take.

The streams are fed by multiple tributaries that carry significant volumes of sediment and that enter the streams
D. downstream of the sampling sites.
Question ID a2b0fc3b
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of

Ideas Evidence

ID: a2b0fc3b

Urban Population of
Algeria, France, Japan, and Nigeria
100
90
Percent of population

80
living in cities

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
70 8 0 90 0 0 10 20
19 19 19 20 20 20
Year

Algeria
France
Japan
Nigeria

The share of the world’s population living in cities has increased dramatically since 1970, but this change has not been
uniform. France and Japan, for example, were already heavily urbanized in 1970, with 70% or more of the population
living in cities. The main contributors to the world’s urbanization since 1970 have been countries like Algeria, whose
population went from ______

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

A. around 50% urban in 1970 to around 90% urban in 2020.

B. less than 40% urban in 1970 to around 90% urban in 2020.

C. less than 20% urban in 1970 to more than 50% urban in 2020.

D. around 40% urban in 1970 to more than 70% urban in 2020.

Question ID 3f236877
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Inferences

Ideas

ID: 3f236877
Ratified by more than 90 countries, the Nagoya Protocol is an international agreement ensuring that Indigenous
communities are compensated when their agricultural resources and knowledge of wild plants and animals are utilized
by agricultural corporations. However, the protocol has shortcomings. For example, it allows corporations to insist that
their agreements with communities to conduct research on the commercial uses of the communities’ resources and
knowledge remain confidential. Therefore, some Indigenous advocates express concern that the protocol may have the
unintended effect of ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

diminishing the monetary reward that corporations might derive from their agreements with Indigenous
A. communities.

limiting the research that corporations conduct on the resources of the Indigenous communities with which they
B. have signed agreements.

preventing independent observers from determining whether the agreements guarantee equitable compensation for
C. Indigenous communities.

discouraging Indigenous communities from learning new methods for harvesting plants and animals from their
D. corporate partners.
Question ID 5b74feb9
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Information and Command of

Ideas Evidence

ID: 5b74feb9
Political scientists who favor the traditional view of voter behavior claim that voting in an election does not change a
voter’s attitude toward the candidates in that election. Focusing on each US presidential election from 1976 to 1996,
Ebonya Washington and Sendhil Mullainathan tested this claim by distinguishing between subjects who had just
become old enough to vote (around half of whom actually voted) and otherwise similar subjects who were slightly too
young to vote (and thus none of whom voted). Washington and Mullainathan compared the attitudes of the groups of
subjects toward the winning candidate two years after each election.

Which finding from Washington and Mullainathan’s study, if true, would most directly weaken the claim made by people
who favor the traditional view of voter behavior?

Subjects’ attitudes toward the winning candidate two years after a given election were strongly predicted by
subjects’ general political orientation, regardless of whether subjects were old enough to vote at the time of the
A. election.

Subjects who were not old enough to vote in a given election held significantly more positive attitudes towards the
B. winning candidate two years later than they held at the time of the election.

Subjects who voted in a given election held significantly more polarized attitudes toward the winning candidate two
C. years later than did subjects who were not old enough to vote in that election.

Two years after a given election, subjects who voted and subjects who were not old enough to vote were
significantly more likely to express negative attitudes than positive attitudes toward the winning candidate in that
D. election.