SAT Reading and Writing Unit 4: Expression of Ideas

While researching evidence for the theory of seafloor spreading, a student took the following notes:

• In the early 1970s, oceanographer Walter Pitman recorded a sequence of magnetic stripes preserved in the rock of the Atlantic seafloor.
• The stripes record the direction of Earth's magnetic field at the moment each section of seafloor rock cooled and hardened.
• Pitman found that the stripe pattern on the western side of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge was a near-perfect mirror image of the pattern on the eastern side.
• The mirror-symmetric pattern provided independent confirmation of the theory that new seafloor is created at mid-ocean ridges and spreads outward.

The student wants to introduce Pitman's finding to an audience already familiar with the theory of seafloor spreading. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to achieve this goal?

While preparing a profile of an engineer, a student took the following notes:

• Maria Ramos designs prosthetic hands for children.
• Ramos's prosthetic hands use 3D-printed plastic rather than the metal alloys used in traditional designs.
• A traditional metal prosthetic hand costs approximately $20,000.-Ramo{s}^{\prime }s3D-printedhandscostroughly$50 in materials.
• Ramos donates her designs as open-source files anyone can download and print.

The student wants to emphasize the affordability of Ramos's design. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to achieve this goal?

While researching pollinator-dependent plants in Mexico, a student took the following notes:

• Botanist Idris Adekoya studied agave plants in northern Mexico for 12 years.
• Adekoya's central hypothesis was that agave seed production depends on a specific moth species that visits the flowers at night.
• During the study period, local populations of the moth declined by roughly 60 percent.
• Across Adekoya's study sites, agave seed yields dropped by approximately 40 percent over the same period.

The student wants to summarize the evidence that links the moth decline to the decline in agave seed yields. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to achieve this goal?

"Coral polyps build their stony skeletons from calcium carbonate dissolved in seawater. ____, as the ocean absorbs more atmospheric carbon dioxide and grows more acidic, the dissolved carbonate becomes less available, and corals build new skeleton more slowly."

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

"Most freshwater fish kept in home aquariums are descendants of wild populations that have been bred in captivity for many generations. ____, the common goldfish in a glass bowl traces its lineage back to a wild Chinese carp known as Carassius auratus, first domesticated more than a thousand years ago."

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

While researching the history of patchwork quilting in the United States, a student took the following notes:

• The pieced-quilt tradition in the United States emerged in the late 1700s.
• Early quilters used scraps of leftover fabric from clothing and household linens.
• 19th-century pattern books standardized many quilt block designs.
• The Log Cabin pattern was first published in a national pattern book in 1869.
• Contemporary quilters often purchase new fabric specifically designed and printed for piecing.

The student wants to generalize about how the quilt tradition has changed over time. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to achieve this goal?

"Reseeding native plants is essential for restoring a damaged grassland. ____, native seed can be expensive and is often in limited supply, which slows many restoration projects."

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

While studying a contemporary poet, a student took the following notes:

• Akari Sakamoto was born in Sapporo in 1936.
• Sakamoto wrote primarily in classical Japanese poetic forms.
• Her best-known collection, Reed Light, was published in 1968.
• Reed Light contains 110 tanka, a traditional five-line Japanese poem form.

The student wants to introduce Reed Light to an audience unfamiliar with Sakamoto's work. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to achieve this goal?

"Many natural-history museums have begun digitizing their insect collections, making the specimens accessible to researchers worldwide. ____, the high-resolution images often capture details too small or too fragile to study directly under a microscope, opening forms of analysis that handling the physical specimens cannot."

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

"Solar panels generate the most electricity in midday sun, when irradiance is at its peak. ____, household electricity demand typically peaks in the early evening, when panels produce far less. The mismatch is one of the central problems that residential battery-storage systems are designed to solve."

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

"Honeybees use specific movement patterns to communicate the direction and distance of food sources to other workers. ____, the well-studied waggle dance encodes both the angle relative to the sun and the approximate distance to a target."

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

While researching urban beekeeping, a student took the following notes:

• Urban beehives have become more common in cities since 2010.
• Honey from urban hives often contains distinct floral signatures.
• Researcher Anya Patel analyzed 200 urban hives across 12 cities.
• Patel's main finding was that urban honey shows greater floral diversity than rural honey on average.

The student wants to emphasize a result of Patel's research. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to achieve this goal?