20 questions · Shuffled order · Progress saved locally when available
Covers topics across Information and Ideas.
The four areas are interleaved. Identify the task before solving, note confidence, and check explanations after completing the set. This is a skills assessment, not an official adaptive module.
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The four areas are interleaved, so identify the task before solving. Choose one answer per item and note confidence. If you use a timer, record elapsed time without converting this score into an SAT score.
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Question 1
Guide question C01
Transfer
A hypothetical walking-map project removed small alleys from its first digital map to make major routes easier to follow. Test users located main streets more quickly on that version than on a detailed map. Some users, however, overlooked shorter routes that depended on the omitted alleys. The designers kept the simplified display but added a button revealing minor paths. They concluded that reducing detail can help users orient themselves, provided that useful information remains accessible when a task requires it.
Which choice best states the central idea of the text?
Why this answer
Central idea: identify a qualified assessment
Correct choice: Simplifying a map can improve orientation, but users may still need access to omitted details.
B preserves the benefit, the limitation, and the designers' response. Simplification helped users locate major streets, but the hidden alleys could matter for route choice. Optional detail addresses that tradeoff.
A: The text shows a benefit to a simplified display; it does not recommend showing all details continuously.
C: Some users overlooked shorter routes, but the text does not establish a general preference for longer routes.
D: The designers retained the simplified display and made detail optional, preserving its benefit.
If you missed it: For an assessment passage, include both the demonstrated advantage and the condition that limits it.
Nora had prepared answers for the questions her father would ask about her months away. At the door, however, he said nothing about the city. He lifted her suitcase and tested its broken handle. "I kept the spare fitting," he said. "It should hold this time." Nora remained in her coat while he worked. When he set the repaired case beside her old chair, she took off the coat and draped it over the chair's back.
What does the text most strongly suggest about Nora?
Why this answer
Inference: interpret a character through a change in behavior
Correct choice: Her father's practical gesture appears to help her feel more at ease in his home.
D connects Nora's initial preparation for questioning and reluctance to remove her coat with her later removing it. Her father's repair and placement of the case beside her old chair appear welcoming. The text supports increased ease without specifying the history behind her initial concern.
A: Removing her coat and draping it over her old chair suggest settling in, not preparing for immediate departure.
B: The text provides no information about her finances or primary reason for returning.
C: Preparing answers does not establish that she wanted to be questioned, and her later behavior does not show disappointment.
If you missed it: Compare the character's behavior before and after the key gesture. Infer the smallest emotional change that explains that shift.
In a hypothetical animal-learning study, birds were trained to choose a pair of objects that matched in shape rather than a pair that matched only in color. Pair positions were randomized throughout training and testing. The birds became highly accurate with the training objects. Researchers proposed that the birds had learned the shape-matching relation, rather than merely learning which particular familiar objects were rewarded.
Which finding, if true, would most strongly support the researchers' proposal?
Why this answer
Textual evidence: distinguish a learned rule from familiar examples
Correct choice: With unfamiliar shapes and colors, the birds still chose shape-matching pairs well above chance.
A tests whether the learned behavior transfers to examples that cannot be selected simply because the particular objects are familiar. Successful choices with new shapes and colors support learning a relation. Randomized positions also make a fixed-side response an inadequate explanation.
B: Slower presentation of familiar objects does not distinguish a relational rule from memory for those objects.
C: A preference for familiar rewarded objects is compatible with learning particular objects and does not establish a general matching rule.
D: Improvement on the same training items can occur through memorization. The crucial issue is transfer to new examples.
If you missed it: If a claim concerns a general rule, seek a test using new examples while preserving the rule to be applied.
In a hypothetical bus study, researchers sampled trips on two routes before and after a schedule revision. The overall percentage of sampled trips arriving on time fell from 86% to 64%, even though the on-time percentage increased within each route. The researchers warned that the sample's route composition had changed.
Sampled bus trips by route and period
Route and period
Trips sampled
On time (%)
A: before
90
90
B: before
10
50
A: after
10
100
B: after
90
60
Hypothetical data; on-time percentages apply within each row.
Which observation from the table best explains how the overall decline could occur?
Why this answer
Quantitative evidence: explain an aggregate reversal
Correct choice: Route B had the lower on-time percentage in both periods and represented a much larger share of the later sample.
C identifies the weighting change. The later sample was dominated by Route B, the lower-performing route. Before: 90 x 0.90 + 10 x 0.50 = 86 on-time trips out of 100. After: 10 x 1.00 + 90 x 0.60 = 64. Improving subgroup rates can coexist with a declining overall rate when subgroup shares change.
A: The equal 10-point gains are accurate, but they do not explain why the overall rate declined. The explanation requires the changed numbers of trips from each route.
B: This accurately restates the overall decline with equal sample totals, but it does not explain how that decline coexists with improved rates within each route.
D: The unchanged 40-point gap is accurate, but it does not by itself explain the aggregate reversal; the changed route shares do.
If you missed it: Before using an overall rate to describe each group, compare both the group rates and the numbers contributing to the total.
A potter attempting to reproduce a historical blue glaze first used a carefully reconstructed recipe. The results were more uniform than the surviving bowls, which varied from pale gray-blue to deep cobalt. Records of the original kiln suggested that temperatures had differed considerably across its interior. When the potter varied firing conditions while keeping the recipe fixed, the range of colors came closer to that of the old bowls. She concluded that a faithful reconstruction should account for the original process's variation, not just identify a single ideal mixture.
Which choice best states the central idea of the text?
Why this answer
Central idea: integrate a failed approach and a revised explanation
Correct choice: Reproducing the historical glaze required attention to variable firing conditions as well as its ingredients.
D explains why reproducing the recipe alone was insufficient and how changing the process improved the match. The outcome depends on both ingredients and firing conditions, with variation itself part of the historical result.
A: The potter kept the recipe fixed in the later trials. The original uniformity did not show that the recipe could produce only one color under every condition.
B: The text identifies differing kiln conditions, not documented deliberate use of different recipes.
C: Varying firing conditions brought the colors closer to the historical range, so the passage does not establish impossibility.
If you missed it: Track what remained constant and what changed between attempts; use that relationship to explain the passage's conclusion.
In a hypothetical forest study, researchers found that the proportion of pine pollen in a small pond's sediment increased after a road was built nearby. A survey of trees around the pond found no corresponding increase in local pines. Pine pollen can travel long distances in air, and the road opening changed airflow into the pond. The researchers therefore treated the pollen increase cautiously when reconstructing changes in the forest immediately surrounding the pond.
Which inference is most strongly supported by the text?
Why this answer
Inference: distinguish a local population from a transported signal
Correct choice: A change in pollen transport could produce a stronger pine signal without a corresponding increase in nearby pine trees.
A integrates the stable local tree count, the ability of pollen to travel, and the airflow change. Together they show why a stronger sediment signal need not represent local population growth. Transport is a supported possibility, not a proven exclusive cause.
B: A survey around the pond does not establish tree-population changes throughout the wider region that can supply airborne pollen.
C: A proportion can rise because other pollen becomes less abundant, even without a larger absolute quantity of pine pollen. The text reports a proportion, not an absolute quantity.
D: Changed airflow supplies a plausible transport explanation, but it does not establish an exclusive cause or rule out changes in other pollen inputs.
If you missed it: Ask whether a measured trace is produced only at the location being studied or can arrive from elsewhere.
A student analyzes an original story about Tomas, a retired mechanic who has begun visiting a bicycle workshop. The student argues that a concrete responsibility draws Tomas into the workshop more effectively than general appreciation does. The student needs evidence of Tomas's differing responses, rather than merely a statement that he is skilled or respected.
Which quotation would best support the student's interpretation?
Why this answer
Textual evidence: select a quotation that supports a comparative interpretation
Correct choice: "At their applause he reached for his coat; asked to teach the next volunteer, he pulled his chair back to the bench."
C places the two responses side by side: praise is followed by preparing to leave, whereas being given a teaching role is followed by renewed participation. That contrast directly supports the student's claim about what draws him in more effectively.
A: This quotation shows praise itself prompting further involvement. It does not provide the claimed contrast with a concrete responsibility.
B: Respect for his experience establishes neither his response to praise nor his response to being needed.
D: Careful work supports conscientiousness, but it does not compare the effects of appreciation and responsibility.
If you missed it: For a comparative interpretation, look for evidence showing both sides of the comparison, ideally through observable responses.
In a hypothetical experiment, the same participants completed an auditory task and a visual task in quiet conditions and during background noise. Task order was varied across participants. Researchers proposed that the noise primarily interfered with information needed for the auditory task, rather than producing a general disruption that reduced performance equally on both tasks.
Accuracy by task and sound condition
Hypothetical data; the same participants completed all conditions.
Which statement best uses the graph to support the proposed explanation?
Why this answer
Quantitative evidence: use a comparison task to evaluate an explanation
Correct choice: Auditory accuracy fell 30 percentage points during noise; visual accuracy remained unchanged.
B compares the change in each task: auditory accuracy fell from 90% to 60%, whereas visual accuracy stayed at 90%. That pattern fits interference specific to the auditory task better than the stated equal-disruption explanation. It does not rule out every possible alternative explanation.
A: Equal quiet-condition accuracy gives a useful baseline, but it does not by itself show how noise affected the two tasks.
C: During noise, auditory accuracy was lower, 60% versus 90%.
D: Only the auditory task showed a 30-point decline; the visual task showed none.
If you missed it: Use the comparison condition to test the proposed alternative, then compare changes instead of relying only on baseline similarity.
A historian initially inferred from a settlement's shop ledgers that linen was uncommon in local households. Household inventories, however, listed linen in many homes that rarely appeared in the ledgers as linen buyers. Some cloth could have arrived as gifts or been passed between households. The inventories therefore broaden the picture supplied by sales records, though they do not consistently record quantities and cannot establish whether linen was more widely used than locally produced wool.
Which choice best states the central idea of the text?
Why this answer
Central idea: preserve what new evidence changes and what it does not establish
Correct choice: Household records suggest that linen was more widespread than sales records alone imply, without establishing its predominance over wool.
A includes both the revision and its limit. Inventories reveal household linen that shop sales alone miss, but incomplete quantity records do not establish linen's dominance over wool. More evidence improves the inference without answering every question.
B: The inventories do not consistently record quantities, and possession is not the same as a recorded sale.
C: Gifts and transfers are possible routes, but the text does not establish which route supplied most linen.
D: An item's appearance in an inventory does not establish its relative value, and the text provides no such comparison.
If you missed it: Write two notes: what the new evidence permits and what the passage says remains unknown. Preserve both in the main idea.
In a hypothetical feeding trial, seed-eating birds could choose between trays containing equal amounts of the same food. In one comparison, they visited a tray beside low shrubs more often than a tray in open ground. In another, they visited an open-ground tray more often than a tray beside very dense shrubs. The researchers had not measured predator activity or the birds' ability to see approaching predators at either type of shrub.
Which inference is most strongly supported by the text?
Why this answer
Inference: avoid replacing a nonmonotonic pattern with a simple rule
Correct choice: The presence of nearby vegetation alone is insufficient to predict which tray the birds would prefer.
C follows from the opposite preferences in the two comparisons. Nearby low shrubs were associated with greater use, but nearby dense shrubs were associated with less use. Simply classifying a tray as near vegetation does not capture the relevant distinction.
A: Predator activity was not measured. It is a possible explanation, not an established finding.
B: Birds preferred the low-shrub tray to open ground in the first comparison.
D: The trays contained equal amounts of the same food; the passage does not support a food-availability explanation.
If you missed it: Check a proposed general rule against every comparison. One condition may reverse a pattern observed in another.
In a hypothetical stargazing course, organizers added explanatory videos to a weekly newsletter. The average score on an optional quiz was higher after the videos were introduced. Organizers concluded that the videos improved subscribers' understanding. A reviewer noted that the quiz average described whoever chose to answer, rather than a fixed group of subscribers.
Which finding, if true, would most weaken the organizers' conclusion?
Why this answer
Textual evidence: weaken a causal conclusion with a selection explanation
Correct choice: Scores did not improve among repeat quiz takers, while previously low-scoring subscribers became less likely to submit answers.
B supplies an alternative explanation for the higher average: the responding group lost more low-scoring members, while the same individuals did not show improvement. This directly weakens the claim that the aggregate rise demonstrates improved understanding caused by the videos. It does not prove that nobody benefited.
A: Enjoyment is not the same as learning. This finding neither explains away the score increase nor shows that comprehension failed to improve.
C: Covering the same subjects does not prevent videos from improving understanding or establish a selection effect.
D: Device access alone does not show whether learning or response composition changed.
If you missed it: For a before-and-after average from voluntary responses, check whether the same kinds of people contributed in both periods.
In a hypothetical algae experiment, researchers increased the light intensity and tracked both a fluorescence signal and a direct cell count. Each measure was converted to an index with its own starting value set to 100. A student interpreted the decline in fluorescence as evidence that the algae population had decreased. The researchers warned that light conditions can alter fluorescence per cell.
Algae measurements after a light change
Hypothetical data; each measure is indexed to its own starting value.
Which observation from the graph most directly supports the researchers' warning?
Why this answer
Quantitative evidence: distinguish a proxy signal from the target quantity
Correct choice: The fluorescence index fell to 60 while the cell-count index remained at 100.
D shows a change in the signal without a corresponding change in counted cells. Because each measure is indexed to its own starting value, the graph supports a 40% fluorescence decline with no measured population decline. A signal used to estimate abundance can also respond to conditions affecting signal strength per cell.
A: Setting two starting values to 100 standardizes their scales. It does not make their underlying physical quantities identical.
B: A stable fluorescence signal alone cannot prove population stability. The separate cell count is the relevant direct measurement.
C: The cell-count index did not fall; it remained at 100 throughout.
If you missed it: Identify which measure directly represents the claim's target and which is an indirect signal. Compare their changes separately.
After his daughter moved her tools to another studio, Arun found the worktable enormous. He reached for a ruler that was no longer there, then noticed the shallow groove it had worn in the wood. Beside it ran the crooked cut from their first attempt at a picture frame. He traced the cut and remembered how fiercely they had argued over the corners. The empty table still troubled him, but he stopped considering sanding it smooth.
Which choice best states the central idea of the text?
Why this answer
Central idea in literary prose: track a partial change in perspective
Correct choice: Arun begins to value the table's marks as reminders of shared work, even while feeling his daughter's absence.
C integrates the continuing discomfort and the change in Arun's view of the marks. The grooves and cut recall shared activity; deciding against sanding preserves those reminders. The passage does not claim that memory removes his sadness.
A: The table's size initially emphasizes absence. The text does not describe a plan to improve his independent work.
B: Arun stops considering sanding the table. He preserves the marks rather than treating their removal as a remedy.
D: Recalling an argument does not establish that he judges their work negatively overall; he chooses to retain its visible traces.
If you missed it: Track the final decision, then ask what earlier details give it meaning. Preserve any feeling that remains unresolved.
Two researchers assess a hypothetical stream-restoration project. Both agree that water clarity improved and that the number of native fish species remained unchanged during the study. One calls the project successful because reducing suspended sediment was its stated first-stage goal. The other withholds that judgment because she uses increased native-species diversity as her standard for ecological recovery. Neither disputes the recorded measurements.
Which inference is most strongly supported by the text?
Why this answer
Inference: separate evaluative criteria from disputed observations
Correct choice: Different standards of success can explain their judgments despite agreement on the measurements.
B explains how the judgments differ without inventing a factual disagreement. One standard concerns the stated first-stage sediment goal; the other concerns a broader biodiversity outcome. The same observations can satisfy one standard without satisfying another.
A: The text explicitly states that neither researcher disputes the measurements.
C: No later increase is established, and the passage does not assert that clarity guarantees increased diversity.
D: They reviewed and accepted the same measurements but used different standards: the first-stage sediment goal versus increased native-species diversity.
If you missed it: List the agreed observations separately from the standard each person uses to evaluate them.
In a hypothetical music study, regular duet partners became increasingly accurate at anticipating one another's entrances. A researcher proposed that familiarity with a particular partner's performance cues contributed to this improvement. An alternative explanation was that the musicians' general timing skills had improved, which should also help them anticipate other performers. The researcher designed a test using short recordings of the same melody, performed by familiar and unfamiliar musicians.
Which finding would most strongly support a contribution from partner-specific familiarity?
Why this answer
Textual evidence: distinguish partner-specific learning from general skill
Correct choice: The musicians predicted entrances more accurately in their partners' recordings than in the unfamiliar performers' recordings.
D directly compares anticipation of familiar and unfamiliar performers on the same musical material. A familiar-partner advantage supports an effect of partner-specific information beyond a general timing improvement that should help across performers. It does not rule out a contribution from general skill.
A: Improvement on solo timing and unfamiliar performers supports a general-skill contribution. Without a familiar-partner comparison, it does not establish an additional partner-specific benefit.
B: Enjoyment and satisfaction do not measure anticipation accuracy. They cannot show that partner-specific cues contributed to the improvement.
C: Matching those musical features makes a comparison more informative, but without an accuracy difference it does not show a familiarity advantage.
If you missed it: When two explanations predict general improvement, seek a comparison on which their predictions differ.
In a hypothetical habitat survey, an active nesting site contained exactly one breeding pair of the studied bird species. After a habitat-expansion project, researchers counted both available sites and sites occupied by breeding pairs. A report noted that the fraction of available sites occupied had fallen. A reader concluded that fewer pairs must therefore have been nesting in the surveyed habitat.
Available and occupied nesting sites
Survey
Available sites
Occupied sites
Before expansion
100
80
After expansion
200
120
Hypothetical data; each occupied site contained one breeding pair.
Which statement best uses the table to evaluate the reader's conclusion?
Why this answer
Quantitative evidence: distinguish a declining fraction from a declining count
Correct choice: The conclusion is unsupported: occupied sites increased from 80 to 120 even though their share of available sites fell.
A distinguishes count from fraction. Occupancy declined from 80/100 = 80% to 120/200 = 60%, but the number of occupied sites, and therefore breeding pairs under the stated definition, increased by 40. The denominator grew faster than the numerator.
B: A percentage can fall while its numerator rises when the denominator grows more rapidly.
C: The direction is reversed: occupancy fell from 80% to 60%.
D: Unoccupied sites increased from 20 to 80. That increase also does not establish fewer occupied sites.
If you missed it: Write the numerator and denominator for each percentage. Compare the numerator directly when the claim concerns a number of individuals.
A planning team proposed placing new benches only along streets with the highest pedestrian counts. Interviews with residents complicated that plan. Several people with limited walking endurance avoided otherwise useful routes because those routes had no places to rest. Their absence from the pedestrian counts could therefore conceal demand for seating. The team retained pedestrian counts as one source of information but also asked which new benches would make previously difficult trips possible.
Which choice best states the central idea of the text?
Why this answer
Central idea: include demand that current behavior may conceal
Correct choice: Bench planning can account for both observed foot traffic and trips that missing seating currently discourages.
B captures the planning revision and its reason. Existing counts reveal present use, while interviews identify use that missing seating may prevent. The team combines the sources rather than discarding one.
A: The text shows a relevant limitation of counts alone and explains how interviews reveal an unmet need.
C: The team explicitly retains pedestrian counts. Their limitation does not make them useless.
D: The passage refers to walking endurance and route features, not a measured comparison between age and route effects.
If you missed it: Ask whether observed use can omit people prevented from using the resource. Include both current activity and the barrier identified.
When Mara announced the fellowship, Isha was first to raise her glass. She asked for the departure date and offered to water Mara's plants. At home, Isha found last year's unfinished application beneath a stack of bills. She had called its deadline unreasonable, though she had known about it for months. She opened the new application. Mara's message arrived: "Still can't believe it." Isha typed, "You earned it," then began the first paragraph of her own statement.
Which inference about Isha is most strongly supported by the text?
Why this answer
Inference in literary prose: integrate support for another person with renewed ambition
Correct choice: Mara's success appears to renew Isha's pursuit of a deferred ambition while Isha continues to support her friend.
A joins Isha's supportive actions with her reconsideration of an unfinished application and decision to begin again. The deadline detail suggests that the earlier delay cannot be explained simply by an unreasonable deadline. The passage does not require choosing between friendship and personal ambition.
B: Isha's actions show support and renewed effort, but no detail suggests that she thinks Mara's award reduces her own chances.
C: The narration contrasts the deadline complaint with the months of notice. It does not show Isha continuing to blame other people or demanding circumstances.
D: Last year's application establishes that the ambition preceded Mara's award. Nothing states that applying would allow Isha to accompany her.
If you missed it: Combine the character's actions toward others with the private action at the end. Do not assume one motive must cancel another.
In a hypothetical plant survey, shrubs in dry sites had smaller leaves than shrubs of the same species in wetter sites. A botanist proposed that inherited differences between the populations were the main cause of the observed leaf-size difference. Another researcher suggested that the shrubs might instead develop different-sized leaves in response to their current growing conditions.
Which finding, if true, would most weaken the botanist's proposal?
Why this answer
Textual evidence: distinguish inherited differences from environmental responses
Correct choice: Cuttings from both populations developed similar-sized leaves under shared conditions, with smaller leaves developing in both groups when watering was reduced.
C directly tests both explanations. The population difference disappears under shared conditions, and changing water availability produces the relevant size change in both groups. That pattern weakens the claim that inherited population differences mainly caused the original contrast, while supporting a response to current conditions.
A: A persistent site difference can arise from either persistent environmental conditions or inherited differences. It does not distinguish them.
B: A water-loss advantage could help explain why small leaves are useful, but usefulness does not establish whether the observed size difference is inherited or environmentally induced.
D: Limited seed movement could permit inherited differences to persist; it does not weaken that explanation by showing how leaf size responds.
If you missed it: Distinguish evidence that a trait is useful from evidence about why groups differ in that trait. A shared-environment comparison helps test the latter.
In a hypothetical ceramics experiment, researchers tested three glazes under rapid and slow cooling. Each condition contained the same number of otherwise comparable samples. They recorded the percentage of samples that cracked. They wanted to distinguish the glaze with the largest improvement under slow cooling from the glaze or glazes with the lowest final cracking percentage.
Samples cracked after cooling
Hypothetical data; equal numbers of samples in all six conditions.
Which statement best uses the graph to make that distinction?
Why this answer
Quantitative evidence: separate improvement size from final performance
Correct choice: Glaze B had the largest percentage-point reduction, but its slow-cooling cracking percentage remained higher than those of Glazes A and C.
D compares the changes and endpoints separately. A fell by 20 percentage points, B by 30, and C by 10. B improved most in percentage points, but its final 30% cracking rate was higher than the 20% rate for both A and C.
A: B had the largest reduction but not the lowest final cracking percentage.
B: Both A, from 40% to 20%, and B, from 60% to 30%, were reduced by half.
C: The same endpoint does not imply the same change. A began at 40% and C at 30%, so their declines were 20 and 10 points.
If you missed it: For each group, record its starting value, ending value, and difference. Keep percentage-point change separate from proportional change.