Question ID 5c38a6d5

Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Words in Context Hard

ID: 5c38a6d5
In studying the use of external stimuli to reduce the itching sensation caused by an allergic histamine
response, Louise Ward and colleagues found that while harmless applications of vibration or warming can
provide a temporary distraction, such ______ stimuli actually offer less relief than a stimulus that seems less
benign, like a mild electric shock.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. deceptive

B. innocuous

C. novel

D. impractical
Question ID 4165e701
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Words in Context Hard

ID: 4165e701
Given that the conditions in binary star systems should make planetary formation nearly impossible, it’s not
surprising that the existence of planets in such systems has lacked ______ explanation. Roman Rafikov and
Kedron Silsbee shed light on the subject when they used modeling to determine a complex set of factors that
could support planets’ development.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. a discernible

B. a straightforward

C. an inconclusive

D. an unbiased
Question ID 841a15d0
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Cross-Text Hard

Connections

ID: 841a15d0

Text 1
Films and television shows commonly include a long list of credits naming the people involved in a
production. Credit sequences may not be exciting, but they generally ensure that everyone’s contributions are
duly acknowledged. Because they are highly standardized, film and television credits are also valuable to
anyone researching the careers of pioneering cast and crew members who have worked in the mediums.

Text 2
Video game scholars face a major challenge in the industry’s failure to consistently credit the artists,
designers, and other contributors involved in making video games. Without a reliable record of which people
worked on which games, questions about the medium’s development can be difficult to answer, and the
accomplishments of all but its best-known innovators can be difficult to trace.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 1 most likely respond to the discussion in Text 2?
A. By recommending that the scholars mentioned in Text 2 consider employing the methods regularly used
by film and television researchers

B. By pointing out that credits have a different intended purpose in film and television than in the medium
addressed by the scholars mentioned in Text 2

C. By suggesting that the scholars mentioned in Text 2 rely more heavily on credits as a source of
information than film and television researchers do

D. By observing that a widespread practice in film and television largely prevents the kind of problem faced
by the scholars mentioned in Text 2
Question ID 123cf5db
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Words in Context Hard

ID: 123cf5db
The work of Kiowa painter T.C. Cannon derives its power in part from the tension among his ______
influences: classic European portraiture, with its realistic treatment of faces; the American pop art
movement, with its vivid colors; and flatstyle, the intertribal painting style that rejects the effect of depth
typically achieved through shading and perspective.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A. complementary

B. unknown

C. disparate

D. interchangeable
Question ID 64506024
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and Hard
Purpose

ID: 64506024
Individual elephants and Arctic herbivores such as caribou tend to have fixed geographic ranges throughout
their lifetimes, which had prompted some researchers to speculate that the Arctic woolly mammoth, an
extinct elephantid, might have exhibited similar behavior. Mammoth tusks grew in sequential layers,
incorporating ingested minerals and organics, and so each ivory stratum reflects the ratio of strontium
isotopes (87Sr/86Sr) in the local environment; thus, the sequence of strata shows where the animal roamed
during life. Recent analysis of the strontium ratios in the strata of one Arctic woolly mammoth tusk in relation
to the geographic distribution of strontium ratios in the environment shows the animal’s range begin to
expand as it reached sexual maturity, only to contract again in its final 1.5 years.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined statement in the text as a whole?
A. It discusses a characteristic shared by certain animals in order to explain why researchers raised a
possibility that turned out not to be supported by data described later in the text.

B. It illustrates a pattern of behavior among certain animals in order to present a theory about exceptions to
that pattern that is weakened by a finding described later in the text.

C. It describes a similarity in the behavior of certain animals in order to show why a method described later
in the text did not reveal whether another animal also showed that behavior.

D. It introduces a trait shared by certain animals in order to contextualize a hypothesis about the origin of
that trait that is advanced later in the text.
Question ID 5fcb69f9
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Words in Context Hard

ID: 5fcb69f9
Barring major archaeological discoveries, we are unlikely to ever have ______ account of ancient Egypt under
the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, as much of the evidence of her reign was deliberately destroyed by her
successors.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A. an imaginative

B. a superficial

C. an exhaustive

D. a questionable
Question ID 9c607676
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Cross-Text Hard

Connections

ID: 9c607676
Text 1
Growth in the use of novel nanohybrids—materials created from the conjugation of multiple distinct
nanomaterials, such as iron oxide and gold nanomaterials conjugated for use in magnetic imaging—has
outpaced studies of nanohybrids’ environmental risks. Unfortunately, risk evaluations based on nanohybrids’
constituents are not reliable: conjugation may alter constituents’ physiochemical properties such that
innocuous nanomaterials form a nanohybrid that is anything but.
Text 2
The potential for enhanced toxicity of nanohybrids relative to the toxicity of constituent nanomaterials has
drawn deserved attention, but the effects of nanomaterial conjugation vary by case. For instance, it was
recently shown that a nanohybrid of silicon dioxide and zinc oxide preserved the desired optical transparency
of zinc oxide nanoparticles while mitigating the nanoparticles’ potential to damage DNA.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the assertion in the underlined
portion of Text 1?
A. By concurring that the risk described in Text 1 should be evaluated but emphasizing that the risk is more
than offset by the potential benefits of nanomaterial conjugation

B. By arguing that the situation described in Text 1 may not be representative but conceding that the effects
of nanomaterial conjugation are harder to predict than researchers had expected

C. By denying that the circumstance described in Text 1 is likely to occur but acknowledging that many
aspects of nanomaterial conjugation are still poorly understood

D. By agreeing that the possibility described in Text 1 is a cause for concern but pointing out that
nanomaterial conjugation does not inevitably produce that result
Question ID d995ff9d
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and Hard
Purpose

ID: d995ff9d
Historians have argued that a crucial component of the Civil Rights Movement’s success in the 1960s was
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Citizen Education Program (CEP), which invited promising
activists from across the South to its one-week training sessions in Dorchester, Georgia. Led by experienced
organizers such as Dorothy Cotton and Septima Clark, CEP attendees—more than 7,000 in all—participated in
workshops on topics ranging from public speaking to legal doctrine before returning home and using their
newly acquired knowledge to spearhead local civil rights initiatives.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
A. It underscores the extent of the CEP’s impact on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

B. It illustrates the CEP organizers’ efforts to educate participants on a wide variety of topics.

C. It suggests that CEP attendees held a diverse array of opinions about the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference’s political philosophy.

D. It establishes that criticism of the CEP was limited to a few individuals in the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference.
Question ID a84b11c2
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Words in Context Hard

ID: a84b11c2
Some scientists have suggested that mammals in the Mesozoic era were not a very ______ group, but
paleontologist Zhe-Xi Luo’s research suggests that early mammals living in the shadow of dinosaurs weren’t
all ground-dwelling insectivores. Fossils of various plant-eating mammals have been found in China,
including species like Vilevolodon diplomylos, which Luo says could glide like a flying squirrel.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A. predatory

B. obscure

C. diverse

D. localized
Question ID f2e39001
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Words in Context Hard

ID: f2e39001
Scholarly discussions of gender in Shakespeare’s comedies often celebrate the rebellion of the playwright’s
characters against the rigid expectations ______ by Elizabethan society. Most of the comedies end in
marriage, with characters returning to their socially dictated gender roles after previously defying them, but
there are some notable exceptions.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A. interjected

B. committed

C. illustrated

D. prescribed