SAT Practice Tests

Question 1

Reef-building corals depend on microscopic algae that live inside their tissues. The relationship between the two organisms is _____: the algae supply the coral with sugars produced through photosynthesis, and the coral provides the algae with shelter and the nutrients they need.

1. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase? (A) hierarchical (B) incidental (C) reciprocal (D) adversarial

Question 2

The following text is from an original short story written for this practice test. Imani, a teenager, is helping her grandfather close his hardware store for the last time.

Imani had expected her grandfather to linger over every shelf, telling stories about each dusty item. Instead, he was _____ about the task, sweeping, stacking, and labeling boxes without pausing, as if the store were someone else’s and he had merely been hired to empty it.

1. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase? (A) nostalgic (B) hesitant (C) businesslike (D) careless

Question 3

In woodcut printing, ink is rolled onto the raised surface of a carved block and then pressed onto paper. Because the fine ridges of a block wear down slightly with every impression, printmakers seeking consistent quality often chose to _____ their editions, stopping after a few dozen prints rather than letting the details blur.

1. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase? (A) expand (B) standardize (C) publicize (D) restrict

Question 4

A nudge, in behavioral economics, is a change in how choices are presented—such as making enrollment in a retirement savings plan the default option—that steers behavior without eliminating any options. Economists have been far from _____ in their assessment of nudges: some credit defaults with dramatically raising savings rates, while others warn that such interventions can shape people’s decisions without their awareness.

1. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase? (A) unanimous (B) equivocal (C) circumspect (D) perfunctory

Question 5

In 1783, the French brothers Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier, who ran a paper-making business, were developing a balloon lifted by hot air. No one knew whether a living creature could survive high in the air, so in September of that year the brothers sent up a sheep, a duck, and a rooster in a basket beneath one of their balloons. The animals landed safely, and two months later, two men made the first crewed free flight in a Montgolfier balloon over Paris.

1. Which choice best states the main purpose of the text? (A) To explain how the Montgolfier brothers’ paper-making business funded their balloon experiments in 1783 (B) To compare the Montgolfier brothers’ hot-air balloon with balloons built by rival French inventors (C) To explain why the Montgolfier brothers chose a sheep, a duck, and a rooster for their experiment (D) To describe an animal test that preceded the first crewed flight in a Montgolfier balloon

Question 6

Long before writing appeared in Mesopotamia, people there used small clay tokens of different shapes to keep track of goods such as grain and sheep. To guarantee that a shipment matched an agreement, tokens were sometimes sealed inside hollow clay balls known as envelopes. Because the tokens could not be checked without breaking the envelope, people began pressing the tokens into the envelope’s soft outer surface before sealing it, leaving marks that showed what was inside. Some researchers have argued that such marks eventually made the tokens themselves unnecessary—a development that may have helped lead to writing on flat clay tablets.

1. Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text? (A) It presents a theory about the origin of writing in Mesopotamia and then offers archaeological evidence that disproves that theory. (B) It compares two ancient methods of keeping track of goods and then argues that one method was more reliable than the other. (C) It describes a record-keeping practice, explains a change made to it, and presents a view about what that change may have led to. (D) It explains why tokens were sealed inside clay envelopes and then argues that this practice made written records on tablets unnecessary.

Question 7

The following text is from an original poem written for this practice test. The speaker describes her grandmother’s garden in winter.

All winter the garden keeps its own counsel.
The bean poles lean like unlit candles,
the rows lie buried under a plain white page,
and nothing, it seems, is happening at all.
But my grandmother walks out each morning anyway,
presses her palm to the frozen ground
as if taking the pulse of a sleeping child,
and comes back in smiling, sure of what she felt.

1. Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole? (A) It reveals the grandmother’s fear that the garden has died during the winter, a fear the final line confirms. (B) It sums up the impression created by the preceding images, which the rest of the poem then challenges. (C) It raises a question about the garden’s condition that the speaker leaves unresolved at the end of the poem. (D) It confirms the speaker’s final conclusion that the garden, despite the grandmother’s hopes, will not grow again.

Question 8

Cities are often several degrees warmer than surrounding rural areas, in part because dark surfaces such as asphalt roofs absorb sunlight. Many urban planners therefore favor “cool roofs”—roofs coated with highly reflective materials. Because roofs can make up a large share of a city’s surface area, some advocates argue that converting roofs is the single most effective step a city can take to reduce heat for its residents.

A team of climate researchers modeling several cities found that cool roofs did lower air temperatures, but mostly at rooftop level and mostly during the afternoon. The heat most dangerous to residents, the team noted, often builds at street level in the evening, when pavement and building walls release warmth absorbed during the day. Street trees, which shade pavement and cool the air through evaporation, reduced that street-level heat more than roofs did in the team’s models.

1. Based on the texts, how would the team in Text 2 most likely respond to the underlined claim in Text 1? (A) By agreeing that cool roofs are the most effective strategy, provided they are installed on most of a city’s buildings rather than a few (B) By agreeing that roofs make up a large share of a city’s surface but denying that reflective coatings lower rooftop temperatures (C) By noting that cool roofs are most effective in the evening, when the heat that most endangers residents builds at street level (D) By arguing that the claim overlooks street-level heat, which trees reduced more effectively than cool roofs did

Question 9

In jazz, “trading fours” is a practice in which soloists take turns improvising in short segments, typically four measures each, often alternating with the drummer. Because each segment is so brief, a player has little time to develop an idea independently; instead, musicians frequently pick up a rhythm or melodic fragment that the previous player introduced and transform it in their own turn. As a result, a successful exchange can sound less like a series of separate solos than like a conversation in which each statement answers the one before it.

1. Which choice best states the main idea of the text? (A) Trading fours leads jazz musicians to pick up and build on one another’s ideas, making the exchange resemble a conversation. (B) Trading fours was developed mainly to give drummers more chances to solo than other jazz formats typically allow them. (C) Jazz soloists generally prefer long improvisations because four-measure segments leave too little time to be creative. (D) Because each segment is so brief, trading fours is a less demanding form of improvisation than an extended solo.

Question 10

The following text is from an original short story written for this practice test. Tomas is waiting at a small airfield to take his first flying lesson.

Tomas arrived at the airfield an hour early and spent the time walking around the little yellow plane, reading the instructor’s checklist twice and memorizing the position of every gauge. When the instructor finally arrived, she laughed and said that most students showed up late for their first lesson, too nervous to hurry. Tomas only nodded; he did not tell her that he had been awake since four o’clock, too excited to sleep.

1. According to the text, what is true about Tomas? (A) He prepared carefully for his lesson because he was eager to begin. (B) He arrived late for his lesson because he was too nervous to hurry. (C) He had flown the little yellow plane several times before his first lesson. (D) He was annoyed that the instructor laughed at him for arriving early.

Question 11

A team of ecologists grew wheat seedlings in soil collected from fields that had experienced either frequent droughts or regular rainfall over the previous decade. When all the seedlings were then deprived of water, those grown in soil from the drought-prone fields wilted less. The researchers claim that communities of soil microbes shaped by past droughts help plants tolerate new ones.

1. Which finding, if true, would most strongly support the researchers’ claim? (A) When the seedlings were watered normally throughout the experiment, those in both types of soil grew at about the same rate and reached similar final heights. (B) When soil from the drought-prone fields was sterilized before planting, seedlings grown in it wilted as much as those grown in soil from the rainy fields. (C) Soil from the drought-prone fields contained slightly less organic matter and slightly fewer earthworms than soil from the rainy fields. (D) Wheat varieties bred for dry climates wilted less than other varieties when grown in either type of soil, regardless of that soil’s history.

Question 12

In an original short story written for this practice test, the narrator describes Odile, a printmaker who works alone in a cramped studio. Throughout the story, the narrator suggests that Odile values the unexpected results of her craft more than technical perfection.

1. Which quotation from the story most effectively illustrates the narrator’s suggestion? (A) “Odile spent most mornings sharpening her gouges, testing each blade against her thumbnail until it was keen enough to satisfy her, and only then began to carve.” (B) “The neighbors never knew what Odile would print next; most days, she admitted, she did not know herself until the block was carved and inked.” (C) “She had learned the craft from her uncle, who insisted that every print in an edition match the first one exactly, down to the weight of the ink.” (D) “When a sheet came off the press with a smudge she hadn’t planned, Odile would study it for a moment and, more often than not, pin it to the wall.”

Question 13

Many public libraries now lend more than printed books. One city library system, for example, lends e-books and digital audiobooks and runs a “library of things” that lends tools and musical instruments. A librarian studying the system’s records concluded that although print books remained the most borrowed item type in 2023, borrowing of digital formats rose substantially between 2015 and 2023.

1. Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support the librarian’s conclusion? (A) Borrowing through the library of things rose from about 5 thousand items in 2015 to about 42 thousand in 2023, a larger proportional increase than for any other item type. (B) Print books had about 1,010 thousand loans in 2023, more than any other item type, while e-book loans rose from about 180 thousand to about 610 thousand. (C) E-books were borrowed more often than print books in 2023, with about 1,010 thousand e-book loans compared with only about 610 thousand print-book loans. (D) Digital audiobook borrowing fell from about 290 thousand in 2015 to about 60 thousand in 2023, even as e-book borrowing rose from about 180 thousand to about 610 thousand.

Question 14

Volunteers at a coastal stopover site suspected that more migrating songbirds land there after nights of fog or rain, when flying conditions are poor. To test this idea, a volunteer counted birds each morning during the spring migration and recorded the weather of the previous night. The data support the volunteers’ idea: on average, _____

1. Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the statement? (A) about 131 birds were counted after foggy nights, compared with only about 42 after clear nights. (B) about 42 birds were counted after foggy nights, compared with about 131 after clear nights. (C) about 118 birds were counted after clear nights, more than after any other type of night. (D) about 65 birds were counted after cloudy nights, which was more than after clear nights.

Question 15

The explosiveness of a volcanic eruption depends largely on how easily gas can escape from rising magma. Magma that is relatively low in silica is runny, so dissolved gases form bubbles that rise and escape with little resistance; eruptions of such magma, like many in Hawaii, typically produce flowing lava rather than violent blasts. Magma richer in silica is far more viscous, trapping bubbles until pressure builds. Volcanologists studying a volcano whose magma has grown steadily richer in silica over several centuries could therefore reasonably infer that _____

1. Which choice most logically completes the text? (A) the volcano will soon begin producing flowing lava like that of many Hawaiian eruptions. (B) the volcano’s magma has become less viscous over the same period. (C) future eruptions of the volcano may be more explosive than its earlier eruptions were. (D) the volcano’s magma now contains less gas than magma low in silica does.

Question 16

Many reef-building corals reproduce during mass spawning events, releasing eggs and sperm into the water on just a few nights each year. The timing of these events is closely linked to the lunar _____ in many regions, spawning occurs several nights after a full moon.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) cycle, (B) cycle (C) cycle; (D) cycle, therefore

Question 17

Scribes in ancient Mesopotamia counted using a base-60 number system, and traces of that system survive in everyday life _____ sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, and 360 degrees in a circle.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) today; (B) today, which (C) today (D) today:

Question 18

Harriet Quimby, who in 1911 became the first American woman to earn a pilot’s _____ flew across the English Channel the following year, becoming the first woman to do so.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) license, (B) license (C) license; (D) license—

Question 19

Community theaters rarely have the budgets of professional companies, and their productions are often assumed to suffer for it. Yet a troupe that rehearses in a borrowed school auditorium on weeknights and builds its sets from donated _____ not necessarily the lesser company: its members, who take on the work unpaid, often bring a commitment that audiences find hard to resist.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) lumber, is (B) lumber; is (C) lumber is (D) lumber—is

Question 20

Before many eruptions, the ground around a volcano swells slightly as magma rises beneath it. A network of instruments placed on the volcano’s slopes _____ these tiny changes in shape, sometimes giving scientists warning of an eruption days or weeks in advance.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) detect (B) detects (C) are detecting (D) have detected

Question 21

In 1731, Benjamin Franklin and a group of friends founded the Library Company of Philadelphia, a subscription library whose members paid dues so that they could pool their money to buy books. By the time the American colonies declared independence in 1776, the library _____ into one of the most important collections of books in the colonies.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) had grown (B) grows (C) will grow (D) is growing

Question 22

Modal jazz, which became influential in the late 1950s, asks improvisers to build melodies from a single scale for long stretches instead of navigating a new chord every beat or two. Built on scales, or modes, rather than on rapidly changing chords, _____

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) Miles Davis gave the soloists on his 1959 album Kind of Blue unusual freedom to explore a single harmonic idea. (B) Miles Davis’s 1959 album Kind of Blue gave its soloists unusual freedom to explore a single harmonic idea. (C) unusual freedom to explore a single harmonic idea was given to soloists on Miles Davis’s 1959 album Kind of Blue. (D) the soloists on Miles Davis’s 1959 album Kind of Blue were given unusual freedom to explore a single harmonic idea.

Question 23

Soil is home to an enormous number of microorganisms; a single handful of healthy soil can contain billions of bacteria. Many of these microbes perform services that are essential to plants. _____ many bacteria and fungi break down dead leaves and roots, releasing nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus that plants then absorb.

1. Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition? (A) However, (B) In conclusion, (C) For example, (D) Instead,

Question 24

When one company required new employees to fill out a form in order to join its retirement savings plan, fewer than half of them enrolled during their first year. _____ after the company began enrolling new employees automatically while allowing them to opt out, nearly all of them remained in the plan.

1. Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition? (A) By contrast, (B) Similarly, (C) For instance, (D) As a result,

Question 25

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• The bar-tailed godwit is a shorebird that breeds in Alaska.
• Each fall, many bar-tailed godwits fly from Alaska to New Zealand.
• The journey covers more than 11,000 kilometers.
• The birds make the journey without stopping to rest or feed.
• Before departing, godwits store large amounts of fat to fuel the flight.

1. The student wants to emphasize how far the bar-tailed godwit travels during its fall migration. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal? (A) Before departing Alaska each fall, bar-tailed godwits store large amounts of fat to fuel their flight. (B) The bar-tailed godwit is a shorebird that breeds in Alaska and stores fat before it departs each fall. (C) Bar-tailed godwits make their fall journey to New Zealand without stopping to rest or feed. (D) Each fall, bar-tailed godwits fly more than 11,000 kilometers nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand.

Question 26

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Printmaking techniques are often grouped according to how the printing surface holds ink.
• In relief printing, such as woodcut, the artist cuts away areas that should stay blank.
• Ink is then applied to the raised surface that remains.
• In intaglio printing, such as etching, lines are cut or bitten into a metal plate.
• Ink is pushed into these recessed lines, and the plate’s surface is wiped clean.
• Both methods can be used to produce many copies of the same image.

1. The student wants to emphasize a difference between relief printing and intaglio printing. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal? (A) Both relief printing and intaglio printing can be used to produce many copies of the same image. (B) In intaglio printing, such as etching, ink is pushed into recessed lines in a metal plate, and the plate’s surface is wiped clean. (C) Relief printing and intaglio printing are two of the groups into which printmaking techniques are sorted according to how the printing surface holds ink. (D) Whereas relief printing transfers ink from a raised surface, intaglio printing transfers ink held in lines recessed below the plate’s surface.

Question 27

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Playback theater is a form of improvised theater.
• It was developed in the United States in the 1970s.
• During a performance, audience members tell stories from their own lives.
• A team of actors and musicians then immediately acts out each story.
• Playback theater is often performed by community groups in schools, hospitals, and neighborhood centers.

1. The student wants to introduce playback theater to an audience unfamiliar with it. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal? (A) Playback theater is often performed by community groups in schools, hospitals, and neighborhood centers. (B) Playback theater is an improvised form in which actors immediately act out stories audience members tell about their own lives. (C) Playback theater was developed in the United States in the 1970s and is often performed in schools and hospitals. (D) During a playback performance, the team of actors and musicians acts out each story immediately after it is told.

Question 1 (harder Module 2)

In letters written to the historian Tacitus years after the event, Pliny the Younger described the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, which he had watched as a teenager from across the Bay of Naples. His account—noting the shape of the ash cloud, the darkness that fell at midday, and the shaking of the ground—was so _____ that modern volcanologists adopted the term “Plinian” for eruptions marked by towering columns of gas and ash like the one he described.

1. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase? (A) cursory (B) meticulous (C) equivocal (D) tangential

Question 2 (harder Module 2)

Healthy coral reefs are noisy places, filled with the crackle of snapping shrimp and the grunts and pops of fish. When researchers used underwater loudspeakers to play recordings of healthy reefs over patches of degraded reef, significantly more young fish settled on those patches than on silent ones. The findings suggest that sound is not _____ to reef recovery but may be integral to it, since larval fish drifting in open water appear to use it to locate places to settle.

1. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase? (A) indispensable (B) analogous (C) tangential (D) contemporaneous

Question 3 (harder Module 2)

The following text is from an original short story written for this practice test. Ruth, a retired nurse, has joined a community theater group.

No one in the group expected much from Ruth at the first read-through; she had signed up, she said, only to help paint scenery. But when the director asked her to fill in for an absent actor, she rose, held the script at arm’s length, and delivered the lines in a voice so clear and unhurried that the chatter in the room stopped at once. For someone who had never acted before, she commanded remarkable attention.

1. As used in the text, what does the word “commanded” most nearly mean? (A) ordered (B) attracted (C) supervised (D) deserved

Question 4 (harder Module 2)

In a reduction woodcut, an artist prints an entire multicolor edition from a single block. After printing the lightest color on every sheet, the artist carves away more of the block and prints the next color on top, repeating the process until the darkest color is printed. The technique is notably _____: because each stage of carving destroys the surface used for the previous one, earlier stages can never be recovered, and a mistake made late in the process can ruin every print in the edition.

1. Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase? (A) ephemeral (B) derivative (C) irreversible (D) rudimentary

Question 5 (harder Module 2)

Much of what is known about how scribes were trained in ancient Mesopotamia comes from the schools themselves. Known in Sumerian as “tablet houses,” these schools left behind thousands of exercise tablets, many showing a teacher’s model on one side and a student’s often shaky copy on the other. Such tablets reveal a course of study that advanced from single wedge-shaped signs to lists of words and eventually to the copying of literary works. Because exercise tablets were ordinarily discarded, some survive only because they were later reused as building material—an accident of preservation that has given historians an unusually intimate view of how literacy was passed from one generation to the next.

1. Which choice best states the main purpose of the text? (A) To trace the stages by which a student in a Mesopotamian scribal school progressed from single signs to literary works (B) To describe how the wedge-shaped signs used by Mesopotamian scribes were first developed and later simplified (C) To explain how surviving exercise tablets have given historians insight into scribal training in Mesopotamia (D) To suggest that historians have overestimated how many people in ancient Mesopotamia could read and write fluently

Question 6 (harder Module 2)

Utility companies have long tried to encourage energy conservation through appeals to cost savings or environmental responsibility. A widely studied alternative takes a different approach: home energy reports that compare a household’s electricity use with that of similar nearby households. Across many trials involving hundreds of thousands of households, such reports reduced consumption by about 2 percent on average—a modest effect, but one achieved at very low cost. Researchers noticed a complication, however. Households that learned they used less energy than their neighbors sometimes increased their consumption, as if drifting toward the norm. When reports sent to these efficient households included a simple smiling-face symbol signaling approval, the increase was largely prevented.

1. Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text? (A) It describes an approach to encouraging a behavior, notes its overall effect, identifies an unintended consequence of it, and explains how that consequence was addressed. (B) It presents a traditional approach to encouraging a behavior, argues that the approach has failed, and then recommends that it be abandoned in favor of a newer one. (C) It summarizes the findings of a series of studies on a behavioral intervention and then questions the reliability of the methods the researchers used to obtain them. (D) It describes an approach to encouraging a behavior, presents evidence that the approach is ineffective, and then proposes replacing it with a different one.

Question 7 (harder Module 2)

Jazz improvisation is often imagined as pure spontaneity, a musician inventing melodies out of nothing in the moment. Musicians who study the tradition describe something more complicated. Over years of practice, improvisers accumulate a large vocabulary of short melodic figures, sometimes called “licks,” along with a deep familiarity with how particular chord progressions tend to unfold. In performance, they draw on this vocabulary, varying, combining, and reshaping familiar material in response to what the other members of the band are playing. The result is genuinely new music, but it is new in the way a sentence spoken in conversation is new: assembled in the moment from elements learned long before.

1. Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole? (A) It provides evidence that most jazz performances are rehearsed note for note in advance rather than invented on the spot. (B) It identifies the prepared knowledge that improvisers draw on, complicating the popular view described earlier in the text. (C) It introduces a criticism that musicians who study the tradition make of the comparison between improvisation and conversation. (D) It offers an analogy that the text later extends in order to explain how improvised music can be both familiar and new.

Question 8 (harder Module 2)

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the industrialist Andrew Carnegie funded more than 1,600 public library buildings in the United States. Carnegie paid only for construction, however; each town had to provide a site and pledge to fund the library’s operation every year. Some scholars argue that this requirement shaped who benefited: towns with a weak tax base struggled to make such a pledge. These scholars conclude that the program mainly benefited communities that were already relatively prosperous.

A historian examining the records of Carnegie library grants to small Midwestern towns found that many modest farming communities did receive grants, often after local women’s clubs had campaigned for years to persuade town councils to accept the funding commitment. Because these clubs frequently raised money and gathered donated books themselves, towns with limited tax revenue were still able to meet Carnegie’s terms. Explanations that focus only on tax bases, the historian argues, overlook the civic organizing that made many of these libraries possible.

1. Based on the texts, how would the historian in Text 2 most likely respond to the scholars’ conclusion in Text 1? (A) By agreeing that the funding pledge was decisive but arguing that prosperous towns were less likely than poorer ones to make it (B) By suggesting that the conclusion underestimates how local civic efforts enabled some less prosperous towns to meet Carnegie’s terms (C) By arguing that the fundraising done by women’s clubs shows that Carnegie’s terms were more generous than Text 1 acknowledges (D) By claiming that women’s clubs, rather than town councils, made the annual funding pledges that Carnegie required of each town

Question 9 (harder Module 2)

The following text is from an original short story written for this practice test. Beatriz, a volcanologist, has returned to the village near the volcano where she grew up.

From the ridge, Beatriz could see the instruments she had helped install years ago: the seismometers in their squat concrete housings, the gas sensor blinking on its pole above the crater’s rim. In her office in the capital, those instruments were numbers on a screen, lines that rose and fell and occasionally made her colleagues lean closer. Here they looked small, almost fragile, against the mountain’s bulk. Her mother had never once asked about the numbers. She asked instead whether the mountain was “in a good mood,” and Beatriz, who had published papers on eruption forecasting, had always found the question childish. Standing on the ridge now, she was less sure that it was.

1. Which choice best states the main idea of the text? (A) Beatriz realizes that the instruments she helped install are too small and fragile to monitor the volcano properly. (B) Beatriz regrets having left her village to pursue a scientific career that keeps her in the capital. (C) Beatriz’s mother has finally become interested in the data collected by the instruments on the mountain. (D) Seeing the volcano in person leads Beatriz to reconsider her dismissal of her mother’s way of thinking about it.

Question 10 (harder Module 2)

The following text is from an original short story written for this practice test. Every other Tuesday, a library bookmobile visits the farm where June lives.

June had long ago stopped pretending she was not waiting for it. By two o’clock she would be sitting on the fence at the end of the lane, her returns stacked beside her in order of preference, the best one on top so that Mr. Adair would ask about it first. He always did. He would climb down from the high seat of the van, take the stack from her, and turn the top book over in his hands as though weighing it, and then he would ask her a single question—never whether she had liked it, only what she thought the author had gotten wrong. June spent the two weeks between visits preparing her answer.

1. Based on the text, why does June place her favorite book at the top of her stack? (A) She knows that Mr. Adair will ask her about the top book first. (B) She wants Mr. Adair to recommend other books like it. (C) She hopes Mr. Adair will let her keep it for another two weeks. (D) She expects Mr. Adair to ask her whether she enjoyed it.

Question 11 (harder Module 2)

In a classic series of experiments, researchers placed caged indigo buntings—songbirds that migrate at night—in a planetarium during the migration season. When the planetarium displayed the normal night sky, the birds hopped mostly in the direction they would migrate. When the projected stars were rotated, the birds’ hopping shifted to match the rotated sky. The researchers concluded that the buntings orient themselves by the stars. A student reading about the experiments hypothesizes that the birds were in fact orienting by Earth’s magnetic field, which the planetarium did not alter, and that the rotated sky merely distracted them.

1. Which finding, if true, would most strongly weaken the student’s hypothesis? (A) Several other species of migratory songbirds have been shown to detect Earth’s magnetic field and use it to orient at night. (B) When a magnet placed near the cages altered the magnetic field, the buntings’ hopping direction changed to match the altered field. (C) When the projector was turned off, leaving the dome dark, the buntings’ hopping showed no consistent direction. (D) The buntings hopped more often during the migration season than at other times of the year, regardless of what the planetarium displayed.

Question 12 (harder Module 2)

“Late Set” is an original poem written for this practice test. In the poem, the speaker, a jazz pianist, reflects on a night of playing with a small band and suggests that successful improvisation depends more on responding to the other musicians than on displaying individual skill.

1. Which quotation from “Late Set” most effectively illustrates the claim? (A) “The club was full of smoke and borrowed light, / the tables crowded right up to the stage.” (B) “My hands knew every scale by age nine, / my teacher’s metronome a patient clock.” (C) “I hold my best chord back a bar or two / and let the horn’s idea finish first.” (D) “And when my solo came, I let it fly / as fast and far as any hands could go.”

Question 13 (harder Module 2)

On December 17, 1903, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright took turns piloting their engine-powered Flyer, making four flights in all. The brothers were still learning to control the aircraft as they went, and their growing skill over the course of the day is evident in their records: _____

1. Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement? (A) the first flight, piloted by Orville, lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet, the same duration as the second flight, piloted by Wilbur. (B) the fourth flight lasted 59 seconds and covered 852 feet, far exceeding the first flight’s 12 seconds and 120 feet. (C) the second flight, piloted by Wilbur, covered 175 feet in 12 seconds, a shorter distance than the first flight’s 120 feet. (D) the third flight, piloted by Wilbur, lasted 15 seconds and covered 200 feet, more than either of the first two flights.

Question 14 (harder Module 2)

Tilling, or plowing, soil before planting breaks up the networks of fungal threads and the clumps of soil in which many microbes live. To examine how tilling affects soil life at different depths, a team of soil scientists measured microbial biomass—the total mass of living microbes—in neighboring fields that had been either tilled every year or farmed without tilling (“no-till”) for fifteen years. The team concluded that the advantage of no-till farming for microbial biomass was largely confined to the soil’s surface layers and essentially disappeared at greater depths.

1. Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to support the team’s conclusion? (A) At 0–5 cm, microbial biomass was 520 micrograms per gram in no-till soil and 310 in tilled soil, but at 15–30 cm the values were 205 and 210. (B) At 0–5 cm, microbial biomass in no-till soil was 520 micrograms of carbon per gram of soil, the highest value recorded at any depth in either field. (C) At 5–15 cm, microbial biomass was greater in tilled soil than in no-till soil, at 330 and 280 micrograms per gram, a gap of 50 micrograms. (D) In no-till soil, microbial biomass was greater at 15–30 cm than at 0–5 cm, whereas in tilled soil it was greater at 0–5 cm.

Question 15 (harder Module 2)

Parrotfish graze on algae that grow on coral reefs, scraping the reef surface with fused, beaklike teeth. In the process they swallow fragments of coral skeleton, which they grind up and excrete as fine sediment; a single large parrotfish can produce well over a hundred kilograms of sand in a year, and many white-sand beaches near reefs owe much of their sand to this process. By grazing, parrotfish also keep fast-growing algae from overgrowing and smothering corals. Researchers studying an island where overfishing has sharply reduced parrotfish populations might therefore expect that, over time, _____

1. Which choice most logically completes the text? (A) the island’s beaches will gain sand as corals that are no longer grazed break apart on their own. (B) corals will grow more slowly even as more sand accumulates on the island’s beaches. (C) the reef’s corals will grow more quickly because fewer fish are scraping the reef. (D) algae will cover more of the reef, and less new sand will be supplied to the island’s beaches.

Question 16 (harder Module 2)

Because flight schools in the United States refused to admit her, the American _____ learned French and traveled to France, where in 1921 she earned an international pilot’s license, becoming the first African American woman to hold one.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) aviator Bessie Coleman (B) aviator, Bessie Coleman, (C) aviator, Bessie Coleman (D) aviator Bessie Coleman,

Question 17 (harder Module 2)

Pumice, a volcanic rock so full of gas bubbles that it floats, can form vast rafts on the ocean surface after an underwater eruption. Scientists once regarded these rafts as little more than floating debris _____ they now know that the rafts can drift for more than a year and carry living corals, barnacles, and other organisms to distant reefs.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) debris, however, (B) debris; however (C) debris; however, (D) debris however,

Question 18 (harder Module 2)

Call and response—a pattern in which a phrase played or sung by one musician is answered by _____ entered jazz from earlier African American musical traditions such as work songs and spirituals.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) another— (B) another, (C) another (D) another;

Question 19 (harder Module 2)

Like most community theaters, the town’s troupe depends on volunteers for nearly every aspect of its productions. Its spring musical, for example, relied on a carpenter, who built the sets; two retired teachers, who sewed the _____ and a high school student, who designed and ran the lighting.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) costumes, (B) costumes (C) costumes: (D) costumes;

Question 20 (harder Module 2)

Unlike papyrus or parchment, clay tablets can survive for thousands of years, especially if they are hardened in a fire. At one ancient Mesopotamian city, an archive of tablets that includes letters, contracts, and records of rations distributed to workers over several decades _____ historians with a detailed picture of daily economic life.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) provide (B) are providing (C) have provided (D) provides

Question 21 (harder Module 2)

Caged migratory birds become noticeably restless during the seasons when their wild relatives migrate, a behavior known by the German term Zugunruhe, or “migratory restlessness.” Because a species’ restlessness often lasts about as long as _____ actual migration would, researchers have used the behavior to study the internal clocks that govern migratory timing.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) its (B) their (C) it’s (D) they’re

Question 22 (harder Module 2)

Prints in a limited edition are traditionally signed in pencil and marked with two numbers, such as 12/50. The first number indicates a particular print’s place in the edition, and the second number indicates the _____ total size.

1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? (A) editions (B) edition’s (C) editions’ (D) edition

Question 23 (harder Module 2)

Countries that make organ donation the default—so that citizens are registered as donors unless they choose to opt out—typically record far higher rates of registered donors than countries that require people to opt in. _____ higher registration does not automatically translate into more transplants: in many opt-out countries, doctors still consult families before organs are recovered, and families frequently decline.

1. Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition? (A) Accordingly, (B) Likewise, (C) For instance, (D) Even so,

Question 24 (harder Module 2)

Well into the nineteenth century, many libraries kept their books in closed stacks, so patrons had to ask a librarian to retrieve each volume. Around the turn of the twentieth century, a growing number of public libraries adopted open stacks, allowing patrons to browse the shelves themselves. _____ borrowing often increased, as readers came across books they would not have known to ask for.

1. Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition? (A) Previously, (B) In contrast, (C) Nonetheless, (D) As a result,

Question 25 (harder Module 2)

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Albrecht Dürer was a German artist known for his woodcuts and engravings.
• In 1515, he made a woodcut of a rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, from India.
• Dürer never saw the animal himself.
• He based his image on a written description and a sketch made by someone else.
• Dürer’s rhinoceros has features that real rhinoceroses lack, such as a small extra horn on its back and armorlike plates.
• The woodcut was widely reproduced and shaped European ideas of the rhinoceros for centuries.

1. The student wants to explain why Dürer’s rhinoceros is inaccurate. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal? (A) Because Dürer never saw the animal and worked from a description and another person’s sketch, his rhinoceros has features real ones lack. (B) Dürer’s 1515 woodcut of a rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon from India was widely reproduced and shaped European ideas of the animal for centuries. (C) Dürer’s rhinoceros has features that real rhinoceroses lack, such as a small extra horn on its back and armorlike plates. (D) Known for his woodcuts and engravings, the German artist Albrecht Dürer made an image of a rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon from India in 1515.

Question 26 (harder Module 2)

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• The crown-of-thorns starfish feeds on living coral polyps.
• At normal population levels, the starfish are a natural part of reef ecosystems.
• During outbreaks, starfish populations increase dramatically and can strip large areas of reef of living coral.
• Research suggests that nutrient runoff from farmland can trigger outbreaks.
• Extra nutrients fuel blooms of plankton, which starfish larvae eat.
• With more food available, more larvae survive to adulthood.

1. The student wants to explain how farm runoff may contribute to crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal? (A) During outbreaks, crown-of-thorns starfish populations increase dramatically and can strip large areas of reef of living coral. (B) At normal population levels, crown-of-thorns starfish, which feed on coral polyps, are a natural part of reef ecosystems. (C) Runoff from farmland may trigger outbreaks by fueling plankton blooms that feed starfish larvae, allowing more of them to survive. (D) Research suggests that crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks can be triggered by nutrient runoff from farmland.

Question 27 (harder Module 2)

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Streptomyces is a genus of bacteria that is common in soil.
• Streptomyces bacteria produce geosmin, a compound responsible for the earthy smell of soil.
• Humans can detect geosmin at extremely low concentrations.
• Many Streptomyces species produce antibiotics.
• Streptomycin, an antibiotic discovered in 1943, was isolated from a Streptomyces species.
• It was the first effective antibiotic treatment for tuberculosis.

1. The student wants to emphasize the medical importance of Streptomyces bacteria. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal? (A) Streptomyces bacteria, which are common in soil, produce geosmin, the compound responsible for soil’s earthy smell. (B) Humans can detect geosmin, a compound produced by Streptomyces bacteria, at extremely low concentrations. (C) Streptomyces is a genus of bacteria that is common in soil, where it produces the compound geosmin. (D) Streptomyces bacteria were the source of streptomycin, the first effective antibiotic treatment for tuberculosis.

Question 1

1. If (x)/(3) + 5 = 11, what is the value of x? (A) 6 (B) 18 (C) 33 (D) 48

Question 2

1. A bakery uses 450 grams of flour for every 6 loaves of bread it makes. At this rate, how many grams of flour are needed to make 22 loaves of bread? (type your answer)

Question 3

Two horizontal parallel lines, line ℓ on top and line m below, are crossed by a transversal that slants up to the right. At the intersection with line ℓ, the angle between line ℓ to the left of the intersection and the transversal above line ℓ is marked 118°. At the intersection with line m, the angle between line m to the right of the intersection and the transversal above line m is marked x°.

1. In the figure, line ell is parallel to line m. What is the value of x? (A) 28 (B) 59 (C) 62 (D) 118

Question 4

1. Which expression is equivalent to (2x^2 + 5x - 3) - (x^2 - 4x + 6)? (A) x^2 + 9x - 9 (B) x^2 + x - 9 (C) x^2 + x + 3 (D) x^2 + 9x + 3

Question 5

A line in the xy-plane labeled y = f(x). The line passes through the points (0, −2), (1, 0), and (2, 2).

1. The graph of the linear function f is shown. Which equation defines f? (A) f(x) = -2x - 2 (B) f(x) = (1)/(2)x - 2 (C) f(x) = 2x + 1 (D) f(x) = 2x - 2

Question 6

Dot plot of the number of training runs completed by 20 runners: 2 runs, 1 dot; 3 runs, 2 dots; 4 runs, 6 dots; 5 runs, 3 dots; 6 runs, 5 dots; 7 runs, 3 dots.

1. The dot plot shows the number of training runs completed last week by each of the 20 runners in a marathon training group. What is the median number of training runs for these runners? (A) 4 (B) 4.5 (C) 5 (D) 5.5

Question 7

1. A group of friends is going to a jazz club. Each ticket costs $18, and the group will also pay a single $12 parking fee. The group can spend at most $150 in total. Which inequality represents the possible numbers of tickets, t, the group can buy? (A) 12t + 18 ≤ 150 (B) 18t ≤ 150 + 12 (C) 18t + 12 ≥ 150 (D) 18t + 12 ≤ 150

Question 8

1. The function f is defined by f(x) = ax^2 + 7, where a is a constant. If f(3) = 25, what is the value of f(-2)? (type your answer)

Question 9

1. If (x, y) is the solution to the system of equations 3x + 2y = 16 and x - 2y = 0, what is the value of x - y? (A) 2 (B) 4 (C) 6 (D) 8

Question 10

1. At 7:00 a.m., a bike-sharing station had 48 bikes. Bikes were then taken from the station at a constant rate, and no bikes were returned. At 7:40 a.m., the station had 20 bikes. Which function gives the number of bikes, b(t), at the station t minutes after 7:00 a.m., for 0 ≤ t ≤ 40? (A) b(t) = 20 + 0.7t (B) b(t) = 48 - 28t (C) b(t) = 48 - 0.7t (D) b(t) = 48 + 0.7t

Question 11

Right triangle ABC with the right angle at C. Leg CA is horizontal with length 15, and leg CB is vertical with length 8.

1. In right triangle ABC shown, what is the value of cos B? (A) (8)/(17) (B) (8)/(15) (C) (15)/(17) (D) (17)/(8)

Question 12

1. What is the greatest solution to the equation (x - 3)^2 = 2x - 6? (type your answer)

Question 13

1. A runner's weekly training plan consists of e easy runs and ell long runs. Each easy run is 4 kilometers. The equation 4e + 10ell = 58 represents a week in which the runner covers a total of 58 kilometers. What is the best interpretation of the number 10 in this context? (A) The number of long runs the runner completes in the week (B) The distance, in kilometers, of each long run (C) The total distance, in kilometers, of all the long runs in the week (D) The total distance, in kilometers, the runner covers in the week

Question 14

A parabola opening upward labeled y = f(x). It crosses the x-axis at (−1, 0) and (5, 0), has its vertex at (2, −9), and crosses the y-axis at (0, −5).

1. The graph of the quadratic function f is shown. Which of the following could define f? (A) f(x) = (x - 1)(x + 5) (B) f(x) = (x + 1)(x - 5) (C) f(x) = (x - 2)^2 + 9 (D) f(x) = (x + 2)^2 - 9

Question 15

1. In the equation 3(2x - k) = 6x + 12, k is a constant. For what value of k does the equation have infinitely many solutions? (A) -12 (B) -4 (C) 4 (D) 12

Question 16

1. A marine survey classified 280 coral colonies by reef zone and by whether the colony showed bleaching. The results are shown in the table. If one of the bleached colonies is selected at random, what is the probability that it is from the shallow zone? (A) (6)/(35) (B) (2)/(7) (C) (2)/(5) (D) (3)/(5)

Question 17

1. The equation (ax + 3)(2x + b) = 6x^2 + cx - 12 is true for all values of x, where a, b, and c are constants. What is the value of c? (type your answer)

Question 18

1. In the xy-plane, line k passes through the point (4, 1) and is perpendicular to the graph of 2x - 5y = 7. What is the y-coordinate of the y-intercept of line k? (A) -9 (B) -(3)/(5) (C) (13)/(5) (D) 11

Question 19

1. The area A(t), in square meters, covered by living coral on a restored section of reef is modeled by A(t) = 850(1.12)^(t)/(2), where t is the number of years since the restoration began. Which statement best describes how the area changes according to the model? (A) The area increases by 6% every year. (B) The area increases by 12% every year. (C) The area increases by 12% every 2 years. (D) The area increases by 24% every 2 years.

Question 20

1. In the xy-plane, the graph of x^2 + y^2 - 6x + 10y + 18 = 0 is a circle. What is the radius of the circle? (A) 4 (B) 3√(2) (C) 8 (D) 16

Question 21

1. In the xy-plane, the graphs of y = x^2 - 4x + c and y = 2x - 1, where c is a constant, intersect at exactly one point. What is the value of c? (type your answer)

Question 22

1. Two researchers each selected a random sample of visitors to a national park and asked whether they had visited the park before. In the first sample, 62% had visited before, with an associated margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. In the second sample, 57% had visited before, with an associated margin of error of 3 percentage points. Based on both samples, which of the following is a plausible value for the percent of all visitors to the park who had visited before? (A) 56% (B) 59% (C) 62% (D) 64%

Question 1 (harder Module 2)

1. In the xy-plane, a line has a y-intercept of (0, 6) and passes through the point (4, -2). What is the x-coordinate of the x-intercept of the line? (A) -3 (B) -2 (C) (1)/(3) (D) 3

Question 2 (harder Module 2)

1. The frequency table shows the number of goals a soccer team scored in each of the 20 matches it played in one season. What is the mean number of goals the team scored per match? (type your answer)

Question 3 (harder Module 2)

1. Which expression is equivalent to (x^2 - 9)/(x^2 + x - 6) for x ≠ -3 and x ≠ 2? (A) (x + 3)/(x - 2) (B) (x - 3)/(x - 2) (C) (x - 3)/(x + 2) (D) (3)/(2)

Question 4 (harder Module 2)

A solid line in the xy-plane passes through (0, −2) and (3, 0). The region above the line is shaded, and the shaded region includes the line.

1. The shaded region shown, including the line, represents the solutions to which inequality? (A) 2x - 3y ≥ 6 (B) 3x - 2y ≤ 6 (C) 2x - 3y ≤ 6 (D) 3x - 2y ≥ 6

Question 5 (harder Module 2)

Triangle ABC with point D on side AB and point E on side AC. Segment DE is drawn across the triangle. AD = 6, DB = 4, and DE = 9.

1. In the figure, point D lies on overlineAB, point E lies on overlineAC, and overlineDE is parallel to overlineBC. What is the length of overlineBC? (type your answer)

Question 6 (harder Module 2)

1. A jazz club sold 240 tickets for a concert. Advance tickets cost $15 each, and tickets bought at the door cost $22 each. The total revenue from ticket sales was $4,020. How many tickets were bought at the door? (A) 60 (B) 180 (C) 240 (D) 420

Question 7 (harder Module 2)

Scatterplot of 12 runners with average weekly training distance from 32 to 78 kilometers on the x-axis and marathon finish time from 195 to 252 minutes on the y-axis. The points trend downward. A line of best fit, y = −1.2x + 290, is drawn.

1. The scatterplot shows the average weekly training distance x, in kilometers, and the marathon finish time y, in minutes, for 12 runners. A line of best fit for the data is also shown, and its equation is y = -1.2x + 290. Based on the line of best fit, if a runner increases the average weekly training distance from 40 kilometers to 65 kilometers, the predicted finish time decreases by approximately what percent? (A) 1.2% (B) 12% (C) 14% (D) 30%

Question 8 (harder Module 2)

1. The function g is defined by g(x) = √(2x + k), where k is a constant. If g(6) = 5, what is the value of g(18)? (type your answer)

Question 9 (harder Module 2)

1. What value or values of x satisfy the equation √(x + 7) = x - 5? (A) 2 only (B) 9 only (C) 2 and 9 (D) There is no solution.

Question 10 (harder Module 2)

1. The linear function f satisfies f(3) = -4 and f(-1) = 8. The function g is defined by g(x) = f(x - 2) + 3. For what value of x is g(x) = 0? (type your answer)

Question 11 (harder Module 2)

1. In the equation x^2 + bx + 16 = 0, b is a positive constant. If the equation has exactly one real solution, what is that solution? (A) -8 (B) -4 (C) 4 (D) 8

Question 12 (harder Module 2)

1. Each student at a language school is enrolled in either the morning program or the evening program, and 40% of the students are in the morning program. Of the students in the morning program, 30% also take an online course, and of the students in the evening program, 45% also take an online course. If a student who takes an online course is selected at random, what is the probability that the student is in the evening program? (A) (27)/(100) (B) (9)/(20) (C) (3)/(5) (D) (9)/(13)

Question 13 (harder Module 2)

1. In a laboratory, a colony of coral polyps triples in number every 4 days. The colony starts with 250 polyps. Which function gives the number of polyps, P(w), in the colony w weeks after the start? (A) P(w) = 250(3)^(w)/(4) (B) P(w) = 250(3)^(4w)/(7) (C) P(w) = 250(3)^(7w)/(4) (D) P(w) = 250(3)^4w

Question 14 (harder Module 2)

1. Two acute angles have measures (3a - 10)° and (a + 16)°, and sin((3a - 10)°) = cos((a + 16)°). What is the value of a? (A) 13 (B) 21 (C) 24 (D) 43.5

Question 15 (harder Module 2)

1. A bike-sharing program offers two plans. With a membership, a rider pays $180 per year plus $0.05 per minute of riding. Without a membership, a rider pays $1.00 per ride plus $0.15 per minute of riding. Each of a certain rider's rides lasts 20 minutes. What is the least number of rides the rider could take in a year for the membership plan to cost less than the plan without a membership? (type your answer)

Question 16 (harder Module 2)

1. For x > 0, the expression fracsqrt[3]x^2 · sqrt[4]x^3√(x) is equivalent to x^k, where k is a constant. What is the value of k? (type your answer)

Question 17 (harder Module 2)

1. A jazz club increased its cover charge by 25%. Later, the club decreased the new cover charge by p%. The final cover charge is 10% less than the original cover charge. What is the value of p? (A) 10 (B) 15 (C) 28 (D) 35

Question 18 (harder Module 2)

1. A circle has a diameter of 24 centimeters. A sector of this circle has an area of 24π square centimeters. What is the measure, in radians, of the central angle of the sector? (A) (π)/(12) (B) (π)/(6) (C) (π)/(3) (D) 2π

Question 19 (harder Module 2)

1. A solar installer is covering a flat roof with two sizes of panels. Each small panel has an area of 1.7 square meters, and each large panel has an area of 2.2 square meters. The total area of the panels can be at most 120 square meters, and at least 60 panels must be installed. What is the maximum number of large panels that can be installed? (A) 24 (B) 30 (C) 36 (D) 54

Question 20 (harder Module 2)

A parabola opening upward labeled y = f(x), with vertex at (2, −3) and y-intercept (0, 5). It also passes through (4, 5).

1. The graph of y = f(x) is shown, where f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c and a, b, and c are constants. What is the value of b? (A) -8 (B) -4 (C) 4 (D) 8

Question 21 (harder Module 2)

1. Two right circular cylinders are similar. The ratio of the volume of the smaller cylinder to the volume of the larger cylinder is 8 : 27. The total surface area of the smaller cylinder is 48π square inches. What is the total surface area, in square inches, of the larger cylinder? (A) (64)/(3)π (B) 32π (C) 72π (D) 108π

Question 22 (harder Module 2)

1. In the system of equations 3x + ky = 5 and kx + 12y = 10, k is a constant. For which value of k does the system have no solution? (A) -6 (B) 0 (C) 6 (D) 36