SAT Frequently Missed/Helpful Questions (Reading)

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

• Astronomers estimate that the number of comets orbiting the Sun is in the billions.

• 81P/Wild is one of many comets whose orbit has changed over time.

• 81P/Wild’s orbit once lay between the orbits of Uranus and Jupiter.

• The comet’s orbit is now positioned between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.

The student wants to make and support a generalization about the orbits of comets. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish these goals?

A. Astronomers estimate that the number of comets orbiting the Sun is in the billions; the comets’ orbits may change over time.

B. Like Uranus, Jupiter, and Mars, billions of comets orbit the Sun.

C. One example of a comet is 81P/Wild, whose orbit around the Sun once lay between Uranus’s and Jupiter’s orbits but is now positioned between those of Jupiter and Mars.

D. A comet’s orbit around the Sun may change over time: the orbit of comet 81P/Wild once lay between the orbits of Uranus and Jupiter but is now positioned between those of Jupiter and Mars.

D.

Geoglyphs are large-scale designs of lines or shapes created in a natural landscape. The Nazca Lines were created in the Nazca Desert in Peru by several Indigenous civilizations over a period of many centuries. Peruvian archaeologist Johny Isla specializes in these geoglyphs. At a German exhibit about the Nazca Lines, he saw an old photograph of a large geoglyph of a whalelike figure and was surprised that he didn’t recognize it. Isla returned to Peru and used a drone to search a wide area, looking for the figure from the air. This approach suggests that Isla thought that if he hadn’t already seen it, the whalelike geoglyph ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A. must represent a species of whale that went extinct before there were any people in Peru.

B. is actually located in Germany, not Peru, and isn’t part of the Nazca Lines at all.

C. is probably in a location Isla hadn’t ever come across while on the ground.

D. was almost certainly created a long time after the other Nazca Lines geoglyphs were created.

C.

In 1943, in the midst of World War II, mathematics professor Grace Hopper was recruited by the US military to help the war effort by solving complex equations. Hopper’s subsequent career would involve more than just ______ as a pioneering computer programmer, Hopper would help usher in the digital age.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. equations, though:

B. equations, though,

C. equations. Though,

D. equations though

A.

On sunny days, dark rooftops absorb solar energy and convert it to unwanted heat, raising the surrounding air ______ a light-colored covering to an existing dark roof, either by attaching prefabricated reflective sheets or spraying on a paint-like coating, helps combat this effect. 

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. temperature; by adding

B. temperature, adding

C. temperature. Adding

D. temperature by adding

C.

Po’Pay was a Tewa leader from Ohkay Owingeh, a pueblo located about twenty-five miles north of present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was instrumental in organizing the Pueblo Revolt of ______ as a result of his leadership, the Spanish colonizers were expelled from the region for a time.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. 1680

B. 1680 and

C. 1680,

D. 1680, and

D. (Coordinating Conjunction)

C.

D.

C.

C.

B.

A.

B.

D., Amplifying is the subject, and it should be singular.

B., it’s a list of activities they did, and if you look through it, you can see how semi-colon indicates the list.

D., because you’re still giving an example

(Not A. because you’re not adding new information that supports the claim)