In 14 why did the comma was put right before the quote mark? I thought it should have been the comma after quote ?

In American English, commas and periods should be placed within the quotation marks as long as they do not change the meaning of the quotation.

Can someone give me last minute tips?

Stay focused on the question, don't get distracted by irrelevant information. Also, focus more on the 1st module, as it carries more weight.

Anyone to please advise on how to get 24/27, 25/27 and 26/27 I keep getting 23/27 and 20/27.

stay focused to the asked question don't get distracted by the extra and irrelevant information.

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Course: Official SAT Practice Test 3 Review > Unit 1

Lesson 1: Test sections

Reading and Writing - Part 1

Google Classroom

Question 1 | Words in context

Artist Marilyn Dingle’s intricate, coiled baskets are ______ sweetgrass and palmetto palm. Following a Gullah technique that originated in West Africa, Dingle skillfully winds a thin palm frond around a bunch of sweetgrass with the help of a “sewing bone” to create the basket’s signature look that no factory can reproduce.

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

Question 2 | Words in context

Some researchers believe that the genes that enable groundhogs and certain other mammals to hibernate through the winter by slowing their breathing and heart rates and lowering their body temperature may be ______ in humans: present yet having essentially no effect on our bodily processes.

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

Question 3 | Words in context

Diego Velázquez was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain during the seventeenth century, but his influence was hardly ______ Spain: realist and impressionist painters around the world employed his techniques and echoed elements of his style.

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

Question 4 | Words in context

Although science fiction was dominated mostly by white male authors when Octavia Butler, a Black woman, began writing, she did not view the genre as ______: Butler broke into the field with the publication of several short stories and her 1976 novel Patternmaster, and she later became the first science fiction writer to win a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.

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

Question 5 | Words in context

The following text is adapted from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1844 short story “Drowne’s Wooden Image.” Drowne, a young man, is carving a wooden figure to decorate the front of a ship.

Day by day, the work assumed greater precision, and settled its irregular and misty outline into distincter grace and beauty. The general design was now obvious to the common eye.

As used in the text, what does the word “assumed” most nearly mean?

Question 6 | Text structure and purpose

The following text is from Walt Whitman’s 1860 poem “Calamus 24.”

I HEAR it is charged against me that I seek to destroy institutions;

But really I am neither for nor against institutions

(What indeed have I in common with them?—Or what with the destruction of them?),

Only I will establish in the Mannahatta [Manhattan] and in every city of These States, inland and seaboard,

And in the fields and woods, and above every keel [ship] little or large, that dents the water,

Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,

The institution of the dear love of comrades.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

(Choice A)
The speaker questions an increasingly prevalent attitude, then summarizes his worldview.
(Choice B)
The speaker regrets his isolation from others, then predicts a profound change in society.
(Choice C)
The speaker concedes his personal shortcomings, then boasts of his many achievements.
(Choice D)
The speaker addresses a criticism leveled against him, then announces a grand ambition of his.

Question 7 | Central ideas and details

Utah is home to Pando, a colony of about 47,000 quaking aspen trees that all share a single root system. Pando is one of the largest single organisms by mass on Earth, but ecologists are worried that its growth is declining in part because of grazing by animals. The ecologists say that strong fences could prevent deer from eating young trees and help Pando start thriving again.

According to the text, why are ecologists worried about Pando?

Question 8 | Central ideas and details

Cats can judge unseen people’s positions in space by the sound of their voices and thus react with surprise when the same person calls to them from two different locations in a short span of time. Saho Takagi and colleagues reached this conclusion by measuring cats’ levels of surprise based on their ear and head movements while the cats heard recordings of their owners’ voices from two speakers spaced far apart. Cats exhibited a low level of surprise when owners’ voices were played twice from the same speaker, but they showed a high level of surprise when the voice was played once each from the two different speakers.

According to the text, how did the researchers determine the level of surprise displayed by the cats in the study?

(Choice A)
They watched how each cat moved its ears and head.
(Choice B)
They examined how each cat reacted to the voice of a stranger.
(Choice C)
They studied how each cat physically interacted with its owner.
(Choice D)
They tracked how each cat moved around the room.

Question 9 | Central ideas and details

Culinary anthropologist Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor may be known for her decades of work in national public television and radio, but her book Vibration Cooking: or, the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl is likely her most influential project. The 1970 book, whose title refers to Smart-Grosvenor’s roots in the Low Country of South Carolina, was unusual for its time. It combined memoir, recipes, travel writing, and social commentary and challenged notions about conventions of food and cooking. Long admired by many, the book and its author have shaped contemporary approaches to writing about cuisine.

Which choice best describes the main idea of the text?

(Choice A)
Smart-Grosvenor’s unconventional book Vibration Cooking: or, the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl is an important contribution to food writing.
(Choice B)
Smart-Grosvenor held many different positions over her life, including reporter and food writer.
(Choice C)
Smart-Grosvenor’s groundbreaking book Vibration Cooking: or, the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl didn’t receive the praise it deserved when it was first published in 1970.
(Choice D)
Smart-Grosvenor was a talented chef whose work inspired many people to start cooking for themselves.

Question 10 | Command of textual evidence

O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by Willa Cather. In the novel, Cather depicts Alexandra Bergson as a person who takes comfort in understanding the world around her: ______

Which quotation from O Pioneers! most effectively illustrates the claim?

(Choice A)
“She looked fixedly up the bleak street as if she were gathering her strength to face something, as if she were trying with all her might to grasp a situation which, no matter how painful, must be met and dealt with somehow.”
(Choice B)
“She had never known before how much the country meant to her. The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun. Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.“
(Choice C)
“Alexandra drove off alone. The rattle of her wagon was lost in the howling of the wind, but her lantern, held firmly between her feet, made a moving point of light along the highway, going deeper and deeper into the dark country.”
(Choice D)
“Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so keenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch them, to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered march. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations of nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security.”

Question 11 | Inferences

Several artworks found among the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii depict a female figure fishing with a cupid nearby. Some scholars have asserted that the figure is the goddess Venus, since she is known to have been linked with cupids in Roman culture, but University of Leicester archaeologist Carla Brain suggests that cupids may have also been associated with fishing generally. The fact that a cupid is shown near the female figure, therefore, ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Question 12 | Inferences

In documents called judicial opinions, judges explain the reasoning behind their legal rulings, and in those explanations they sometimes cite and discuss historical and contemporary philosophers. Legal scholar and philosopher Anita L. Allen argues that while judges are naturally inclined to mention philosophers whose views align with their own positions, the strongest judicial opinions consider and rebut potential objections; discussing philosophers whose views conflict with judges’ views could therefore ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

(Choice A)
allow judges to craft judicial opinions without needing to consult philosophical works.
(Choice B)
help judges improve the arguments they put forward in their judicial opinions.
(Choice C)
make judicial opinions more comprehensible to readers without legal or philosophical training.
(Choice D)
bring judicial opinions in line with views that are broadly held among philosophers.

Question 13 | Inferences

Many of William Shakespeare’s tragedies address broad themes that still appeal to today’s audiences. For instance, Romeo and Juliet, which is set in the Italy of Shakespeare’s time, tackles the themes of parents versus children and love versus hate, and the play continues to be read and produced widely around the world. But understanding Shakespeare’s so-called history plays can require a knowledge of several centuries of English history. Consequently, ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

(Choice A)
many theatergoers and readers today are likely to find Shakespeare’s history plays less engaging than the tragedies.
(Choice B)
some of Shakespeare’s tragedies are more relevant to today’s audiences than twentieth-century plays.
(Choice C)
Romeo and Juliet is the most thematically accessible of all Shakespeare’s tragedies.
(Choice D)
experts in English history tend to prefer Shakespeare’s history plays to his other works.

Question 14 | Boundaries

In her analysis of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth (1905), scholar Candace Waid observes that the novel depicts the upper classes of New York society as “consumed by the appetite of a soulless ______ an apt assessment given that The House of Mirth is set during the Gilded Age, a period marked by rapid industrialization, economic greed, and widening wealth disparities.