Digital SAT Reading & Writing Test 1

One of the most common ways that people can amass wealth is through _________ equity in their homes.

Modern day graffiti creates the same questions. Most people would agree that a quickly spray-painted tag is not art, but some graffiti is very elaborate, well planned, and objectively beautiful. Some graffiti _________ the value of an area by making it appear abandoned and unkempt

While there certainly are many potential careers that students may find rewarding, students with a math and science _________ should give engineering serious consideration.

Making something that is truly delicious for one’s friends and family can be a formative experience that leads one to pursue a career as a chef. While not everybody can be a celebrity chef with millions of television fans, there are many _________ to a fulfilling career in the food services industry.

One key reason C. lecturlarius (bedbugs) can be so difficult to remove is their physical properties. They are tiny brown bugs that live solely on the blood of other animals, so edible poison traps won’t work the way they do for ants. In addition, they can live months without food, which makes starving them out nearly impossible, and they lay eggs that are _________ to regular pest control methods and stick in unreachable nooks and crannies.

The following text is from Georgia Douglas Johnson’s 1920 poem “Calling Dreams.” The right to make my dreams come true, I ask, nay, I demand of life; Nor shall fate’s deadly contraband Impede my steps, nor countermand; Too long my heart against the ground Has beat the dusty years around; And now at length I rise! I wake! And stride into the morning break!

The following is a portion of an address given by Senator Herbert H. Lehman at the annual membership meeting of the Urban League of Greater New York in June of 1956, as reported in the Arizona Sun The Urban League has furnished a framework within which men of good will of all races could work together to achieve steady advances toward the goal of adjustment, focusing their efforts on the neighborhood and the community. This organization has helped to show how vast are the ramifications of inter-group and inter-racial adjustment, what concrete and specific evils flow from discrimination and segregation, and what must and can be done about it. Some people, including some of the leaders of our government, act as though civil rights were a brand-new problem, which has just arisen and needs nothing so much as to be studied. And they indicate that just as soon as they finish studying it, they will probably do something about it. And, of course, that may take a long time.

The following text is from Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle. And then there was Marija Berczynskas, who, fired with jealousy by the success of Jurgis, had set out upon her own responsibility to get a place. Marija had nothing to take with her save her two brawny arms and the word “job,” laboriously learned; but with these she had marched about Packingtown all day, entering every door where there were signs of activity. Out of some she had been ordered with curses; but Marija was not afraid of man or devil, and asked everyone she saw—visitors and strangers, or work-people like herself, and once or twice even high and lofty office personages, who stared at her as if they thought she was crazy. In the end, however, she had reaped her reward.

The following passage is from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, published in 1916. Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s protagonist, yearns to be an artist but was raised and educated to join the clergy. Below he contemplates the diverging paths before him after a priest warns him of the permanence of his intended holy position. The Reverend Stephen Dedalus, S.J. His name in that new life leaped into characters before his eyes and to it there followed a mental sensation of an undefined face or colour of a face. The colour faded and became strong like a changing glow of pallid brick red. Was it the raw reddish glow he had so often seen on wintry mornings on the shaven gills of the priests? The face was eyeless and sour-favoured and devout, shot with pink tinges of suffocated anger. Was it not a mental spectre of the face of one of the Jesuits whom some of the boys called Lantern Jaws and others Foxy Campbell?

Text 1 In her essay, “The Realities of Love at First Sight,” Fisher explains how we evaluate an individual within three minutes of meeting them based on their physical attributes, voice, and words. First, we decide if they are attractive, then we evaluate their clothing and stature, before moving on to the sound and tone of their voice. Lastly, we consider what they actually say. She concludes that we choose partners whose biological chemicals complement our own. Text 2 Psychology Today renders love a three-step scientific process. First, a release of the hormone dopamine causes “feel good” emotions. In this stage, we feel attracted to an individual and associate them with feelings of intense joy. Next, our neurotransmitters—norepinephrine and phenylethylamine— lead to focused attention on the object of our attraction. Lastly, our brain reward system is activated, sending chemical messages that elevate mood and make an addiction-like urge to be with that person.

Microplastics are microscopic particles of plastic that tend to accumulate toxins and are in some cases toxic themselves. Unfortunately, microplastics tend to end up being eaten by various organisms. The primary reason for this problem is that in recent years, approximately 380 million tons of plastic are produced annually. Plastic is not biodegradable, which means that once it enters the environment it can take several hundred years to degrade. In fact, if all the plastic that was produced between 1950 and 1960 had been disposed of in the ocean, ________

The Souls of Black Folk i s a 1903 literary work by American author W. E. B. Du Bois. One cultural aspect on which Du Bois focuses in this work is the prevalence of “sorrow songs” in African American culture, i.e., musical compositions that evoke the suffering of slaves. In this work, Du Bois strongly suggests that American creativity is focused on energetic inventiveness: _________________

Through the improvement of technology and microscopy techniques, the differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes were discovered. Protists previously fell under the category of prokaryotes, which were originally classified as anucleate organisms and unicellular. Technological advances led to the understanding that protists are eukaryotic organisms even though most protists do remain unicellular. Since 1675, scientists ___________

Ernst Haeckel was a German zoologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, and about every about other type of scientist. He lived from 1834–1919. He was a contemporary of Charles Darwin and helped popularize On the Origin of Species in Germany. Contrary to Darwin and what we know now, Haeckel believed humans originated in Asia, not Africa. An accomplished artist, he created illustrations of animals and sea creatures with the same color and detail as the ornithological illustrations of James Audubon. Even though Americans aren’t as familiar with Haeckel as they are with Darwin or Audubon, Haeckel __________

In considering the following ___________ be well to bear in mind that records of the bird migration in this locality have been made each year for the past thirty-one years.

We hear about water every day. More than 70% of ___________ surface is covered with water. Water is a requirement for terrestrial life. Water makes up most of our bodies.

It is believed that ___________ on as near the actual date of their arrival as it would ordinarily be possible to obtain them

Schrödinger, a father of quantum mechanics himself, surely understood the uses of quantum superposition but also sought to bring attention to ___________ shortcomings.

General Douglas MacArthur and President Harry ___________ both American leaders in the late 1940s and early 1950s in the aftermath of the Allied victory during World War II

Two of the primary positions “between” nurse and doctor ___________ those of nurse practitioner and physician assistant. You can think of a nurse practitioner as a more advanced nurse and a physician assistant as a more restricted doctor.

Over time, when the town began to adopt more mainstream customs with respect to family dynamics, the rate of cardiovascular disease ___________.

Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg are truly giants of playwriting. The hallmarks of modern theater in their present incarnation—from stark realism to surreal expressionism—__________

Music is a combination of specific sound waves started and stopped at specific times. Some waves align nicely with one another or contrast nicely with one another, ___________ others are neither regularly contrasting nor matching.

Specific engineering disciplines focus on particular types of physical problems. ___________ aerospace engineering is mostly concerned with optimizing the performance of airplanes, while civil engineering is mostly concerned with improving physical structures and public works.

In the past few years, more than one horribly botched painting has made the news when it was delivered back to the owner looking nothing like the original. ___________ the art restorer working on the painting is not both topnotch and very well trained in artistic techniques from the time-period of the piece, the results of a restoration attempt can be disastrous.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: Robert Frost is one of the most popular poets in modern day. His poems centered around philosophical and social issues, questioning common assumptions with ironic writing. One of his most famous poems is “The Road Not Taken. ” It encourages readers to take the path less traveled by the world or by peers. Another one of Frost’s poems is “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” This poem reflects on the fleeting nature of beauty and life.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: Flying squirrels are the most numerous squirrels in Ohio, yet they are the least frequently observed. Flying squirrels are nocturnal. Flying squirrels do not actually fly; loose skin extends from wrist to ankle and allows them to glide between trees. Flying squirrels prefer to live in forests and not in suburbs Habitat loss is one of the greatest threats facing flying squirrels

The vacation had the opposite effect on Jim. He despised the upcoming days and was depressed at the thought of his recent break-up. Although he marched into work 15 minutes early on Monday morning, he was feeling very ___________.

An education is usually thought to have intrinsic ___________ rather than extrinsic. That is, its worth comes from the love of knowledge rather than something monetary. However, with the rising cost of tuition, one could maybe argue that there is a fiscal price related to education.

The night sky erupted with great displays of sound and light. Every couple of minutes, from dusk till late, the loud, explosive sounds would shake the sky and some unsuspecting and innocent below. It is not lightning or anything ___________; rather, it is meant to be a symbol of patriotism. It was a week before the Fourth of July, a day meant to celebrate the United States and those who defend it, and the fireworks had already begun.

Though Friedel and Crafts discovered a new chemical reaction, this reaction technique was virtually useless to the scientific community because it lacked selectivity. Selectivity causes a reaction to favor one product over another potential product of the reaction. Without selectivity, it is impossible for chemists to ___________ the products of their reaction. Not being able to separate one product from another makes a reaction useless because even a small alteration in a molecule can result in adverse effects.

As anyone who has watched a bag of instant popcorn expand knows, the tray inside of a microwave oven rotates as the food cooks. This rotation has the interesting effect of increasing the kinetic energy of the food’s polar molecules, as they too must constantly rotate to remain aligned with the field. As they do so, these molecules rub and grind against their neighbors, converting their kinetic energy into intermolecular friction, and thus evolving heat. In fact, the motion of molecules is so directly related to internal heat that one can calculate a material’s exact temperature by averaging the kinetic energy of the atoms and molecules that comprise it

Advocates of the presidential model posit that it is more democratic than the parliamentary system because the people themselves choose their executive. They contend that the fixed terms even allow for some stability that the parliamentary organization does not allow. Likewise, a further benefit lies in the separation of powers subject to checks and balances, in which the executive and legislative bodies can monitor one another and assure that power is not centralized. Yet, critics of the system assert that the president’s national status affords tendencies toward authoritarianism. Furthermore, as a rule, deadlocks or stalemates are much more common within a system that often has executive and legislative bodies under the control of different parties. Cynics therefore suggest that the presidential model is privy to discord and inefficiency—not to mention, presidents are difficult to remove when thought to be unfit

Some people simply believe that few, if any, other civilizations outside those on Earth exist. The Rare Earth Hypothesis suggests that Earth is unique, and so, therefore, is intelligent life. Others theorize that intelligent life has a tendency of destroying itself quickly; they hypothesize that self-annihilation occurs before contact can be made. On the other hand, many postulate that extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) does exist, but we see no evidence for a variety of reasons. Perhaps we are too far apart in space or time; perhaps humans, a relatively new species, haven’t searched long enough or maybe we aren’t listening properly; what if our distant neighbors are using different frequencies?

The following text is from Carl Sandburg’s 1916 poem “Theme in Yellow.” I spot the hills With yellow balls in autumn. I light the prairie cornfields Orange and tawny gold clusters And I am called pumpkins. On the last of October When dusk is fallen Children join hands And circle round me Singing ghost songs And love to the harvest moon; I am a jack-o’-lantern With terrible teeth And the children know I am fooling.

A historian writes an article suggesting that a shortcoming of the Iroquois Great League governmental structure was a decision-making process that led to paralysis.

A biologist analyzes the relationship between Midwestern bird species and the honeysuckle fruit. They find that the organisms have developed a mutualist relationship: native species of birds throughout the Midwest rely on honeysuckle fruit as a staple food source in the fall, while honeysuckle benefits in being spread to new regions when its seeds are eaten and subsequently dispersed by the birds

Occupational therapists work with clients to help them better perform their daily tasks. An occupational therapist examines what aspect of occupational therapy will most likely lead to positive client outcomes, replacing dysfunctional occupations (activities) and replacing them with functional ones. The therapist hypothesizes that a collaborative relationship between the occupational therapist and patient will minimize occupational dysfunction

Epidemic illnesses can cause significant loss of human life. A virologist attempts to determine what characteristics of flu viruses will result in the greatest human mortality. The virologist hypothesizes that if a flu virus has too high a fatality rate, its victims will die off before they can transmit the virus to other humans, ultimately resulting in relatively few cases

A researcher who specializes in analyzing the aftermath of car wrecks determines that car crash dummies are almost always designed to represent the male skeletal and muscular anatomy. The researcher thinks that car manufacturers as well as consumers should demand that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration develop dummies that represent not just men and women, but a variety of sizes of men and women as well as a variety of sizes of children. The researcher argues that the government should prioritize diverse demographic representation among crash test dummies to gather the most helpful information for consumers.

English chemist John Newlands proposed a “law of octaves” that was based, shockingly, on the standard musical scale, and which suggested that the periodicity of the elements follows a similar eight “note” pattern. Though his contemporaries heavily criticized Newlands, the idea was eventually vindicated by the octet theory of chemical bonding, which ___________

Bacteria is adapting and changing in response to our attempts to quash it and is consequently becoming more of a threat than ever before. Doctors and patients should be cautious and should ensure that antibiotics are truly necessary before contributing to this issue. Fewer antibiotics prescribed will mean less of a chance for C. diff for each individual patient and a greater chance that antibiotics will __________

___________ that live in the eastern region of Australia and in Tasmania. Platypuses typically live in bodies of freshwater like rivers, wetlands, billabongs, and estuaries; however, they have been known to live in brackish —a combination of fresh and salt water—estuaries as well.

The bystander effect is a psychological phenomenon that prevents people from helping those in need. The psychology behind this phenomenon is actually fairly simple. ___________ In a crowded place such as a stadium, people may think “I couldn’t get there in time,” or, “there are so many people who are closer to the scene of distress.”

Scientists speculate that the even though the evolutionary purpose of the toxins in ergot fungus was to discourage animals from eating it, humans were unable to prevent its consumption. ___________ harvested en masse and was only rarely sorted to remove ergot fungus.

States can best be characterized by their natural idiosyncrasies. Florida has its powdered sugar beaches; Nebraska, its butterscotch __________

While hiking has always been known to be a good form of exercise, current research ___________ that its added mental benefits have a significant impact on the physical health of those who hike.

When visiting museums, most people take for granted the rooms upon rooms of historic paintings, often hundreds of years old, that ___________ carefully preserved for the public’s view

Servals are medium-sized, gold-colored cats covered in darker patterns of stripes and spots. Having a lighter-colored coat with a darker pattern ___________ more difficult to spot them.

The Y-Bridge (named for its distinctive Y-shape) was designed to span the confluence of the Muskingum and Licking rivers. ___________ it crosses both rivers, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not once claimed that the Y-Bridge was the only bridge in the world where it was possible to cross and still end up on the same side of the river, and Amelia Earhart once called Zanesville “the most recognizable city in the country” because of the bridge.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive neurodegenerative brain disease that is largely difficult to diagnose and treat. Indeed, ___________ accurate diagnosis can only be done by looking at portions of the brain under a microscope, a true CTE diagnosis can’t be made until an autopsy is done on a deceased sufferer.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: Ballet traces its history to the Italian Renaissance in the 15th century. Catherine de Medici, a native Italian, was queen consort of France in the mid-1500s. Catherine de Medici enjoyed ballet, introduced it to the French court, and sponsored large and detailed performances. The French court continued to value ballet and King Louis XIV even performed in ballets. The world’s first ballet school, Académie Royale de Danse, was founded in France in 1661 with the support of King Louis XIV. The ballet school introduced the five positions all ballet students still learn today.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: There are two types of hearing loss: conductive and sensorineural. Conductive hearing loss happens when sounds cannot get through, or conduct, to the inner ear Conductive hearing loss can have many causes and sometimes it’s a simple cause, such a blockage in the ear canal. Sensorineural hearing loss happens when structures in the inner ear are damaged. Sensorineural hearing loss also has many causes—two common causes are aging and exposure to loud noises.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: Effective Altruism is an emerging form of charity that evaluates causes through a framework of data and evidence. To be a good candidate for Effective Altruism, a problem must be solvable. Effective Altruism seeks to use charity money in the most efficient way to do the most good. This results in Effective Altruism targeting specific causes that may have previously been overlooked by charitable endeavors. Some causes that have benefited from Effective Altruism include the nearing eradication of Guinea worm disease, the treatment of diabetic eye disease in Bangladesh, and cash incentives for completing routine childhood vaccines in Nigeria.