Digital SAT Reading & Writing Test 5

The following text is from Franz Kafkas 1915 novel Metamorphosis. Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. “How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense,” he thought.

Art is never ______, nor is it meant to be. A poem written today looks and sounds vastly different from a poem by Shakespeare, and a modern symphony no longer resembles one by Beethoven.

Chemist Carolyn Bertozzi developed biorthogonal chemistry, which entails producing chemical reactions inside living organisms through a relatively ______ procedure; the practice facilitates cutting-edge scientists research because it allows to study the impacts of modified molecules 'without interfering with the normal biological functioning of an organism’s cells.

Astronomers typically have difficulty detect ing newly-forming planets because the young planets are obscured by large amounts of dust and debris. Astronomer Feng Long, however, has recently discovered a new potential method for identifying young planets. Using extensive data from computer models, Long reports material that precisely positioned clusters of buildup— 120 degrees apart— may signal the presence of a new planet

Meditation has been around for thousands of years, starting as a religious practice. Hindu scripture from around 1500 B.C.E. describes meditating on the divine, and art from this time period shows people sitting cross-legged and solitary in a garden. In China and India around the fifth century B.C.E., other forms of meditation developed. Several reli gions, including Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, have meditative rites. In 20th-century Europe and America, secular forms of meditation arrived from India. Rather than focusing on spiritual growth, secular meditation emphasizes stress reduction, relaxation, and self-improvement.

Text 1 First used to replace sugar during the shortages caused by World War I, artificial sweeteners have since grown tremendously in popularity. Many nutritionists believe that artificial sweeteners can be used to replace sugar in the diet of a person suffering from diabetes, a chronic condition that prevents the body from properly regulating blood sugar levels. Text 2 Jotham Suez and a research team conducted a study of about 400 people and found that the subjects who consumed artificial sweeteners had higher blood sugar levels and impaired abilities to tolerate glucose. They also found that the subjects who consumed artificial sweeteners had different populations of bacteria in their guts compared to the subjects who did not, and they posit that artificial sweetener use was responsible for these differences.

Text 1 Most geologists believe the continents formed as material bubbled up from the Earths core. In the presence of water, buoyant granite formed on the underside of the bubbles and become the base upon which a continent would glow. This theory remains unproven, however, because the motion of the continents and the interactions along their edges destroy the geological record, thus making it impossible to study. Text 2 Tim Johnson and colleagues argue that the original continents were seeded by meteor ites. The collision of the meteorites with the hot surface of the Earth caused fragments of the crust to cool and become buoyant patches to which additional material would adhere, forming continents. To support their view, they cite the composition of crystals taken from the oldest known segment of the Earths crust, which shows that the crystals formed close to the surface of the Earth.

The programs of the New Deal constituted a collection of measures intended to curb the economic hardships U.S. citizens faced as a result of the Great Depression. For instance, the Public Works Administration provided jobs in an effort to combat high unemployment. Likewise, the Agricultural Adjustment Act sought to raise incomes for impoverished farmers by inflating prices on agricultural commodities.

A now-famous occurrence at the roulette wheel at a casino in Monte Carlo in 1913 has become emblematic of the so-called gambler’s fallacy. A roulette wheel has an equal number of red and black spaces, and players can bet on the color on which a ball will land when the wheel is spun. On the night of the incident, the wheel landed on black a surprising 26 times in a row. Bettors lost huge sums of money, based on their mistaken assumption that the wheel was much more likely to break the streak and land on red next. This flawed conception of probability, which fails to consider each independent spin as a discrete event, is the heart of the gambler s fallacy

The following text is from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1887 novel A Study in Scarlet. As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his aims in life gradually deepened and increased. His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.

“A March in the Ranks Hard-Pressed, and the Road Unknown” is an 1865 poem by Walt Whitman. In the poem, the speaker describes the determination of soldiers to continue despite their heavy losses _____

World War I ran from 1914 to 1918. It saw the Central Powers, led by Germany, battle the Allies, principally the British Empire, France, Russia, and, starting in 1917, the United States. In 1909, however, British economist Normal Angell published The Great Illusion, which became a best-seller published in over 11 languages. Angell argued that, in the modern world, the great illusion’ was that international peace was guaranteed through strong militaries. Angell asserted that international trade and economic interconnectedness meant modern war was unlikely due to it potentially costing nations so much money. This idea was welcomed at a time when tensions were rising between Germany and the British Empire over a naval arms race, as

Economic models have been hurshly criticized for not accurately predicting major economic crises such as the (heat Depression and the 2008 recession. However, these models are only able to incorporate known, historical trends. Both the Great Depression and The 2008 economic recession were triggered by bank failures: sudden, unusual, and traumatic events impossible to predict. Once the failures occurred, and thus became known, they were incorporated into the economic models of the time that then accurately predicted the future direction of the economy. Since the models can be updated, this implies that economic models _____

In his most famous project, French philosopher Rend Descartes sought certainty by mentally stripping away every layer of knowledge that was remotely possible to doubt. Ultimately, Descartes arrived at his memorable conclusion, “I think, therefore I ______ could only be certain of the fact that he was think ing. Building from there, he could work toward rational certainty in other areas of knowledge.

In early 1878, Constantin Fahlberg began working as a research chemist in a laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, making chemical compounds derived from coal tar. Coal tar was a by-product of steel manufacturing, and compounds derived from ______ had been used as medicines and in dye formulations. Fahlberg was studying ways to add different chemicals to molecules found in coal tar to see if the new compounds formed had other useful properties, and in one of the more famous accidents of modern chemistry, created saccharine, the first artificial sweetener.

Earth has been struck by asteroids in the past, so scientists have launched a probe that will crash into a small asteroid in an effort to measure the effect the impact has on the path of the asteroid. Although the asteroid is small, it is much larger than the one that struck Siberia in ______ leveled 2,000 square kilometers of forest), so scientists hope to learn enough to be able to protect Earth from future asteroid impacts

Although some consumers consider home delivery more efficient than driving to several stores to obtain needed supplies, the cardboard needed to produce shipping packages ______ to the household garbage that communities must process.

Spring has traditionally been the time to plant trees; however, in areas with hot summers and mild winters, fall is the best season to plant. Planting in the ______new trees the longest possible lime to establish good growth and build strength before the stresses of the hot and dry summer months begin.

Weight-bearing exercise has been shown to benefit participants of all ages and abilities. Although the most obvious example is that of athletes who build the muscle mass and strength that help them excel in their sports, weight-bearing exercise is _____ to enable them to continue with the activities of daily life.

The Tripitaka Koreana is a collection of over 80,000 woodblocks. Created in the 13th century, it is the oldest and most comprehensive version of the Buddhist canon, with no known errors or typos in its volumes. Each woodblock was made through an elaborate ______was soaked in sea water for three years, then boiled in salt water, then exposed to wind for three years, then covered in a poisonous lacquer to keep insects from damaging the wood, and finally framed with metal to prevent the wood from warping. This elaborate process created woodblocks that are in pristine condition despite being over 750 years old.

The Hohokam people of the Phoenix Basin in the desert of today's southern Arizona constructed villages that encompassed several hundred acres with the largest and most extensive irrigation canals in North America. Remarkably permanent in an area known for settlements that relocated after only a few decades,_________ during which the Hohokam successfully grew crops in the same locations and prospered.

Mary Anning was an English fossil collector in the early 19th century. Despite her many achievements, Anning existed on the outskirts of paleontology. Women were not allowed to join the Geological Society of London. Class politics further stifled Anning, who came from a working-class background. She supported herself by collecting fossils along the shoreline of Lyme Regis, as each winter caused landslides that exposed previously buried fossils. This work was dangerous; _______ Anning herself had one near-miss with a landslide that took the life of her dog

SONAR (Sound Navigation And Ranging) is a system that uses sound waves to measure the depth of water under a boat. SONAR technology was developed during World War I;______ in 1490, Leonardo da Vinci experimented with the principle by listening to a tube inserted into water in order to detect marine vessels.

A recent survey found that the share of teens between the ages of 13 and 17 who claim to be “almost constantly” on social media has nearly doubled from 24% in 2015 to 46% today._______ most of the survey responders believe they spend an appropriate amount of time online; only 36% reported that they believe they spend too much time on the internet.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: Parshvanatha, one of the 23 propagators of the Jain religion, lived in the 9th century B.C.E. and is considered the first documented person to prohibit consuming meat as part of a religious practice. Around the 5th century B.C.E., Siddhar tha Gautama (the founder of Buddhism) and Pythagoras (the Greek philosopher and mathematician) refrained from eating meat. • Seitan, a wheat-based meat substitute, was invented in China in the 6th century C.E., and almond milk was first manufactured in 13th century C.E. Europe. In the 18th century C.E., Benjamin Frank lin sent soybeans to the United States after encountering tofu, a soy-based meat substitute, in London. Today, companies manufacturing plant based meat substitutes make even more options available for consumers who are reducing their consumption of meat.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: Umi Kai crafts traditional na mea Hawaii (things of Hawai'i), everyday objects used by his people for generations. Committed to preserving his culture, he exclusively uses the same native materials such as sharks teeth, ohia lehua, and other native woods as were used by his forebears. Using power tools, he crafts items more quickly than his ancestors could, but even with modern methods, his hand-crafted items are time-consuming to produce. Looking for quick, inexpensive souvenirs, many tourists purchase items that look as if they are authentically Hawaiian but are actually mass-produced overseas. Umi Kai and other traditional Hawaiian artisans continue to seek customers who recognize the value ofcraftmanship and want to participate in the continuity of traditional Hawaiian culture.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: The ancient Bedouin, a nomadic people of the Arabian desert, preserved their cultural history in oral poetry from at least the 3rd century B.C.E. Their dominant poetic form was the Qasida, epic odes with three parts — the prelude, the desert journey, and the goal of the ode — that were transmitted orally by storytellers who memorized Qasida hundreds of lines long and performed public recitations. Portions of Qasida were found inscribed on rock tablets, and experts identified consistent elements of style, such as repeated word patterns and specific themes. By the 6th century B.C.E., the Qasida form was adopted in Arabic courts, and the poet Imru’ al-Qais, ruler of the Kindah tribal kingdom, became known as the “father of Arabic poetry” for his Qasida. Some of Imru’ al-Qais’s Qasida were preserved in writing and include themes common to those of the earliest Arabic poetry.

Damage from tropical storms is more often caused by flood water than by high winds. The storms push a wall of water, called a storm surge, ahead of them that washes over coastal land. Flooding can be ______ when the storm surge arrives at high tide, when water levels on the coasts are already at their highest for that day.

Poems written in iambic pentameter consist of lines of 10 syllables, each following a strict unstressed-stressed syllable pattern. Despite the ______ of such a structure, poet Alice Oswald chose to employ iambic pentameter in her free-flowing lyrical expression “A Short Story of Falling,” a poem that explores the process of rain and its impacts on nature

Jim Metnicr is a sound engineer who has collected sounds of nature from all over the world and shared them with his audiences for over 40 years. He hesitates to describe his work as "capturing" sound because he perceives every recording as a gift, _______ the creatures on the planet.

Scientists have known for over 50 years that bacteria propel themselves by coiling and uncoiling filaments attached to the cell wall, called flagella, that push the bacteria along like tiny propellers. But flagella are composed of identical protein segments, and strands of identical proteins should simply form a straight structure that cant create motion. Edward Egelman and an international team have determined that the protein in the flagella has 1 1 different states and that the precise arrangement of these states is what causes the flagella to coil.

The following text is from Louisa May Alcott's 1887 novel Eight Cousins Rose sat all alone in the big best parlor. with her little handkerchief laid ready to catch the first tear, for she was thinking of her troubles. and a shower was expected. She had retired to this room as a good place in which to be miserable; for it was dark and still. full of ancient furniture, somber curtains, and hung all round with portraits of solemn old gentle-men in wigs severe-nosed ladies in top-heavy caps, and staring children in little bob-tailed coats or short-waisted frocks. It was an excel-lent place for woe; and the fitful spring rain that pattered on the window-pane seemed to sob, try away: I'm with you."

Text 1 Cancers start with a mutation in a single cell, so larger animals with many more cells should have more cancers than smaller ones. Richard Peto noticed that this is not the case. Whales have 1,000 times more cells than humans do but have much lower rates of cancer. Marc Tollis determined that whales have at least 13 different tumor-suppressing genes, suggesting that, as whales evolved to become so large, they also evolved genes to combat cancer. Text 2 Elephants have 100 times more cells than humans do but hax’e cancer rates that are less than half of human cancer rates. Joshua Schiff man found that elephants have 40 copies of a gene that suppresses cancer, while humans have two copies of this gene.

Text 1 Kudzu, an invasive vine, can grow a foot a day, and masses of these plants cover struc tures, forests, and landscapes in the southern United States. Kudzu grows so thickly that it completely cuts off sunlight to the plants beneath it, killing them and destroying native ecosystems. Fortunately, a new weapon has emerged in the battle against kudzu: goats. Goats not only quickly consume vast amounts of the plants, but their digestive systems also destroy the seeds, so the plants are not trans planted through the goats manure. Text 2 Using goats to control invasive plants is an important innovation in curbing many prob lematic species, but it is not a panacea. After the goats eat the tender foliage, the roots and woody portions of invasive plants must still be removed. In addition, the land needs to be monitored for erosion because the goats’ hooves may disrupt structures that stabilize the soil.

The eminence of the U.S. public university network stretches beyond the United States. Students travel from across the globe to study at top programs. Cutting-edge schools like the University of Virginia (UVA) and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) receive continual international attention for their accomplishments in scholarship and research. Programs, faculty, and students from these schools participate in the global conversation in significant ways, working toward a better future for the planet.

A new theory may shed light on several phenomena of the planet Saturn that astrono mers could not previously explain. Scientists now theorize that an additional moon called Chrysalis orbited Saturn until approximately 160 million years ago, when its orbit destabi lized and the moon scraped the planet. The remnants of the crashed moon could be the source of Saturn’s rings, icy debris that orbits the planet. The rings are thought to have formed about 100 million years ago, long after the formation of Saturn itself but after Chrysalis’s theoretical destruction. Further, Chrysalis’s gravitational pull on Saturn before the collision i and the lack of that pull after the collision— in conjunction with the gravitational influence of Saturn’s large planetary neighbor, Neptune — may help explain Saturn’s pronounced tilt on its axis.

One theory about the cause of honeybee colony collapse disorder points to the use of pesticides. Pesticides, which are chemicals used to prevent pest infestation of crops on a large scale around the world, are often picked up by honeybees during their foraging and pollination flights. Scientists have found that more than one pesticide can be found in the honey of one hive. While the presence of one pesticide in a hive would certainly limit the life spans'of bees and impair their navigational skills, some researchers theorize that the inter action of two or more pesticides could cause an entire colony to collapse. There are many ingredients in pesticides that are not regulated by world governments, and this leaves a lot of ground for bee scientists to cover when doing their research.

The following text is from Kahlil Gibran's 1923 collection of poetry fables The Prophet. Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

Professional line standers arc paid to wait in a queue in someone else’s place. Some situations that draw line standers are relatively frivolous, such as camping out days in advance for the release of the latest cell phone or video game system. Line-standing also occurs in the U.S. capitol, where political lobbyists have engaged in paying others to queue for them to gain entry to political processes such as Supreme Court hearings; one notorious example saw people waiting for four days outside the hearings on the Affordable Care Act in 2012. Based on a recent series of interviews with several politicians in Washington, D.C., a journalist claims that lobbyist line-standing draws criticism due to concerns that it undermines the fairness of political processes.

The concept of embodied cognition states that our physical interactions with an object are an essential component of how our brains understand the meaning of the word for that object. For example, our brains do not fully comprehend the meaning of the word “pencil” apart from our familiarity with the physical actions of holding and writing with a pencil. Thus, a team at Osaka Metropolitan University hypothesized that the brain’s processing of the words for physical objects would be impacted if subjects’ body movements were limited. To evaluate this hypothesis, the researchers showed subjects pairs of words on a computer screen. When words for physical objects, such as “cup” and “broom” were displayed, researchers asked the subjects to compare the objects’ relative sizes. Some subjects’ hands were restrained, while others could move their hands freely

Some scientists have argued that humanity must become a multi-planet species to minimize our risk of extinction. However, establishing off-world colonies poses severe technological and, indeed, biological challenges. Orthopedist Gaurav Sahota of Grand Lakes University conducted a study of astronauts who had spent several months in zero-gravity conditions, noting a decline in their bone density. Sahota theorized that children born in off- world colonies may suffer from musculoskeletal developmental issues due to being born and raised in conditions with gravity lower than that found on Earth. Sahota argues that this issue would elimi nate most of our closest celestial neighbors as viable candidates for settlement. For example, although Mars is often the subject of interest when it comes to colonization, the _______

Researchers are racing to find ways for people to maintain brain health while aging. A recent study examined the effects of non-action video-game training on small sample sizes of aging adults experiencing cognitive decline. Test subjects who completed as few as twenty training sessions with these video games showed an increase in attention span, alertness, and visual memory. They also showed a decrease in distraction. Since these results suggest that there may be ways to stave off mental decline and thus help the elderly maintain functions needed for safe driving and other activities of daily living, the researchers therefore imply that _______

Fran oise Gilot often appeared as the subject of the renowned Pablo Picasso’s paintings. However, Annie Maillis, Gilot’s biographer, claims that Gilot created her own abstract _______ it was important to her to have a voice in the projection of her own self image.

Among the earliest internet hoaxes was the case of John Titor, a self-proclaimed time traveler. Over the course of 2000 and 2001, Titor posted on a variety of message boards, sharing information about the future during a ‘layover’ on his mission to retrieve a particular model of computer from the 1970s. Titor revealed an obscure secret feature of that computer model, one its manufacturer had successfully hidden for decades, _______

Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, born in 1 977, was renowned for her contributions to the field of theoretical mathematics, such as in Ergodic theory, hyperbolic geometry, moduli spaces, and symplectic ______ won the prestigious Fields Medal, the first woman to do so.

The cherimoya is a fruit native to South America with a custard-like texture, a taste often compared to ice cream, and, says nutritionist Johan Lieber of Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf a host of important vitamins and minerals; for example, adults eating just a single cherimoya will find it contains 60% of _______daily recommended amount of Vita-min C

Ibn klialdun, writing in his book The Muqad-dimah , describes asabiyyah, a feeling of social cohesion binding people together in a civilization, as possessing a life cycle that, like the life cycle of birds and beasts, an end.

In recent decades, popular novels and their film adaptations have driven the novel market in a new direction. Novels are considered just another entertainment medium, one that ought to enthrall passive readers and relieve them of their daily stresses. The difficulties, challenges, and triumphs of real life are becoming less common as the subjects of popular _______instead, escapist tales of fantastical lands and escapades prevail.

Although little-remembered today, the Jubalaires, a Christian gospel group active in the 1940s and 1950s, were among several formative influences on the creation of hip-hop and rap music. This four-man group, by incorporating rhythmic rhyming verses into their _______together to create a new type of music that would eventually become rap.

In the first days of space exploration, one concern was the possibility that astronauts or spacecraft might be hit by meteoroids. Scientists calculated that this possibility was extremely small because meteoroids are rare. Astronauts and spacecraft, ______ would almost certainly collide with micrometeorites, which are about the size of grains of dust and much more common.

Researchers in the RIPE (Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency) project have developed a bioengineering technique that allows plants to conduct photosynthesis more efficiently. The technique, which reduces the time plants spend in a non-productive state while switching between the photosynthetic processes they use when exposed to sun versus shade, has increased yields in both tobacco and soybean plants in field studies _______ . these results, the researchers hope that further applications of their research will help mitigate world hunger in the future.

Commissioned by emperors of the early Ming Dynasty, Admiral Zheng He led naval expeditions from China to locations as far away as the Arabian Peninsula and the East African coast in the early 1400s. Eventually, after increased threats from the Yuan Mongols, the Ming government diverted funds to terrestrial defensive measures instead, including an expansion of the Great Wall of China. _______ major state-sponsored sea voyages did not continue after the 1430s.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: Romero Britto is a Brazilian-born painter and printmaker who lives in Miami, Florida. His art style encompasses principles of pop art and cubism, including the use of strong geometric lines. His art incorporates bright colors and cheerful subject matter; it reflects the "Happy Art Movement,” which he founded to promote art with an optimistic message. His work Mona Cat (2010), a stylized reworking of Da Vinci's classic Mona Lisa, features a smirking, cartoonish blue cat wearing a Renaissance gown of many colors. His 2009 poster for the 2010 soccer World Cup in South Africa features a soccer ball, covered in rainbow-colored country outlines, hurtling as a comet through a sky of colorful stars with a background of blue streamers

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: Archaeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian personal letters, which are written on papyrus. Letters in ancient Egypt were typically writ ten by elites, such as government officials and landowners, as the common populace was illiterate. Several discovered letters contain the writ ten instructions of elites who were traveling and attempting to manage their households while away. Two letters written by General Nehesu address an issue about sacks of grain that he had sent to his household but had gone missing, possibly due to in-fighting within the household. In several letters, the priest Heqanakht responds to his household’s complaints about their low food rations during a season of inadequate river flooding and admonishes his son Merisu to carefully manage his property.