Digital SAT Reading & Writing Test 5 - Alternate Module 2

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.

The following text is from Lucy Maud Mont gomery's 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables. “The trouble with you, Anne, is that you’re thinking too much about yourself. You should just think of Mrs. Allan and what would be nicest and most agreeable to her,” said Marilla, hitting for once in her life on a very sound and pithy piece of advice. Anne instantly realized this. “You are right, Marilla. I’ll try not to think about myself at all.”

Marine biologists suspected that rising temperatures were significantly impacting coral reefs off the coast of Australia, but a dearth of ______ data that compares Australia’s reefs with that of other reefs throughout the world meant they could not confirm their hypothesis. In response, Rick Stuart-Smith and Graham Edgar of the Reef Life Survey not only collected detailed data about Australia’s reefs but also incorporated data from two other major reef studies, which together have helped demonstrate the impacts of rising temperatures on Australian coral reefs, such as decreases in localized reef fish species diversity.

Despite its original reception, the influence of Charles Baudelaires 1857 poetry volume Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil ) over time is ______.Six poems from the volume, which explored themes of decadence and death, were banned by the French government at its initial publication, and Baudelaire was prosecuted and fined. Still, Les Fleurs du mal lived on to inspire many top-tier French poets, especially those of the symbolist movement, as well as numerous orchestral and popular music compositions throughout the world and even an acclaimed 2009 manga series titled Aku no Hana ( Flowers of Evil in Japanese).

The following text is adapted from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1887 short story “A Study in Scarlet.” Yet his zeal for certain studies was remarkable, and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly astounded me. . . . His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. . . . My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the solar system.

The following text is adapted from Philip Gibbs’ 1920 nonfiction book Now It Can Be Told. [British World War I veterans] were told bluntly that they had “wasted” three or four years in the army and could not be of the same value as boys just out of school. The officer class was hardest hit in that way. They had gone straight from the public schools and univer sities to the army. They had been lieutenants, captains, and majors in the air force, or infan try battalions, or tanks, or trench-mortars. . . . What knowledge had they of use in civil life? None. They scanned advertisements, answered likely invitations, were turned down by elderly men who said: “I've had two hundred applications. And none of you young gentlemen from the army are fit to be my office-boy.” They were the same elderly men who had said: “We'll fight to the last ditch. If I had six sons I would sacri fice them all in the cause of liberty and justice.”

Text 1 Historians consider primary sources— original documents, records, and accounts created at the time of interest— to be the best materials to use when researching past events. Secondary sources are created after some time passes and include analyses, interpretations, and retellings. Text 2 In 1981, anthropologist David Pocock advertised for voluntary correspondents from any occupation who were willing to provide their views on a topic that would be sent to them quarterly. Other than asking his respondents to observe carefully and include as much detail as they wished, Pocock provided no direction, only a general topic. Since then Pocock and his colleagues have archived thousands of responses that include maps, diagrams, and letters of varying lengths.

Text 1 Historian J.R. McNeill claims that mosquitoes were historical actors in the Caribbean region in the period 1620 to 1914 since their spread ing of the diseases of yellow fever and malaria impacted geopolitical developments in the region. Since various populations had differing levels of immunity or resistance to the diseases, McNeill argues, groups with relatively high protection were more likely to prevail militarily against groups with relatively low protection. Text 2 When searching for historical causes, scholars must be cautious to avoid strict environmental determinism, which frames the ecological environment as the primary causal factor in historical developments. While aspects of the physical environment, such as climate, soil quality, and the types of wildlife present, undoubtedly influence societies and events, historians must be careful to prioritize human actors as the most critical catalysts of history.

"Hope is the Tiling with Feathers” is a late 1800s poem written by Emily Dickinson. “Hope” is the thing with feathers— That perches in the soul— And sings the tune without the words— And never stops— at all— And sweetest— in the Gale is heard And sore must be the storm— That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm— I’ve heard it in the chillest land— And on the strangest Sea— Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb— of Me.

Scientists have known that women's brains undergo structural changes as a result of pregnancy. They have also found a positive correlation between the decrease in brain volume during pregnancy and feelings of attachment to the new infant. These observations support the hypothesis that the brain changes are an evolutionary adaptation to improve parenting behaviors. In what may be another interesting example of similar evolutionary goals being met by different physiological mechanisms, research by Magdalena Martinez-Garcia indi cates similar, but smaller, changes in the brains of new fathers that are also positively correlated with affectionate feelings towards infants

The following text is from Louisa May Alcott's 1887 novel Eight Cousins. Rose scrambled into the china-closet as rapidly as possible, and there refreshed herself by making faces at Debby, while she settled her plumage and screwed up her courage. Then she crept softly down the hall and peeped into the parlor. No one appeared, and all was so still she felt sure the company was upstairs. So she skipped boldly through the half-open folding-doors, to behold on the other side a sight that nearly took her breath away. Seven boys stood in a row, — all ages, all sizes, all yellow-haired and blue-eyed, all in full Scotch costume, and all smiling, nodding, and saying as with one voice, “How are you, cousin?” Rose gave a little gasp and looked wildly about her as if ready to fly, for fear magnified the seven and the room seemed full of boys.

The following text is from Mark Twain’s and Charles Dudley Warner's 1874 satirical novel, The Gilded Age. “Squire” Hawkins got his title from being post master of Obedstown — not that the title properly belonged to the office, but because in those regions the chief citizens always must have titles of some sort, and so the usual courtesy had been extended to Hawkins. The mail was monthly, and sometimes amounted to as much as three or four letters at a single delivery. Even a rush like this did not fill up the postmasters whole month, though, and therefore he “kept store” in the intervals.

Psychologist Stephen Worchel hypothesized if a commodity is perceived to he scarce, that commodity will he considered more valuable than a commodity that is perceived to be abundant. To evaluate this hypothesis, Worchel and a team of researchers designed a study in which participants in two different groups were asked to rate the value of cookies. One group was presented with only a few cookies in each trial; the other group was presented with a large number of cookies in each trial.

The Prophet is a collection of poetry fables written by Kablil Gibran and first published in 1923. The poems describe the arrival and teachings of a fictional prophet named Almustafa. In the poems, the speaker, Ahnustafa, admonishes his listeners that mate rial goods are relatively unimportant:_______

Electricity generally flows better through metals than through other materials. However, not all metals have the same properties, with their resistivity and conductivity varying. Resistivity is a measure of how strongly a material resists electrical current; maximizing electrical flow requires low resistivity. By contrast, a higher conductivity is better, as such a material will better conduct electrical current. Silver, gold, and copper are metals commonly used to conduct electricity Silver and gold are restricted to high-end electronic components due to their rarity creating a high price. Copper is used in such components, too, but it also sees widespread use in power lines and home wiring. Researchers at NASA have hypothesized that asteroid mining would massively increase the global supply of precious metals, like silver and gold, allowing for a more energy-efficient infrastructure to be created.

When colony collapse disorder the mysteri ous disappearance of entire colonies of honey bees was fust recognized, beekeepers and scientists assumed that a pathogen was to blame. Indeed, there are several known viruses and pests that can kill off entire hives of honey bees quickly and arc extremely hard to prevent. Mites, fungus, and bacterial Infections arc all common killers. Because of how often they’re seen in hives, farmers assumed that these common plights were responsible for colony collapse disorder. However, as time passed and the disorder was studied, researchers noticed something odd. In many cases, there were simply no dead bees to discover, only empty hives, These findings therefore imply that ______

NASCAR has its roots in the Prohibition lira, when drivers would illegally transport alcohol. These bootleggers would sometimes find themselves pursued by the police. To escape the police, especially on narrow backcountry roads at night, these bootleggers would customize their cars to emphasize two ______ handling and speed. Many of these bootleggers became popular stock car racers in the 1930s and 1940s

Between 1934 and 1968, most films released in the United States were subject to censorship by the Hays Code. Hie code severely restricted what could and could not be shown in films. There were, however, ways to circumvent it. Director Alfred Hitchcock depicted a couple kissing for nearly two and a half minutes despite there being a strict three-second rule for onscreen kisses. He did this by having the actors break off the kiss every three seconds, meaning ______ kissing technically did not violate the Hays Codes time limit.

Yoga pants have become an increasingly commonplace fashion in recent years, yet yoga : pants are often worn by people who have never \ practiced yoga themselves. What explains this trend? It is simply the continuing, longtime influence of sports on fashion. Clothing that we now consider ______ only by athletes. Like yoga pants, those items also became popular among the general public.

Published in the 14th century, Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the “Four Great Classical Novels” of Chinese literature along side Water Margin, Journey to the West, and Dream of the Red Chambe r. Following a sprawling cast battling over which faction will reunite China during the Three Kingdoms period (220 to 280 C.E.), _______cultural influence can be seen throughout East Asia.

Xenophon of Athens, among the most famous Greek military leaders, ______ best remembered today for the March of the Ten Thou sand, which saw him assume command of a leaderless army, one trapped in hostile territory with enemies on all sides, then lead it to safety.

Two English political thinkers, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, lived through the horrors of the English Civil War. Despite this shared experience, each man came to strikingly different conclusions about human nature. Locke believed that people possess inherent natural rights: to life, liberty, and ______ by contrast, argued that natural rights did not exist. Only through a strong ruler and the willing submission of the people to the laws of that ruler could rights exist.

Though prominently displayed on the Great Seal of the United States, the bald eagle was once considered a threat to small livestock (despite the fact that its diet consists primarily of ______ and was widely hunted in the 19th century. The 1940 Bald Eagle Protection Act sought to preserve the birds’ dwindling numbers by not only outlawing the hunting of bald eagles but also prohibiting interference with their nests.

A spontaneous semi-dominant gene mutation in the leopard gecko produces “lemon frost" geckos, which are prized for their unique coloration patterns of white and bright yellow This gene mutation of the iridophores also causes extensive skin tumors, or iriophoroma, in the majority of the lemon frost geckos. A team of geneticists, led by Longhua Guo at the University of California, Los Angeles, has isolated the location of the specific gene: SPENT 1, a tumor suppressor gene that is also related to human skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM). _______some scientists have asserted that the potential of this new animal model in the study of melanoma may unlock answers in the quest for a cure, others have cited the need for additional research on the metastatic progression of the lemon frost geckos iriopho oma before supplanting their current animal models.

The first photographed image of a black hole was captured by using eight separate radio telescopes that were located throughout the world, two of which reside in Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. Hie black hole was ______ given the sobriquet “Powehi” by Hawaiian Language and Culture Professor Larry Kimura. Considered to be a fitting reflection of the current understanding of black holes, the name means “embellished dark source of unending creation.”

After years of social and academic struggles experienced in formal school settings during his adolescence, Ansel Adams found solace in mastering the piano and hiking through the wilderness. ________those passions are evident in his award-winning photography, which wielded the rich tonality of black and white to illuminate the nuanced aesthetic he had found in nature.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: In 2022, about 500 million messages — or tweets—were sent per day on the Twitter messaging platform. Data on the number of Twitter messages can be easily known from Twitters records. Sociologists Michael Macy and Scott Golder were interested in investigating the content of Twitter messages, particularly their depiction of emotions over the course of the day. The sociologists used computer analysis to detect the presence of wrords associated with positive and negative emotions in tweets. On average, Twitter users across the world made tweets with more positive words in the morning and early evening. On average, Twitter users across the world made tweets with more negative words in the afternoon

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: One of the most famous paintings of William Shakespeare is the so-called Flower Portrait, named for the Flower family that owned the portrait. The portrait is signed with the date 1609. The portrait is similar to the 1623 Droeshout engraving of Shakespeare. In 2005, art historians x-rayed the portrait and performed mass spectrometry on paint samples from the portrait. The paint sample analysis indicated the presence of a chrome yellow pigment that dates to the early 1800s. The historians concluded that the portrait was painted in the 1800s and was based on the Droeshout engraving.