Question ID c966ad55
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: c966ad55
The following text is from Srimati Svarna Kumari Devi’s 1894 novel The Fatal Garland (translated by A. Christina Albers in
1910). Shakti is walking near a riverbank that she visited frequently during her childhood.
She crossed the woods she knew so well. The trees seemed to extend their branches like welcoming arms. They
greeted her as an old friend. Soon she reached the river-side.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
A. It suggests that Shakti feels uncomfortable near the river.
B. It indicates that Shakti has lost her sense of direction in the woods.
C. It emphasizes Shakti’s sense of belonging in the landscape.
D. It conveys Shakti’s appreciation for her long-term friendships.
Question ID d4732483
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: d4732483
Studying late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artifacts from an agricultural and domestic site in Texas, archaeologist
Ayana O. Flewellen found that Black women employed as farm workers utilized hook-and-eye closures to fasten their clothes
at the waist, giving themselves a silhouette similar to the one that was popular in contemporary fashion and typically
achieved through more restrictive garments such as corsets. Flewellen argues that this sartorial practice shows that these
women balanced hegemonic ideals of femininity with the requirements of their physically demanding occupation.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
To describe an unexpected discovery that altered a researcher’s view of how rapidly fashions among Black female
A. farmworkers in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Texas changed during the period
To discuss research that investigated the ways in which Black female farmworkers in late nineteenth- and early
B. twentieth-century Texas used fashion practices to resist traditional gender ideals
To evaluate a scholarly work that offers explanations for the impact of urban fashion ideals on Black female farmworkers
C. in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Texas
To summarize the findings of a study that explored factors influencing a fashion practice among Black female
D. farmworkers in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Texas
Question ID 236fee8e
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: 236fee8e
Archeological excavation of Market Street Chinatown, a nineteenth-century Chinese American community in San Jose,
California, provided the first evidence that Asian food products were imported to the United States in the 1800s: bones from
a freshwater fish species native to Southeast Asia. Jinshanzhuang—Hong Kong–based import/export firms—likely
coordinated the fish’s transport from Chinese-operated fisheries in Vietnam and Malaysia to North American markets. This
route reveals the (often overlooked) multinational dimensions of the trade networks linking Chinese diaspora communities.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
It explains why efforts to determine the country of origin of the items mentioned in the previous sentence remain
A. inconclusive.
It provides information that helps support a claim about a discovery’s significance that is presented in the following
B. sentence.
C. It traces the steps that were taken to locate and recover the objects that are described in the previous sentence.
D. It outlines a hypothesis that additional evidence discussed in the following sentence casts some doubt on.
Question ID 2903a041
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: 2903a041
Using NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Mercedes López-Morales and colleagues measured the
wavelengths of light traveling through the atmosphere of WASP-39b, an exoplanet, or planet outside our solar system.
Different molecules absorb different wavelengths of light, and the wavelength measurements showed the presence of
carbon dioxide (CO₂) in WASP-39b’s atmosphere. This finding not only offers the first decisive evidence of CO₂ in the
atmosphere of an exoplanet but also illustrates the potential for future scientific breakthroughs held by the JWST.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
A. It discusses a method used by some researchers, then states why an alternative method is superior to it.
B. It describes how researchers made a scientific discovery, then explains the importance of that discovery.
C. It outlines the steps taken in a scientific study, then presents a hypothesis based on that study.
It examines how a group of scientists reached a conclusion, then shows how other scientists have challenged that
D. conclusion.
Question ID 066a3295
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: 066a3295
Researchers have found a nearly 164,000-year-old molar from a member of the archaic human species known as
Denisovans in a cave in Laos, suggesting that Denisovans lived in a wider range of environments than indicated by earlier
evidence. Before the discovery, Denisovans were thought to have lived only at high altitudes in relatively cold climates in
what are now Russia and China, but the discovery of the tooth in Laos suggests that they may have lived at low altitudes in
relatively warm climates in Southeast Asia as well.
Which choice best states the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
A. It dismisses as untrue the research presented in the previous sentence.
B. It defines a term used in the description that follows in the rest of the sentence.
C. It emphasizes the main goal of the research introduced in the previous sentence.
D. It provides context that clarifies the significance of the information that follows in the rest of the sentence.
Question ID b0f7541b
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: b0f7541b
The following text is adapted from Herman Melville’s 1857 novel The Confidence-Man. Humphry Davy was a prominent
British chemist and inventor.
Years ago, a grave American savant, being in London, observed at an evening party there, a certain coxcombical fellow,
as he thought, an absurd ribbon in his lapel, and full of smart [banter], whisking about to the admiration of as many as
were disposed to admire. Great was the savant’s disdain; but, chancing ere long to find himself in a corner with the
jackanapes, got into conversation with him, when he was somewhat ill-prepared for the good sense of the jackanapes,
but was altogether thrown aback, upon subsequently being [informed that he was] no less a personage than Sir
Humphry Davy.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
A. It portrays the thoughts of a character who is embarrassed about his own behavior.
B. It presents an account of a misunderstanding.
C. It offers a short history of how a person came to be famous.
D. It explains why one character dislikes another.
Question ID e13171c4
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: e13171c4
Historians Tiya Miles and Roy E. Finkenbine have both documented the assistance Indigenous peoples gave to Black
freedom seekers leaving the South before the US Civil War. Much of the historical evidence of this help comes from
Indigenous oral traditions and from autobiographies written by the freedom seekers. One such narrative is Jermain Loguen’s
autobiography, which tells about how Neshnabé (Potawatomi) villagers offered him food, lodging, and directions during his
1835 journey from Tennessee to Canada.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence?
A. It provides an example of an autobiography that describes help given by an Indigenous people to a Black freedom seeker.
It shows why Loguen decided to write in great detail about his experiences traveling from Tennessee to Canada in his
B. autobiography.
It argues that autobiographies are particularly important sources of information about geography in the United States
C. before the Civil War.
It suggests that most historians believe that Neshnabé villagers were more successful in assisting freedom seekers than
D. other people were.
Question ID df46a2ee
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: df46a2ee
The following text is from Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novel The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale. Mr. Verloc is navigating the London
streets on his way to a meeting.
Before reaching Knightsbridge, Mr. Verloc took a turn to the left out of the busy main thoroughfare, uproarious with the traffic
of swaying omnibuses and trotting vans, in the almost silent, swift flow of hansoms [horse-drawn carriages]. Under his hat,
worn with a slight backward tilt, his hair had been carefully brushed into respectful sleekness; for his business was with an
Embassy. And Mr. Verloc, steady like a rock—a soft kind of rock—marched now along a street which could with every
propriety be described as private.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined phrase in the text as a whole?
A. It qualifies an earlier description of Mr. Verloc.
B. It emphasizes an internal struggle Mr. Verloc experiences.
C. It contrasts Mr. Verloc with his surroundings.
D. It reveals a private opinion Mr. Verloc holds.
Question ID ff97fd53
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: ff97fd53
In 1973, poet Miguel Algarín started inviting other writers who, like him, were Nuyorican—a term for New Yorkers of Puerto
Rican heritage—to gather in his apartment to present their work. The gatherings were so well attended that Algarín soon had
to rent space in a cafe to accommodate them. Thus, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe was born. Moving to a permanent location in
1981, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe expanded its original scope beyond the written word, hosting art exhibitions and musical
performances as well. Half a century since its inception, it continues to foster emerging Nuyorican talent.
Which choice best describes the overall purpose of the text?
A. To explain what motivated Algarín to found the Nuyorican Poets Cafe
B. To situate the Nuyorican Poets Cafe within the cultural life of New York as a whole
C. To discuss why the Nuyorican Poets Cafe expanded its scope to include art and music
D. To provide an overview of the founding and mission of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe
Question ID 6f5fc289
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: 6f5fc289
The following text is adapted from Charles Dickens’s 1854 novel Hard Times. Coketown is a fictional town in England.
[Coketown] contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another,
inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same
pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the
counterpart of the last and the next.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
A. To emphasize the uniformity of both the town and the people who live there
B. To explain the limited work opportunities available to the town’s residents
C. To reveal how the predictability of the town makes it easy for people lose track of time
D. To argue that the simplicity of life in the town makes it a pleasant place to live
Question ID f2c48e47
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: f2c48e47
The following text is from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1910 poem “The Earth’s Entail.” No matter how we cultivate the land,
Taming the forest and the prairie free; No matter how we irrigate the sand, Making the desert blossom at command,
We must always leave the borders of the sea; The immeasureable reaches Of the windy wave-wet beaches,
The million-mile-long margin of the sea.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
A. The speaker argues against interfering with nature and then gives evidence supporting this interference.
B. The speaker presents an account of efforts to dominate nature and then cautions that such efforts are only temporary.
C. The speaker provides examples of an admirable way of approaching nature and then challenges that approach.
D. The speaker describes attempts to control nature and then offers a reminder that not all nature is controllable.
Question ID 34d7bb25
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: 34d7bb25
According to Indian economist and sociologist Radhakamal Mukerjee (1889–1968), the Eurocentric concepts that informed
early twentieth-century social scientific methods—for example, the idea that all social relations are reducible to struggles
between individuals—had little relevance for India. Making the social sciences more responsive to Indians’ needs, Mukerjee
argued, required constructing analytical categories informed by India’s cultural and ecological circumstances. Mukerjee thus
proposed the communalist “Indian village” as the ideal model on which to base Indian economic and social policy.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
The text recounts Mukerjee’s early training in the social scientific disciplines and then lists social policies whose
A. implementation Mukerjee oversaw.
The text mentions some of Mukerjee’s economic theories and then traces their impact on other Indian social scientists of
B. the twentieth century.
The text presents Mukerjee’s critique of the social sciences and then provides an example of his attempts to address
C. issues he identified in his critique.
The text explains an influential economic theory and then demonstrates how that theory was more important to
D. Mukerjee’s work than other social scientists have acknowledged.
Question ID 48555763
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: 48555763
The following text is from Herman Melville’s 1854 novel The Lightning-rod Man.
The stranger still stood in the exact middle of the cottage, where he had first planted himself. His singularity impelled a
closer scrutiny. A lean, gloomy figure. Hair dark and lank, mattedly streaked over his brow. His sunken pitfalls of eyes were
ringed by indigo halos, and played with an innocuous sort of lightning: the gleam without the bolt. The whole man was
dripping. He stood in a puddle on the bare oak floor: his strange walking-stick vertically resting at his side.
Which choice best states the function of the underlined sentence in the overall structure of the text?
A. It elaborates on the previous sentence’s description of the character.
B. It introduces the setting that is described in the sentences that follow.
C. It establishes a contrast with the description in the previous sentence.
D. It sets up the character description presented in the sentences that follow.
Question ID e7247766
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: e7247766
Horizontal gene transfer occurs when an organism of one species acquires genetic material from an organism of another
species through nonreproductive means. The genetic material can then be transferred “vertically” in the second species—
that is, through reproductive inheritance. Scientist Atma Ivancevic and her team have hypothesized infection by invertebrate
parasites as a mechanism of horizontal gene transfer between vertebrate species: while feeding, a parasite could acquire a
gene from one host, then relocate to a host from a different vertebrate species and transfer the gene to it in turn.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
A. It explains why parasites are less susceptible to horizontal gene transfer than their hosts are.
B. It clarifies why some genes are more likely to be transferred horizontally than others are.
C. It contrasts how horizontal gene transfer occurs among vertebrates with how it occurs among invertebrates.
D. It describes a means by which horizontal gene transfer might occur among vertebrates.
Question ID 8bc66f89
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: 8bc66f89
Part of the Atacama Desert in Peru has surprisingly rich plant life despite receiving almost no rainfall. Moisture from winter
fog sustains plants once they’re growing, but the soil’s tough crust makes it hard for seeds to germinate in the first place.
Local birds that dig nests in the ground seem to be of help: they churn the soil, exposing buried seeds to moisture and
nutrients. Indeed, in 2016 Cristina Rengifo Faiffer found that mounds of soil dug up by birds were far more fertile and
supported more seedlings than soil in undisturbed areas.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
A. It elaborates on the idea that the top layer of Atacama Desert soil forms a tough crust.
B. It describes the process by which seeds are deposited into Atacama Desert soil.
C. It identifies the reason particular bird species dig nests in Atacama Desert soil.
D. It explains how certain birds promote seed germination in Atacama Desert soil.
Question ID b4d29611
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: b4d29611
Michelene Pesantubbee, a historian and citizen of the Choctaw Nation, has identified a dilemma inherent to research on the
status of women in her tribe during the 1600s and 1700s: the primary sources from that era, travel narratives and other
accounts by male European colonizers, underestimate the degree of power conferred on Choctaw women by their traditional
roles in political, civic, and ceremonial life. Pesantubbee argues that the Choctaw oral tradition and findings from
archaeological sites in the tribe’s homeland supplement the written record by providing crucial insights into those roles.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
It details the shortcomings of certain historical sources, then argues that research should avoid those sources
A. altogether.
It describes a problem that arises in research on a particular topic, then sketches a historian’s approach to addressing
B. that problem.
C. It lists the advantages of a particular research method, then acknowledges a historian’s criticism of that method.
It characterizes a particular topic as especially challenging to research, then suggests a related topic for historians to
D. pursue instead.
Question ID f6352bd3
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Craft and Structure Text Structure and
Purpose
ID: f6352bd3
Many archaeologists assume that large-scale engineering projects in ancient societies required an elite class to plan and
direct the necessary labor. However, recent discoveries, such as the excavation of an ancient canal near the Gulf Coast of
Alabama, have complicated this picture. Using radiocarbon dating, a team of researchers concluded that the 1.39-kilometer-
long canal was most likely constructed between 576 and 650 CE by an Indigenous society that was relatively free of social
classes.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
A. It describes a common view among archaeologists, then discusses a recent finding that challenges that view.
B. It outlines a method used in some archaeological fieldwork, then explains why an alternative method is superior to it.
It presents contradictory conclusions drawn by archaeologists, then evaluates a study that has apparently resolved that
C. contradiction.
D. It identifies a gap in scientific research, then presents a strategy used by some archaeologists to remedy that gap.
