SAT Words in Context and Cross-Text Connections (Hard)

Rejecting the premise that the literary magazine Ebony and Topaz (1927) should present a unified vision of Black American identity, editor Charles S. Johnson fostered his contributors’ diverse perspectives by promoting their authorial autonomy. Johnson’s self-effacement diverged from the editorial stances of W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain Locke, whose decisions for their publications were more ______.

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

• A. proficient

• B. dogmatic

• C. ambiguous

• D. unpretentious

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Some economic historians ______ that late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century households in the United States experienced an economy of scale when it came to food purchases—they assumed that large households spent less on food per person than did small households. Economist Trevon Logan showed, however, that a close look at the available data disproves this supposition.

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

• A. surmised

• B. contrived

• C. questioned

• D. regretted

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Economist Marco Castillo and colleagues showed that nuisance costs—the time and effort people must spend to make donations—reduce charitable giving. Charities can mitigate this effect by compensating donors for nuisance costs, but those costs, though variable, are largely ______ donation size, so charities that compensate donors will likely favor attracting a few large donors over many small donors.

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

• A. supplemental of

• B. predictive of

• C. independent of

• D. subsumed in

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Text 1: In 1916, H. Dugdale Sykes disputed claims that The Two Noble Kinsmen was coauthored by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Sykes felt Fletcher’s contributions to the play were obvious—Fletcher had a distinct style in his other plays, so much so that lines with that style were considered sufficient evidence of Fletcher’s authorship. But for the lines not deemed to be by Fletcher, Sykes felt that their depiction of women indicated that their author was not Shakespeare but Philip Massinger.

Text 2: Scholars have accepted The Two Noble Kinsmen as coauthored by Shakespeare since the 1970s: it appears in all major one-volume editions of Shakespeare’s complete works. Though scholars disagree about who wrote what exactly, it is generally held that on the basis of style, Shakespeare wrote all of the first act and most of the last, while John Fletcher authored most of the three middle acts.

Based on the texts, both Sykes in Text 1 and the scholars in Text 2 would most likely agree with which statement?

• A. John Fletcher’s writing has a unique, readily identifiable style.

• B. The women characters in John Fletcher’s plays are similar to the women characters in Philip Massinger’s plays.

• C. The Two Noble Kinsmen belongs in one-volume compilations of Shakespeare’s complete plays.

• D. Philip Massinger’s style in the first and last acts of The Two Noble Kinsmen is an homage to Shakespeare’s style.

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Seminole/Muscogee director Sterlin Harjo ______ television’s tendency to situate Native characters in the distant past: this rejection is evident in his series Reservation Dogs, which revolves around teenagers who dress in contemporary styles and whose dialogue is laced with current slang.

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

• A. repudiates

• proclaims

• foretells

• recants

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The following text is adapted from George Eliot’s 1871–72 novel Middlemarch.

[Mr. Brooke] had travelled in his younger years, and was held in this part of the country to have contracted a too rambling habit of mind. Mr. Brooke’s conclusions were as difficult to predict as the weather.

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

• A. Restricted

• B. Described

• C. Developed

• D. Settled

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Text 1: Growth in the use of novel nanohybrids—materials created from the conjugation of multiple distinct nanomaterials, such as iron oxide and gold nanomaterials conjugated for use in magnetic imaging—has outpaced studies of nanohybrids’ environmental risks. Unfortunately, risk evaluations based on nanohybrids’ constituents are not reliable: "conjugation may alter constituents’ physiochemical properties such that innocuous nanomaterials form a nanohybrid that is anything but." (The part in quotes is the underlined part; it wouldn't let me underline.)

Text 2: The potential for enhanced toxicity of nanohybrids relative to the toxicity of constituent nanomaterials has drawn deserved attention, but the effects of nanomaterial conjugation vary by case. For instance, it was recently shown that a nanohybrid of silicon dioxide and zinc oxide preserved the desired optical transparency of zinc oxide nanoparticles while mitigating the nanoparticles’ potential to damage DNA.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the assertion in the underlined portion of Text 1?

• A. By concurring that the risk described in Text 1 should be evaluated but emphasizing that the risk is more than offset by the potential

  benefits of nanomaterial conjugation

• B. By arguing that the situation described in Text 1 may not be representative but conceding that the effects of nanomaterial conjugation

  are harder to predict than researchers had expected

• C. By denying that the circumstance described in Text 1 is likely to occur but acknowledging that many aspects of nanomaterial

  conjugation are still poorly understood

• D. By agreeing that the possibility described in Text 1 is a cause for concern but pointing out that nanomaterial conjugation does not

  inevitably produce that result

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Text 1: Africa’s Sahara region—once a lush ecosystem—began to dry out about 8,000 years ago. A change in Earth’s orbit that affected climate has been posited as a cause of desertification, but archaeologist David Wright also attributes the shift to Neolithic peoples. He cites their adoption of pastoralism as a factor in the region drying out: the pastoralists’ livestock depleted vegetation, prompting the events that created the Sahara Desert.

Text 2: Research by Chris Brierley et al. challenges the idea that Neolithic peoples contributed to the Sahara’s desertification. Using a climatevegetation model, the team concluded that the end of the region’s humid period occurred 500 years earlier than previously assumed. The timing suggests that Neolithic peoples didn’t exacerbate aridity in the region but, in fact, may have helped delay environmental changes with practices (e.g., selective grazing) that preserved vegetation.

Based on the texts, how would Chris Brierley (Text 2) most likely respond to the discussion in Text 1?

• A. By pointing out that given the revised timeline for the end of the Sahara’s humid period, the Neolithic peoples’ mode of subsistence

  likely didn’t cause the region’s desertification

• B. By claiming that pastoralism was only one of many behaviors the Neolithic peoples took part in that may have contributed to the

  Sahara’s changing climate

• C. By insisting that pastoralism can have both beneficial and deleterious effects on a region’s vegetation and climate

• D. By asserting that more research needs to be conducted into factors that likely contributed to the desertification of the Sahara region

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Text 1: Soy sauce, made from fermented soybeans, is noted for its umami flavor. Umami—one of the five basic tastes along with sweet, bitter, salty, and sour—was formally classified when its taste receptors were discovered in the 2000s. In 2007, to define the pure umami flavor scientists Rie Ishii and Michael O’Mahony used broths made from shiitake mushrooms and kombu seaweed, and two panels of Japanese and US judges closely agreed on a description of the taste.

Text 2: A 2022 experiment by Manon Jünger et al. led to a greater understanding of soy sauce’s flavor profile. The team initially presented a mixture of compounds with low molecular weights to taste testers who found it was not as salty or bitter as real soy sauce. Further analysis of soy sauce identified proteins, including dipeptides, that enhanced umami flavor and also contributed to saltiness. The team then made a mix of 50 chemical compounds that re-created soy sauce’s flavor.

Based on the texts, if Ishii and O’Mahony (Text 1) and Jünger et al. (Text 2) were aware of the findings of both experiments, they would most likely agree with which statement?

• A. On average, the diets of people in the United States tend to have fewer foods that contain certain dipeptides than the diets of people in

  Japan have.

• B. Chemical compounds that activate both the umami and salty taste receptors tend to have a higher molecular weight than those that

  only activate umami taste receptors.

• C. Fermentation introduces proteins responsible for the increase of umami flavor in soy sauce, and those proteins also increase the

  perception of saltiness.

• D. The broths in the 2007 experiment most likely did not have a substantial amount of the dipeptides that played a key part in the 2022

  experiment.

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Text 1: Astronomer Mark Holland and colleagues examined four white dwarfs—small, dense remnants of past stars—in order to determine the composition of exoplanets that used to orbit those stars. Studying wavelengths of light in the white dwarf atmospheres, the team reported that traces of elements such as lithium and sodium support the presence of exoplanets with continental crusts similar to Earth’s.

Text 2: Past studies of white dwarf atmospheres have concluded that certain exoplanets had continental crusts. Geologist Keith Putirka and astronomer Siyi Xu argue that those studies unduly emphasize atmospheric traces of lithium and other individual elements as signifiers of the types of rock found on Earth. The studies don’t adequately account for different minerals made up of various ratios of those elements, and the possibility of rock types not found on Earth that contain those minerals.

Based on the texts, how would Putirka and Xu (Text 2) most likely characterize the conclusion presented in Text 1?

• A. As unexpected, because it was widely believed at the time that white dwarf exoplanets lack continental crusts

• B. As premature, because researchers have only just begun trying to determine what kinds of crusts white dwarf exoplanets had

• C. As questionable, because it rests on an incomplete consideration of potential sources of the elements detected in white dwarf

  atmospheres

• D. As puzzling, because it’s unusual to successfully detect lithium and sodium when analyzing wavelengths of light in white dwarf

  atmospheres

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