(03) SAT - STANDARD ENGLISH CONVENTIONS & LOGICAL TRANSITION

The Alvarez theory, developed in 1980 by physicist Luis Walter Alvarez and his geologist son Walter Alvarez, maintained that the secondary effects of an asteroid impact caused many dinosaurs and other animals to die _______ it left unexplored the question of whether unrelated volcanic activity might have also contributed to the mass extinctions.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• out but

• out, but

• out

• out,

Typically, underlines, scribbles, and notes left in the margins by a former owner lower a book’s _______ when the former owner is a famous poet like Walt Whitman, such markings, known as marginalia, can be a gold mine to literary scholars.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• value, but

• value

• value,

• value but

In winter, the diets of Japanese macaques, also known as snow monkeys, are influenced more
by food availability than by food preference. Although the monkeys prefer to eat vegetation and land-dwelling invertebrates, those food sources may become unavailable because of extensive snow and ice cover, _______ the monkeys to hunt for marine animals in any streams that have not frozen over.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• forces

• to force

• forcing

• forced

While many video game creators strive to make their graphics ever more ______ others look to the past, developing titles with visuals inspired by the “8-bit” games of the 1980s and 1990s. (The term “8-bit” refers to a console whose processor could only handle eight bits of data at once.)

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• lifelike but

• lifelike

• lifelike,

• lifelike, but

Food and the sensation of taste are central to Monique Truong’s novels. In The Book of Salt, for example, the exiled character of Bình connects to his native Saigon through the food he prepares, while in Bitter in the Mouth, the character of Linda ______ a form of synesthesia whereby the words she hears evoke tastes.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• experienced

• had experienced

• experiences

• will be experiencing

Along with carbon dioxide concentration and temperature, light intensity affects the chemical reaction rate of _______ as light intensity increases, so does the rate at which the reactants (water and carbon dioxide) are converted into their products (glucose and oxygen).

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• photosynthesis and

• photosynthesis,

• photosynthesis:

• photosynthesis

In Marisol’s 1968 sculpture Mi Mama y Yo, gone are the types of pop culture references that made the Parisian-born Venezuelan American artist a star at the height of the pop art movement. In _______ place is a far more personal subject: a sculptural depiction of the artist as a young girl with her mother.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• its

• they’re

• their

• it’s

The ghazal, a poetic form originating in seventh‐century Arabic poetry, has an intricate structure. The twentieth‐century Kashmiri American poet Agha Shahid Ali explains that each one of a ghazal’s couplets, while adhering to the patterns of rhyme (qafia) and refrain (radif) established in the poem’s opening lines (matla), _______ thematically and logically autonomous, resulting in a poem with “a stringently formal disunity.”

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• is

• were

• have been

• are

Organisms have evolved a number of surprising adaptations to ensure their survival in adverse conditions. Tadpole shrimp (Triops longicaudatus) embryos, ______ can pause development for over ten years during extended periods of drought.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• in contrast,

• for example,

• meanwhile,

• consequently,

When Chinese director Chloé Zhao accepted the Oscar in 2021 for her film Nomadland, she made Academy Award history. _______ only one other woman, Kathryn Bigelow of the United States, had been named best director at the Oscars, making Zhao the second woman and the first Asian woman to win the award.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• As a result,

• Previously,

• However,

• Likewise,