Drill 1 · Reading & Writing · Hard Command of Evidence
SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Command of Evidence (Drill 1) is a Reading & Writing practice drill covering Hard Command of Evidence. It contains 5 original questions created by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.
Five hard Command of Evidence questions. Each gives a short stimulus and four on-topic choices; the wrong ones are true or close but fail on scope, direction, or relationship. Decide exactly what the right evidence must do, then test each choice against the full claim. Two items use a table or graph you must read precisely; one uses verbatim excerpts from a public-domain novel.
A species of bark beetle native to northern birch forests spends the early summer feeding on the outer bark of living birch trees. On many trees this bark is coated with a thin crust of lichen, while on others the bark is nearly bare. Researchers noticed that beetle populations were consistently larger on lichen-covered trees and proposed that the beetles benefit directly from eating the lichen itself, gaining nutrients from it that bare bark does not provide. The researchers want to distinguish this explanation from the alternative possibility that lichen-covered trees simply happen to grow in locations that favor beetles for some other reason.
Question 1. Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researchers' explanation?
Explanation: Choice A is the best answer because the researchers' explanation is that the beetles benefit by eating the lichen for nutrients, so the right evidence must tie the benefit to consuming lichen rather than to where the trees grow. Beetles raised under identical conditions and fed otherwise similar lichen-covered versus lichen-free bark holds location and tree differences constant and isolates the food source, which is the exact mechanism claimed. Choice B is wrong because protection from predators is a different benefit than nutrition from eating the lichen, so it supports a nearby claim, not this one. Choice C is wrong because it supports the alternative the researchers want to rule out, that location rather than lichen explains the pattern. Choice D is wrong because resting on lichen-covered bark shows a preference but not that eating the lichen provides nutrients.
Coating-Survival Score of Two Glazes by Firing Temperature
| Glaze | 200°C | 400°C | 600°C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron-based | 41 | 58 | 72 |
| Cobalt-based | 63 | 60 | 55 |
A ceramicist tested two experimental glazes by firing sample tiles at three temperatures and recording a coating-survival score for each, where a higher score means the glaze stayed intact better after firing. The two glazes responded to heat in opposite ways. The ceramicist concluded that the iron-based glaze is the better choice for high-temperature work, noting that across the full range tested, the iron-based glaze ________
Question 2. Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?
Explanation: Choice C is the best answer because the conclusion is that the iron-based glaze suits high-temperature work across the full range, and its score rises at every step, from 41 at 200 C to 58 at 400 C to 72 at 600 C. That steady climb is what shows it improves as firing gets hotter. Choice A is true but reports only the single highest-temperature value, so it never establishes the trend the conclusion needs. Choice B describes the cobalt-based glaze, not the iron-based one the statement is about. Choice D is true only at the highest temperature and says nothing about the two lower ones, where the iron-based glaze actually scores lower than the cobalt-based one, so it does not support a claim about the full range.
In a river system where some streams have been dammed and others left free-flowing, ecologists found that insect diversity was markedly lower in the stretches of water just below the dams than in comparable stretches of the undammed streams. They concluded that the dams themselves reduce downstream insect diversity, proposing that the dams trap sediment and nutrients upstream, so that the water released below carries less of the material that stream insects depend on. The team treated the undammed streams as a baseline for what the dammed streams would otherwise look like.
Question 3. Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the team's conclusion?
Explanation: Choice B is the best answer because the team's conclusion depends on treating the undammed streams as a stand-in for what the dammed streams would look like without dams. If the streams that were later dammed already had much lower insect diversity before any dam existed, then the lower diversity below the dams reflects a pre-existing difference in the same direction, not the dams, which removes the baseline the conclusion rests on. Choice A is wrong because longer damming linked to a larger drop fits the team's conclusion and would strengthen it. Choice C is wrong because the body size of the insects is a side detail that says nothing about whether the dams caused the diversity difference. Choice D is wrong because dissolved oxygen is not the mechanism the team proposed, which was trapped sediment and nutrients, so it does not bear on the claim.
A botanist studied a wildflower that grows in habitats ranging from deep shade to open, full-sun meadows. Some of the flowers carry a pattern that reflects ultraviolet light, invisible to humans but visible to many pollinating insects, while others lack it. The botanist measured the mean number of pollinator visits per hour to UV-marked and unmarked flowers under three light conditions and concluded that the UV mark helps attract pollinators mainly where there is strong light to make it visible, so its advantage grows as light increases rather than staying constant.
Question 4. Which choice best describes data from the graph that support the botanist's conclusion?
Explanation: Choice D is the best answer because the conclusion is about an interaction: the UV mark's advantage should grow with light, not hold steady. The graph shows the two flower types nearly tied in deep shade (about 16 versus 18) but far apart in full sun (about 17 versus 44), so the gap widens as light increases, which is exactly the pattern claimed. Choice A is a between-series reading that is true at each light level but ignores the widening gap, so it does not capture the interaction. Choice B describes only the unmarked series and never compares the two, so it cannot show the mark's growing advantage. Choice C reports a single bar, the marked flowers' peak, without the unmarked comparison the conclusion needs.
"The Awakening" is an 1899 novel by Kate Chopin. In the novel, the main character, Edna Pontellier, undergoes an awakening that the narrator describes not only as a turning toward freedom but as a turning toward her own true self, one in which she sheds an identity shaped to satisfy others: ________
Question 5. Which quotation from "The Awakening" most effectively illustrates the claim?
Explanation: Choice B is the best answer because the claim has two parts: Edna is turning toward her own true self, and she is shedding a self shaped to satisfy others. The excerpt joins both, naming her "becoming herself" while "casting aside that fictitious self which we assume... to appear before the world," so it matches the full claim. Choice A captures living for herself but speaks of whom she lives for rather than becoming her own true self, so it satisfies only part of the claim. Choice C describes a lifelong inwardness she already had, not the new turning toward selfhood the claim is about. Choice D is the novel's recurring image of the sea's pull toward solitude and is on topic to her inner life, but it illustrates a summons to wander inward, not the emergence of a true self that sheds a false one.