SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Command of Evidence (Drill 10)

Question 1. Which choice best describes data from the graph that support the planners' conclusion?

• A) Transit carried a larger share of trips in the dense urban core than it managed in either one of the two surrounding rings.
• B) The car's share of trips was at its highest in the outer ring, the most spread-out of the three zones.
• C) Transit's share of trips exceeded the car's in the urban core, while the car's share stayed well ahead in both rings. ✓
• D) In the urban core, transit accounted for a little more than half of all the commute trips that were recorded.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer because the conclusion is that transit competes with the car only in the urban core, which requires transit to overtake the car there but not in the rings. The graph shows transit ahead of the car in the core, about 55 to 38, but the car well ahead in both rings, which is exactly the single-zone crossover the claim needs. Choice A is wrong because transit's share being highest in the core compares transit across zones and never compares it with the car, so it cannot show transit overtakes the car there. Choice B is wrong because the car's share peaking in the outer ring concerns the wrong contrast and does not show where transit overtakes the car. Choice D is wrong because transit being just over half in the core is one figure that, on its own, does not show it beat the car or that this happens only in the core.

Question 2. Which finding, if true, would most directly support the health workers' proposal?

• A) The clean-burning cookstoves use a manufactured fuel pellet rather than the raw wood burned in the older stoves.
• B) Within the same villages, childhood lung illness fell only after the clean stoves were installed, having held steady for years before. ✓
• C) The cookstove program was introduced to each of the participating villages by a large, well-funded regional health charity that covered most of the upfront costs.
• D) Childhood lung illness is among the more common health problems reported across the whole region's villages.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer because the proposal is that the stoves themselves cut the illness, so the evidence must separate the stoves from which villages adopted them. Lung illness within the same villages falling only after the stoves went in, after holding steady for years, ties the drop to the stoves rather than to villages that were healthier all along. Choice A is wrong because describing the stoves' manufactured fuel restates how they work without showing they caused the drop in illness. Choice C is wrong because a well-funded charity introducing the program is background and does not show the stoves, rather than village wealth, cut the illness. Choice D is wrong because lung illness being common in the region does not address whether the stoves caused the decline.

Question 3. Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support the researchers' conclusion?

• A) Brighter light added 17 centimeters of growth under high carbon dioxide, from 11 to 28, but only 5 centimeters under low carbon dioxide. ✓
• B) Growth was greater under bright light than under dim light in both the low and the high carbon-dioxide columns.
• C) The greatest growth in the table, 28 centimeters, occurred under bright light combined with high carbon dioxide.
• D) Within the high-carbon-dioxide condition, seedlings grew to 28 centimeters in bright light as against only 11 centimeters in dim light, a sizable difference within that column.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer because the conclusion is that light helps more when carbon dioxide is plentiful, which requires comparing the light boost at each carbon-dioxide level. Brightening the light adds 17 centimeters under high carbon dioxide but only 5 under low, so extra light pays off far more when carbon dioxide is high, exactly the joint effect claimed. Choice B is wrong because more growth under bright light in both columns is a main effect of light and never compares the two light boosts, so it does not show the joint effect. Choice C is wrong because the single greatest cell does not involve comparing how much light adds at each carbon-dioxide level. Choice D is wrong because comparing the two high-carbon-dioxide cells alone shows light helps when carbon dioxide is high but not that it helps more than under low carbon dioxide, which needs the low column too.

Question 4. Which finding, if true, would most directly support the administrators' proposal?

• A) The laptops handed out to the students came already preloaded with a wide range of reading, writing, and study software ready to use.
• B) The schools that distributed laptops tended to be located in the same district as one another.
• C) Among schools with nearly identical budgets and staffing, only those that handed out laptops saw the larger reading gains. ✓
• D) Reading scores are one of several measures the schools in the study tracked from year to year.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer because the administrators credit the laptops rather than broader funding, so the evidence must hold other resources constant. Among schools with nearly identical budgets and staffing, only the laptop schools posting larger gains isolates the laptops as the cause, since the schools were otherwise matched. Choice A is wrong because the preloaded software restates what the laptops offered without showing they, rather than funding, raised scores. Choice B is wrong because the laptop schools sharing a district is a side detail that does not separate the laptops from other resources. Choice D is wrong because reading scores being one tracked measure is background and does not tie the gains to the laptops.

Question 5. Which quotation from the "Narrative" most effectively illustrates the claim?

• A) "This battle with Mr. Covey was the turning-point in my career as a slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood." ✓
• B) "I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there, but a few months of this discipline tamed me."
• C) "Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died . . ."
• D) "We were worked in all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field."

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer because the claim is that one confrontation marked the turning point from broken man back to one who would resist. The keyed line names the battle with Covey as exactly that turning point, the moment that rekindled his freedom and revived his sense of his own manhood. Choice B is wrong because being tamed at first describes the start of his decline, the opposite of the turning point the claim names. Choice C is wrong because being broken in body, soul, and spirit states the low point before the reversal, not the reversal itself. Choice D is wrong because the passage on working in all weathers conveys the harshness of the labor but not the turning point in his spirit.