Drill 12 · Reading & Writing · Hard Command of Evidence
SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Command of Evidence (Drill 12) 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 drawing on new findings, two data displays, and a passage from a classic work of nonfiction. Each wrong choice is plausible but covers only part of what the claim requires or matches the topic while missing the precise relationship. Settle what the evidence has to establish, then find the choice that establishes all of it.
In a regional dialect, a set of words came to be pronounced with a vowel quite different from the one they carried in older records. A linguist proposed that speakers borrowed the new pronunciation from a neighboring language whose speakers pronounced the same words that way, arguing that close contact between the two groups let the sound spread across the border.
Question 1. Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the linguist's proposal?
Explanation: Choice C is the best answer because the proposal is that the new vowel was borrowed from the neighboring language, so finding the very same shift in native words that the neighbor never had points to a sound change spreading through the dialect on its own. A change reaching words the neighbor lacks cannot have been copied from the neighbor, which undercuts the borrowing account. Choice A is wrong because a history of borrowed vocabulary shows the two languages were in contact, which fits the proposal rather than weakening it. Choice B is wrong because frequent contact at markets and festivals likewise supports the chance for borrowing instead of casting doubt on it. Choice D is wrong because the vowel being easy to pronounce in general does not address whether this dialect took it from the neighbor or shifted on its own.
Sediment Layer Thickness by Depth in a Seafloor Core
| Core interval | Years it spans | Sediment deposited (mm) |
|---|---|---|
| Interval 1 (oldest) | 1000 | 20 |
| Interval 2 | 1000 | 35 |
| Interval 3 | 1000 | 54 |
| Interval 4 (newest) | 1000 | 22 |
Each interval of the core spans the same one thousand years. Because the river feeding the basin was carrying steadily more mud, geologists expected each newer interval to hold more sediment than the one before it. The amount deposited does climb from Interval 1 through Interval 3. The team was struck that the trend did not continue, noting that the newest interval, Interval 4, instead ________
Question 2. Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?
Explanation: Choice A is the best answer because the surprise is that the newest interval breaks the rising trend. With each interval spanning the same thousand years, deposition climbs from twenty to thirty-five to fifty-four millimeters across the first three, then falls to twenty-two in Interval 4, far below Interval 3's fifty-four, so accumulation drops rather than continuing to rise. Choice B is wrong because this is true from the table, since twenty-two exceeds the oldest interval's twenty, but a comparison with the oldest layer misses the surprise, which is the drop from Interval 3. Choice C is wrong because this is also true, as twenty-two is well below the eighty-nine millimeters of Intervals 2 and 3 combined, yet that sum is not what the team's surprise turns on, namely the fall from the interval just before. Choice D is wrong because every interval does span the same thousand years, so this is accurate, but holding the time span constant is exactly why the sediment amount itself, not the years, is what fell.
Walden (1854) is Henry David Thoreau's account of the two years he spent living alone at Walden Pond. Explaining why he undertook the experiment, Thoreau says he went to the woods on purpose, wanting to strip life down to its essentials and learn what it had to teach rather than discovering at the end that he had never truly lived: ________
Question 3. Which quotation from "Walden" most effectively illustrates the claim?
Explanation: Choice D is the best answer because the claim is that Thoreau went to the woods on purpose, to reduce life to its essentials and avoid reaching death without having lived. The keyed line states exactly that reason, naming his wish to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts, and not to discover at death that he had not lived. Choice A is wrong because the three chairs describe how he received visitors, an image of his simple hospitality rather than his reason for going to the woods. Choice B is wrong because the line on quiet desperation diagnoses how most people live but does not state Thoreau's own purpose in the experiment. Choice C is wrong because the remark that simple living would end robbery draws a social conclusion from his life there rather than giving his reason for undertaking it.
Each autumn, young songbirds of one species fly from their northern breeding grounds to a wintering area they have never seen. One team proposed that the birds inherit the migratory direction, following an internal compass set before they ever leave. A rival idea held that the young simply follow experienced adults who already know the route.
Question 4. Which finding, if true, would most help distinguish between the two explanations?
Explanation: Choice B is the best answer because the two explanations split on whether the route is inherited or learned from adults, so the deciding evidence removes the adults. Young birds raised in isolation and released alone still heading the usual way shows the direction is built in, since there were no experienced birds to follow. Choice A is wrong because adults finishing faster compares performance but does not separate an inherited compass from following experienced birds. Choice C is wrong because where the species breeds and winters is background about the journey and does not test which explanation is right. Choice D is wrong because fattening before departure describes preparation for the flight, not whether the direction is inherited or learned.
Glaciologists measured how deeply a glacier's surface melted over one summer on shaded versus sun-facing slopes, across low, middle, and high elevation bands. They concluded that facing the sun speeds melting far more at low elevations than high ones, reasoning that warm low-elevation air lets the added sunlight do much more work than it can in the cold air higher up.
Question 5. Which choice best describes data from the graph that support the glaciologists' conclusion?
Explanation: Choice D is the best answer because the conclusion is that sun exposure matters far more low down, which compares the shaded-to-sunlit jump across elevations. The graph shows facing the sun adding roughly forty-six centimeters of melt at low elevation, from about forty-two to eighty-eight, but only about six centimeters at high elevation, so the effect of aspect shrinks with height exactly as claimed. Choice A is wrong because sun-facing slopes melting more at every band is a main effect of aspect and never compares how large that effect is across elevations. Choice B is wrong because the single deepest cell, the low sun-facing slope, is one bar and does not show how the aspect effect changes with elevation. Choice C is wrong because melt falling with height on the shaded slopes alone describes one series and never contrasts shaded with sun-facing.