Drill 14 · Reading & Writing · Hard Command of Evidence
SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Command of Evidence (Drill 14) 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 built 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 the claim or matches the topic while missing the relationship at issue. Pin down what the evidence must establish, then find the one choice that establishes all of it.
A bird's feathers appear vivid blue, yet no blue pigment has ever been extracted from them. One team proposed that the color is structural: tiny features inside the feather scatter blue light back to the eye while letting other colors pass. A rival idea held that a blue pigment is present but simply breaks down before it can be isolated in the lab.
Question 1. Which finding, if true, would most help distinguish between the two explanations?
Explanation: Choice D is the best answer because the explanations split on whether structure or a hidden pigment makes the blue, so the deciding test destroys the structure while leaving any pigment behind. Grinding the feather to powder and seeing the blue vanish, leaving only brown, shows the color depended on the intact structure, since a true blue pigment would still color the powder. Choice A is wrong because feathers fading after death is consistent with either a decaying pigment or a structure breaking down, so it does not separate the two. Choice B is wrong because many species having blue feathers is background and does not test whether this blue comes from structure or pigment. Choice C is wrong because a camouflage benefit explains why blue might be favored but not how the feather produces it.
Soil scientists measured microbial respiration, a sign of soil microbe activity, in plots that were either left unamended or given compost, under dry and adequate moisture. They concluded that compost boosts microbial activity far more when the soil has enough moisture, reasoning that the microbes can only make use of the added compost when water is available to them.
Question 2. Which choice best describes data from the graph that support the scientists' conclusion?
Explanation: Choice B is the best answer because the conclusion is that compost helps more when moisture is adequate, which compares the compost boost at each moisture level. The graph shows compost adding about twenty-four units under adequate moisture but only about three units when dry, so the benefit of compost depends on moisture exactly as claimed. Choice A is wrong because compost raising respiration at both moisture levels is a main effect of compost and never compares how large that boost is across moisture levels. Choice C is wrong because the single highest bar does not show how much compost adds at each moisture level, which is the comparison the claim needs. Choice D is wrong because more respiration at adequate moisture in unamended soil alone describes one series and never involves the compost contrast.
After a city added a lane to a congested highway, average rush-hour speeds did not improve, and some months were slower than before. Planners had proposed that adding the lane would ease congestion by giving cars more room. A transportation researcher pointed out that new road capacity often draws additional drivers who had previously avoided the route or traveled at other times.
Question 3. Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the planners' proposal that the added lane would ease congestion?
Explanation: Choice A is the best answer because the proposal is that more room would ease congestion, so evidence that the total number of rush-hour cars rose substantially after the lane opened shows the new capacity filled with added traffic rather than relieving the jam. The extra drivers absorbing the new space explains why speeds did not improve, undercutting the proposal. Choice B is wrong because the construction running late is a side detail about the project timeline and does not bear on whether the finished lane eased congestion. Choice C is wrong because the highway feeling more pleasant reports drivers' impressions, not whether the lane reduced congestion. Choice D is wrong because another city seeing speeds improve concerns a different road and, if anything, fits the planners' view rather than weakening it.
Four Candidate Dyes for an Outdoor Banner
| Dye | Fade resistance (1-10) | Source available locally? |
|---|---|---|
| Dye T | 9 | No |
| Dye U | 4 | Yes |
| Dye V | 8 | Yes |
| Dye W | 3 | No |
A historian studies how a guild chose dyes for banners meant to hang outdoors for years. The guild favored a dye only when it met two conditions at once: it had to resist fading in sunlight, and its source had to be available locally, since imported sources were costly and unreliable. The historian wanted to identify the one dye that satisfied both conditions and so was the guild's likely choice.
Question 4. Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to identify the dye the guild most likely chose?
Explanation: Choice C is the best answer because the guild's rule requires both conditions together, a dye that resists fading and comes from a local source. Dye V pairs a fade resistance of eight with a locally available source, meeting both, while each rival satisfies at most one of the two conditions. Choice A is wrong because Dye T does have the highest fade resistance, but its source was not available locally, so it fails the second condition. Choice B is wrong because Dye U is indeed local, yet its fade resistance of four is low, so it fails the fading condition the guild also required. Choice D is wrong because that Dye W trails on fading and is not local is true from the table but identifies a dye failing both conditions, the opposite of the guild's choice.
In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), W. E. B. Du Bois describes the experience he calls double-consciousness. A student argues that for Du Bois this experience is not merely feeling watched by others but a sense of being internally divided, of carrying two selves whose aims pull against each other within one person.
Question 5. Which quotation from "The Souls of Black Folk" most effectively illustrates the student's argument?
Explanation: Choice A is the best answer because the argument is that double-consciousness is an inner division, two selves at odds within one person. The keyed line states exactly that, naming the twoness of two souls and two warring ideals held in one body that only dogged strength keeps from being torn apart. Choice B is wrong because this names the sense of being seen through others' eyes, which the student treats as only part of the idea, not the inner division at its center. Choice C is wrong because the longing to merge the double self into a truer self describes the strife that follows from the division rather than naming the division itself. Choice D is wrong because the seventh son born with a veil introduces the figure of second-sight, a related image but not the statement of two warring selves within one body.