Drill 20 · Reading & Writing · Hard Command of Evidence
SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Command of Evidence (Drill 20) 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.
The last five hard Command of Evidence questions of the batch, drawing on new findings, two data displays, and a passage from a classic novel. By now the pattern is familiar: a wrong choice is usually accurate on its own while answering a slightly different question than the one posed. Read every display and quotation for the exact relationship the argument depends on.
Young birds of one species sing the same complex song as the adult males around them. A biologist proposed that the young learn the song by listening to and copying adult males during their first weeks. The reasoning was that exposure to an adult singer is what shapes the young bird's developing song.
Question 1. Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the biologist's proposal?
Explanation: Choice C is the best answer because the proposal is that the young acquire the song by copying adults, so birds raised in isolation who never hear an adult yet still sing the normal song show the song does not depend on copying. A song that develops without any model undercuts the claim that listening to adult males is what shapes it. Choice A is wrong because when adults sing most often describes their daily timing and does not test whether the young must hear them to learn the song. Choice B is wrong because a recording working as well as a live adult still involves hearing an adult song, so it fits the copying proposal rather than weakening it. Choice D is wrong because some young birds maturing more slowly concerns the pace of development, not whether hearing an adult is needed at all.
Four Dough Batches Tested at Different Fermentation Settings
| Batch | Dough rise (% increase in volume) | Flavor panel score (of 50) |
|---|---|---|
| Batch F | 180 | 22 |
| Batch G | 120 | 44 |
| Batch H | 35 | 47 |
| Batch J | 85 | 20 |
A baker judged a fermentation setting best when it produced both a strong dough rise and a high flavor score, since a loaf needs to be both well leavened and full of flavor. The baker wanted to flag the single batch that ranked high on both measures, treating a batch strong on only one as a weaker result than a batch strong on both.
Question 2. Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to identify the batch the baker should flag?
Explanation: Choice B is the best answer because the baker's standard requires a batch to be high on both measures at once, strong rise and high flavor, not just one. Batch G pairs a one-hundred-twenty-percent rise with a flavor score of forty-four, placing it near the top of both columns, while each rival leads on a single measure and falls short on the other. Choice A is wrong because Batch F does rise the most, but its flavor score of twenty-two is among the lowest, so it is strong on only one measure. Choice C is wrong because Batch H does earn the top flavor score, yet its thirty-five-percent rise is the weakest in the table, again leaving it strong on only one measure. Choice D is wrong because Batch J falling short of the top on rise and near the bottom on flavor is strong on neither, the opposite of the batch to flag.
Some ancient blades have a hard cutting edge and a softer, tougher spine. One historian argued that the smiths who made them deliberately controlled the carbon in the metal to place hardness just where it was needed. A skeptic countered that the difference might be an accident of uneven carburizing or forging, with no intent behind it.
Question 3. Which finding, if true, would most support the interpretation that the smiths controlled the carbon deliberately?
Explanation: Choice D is the best answer because the skeptic's rival is that uneven heating placed the hardness by chance, so the deciding evidence is a consistent, repeated pattern that chance would not produce. The high-carbon metal appearing at the edge and softer metal at the spine the same way across many blades points to deliberate control rather than accident. Choice A is wrong because blades being treasured heirlooms speaks to their value, not to whether the smiths placed the carbon on purpose. Choice B is wrong because a range of metalworking tools at the sites shows general craft activity but not deliberate control of carbon in these blades. Choice C is wrong because that the edge and spine wear down with use concerns later handling, not how the smiths arranged the metal when making them.
O Pioneers! (1913) is Willa Cather's novel of Swedish immigrant farmers on the Nebraska prairie. Speaking with her friend Carl, the heroine Alexandra expresses her conviction that no one truly owns the land for long, that people pass through while the land endures, and that those who hold it possess it only for a brief span.
Question 4. Which quotation from "O Pioneers!" most effectively illustrates the claim?
Explanation: Choice A is the best answer because the claim is that Alexandra believes the land outlasts those who hold it, who possess it only briefly. The keyed passage states exactly that, saying people come and go while the land is always here, and that even those who love and understand it own it only for a little while. Choice B is wrong because the line about willing the sunset to her brother's children is part of the same speech but, on its own, makes a smaller point about what cannot be bequeathed rather than stating that the land outlasts its owners. Choice C is wrong because Alexandra realizing how much the country means to her reports her feeling for it, not the view that owners hold it only briefly. Choice D is wrong because the line about the operations of nature describes the security she draws from natural law, not the idea that the land outlives those who possess it.
Glow Brightness of a Cultured Microbe at Four Temperatures
| Setting | Temperature held (°C) | Glow brightness (units) |
|---|---|---|
| Setting 1 | 10 | 14 |
| Setting 2 | 15 | 33 |
| Setting 3 | 20 | 58 |
| Setting 4 | 25 | 21 |
A lab grew a glowing marine microbe at four temperatures and measured how brightly each culture glowed. Because warmth had been speeding the cells' chemistry, the team expected brightness to keep climbing as the temperature rose. It does climb from Setting 1 through Setting 3. The team was struck that the trend did not continue, noting that the warmest culture, Setting 4, instead ________
Question 5. Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?
Explanation: Choice D is the best answer because the surprise is that the warmest culture breaks the rising trend. Brightness climbs from fourteen to thirty-three to fifty-eight across the first three settings, then falls to twenty-one at Setting 4, far below Setting 3's fifty-eight, so the glow dims at the warmest culture rather than continuing to brighten. Choice A is wrong because this is true from the table, since twenty-one exceeds the coldest culture's fourteen, but a comparison with the coldest setting misses the surprise, which is the drop from Setting 3. Choice B is wrong because Setting 4 was indeed the warmest at twenty-five degrees, yet naming its temperature restates the setup rather than describing what its glow did. Choice C is wrong because twenty-one is below the ninety-one units of Settings 2 and 3 combined, so this is accurate, but that sum is not what the surprise turns on, namely the fall from the setting just before.