Drill 4 · Reading & Writing · Hard Command of Evidence
SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Command of Evidence (Drill 4) 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: new findings, a table, a graph, and a passage from a classic novel. In each, three choices are true or on point yet miss part of what the claim asserts. Match the evidence to the whole claim, including any second condition it sets.
A planet's wide ring of ice and dust has a narrow empty gap running through it. Astronomers detected a small moon orbiting within that gap and proposed that the moon's gravity clears the gap by pulling nearby ring particles away. They wanted to distinguish this from the possibility that the gap is simply a region where few particles happened to form in the first place.
Question 1. Which finding, if true, would most directly support the astronomers' proposal?
Explanation: Choice D is the best answer because the proposal is that the moon's gravity clears the gap, so the evidence must show the moon's gravity acting on the particles. Particles beside the gap bunched into clumps spaced exactly as the moon's pull would produce ties the gap directly to the moon's gravity rather than to where particles first formed. Choice A is wrong because a uniform mix of ice and dust across the ring does not connect the gap to the moon at all. Choice B is wrong because the gap sitting halfway across the ring gives no reason to credit the moon for clearing it. Choice C is wrong because other rings lacking gaps says nothing about whether this moon's gravity made this gap.
Grain Yield (g per plant) by Water and Nitrogen Level
| Condition | Low nitrogen | High nitrogen |
|---|---|---|
| Well watered | 18 | 31 |
| Drought | 6 | 27 |
Researchers grew a grain crop under every combination of two water levels and two nitrogen levels. They concluded that adding nitrogen protects the crop against drought, reasoning that well-fed plants withstand water shortage better than poorly fed ones. To support this, they needed the data to show that drought costs the plant much less yield when nitrogen is high than when it is low.
Question 2. Which choice most effectively uses data from the table that support the researchers' conclusion?
Explanation: Choice B is the best answer because the conclusion is that nitrogen cushions the crop against drought, which requires comparing the drought penalty at each nitrogen level. The drought penalty is 12 grams under low nitrogen but only 4 grams under high nitrogen, so drought costs far less yield when nitrogen is high, exactly the protection claimed. Choice A is wrong because higher yield under high nitrogen in both rows is a main effect of nitrogen and never compares the drought penalties, so it does not show protection. Choice C is wrong because the single highest cell does not involve a comparison of the drought losses the conclusion depends on. Choice D is wrong because comparing the two drought cells alone shows nitrogen helps under drought but not that it reduces the loss caused by drought, which needs the watered rows too.
In a certain region, the number of cheap printed pamphlets in circulation rose sharply during a single decade. A historian proposed that a new, far cheaper method of making paper, introduced at the start of that decade, was the main driver, by lowering the cost of printing enough to make small pamphlets profitable. A rival account holds that the rise simply reflected a population that was becoming more literate and wanted more to read.
Question 3. Which finding, if true, would most directly support the historian's proposal?
Explanation: Choice C is the best answer because the historian credits the cheaper paper rather than rising literacy, so the evidence must separate the two. A neighboring region with similar literacy gains but no cheaper paper seeing no rise in pamphlets isolates the paper as the driver, since literacy alone did not produce the increase there. Choice A is wrong because gradually spreading reading instruction might make the literacy explanation for a sudden one-decade surge less compelling, but it still does not connect the rise in pamphlets to the cheaper paper, which is what the proposal needs. Choice B is wrong because what the pamphlets discussed is a side detail that does not address what caused their numbers to rise. Choice D is wrong because describing the pamphlets' single folded sheet restates their format without linking the rise to the cheaper paper.
Restoration workers tested whether adding a native soil fungus to planting sites would help native tree seedlings without also boosting an aggressive invasive species. They grew three seedling types in untreated soil and in soil inoculated with the fungus and measured height. They concluded that the fungus selectively aids the native seedlings, reasoning that a treatment useful for restoration should help the natives much more than it helps the invader.
Question 4. Which choice best describes data from the graph that support the workers' conclusion?
Explanation: Choice A is the best answer because the conclusion is that the fungus helps natives much more than the invader, which is a difference across species in how much inoculation helps. The graph shows large gains for Native A, about 14 to 23, and Native B, about 16 to 26, but almost no change for the invasive species, about 22 to 23, exactly the selective effect claimed. Choice B is wrong because taller in two of three species is true but does not capture that the treatment specifically spares the invader, which is the point. Choice C is wrong because the invasive being tallest in untreated soil describes one condition and does not compare the gains from inoculation. Choice D is wrong because Native B's peak height is a single bar and ignores the species-by-species comparison the conclusion needs.
In Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen, a student argues that when Mr. Darcy is pressed to name his own greatest flaw, he does not deny having one but instead presents it as a settled, unforgiving resentment: once his good opinion of a person is lost, he claims, it is lost permanently.
Question 5. Which quotation from "Pride and Prejudice" most effectively illustrates the student's claim?
Explanation: Choice D is the best answer because the claim has two parts: Darcy owns a flaw, and he frames it as an unforgiving resentment that is permanent once his good opinion is lost. The keyed excerpt joins both, admitting he cannot forgive others' offenses and stating that his good opinion once lost is lost for ever. Choice A is wrong because a general remark that every disposition tends toward some evil speaks of people at large, not Darcy's own permanent resentment. Choice B is wrong because calling his temper too little yielding admits a flaw but stops short of the permanence the claim requires. Choice C is wrong because this is Darcy's distinction between vanity and pride, a different idea than the unforgiving resentment the claim names.