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SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 11)

Drill 11 · Reading & Writing · Hard Rhetorical Synthesis

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 11) is a Reading & Writing practice drill covering Hard Rhetorical Synthesis. It contains 5 original questions created by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.

Hard Rhetorical Synthesis questions present a set of research notes and a specific writing goal, then ask you to choose the sentence that best accomplishes that goal using only the notes. The wrong answers are usually accurate statements that serve a different purpose than the one asked for, or that subtly misstate the notes. Match the rhetorical task exactly.

Questions & Explanations

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A pendulum clock keeps time by counting the regular swings of a hanging weight. • The escapement is the part that releases the gear train one step at a time and gives the pendulum a small push to keep it going. • In a common design, an anchor-shaped piece rocks back and forth, catching and releasing the teeth of a wheel with each swing. • Without the escapement, the pendulum would gradually slow and stop, and the gears would either freeze or run freely. • The same anchor often makes the audible ticking sound a clock produces.

Question 1. The student wants to explain what an escapement does in a pendulum clock. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) The audible ticking heard from a pendulum clock is produced by the anchor-shaped piece as it rocks back and forth.
  • B) A pendulum clock tells time by counting the steady swings of a weight that hangs from a fixed point.
  • C) The escapement releases the gear train one step at a time and nudges the pendulum on each swing. ✓
  • D) Without an escapement the pendulum would lose energy and stop, leaving the gears to freeze or run freely.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence states the escapement's function directly: it meters the gear train and feeds energy to the pendulum to sustain steady motion, which is exactly what the goal asks for. Choice A reports the source of the ticking sound, a side detail, rather than explaining the escapement's job. Choice B explains how the clock as a whole tells time, not what the escapement specifically does. Choice D describes what happens in the escapement's absence, which implies its role but never states the function the goal asks for.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Tidal salt marshes sit where rivers meet the sea, flooding and draining twice a day with the tides. • Dense grasses on the marsh trap fine mud and sand carried in by the water, so the marsh surface slowly builds upward. • One survey compared marsh plots with thick grass cover to nearby bare plots over several seasons. • The grassy plots gained height faster and held together during storms, while bare plots eroded. • Marsh grasses also provide shelter for young fish and crabs that feed in the shallow water.

Question 2. The student wants to present the main finding of the survey. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Marsh grasses offer cover for juvenile fish and crabs feeding in the shallows, a benefit the survey plots shared.
  • B) Salt marshes form where rivers meet the sea and are flooded and drained twice daily by the tides.
  • C) The survey found that the bare plots gained height faster and held together better in storms than the grassy plots did.
  • D) The survey found that marsh plots with dense grass built up height faster and resisted storm erosion better than bare plots. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence delivers the survey's specific result, the contrast between grassy and bare plots in height gain and storm resistance, which is the finding the goal wants. Choice A names a separate benefit of marsh grasses, not the result the survey measured. Choice B gives background on how marshes form rather than reporting any finding. Choice C is shaped as the survey's finding but reverses the notes, which say the grassy plots gained height faster and resisted storms while the bare plots eroded.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A lateen sail is a triangular sail hung from a long slanted spar, used on ships across the medieval Mediterranean. • The older square sail, hung straight across the mast, works best when the wind comes from behind and is less effective when a ship must sail closer to the wind. • Because the lateen sail can be angled sharply, a ship carrying one can sail closer to the direction the wind is coming from. • This let lateen-rigged vessels work along coastlines and into harbors where square-riggers struggled. • Lateen sails were often large and required a sizable crew to shift the heavy spar when turning.

Question 3. The student wants to introduce the lateen sail to readers who have never heard of it and convey what sets it apart from the square sail. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) A lateen sail is a triangular sail on a slanted spar; unlike a square sail, it can be angled to help a ship sail closer to the wind. ✓
  • B) Shifting a lateen sail's heavy spar when turning the ship was demanding work that called for a sizable crew.
  • C) A square sail hangs straight across the mast and works best when the wind is behind the ship.
  • D) Sailing closer to the wind, lateen-rigged ships could work along coasts and reach harbors that square-rigged vessels struggled to enter.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. The sentence names and defines the lateen sail for a newcomer and states the key contrast with the square sail in one sentence, satisfying both halves of the compound goal. Choice B adds a drawback of the lateen sail without introducing what it is or how it differs from the square sail. Choice C describes the square sail rather than introducing the lateen sail that is the subject. Choice D states a consequence of the lateen sail's advantage but never introduces the sail itself or names the contrast with the square sail.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Cuneiform was a writing system pressed into soft clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia. • A scribe used a reed stylus with a wedge-shaped tip, pushing it into the clay to leave short marks. • Different arrangements of these wedge marks stood for sounds, words, and numbers. • Once a tablet was finished, it was dried in the sun or baked in a fire, which hardened it so the marks lasted. • A handbook on the script describes each mark as "pressed into the damp clay with the wedge tip of a reed stylus."

Question 4. The student wants to quote a description that captures how cuneiform marks were made. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) The same handbook notes that a finished tablet was "dried in the sun or baked hard in a fire."
  • B) A handbook describes each mark as "pressed into the damp clay with the wedge tip of a reed stylus." ✓
  • C) A finished tablet was dried in the sun or baked in a fire so that its marks would harden and last.
  • D) Surviving tablets number in the thousands and include records of grain, livestock, and trade.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence quotes a description of how the marks were physically made, which is exactly what the goal asks the quotation to capture. Choice A quotes a line about hardening the tablet afterward, not about how the marks themselves were made. Choice C covers how a tablet was hardened afterward, a later step, not the making of the marks. Choice D reports how many tablets survived and what they recorded, unrelated to how marks were formed.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • The archerfish hunts insects resting on plants above the water by knocking them down with a squirted jet of water. • Aiming from below the surface is difficult because light bends as it crosses from water to air, shifting where the target appears. • High-speed footage of one species showed that the fish shapes the jet so that water gathers into a denser blob near its leading tip in flight. • A report on that study found the jet's impact force builds in flight, outside the fish's body rather than inside its mouth, letting a small fish hit hard. • Archerfish often dart toward where a knocked-down insect will fall, beating rivals to the meal.

Question 5. The student wants to explain the significance of what the high-speed study revealed about the jet. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Archerfish frequently dart toward the very spot where a knocked-down insect will fall, beating rival fish to the meal before it drifts away.
  • B) The archerfish brings down insects perched on plants above the water by hitting them with a squirted jet.
  • C) The study showed the jet's impact force builds in flight outside the fish's body, which is how so small an animal can hit prey so hard. ✓
  • D) Because light bends as it passes from water into air, an archerfish aiming from below must account for prey that appears shifted from where it sits.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence names what the study revealed and states why it matters, that the jet's impact force builds in flight, letting a small fish strike prey with surprising force, which is the significance the goal seeks. Choice A describes the fish's post-strike behavior, not the meaning of the jet finding. Choice B restates the basic hunting method without touching the study's revelation or its importance. Choice D explains the aiming challenge, a real difficulty, but not the significance of how the jet's force is generated.