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SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 12)

Drill 12 · Reading & Writing · Hard Rhetorical Synthesis

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 12) 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 fjord is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep walls, found along some northern coasts. • During past ice ages, thick glaciers crept slowly down existing river valleys toward the sea. • The moving ice carved these valleys deeper and wider, grinding the rock into a steep U-shaped trough. • When the glaciers later melted and sea levels rose, seawater flooded the carved valleys, forming fjords. • Many fjords are unusually deep, with water far deeper than the open sea just beyond their mouths.

Question 1. The student wants to summarize how fjords form. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) A fjord is a long, narrow sea inlet bordered by steep walls along certain northern coasts.
  • B) Glaciers in past ice ages deepened river valleys into U-shaped troughs, and rising seas later flooded them to make fjords. ✓
  • C) Many fjords reach surprising depths, with water far deeper than the open ocean lying just beyond the place where they meet the sea.
  • D) Over the course of past ice ages, slowly shifting conditions reshaped certain coastal valleys in ways that lasted afterward.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence lays out the formation sequence, glacial carving followed by flooding from rising seas, which is the summary the goal calls for. Choice A defines what a fjord is without explaining how one forms. Choice C notes the depth of fjords, a feature, not the process that creates them. Choice D vaguely alludes to change over the ice ages but names neither the glacier's carving nor the later flooding.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A dye fixative, or mordant, is a substance that helps a dye bond to fabric so the color holds. • Without a mordant, many plant dyes rinse out or fade quickly after the cloth is washed. • Two cloths were dyed in the same bath: one treated first with a metal-salt mordant, the other untreated. • After repeated washing, the mordanted cloth kept a deep, even color while the untreated cloth faded to a pale wash. • Some mordants also shift the final hue, so the same dye can yield several shades depending on the treatment.

Question 2. The student wants to compare the two cloths in terms of how well each held its color after washing. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) The mordanted cloth held a deep, even color through repeated washing, while the untreated cloth faded to a pale wash. ✓
  • B) A mordant is a substance that helps a dye bond to fabric, and certain mordants can also shift the final hue.
  • C) Many plant dyes, applied without any mordant, rinse out or lose their brightness soon after the cloth is washed.
  • D) Both cloths were colored in the very same dye bath, one of them treated beforehand with a metal salt and the other left entirely untreated.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. The sentence sets the two cloths side by side on exactly the goal's basis, color retention after washing, naming the outcome for each. Choice B defines a mordant and notes a hue effect, never comparing the two cloths' colorfastness. Choice C states what happens to unmordanted dyes in general, touching only one side and not as a comparison. Choice D describes the setup of the two cloths but stops before the washing result that the comparison requires.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • An aqueduct is a channel built to carry water from a distant source to a city. • For the water to flow on its own, the channel must slope gently and steadily downhill the entire way. • Roman builders kept this slope very slight and very even, sometimes dropping only a small amount over a long distance. • If the slope were too steep, the water would rush and damage the channel; too flat, and it would sit still or stagnate. • Some aqueducts crossed valleys on tall arched bridges to keep the channel at the right height.

Question 3. The student wants to define what is meant by the gradient of an aqueduct. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Some aqueducts were carried across valleys on tall arched bridges so the channel could stay at its intended height.
  • B) Roman builders held the slope of an aqueduct slight and even, sometimes dropping only a little over a great distance.
  • C) An aqueduct is a channel constructed to bring water from a faraway source into a city.
  • D) The gradient of an aqueduct is the gentle, steady downhill slope that lets the water flow on its own. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence defines the term the goal names, stating that gradient is the steady downhill slope enabling gravity flow. Choice A describes bridges used to maintain height, a related engineering detail, not a definition of gradient. Choice B reports how Roman builders managed the slope rather than defining what gradient means. Choice C defines an aqueduct as a whole, not the gradient the goal asks about.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • The mantis shrimp strikes prey with a club-shaped limb that moves with extraordinary speed. • Muscle alone contracts too slowly to produce that speed, so the limb cannot be driven by muscle directly. • Instead, the shrimp slowly compresses a saddle-shaped spring in its arm and holds it with a latch, then releases it all at once. • This stored-and-released energy snaps the club forward far faster than muscle could move it. • The strike is so fast that it can create cavitation, tiny vapor bubbles whose collapse adds a second hit.

Question 4. The student wants to explain how the mantis shrimp's limb reaches such high speed. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) The mantis shrimp strikes its prey using a club-shaped limb capable of moving at extraordinary speed.
  • B) The shrimp compresses a saddle-shaped spring, holds it with a latch, then releases it all at once to snap the club forward far faster than muscle could. ✓
  • C) The strike moves so fast that it creates cavitation bubbles in the nearby water, whose collapse delivers a second blow to the prey.
  • D) Because muscle on its own contracts far too slowly to produce such speed, the club-shaped limb of a mantis shrimp cannot be driven by muscle acting directly.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence gives the actual mechanism, a slowly loaded spring held by a latch and released at once, which is how the limb reaches its speed. Choice A states that the limb is fast without explaining what makes it fast. Choice C describes the cavitation bubbles produced by the strike, a striking side effect, not the cause of the speed. Choice D explains why muscle alone is insufficient but stops short of naming the spring-and-latch mechanism that supplies the speed.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Stained-glass windows are built from many small pieces of colored glass held together by strips of metal. • The strips, called came, are slender lengths of lead with a grooved cross-section shaped like a letter H. • Each piece of glass is slid into the groove on either side of a came strip, so the metal frames every edge. • The joints where came strips meet are soldered, locking the whole panel into a rigid sheet. • Finished panels are often set into iron bars across the window so they can bear their own weight and the wind.

Question 5. The student wants to generalize about the role the came strips play in a stained-glass window. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) A finished panel is usually fixed to iron bars set across the window opening so that it can support its own weight and resist the wind.
  • B) The grooved lead strips are called came, each a slender length shaped in cross-section like the letter H.
  • C) The came strips frame the edge of every glass piece and, once their joints are soldered, hold the whole panel together as a rigid sheet. ✓
  • D) Each piece of colored glass slides into the groove running along either side of a came strip.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence states the general role of came across the whole window, edging each piece and, once soldered, binding the panel into one rigid sheet. Choice A concerns how a finished panel is mounted in the window, not the role the came strips themselves play. Choice B describes what came is made of and its shape rather than generalizing about its function. Choice D captures a single assembly step for one piece, not the overall role came plays in the window.