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SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 14)

Drill 14 · Reading & Writing · Hard Rhetorical Synthesis

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 14) 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 beaver builds a dam of branches and mud across a stream, pooling water into a pond behind it. • One study tracked several streams before and after beavers dammed them. • In the dammed streams, the ponds held back water that would otherwise have rushed downstream after storms. • The slowed water also dropped much of its sediment into the pond rather than carrying it away. • Beaver ponds can shift over the years as the animals abandon old dams and build new ones nearby.

Question 1. The student wants to present the main findings of the study. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) A beaver constructs its dam from branches and packed mud laid across the width of a stream, creating a still pond in the water that gathers behind the barrier.
  • B) Beaver ponds can move over the years as the animals leave old dams behind and raise new ones nearby.
  • C) After the beavers dammed the streams, conditions in those waterways were measurably different over the seasons from how they had been before the dams went up.
  • D) In the streams that beavers dammed, the ponds stored storm water that would have rushed downstream and trapped sediment that would have washed away. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence reports the study's two concrete results, storm-water storage and sediment trapping in the ponds, which is the finding the goal wants. Choice A explains how a beaver builds a dam, background rather than a study result. Choice B notes that ponds shift location over time, a separate observation, not the main finding. Choice C says the dammed streams changed without naming either of the specific effects measured.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Vernalization is the need some plants have for a long cold spell before they will flower. • Certain wheat varieties, for instance, must pass through winter cold before they bloom in spring. • This keeps the plant from flowering in autumn, when a hard frost would kill its tender blossoms. • A cold winter thus acts as a signal that spring, and a safe time to bloom, is finally near. • Growers can sometimes mimic the effect by chilling seeds in storage before planting.

Question 2. The student wants to make a general statement about why vernalization is useful to a plant. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) By requiring a long cold spell before flowering, vernalization keeps a plant from blooming until winter has passed and a safe season has arrived. ✓
  • B) Some varieties of wheat, for example, must first pass through the cold of winter before they will bloom when spring arrives.
  • C) Growers can imitate winter's effect by chilling seeds in storage for a time before they are planted.
  • D) Vernalization is the requirement some plants have for an extended period of cold before they are able to flower.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. The sentence generalizes the benefit, that the cold requirement delays flowering until a safe season, which is the point the goal asks for. Choice B gives a single example rather than a general statement about the benefit. Choice C describes a growing technique that mimics the effect, not why vernalization helps the plant. Choice D defines vernalization without saying why it is useful to the plant.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • The night sky over a stretch of moorland is so dark that early travelers struggled to keep to the path. • Along some old routes, people stacked stones into waist-high piles called cairns to mark the way. • A walker could move from one cairn to the next, each just within sight of the last, even in poor light. • One traveler's account tells of reaching a ridge at dusk and finding the next cairn only as the fog briefly lifted. • Cairns were also raised for other reasons, such as marking a grave or a boundary.

Question 3. The student wants to open the passage with an engaging narrative scene and, in the same sentence, convey why the cairns mattered to travelers. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Cairns were raised for various purposes besides marking a route, among them marking a grave or a boundary line.
  • B) Reaching the ridge at dusk, a traveler caught sight of the next cairn only as the fog briefly lifted, the piled stones serving as the one guide across the darkening moor. ✓
  • C) A walker could pass from one cairn to the next along the route, each pile of stones set just within sight of the one before it, even when the light across the moor was poor.
  • D) Across some old moorland routes, people stacked stones into waist-high piles, called cairns, to mark the way ahead.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence opens with a vivid dusk scene and, in the same breath, shows why the cairns mattered, the one sure guide across the dark moor, meeting both halves of the compound goal. Choice A lists other uses of cairns, with neither narrative scene nor the travelers' reliance on them. Choice C explains how cairns guided a walker but reads as plain exposition, not an engaging opening scene. Choice D states factually how and why cairns were built, lacking the narrative scene the goal calls for.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A blacksmith shapes iron by heating it in a forge until it glows and softens, then hammering it. • Hot iron is far easier to bend and stretch than cold iron, which resists the hammer and can crack. • The smith works the metal against an anvil, striking it repeatedly to draw it out or curve it. • As the iron cools and stiffens, the smith returns it to the fire to soften it again. • A skilled smith judges the iron's readiness by its color, since the glow shifts as the temperature changes.

Question 4. The student wants to explain the process by which a blacksmith shapes iron. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) A skilled blacksmith reads the iron's temperature from its color, since the glow of the heated metal shifts steadily as it warms and cools.
  • B) Hot iron yields to the hammer far more readily than cold iron, which resists shaping and may crack.
  • C) The smith heats iron in a forge until it softens, hammers it to shape against an anvil, and reheats it whenever it cools and stiffens. ✓
  • D) A blacksmith forms iron by warming it in a forge until it glows, then striking it with a hammer.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence lays out the full working cycle, heat until soft, hammer to shape on the anvil, reheat as it cools, which is the process the goal asks to explain. Choice A describes how a smith judges readiness by color, one skill within the work, not the overall process. Choice B explains why hot iron is easier to shape, a reason rather than the sequence of steps. Choice D captures only the first step, heating and striking, and omits the reheating cycle that completes the process.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A sundial tells the time of day by the position of a shadow cast by the sun. • A raised edge throws a shadow onto a marked face, and the shadow moves across the marks as the sun crosses the sky. • Because it depends on sunlight, a sundial shows nothing at night or under heavy cloud. • One old gardening manual remarks that a sundial is honest only when the sun consents to shine. • Sundials must also be set up for their particular location to read correctly.

Question 5. The student wants to quote a description that conveys the sundial's dependence on sunlight. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) A sundial reports the time of day from the position of a shadow that the sun casts.
  • B) To read correctly, a sundial has to be set up specifically for the location where it stands.
  • C) The same manual observes that a sundial's "shadow creeps across the face as the sun crosses the sky."
  • D) An old gardening manual notes that a sundial is "honest only when the sun consents to shine." ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence supplies a quotable line that captures the sundial's reliance on sunlight, exactly what the goal asks the quotation to convey. Choice A states plainly how a sundial works, without the vivid line about its dependence on the sun. Choice B concerns setting up a sundial for its location, unrelated to its need for sunlight. Choice C quotes a line about how the shadow moves, not one that conveys the sundial's dependence on sunlight.