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SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 18)

Drill 18 · Reading & Writing · Hard Rhetorical Synthesis

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 18) 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 often true statements drawn from the notes that simply do not serve the stated goal, so read the goal with care.

Questions & Explanations

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A fjord is a long, narrow inlet of the sea that reaches inland between steep walls of rock. • Fjords were carved by glaciers that ground slowly down old river valleys, gouging them deeper and steeper than rivers had. • When the ice melted and the sea rose, water filled these deepened valleys, leaving the steep-sided inlets seen today. • Many fjords are far deeper than the open sea just outside them, because the glaciers cut well below the old coastline. • The calm, sheltered water of a fjord has long given coastal villages a safe place to harbor their boats.

Question 1. The student wants to define what a fjord is for a reader who has not met the term. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Many fjords run far deeper than the open sea just beyond them, since the glaciers cut well below the old coastline.
  • B) The calm, sheltered water of a fjord has long given the coastal villages along it a safe harbor for their boats.
  • C) A fjord is a long, narrow sea inlet that reaches inland between steep rock walls, cut by a glacier from an old valley. ✓
  • D) When the ice melted and the sea rose, water flooded the deepened valleys, leaving the steep inlets that remain today.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence defines the term plainly, a long narrow steep-walled sea inlet cut by a glacier, which is what a reader meeting the word needs. Choice A gives a fact about fjord depth, true but not a definition of the term. Choice B notes the use of fjords as harbors rather than saying what a fjord is. Choice D recounts one step in their formation without stating what a fjord is.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Fresco and oil painting are two methods of painting that differ in the surface a painter works on and how the paint sets. • In fresco, the painter works on a layer of fresh wet plaster, so the colors sink in and set as the plaster dries hard. • In oil painting, the painter works on a dry prepared panel or canvas, and the colors set slowly as the oil reacts with air. • Because wet plaster dries within a day, a fresco painter must finish each section quickly before the surface sets. • An oil painter, by contrast, can rework a passage over many days while the slow-drying paint stays workable.

Question 2. The student wants to explain the difference between fresco and oil painting in the surface each is done on. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Because wet plaster sets within a day, a fresco painter has to finish each section quickly before that surface hardens.
  • B) An oil painter can rework a passage over many days, since the slow-drying oil paint stays workable for a long time.
  • C) Fresco and oil painting differ both in the surface the painter works on and in the way each kind of paint finally sets.
  • D) Fresco is painted onto a layer of fresh wet plaster, whereas oil paint is applied to a dry prepared panel or canvas. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence draws the surface contrast the goal asks for, wet plaster for fresco against a dry prepared panel for oil. Choice A describes the haste fresco demands, a consequence rather than the contrast in surfaces. Choice B gives only the oil painter's freedom to rework, a single method with no contrast in surface. Choice C says the two methods differ but never names how their surfaces differ.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Cyanotype is an early photographic process that prints an image in a deep Prussian blue on paper or cloth. • The surface is coated with a mix of two iron salts, dried in the dark, then covered with objects or a film negative. • Where light strikes the coating, the iron salts form insoluble Prussian blue; the shielded areas wash away to white in a water rinse. • A botanist used the process to record specimens, laying dried plants on the coated paper and exposing them to sunlight. • The same chemistry later gave engineers the blue-and-white copies of technical drawings long known as blueprints.

Question 3. The student wants to explain the chemical process by which a cyanotype image forms. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) The cyanotype process prints its finished image in a deep Prussian blue, whether on a sheet of paper or a piece of cloth.
  • B) Where light hits the iron-salt coating, the salts form insoluble Prussian blue, while shielded areas rinse away to white. ✓
  • C) A botanist recorded specimens with the process, setting dried plants on coated paper and exposing them in sunlight.
  • D) This same chemistry later gave engineers the blue-and-white drawing copies that came to be called blueprints.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence lays out the chemical process, the salts forming Prussian blue where light strikes them while shielded areas wash to white. Choice A states the color of the result rather than how the image forms. Choice C gives an application of the process without explaining the chemistry. Choice D notes a later use in blueprints, again an application rather than the process itself.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • The diving bell is a rigid open-bottomed chamber lowered into the water so that workers can breathe the air trapped inside it. • As the bell sinks, the trapped pocket of air lets a worker stay under the surface far longer than a single held breath allows. • A diver could step out briefly to work on the seabed, then return to the bell's pocket of air to breathe again. • One harbor crew used a bell to set the heavy stone footings of a pier, working in the dim light below the waterline. • A fresh supply of air, sent down later in weighted barrels, let crews stay below far longer than the first bells permitted.

Question 4. The student wants to describe the aim that led builders to lower workers beneath the water in a diving bell. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Builders lowered workers in a diving bell so they could breathe and work underwater long enough to set a pier's footings. ✓
  • B) As the bell descends, the trapped pocket of air lets a worker remain underwater far longer than one held breath would allow.
  • C) A diver could step briefly onto the seabed to work, then duck back into the bell's pocket of air to breathe once more.
  • D) Air sent down later in weighted barrels let crews stay below far longer than the earliest diving bells had permitted.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. The sentence names the builders' aim, keeping workers breathing and laboring underwater long enough to set a pier's footings. Choice B explains how the trapped air works, a mechanism rather than the builders' purpose. Choice C describes what a diver does at the seabed without naming the aim behind it. Choice D notes a later improvement in air supply rather than the original aim.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Lost-wax casting is a way of making a metal object by forming it first in wax, then replacing the wax with molten metal. • The artist models the piece in wax, coats it in a clay shell, and bakes the shell so the wax melts and pours out. • Molten bronze is poured into the empty shell, filling the cavity the wax left behind; once cool, the shell is broken away. • Because the shell must be destroyed to free the casting, each clay mold yields only a single finished piece. • The method can capture fine detail, down to the fingerprints an artist leaves pressed in the original wax.

Question 5. The student wants to summarize how lost-wax casting turns a wax model into a finished metal object. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Lost-wax casting can capture remarkably fine detail, down to the fingerprints an artist presses into the original wax.
  • B) Because the hardened clay shell has to be broken to free the casting, each mold can yield only one finished piece.
  • C) The artist shapes the piece in wax, bakes a clay shell so the wax pours out, then fills the cavity with bronze. ✓
  • D) Molten bronze is poured into the empty clay shell, where it fills the cavity that the melted wax had left behind.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence summarizes the whole sequence, wax model to baked shell to poured bronze, which is the overview the goal asks for. Choice A highlights the detail the method captures rather than summarizing the steps. Choice B explains why only one piece results, a single consequence rather than the overall process. Choice D describes just the pouring step, leaving out the modeling and the shell.