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SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 2)

Drill 2 · Reading & Writing · Hard Rhetorical Synthesis

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 2) 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: • Desert ants forage far from the nest across bare sand with few landmarks to guide them. • Researchers wondered how the ants gauge how far they have traveled on the return trip. • The team experimentally changed the ants' stride length, giving some ants longer strides and others shorter strides. • Ants given longer strides traveled too far on the way back; ants given shorter strides stopped too soon. • The errors matched the change in stride length, pointing to a distance sense based on stride.

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

  • A) Desert ants forage far from the nest across stretches of open, bare sand where very few landmarks are available to guide them home.
  • B) To learn how desert ants gauge distance on the way home across the bare sand, researchers changed the ants' stride length, giving some ants longer strides and others shorter ones.
  • C) The ants' errors matched the stride changes, so the team concluded the ants use stride information to judge distance. ✓
  • D) The team found that ants given longer strides stopped too soon, while ants given shorter strides traveled too far on the way back.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence presents what the study found: the overshoot and undershoot tracked the change in stride, which pointed to a distance sense based partly on stride information. Choice A restates background about the ants' habitat and reports no finding. Choice B describes the method the team used to change stride, not what the study found. Choice D presents the result in the form the goal wants but reverses the notes, which say the longer-stride ants traveled too far and the shorter-stride ants stopped too soon.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Tall bridges must give a little in strong wind rather than stand perfectly rigid. • The Aldermass Bridge hangs its roadway from cables strung between two towers. • In high wind, the Aldermass roadway sways slightly from side to side and then settles. • The Carrow Bridge rests its roadway on a row of tall, slender piers. • In high wind, the Carrow piers bend a little and let the roadway shift before returning to position.

Question 2. The student wants to emphasize a similarity between how the two bridges respond to wind. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Both the Aldermass and Carrow bridges handle high wind by flexing slightly and then returning to position rather than standing rigid. ✓
  • B) The Aldermass Bridge hangs its roadway from cables, while the Carrow Bridge rests its roadway on a row of slender piers.
  • C) In high wind, the cables of the Aldermass Bridge allow its roadway to sway gently from side to side.
  • D) Tall bridges are built to give a little in strong wind instead of standing perfectly rigid.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. The sentence captures what the two bridges have in common: each flexes slightly in wind and then returns to position, even though the structures differ. Choice B points to a difference in how the two bridges are built rather than a shared response to wind. Choice C covers only the Aldermass Bridge, so it identifies no similarity between the two. Choice D states a general rule about tall bridges and never compares these two, so it emphasizes nothing they share.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A stepwell is a deep well reached by a long staircase that descends along its inner walls. • Stepwells were built in parts of India to reach groundwater that rose and fell with the seasons. • The Rani-ki-Vav stepwell is divided into seven levels descending below ground. • Its walls are lined with hundreds of carved stone figures. • In the dry season people walked far down the stairs; in the wet season the water rose to meet them.

Question 3. The student wants to present the Rani-ki-Vav stepwell to an audience unfamiliar with stepwells. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Rani-ki-Vav descends seven levels below ground, and its walls are lined with hundreds of carved stone figures.
  • B) Rani-ki-Vav is a seven-level stepwell, a deep well reached by stairs descending its inner walls, which are lined with hundreds of carved figures. ✓
  • C) In the dry season, visitors to Rani-ki-Vav walked far down its many stairs to reach the water, while in the wet season the rising groundwater climbed to meet them partway.
  • D) Like other stepwells built across the region, Rani-ki-Vav was dug deep to reach groundwater that rose and fell with the changing seasons.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence presents Rani-ki-Vav and briefly explains what a stepwell is, a deep well reached by a descending staircase, which an unfamiliar audience needs before the details land. Choice A lists Rani-ki-Vav's features but never explains what a stepwell is, leaving an unfamiliar reader without the basic idea. Choice C describes how the water level changed with the seasons but does not introduce Rani-ki-Vav or define a stepwell. Choice D explains why stepwells were built in general without presenting Rani-ki-Vav itself to someone meeting it for the first time.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Before movable type arrived in the region, books there were printed from carved wooden blocks. • Each page was carved as a single block, inked, and pressed onto paper. • Carving a block took a long time, but once carved it could print thousands of copies. • Block printing spread widely because officials and scholars wanted many identical copies of the same texts. • Movable type, with reusable single characters, arrived in the region only later.

Question 4. The student wants to place the spread of block printing in its historical context. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Carving a single page as one wooden block took a long time, though once it was finished the block could then be inked and used to print thousands of copies.
  • B) Each page of a block-printed book was carved as one wooden block, inked, and pressed onto paper.
  • C) Movable type uses reusable single characters rather than a separate carved block for each page.
  • D) Before movable type reached the region, block printing spread there to meet a demand for many identical copies of the same texts. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence sets the spread of block printing in its historical context, noting that it took hold to meet demand from officials and scholars for identical copies in the period before movable type arrived. Choice A explains the labor of carving a block but places block printing in no larger historical setting. Choice B describes the printing method step by step without addressing when or why it spread. Choice C explains how movable type works rather than situating the earlier spread of block printing.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A male songbird called the scarlet finch is known for its bright red feathers. • A popular belief holds that the finch's red color comes mainly from a red berry that it eats. • Researchers raised some finches without the red berry and others with it. • Both groups of finches grew equally red feathers. • The team concluded the red berry is not necessary for the finches' red color.

Question 5. The student wants to refute the belief that the scarlet finch's red color comes specifically from the red berry. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Finches raised without the red berry grew just as red as those raised with it, so the berry was not necessary for the color. ✓
  • B) The scarlet finch is a male songbird that is widely known for the bright red feathers covering its body, which give the bird its name.
  • C) A popular belief holds that the scarlet finch gets its bright red color mainly from a particular red berry that the bird regularly eats.
  • D) To test where the finch's red color comes from, researchers raised one group of finches with the red berry in their diet and a second group without any of the berry at all.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. The sentence refutes the belief by citing the result that decides it: birds raised without the red berry grew just as red, so the berry is not necessary for the color. Choice B describes the finch but offers nothing that challenges the dietary belief. Choice C states the belief the student means to refute without providing any evidence against it. Choice D describes the experiment's setup but stops before the result that would refute the belief.