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SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 20)

Drill 20 · Reading & Writing · Hard Rhetorical Synthesis

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 20) 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: • Verdigris is a blue-green pigment that forms when copper metal is exposed to acids such as vinegar over time. • Painters once made it by sealing copper sheets in pots with vinegar, then scraping off the colored crust that grew. • The fresh pigment gave a vivid green prized for foliage, though it could darken or shift in some mixtures. • A treatise on painting warned artists to seal verdigris under a coat of varnish to keep its color from turning. • Because the same corrosion process slowly changes exposed copper, verdigris also appears as the natural patina on old copper roofs.

Question 1. The student wants to introduce verdigris to readers who have never encountered the pigment. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Painters once made verdigris by sealing copper sheets with vinegar in pots, then scraping off the colored crust that formed.
  • B) Verdigris is a blue-green pigment, once used by painters, that forms when copper is exposed over time to acids such as vinegar. ✓
  • C) The fresh pigment yielded a vivid green that was especially prized for foliage, though it could darken or shift in some mixtures.
  • D) Because the same corrosion process slowly changes exposed copper, verdigris also shows up as the patina on aging copper roofs.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence introduces the pigment by saying plainly what it is and how it arises, suited to a reader meeting verdigris for the first time. Choice A describes how painters made it, a method that assumes the reader already knows the pigment. Choice C comments on the color's use and behavior without first saying what verdigris is. Choice D notes where the same green appears on roofs, a side fact rather than an introduction.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • The Terracotta Army is a vast set of life-size clay soldiers buried near the tomb of China's first emperor. • Each figure was built from coils and slabs of clay, then fired in a kiln until it hardened into durable pottery. • The figures were made in parts, with heads, arms, and torsos shaped separately and joined before firing. • A study of the figures found that no two faces are exactly alike, suggesting that features were varied by hand. • Traces of paint show the soldiers once stood in bright colors that have since flaked away in the ground.

Question 2. The student wants to convey the main significance of the study's finding about the soldiers' faces. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Each soldier was built up from coils and slabs of clay and then fired in a kiln until it hardened into pottery.
  • B) The figures were assembled from separately made parts, with heads, arms, and torsos joined together before firing.
  • C) A study found that no two faces are exactly alike, suggesting that the figures' features were varied by hand. ✓
  • D) Faint traces of paint show that the soldiers once stood in bright colors that have since flaked away underground.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence draws out why the finding matters: the differing faces suggest that the features were varied by hand. Choice A describes how a figure was built and fired rather than the meaning of the face finding. Choice B explains the assembly from parts, not what the differing faces reveal. Choice D notes the lost paint, a separate detail unrelated to the faces.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A salt marsh and a mangrove forest are both coastal wetlands that take root in the muddy edge between land and sea. • A salt marsh is built by low grasses and herbs that spread across flats in cooler temperate regions. • A mangrove forest is built instead by salt-tolerant trees whose arching roots stand above the mud in warm tropical regions. • The grasses of a marsh die back and regrow with the seasons, while many mangroves keep their leaves the year round. • Both kinds of wetland slow the water at the shore and shelter young fish among their stems and roots.

Question 3. The student wants to explain the difference between a salt marsh and a mangrove forest in the plants that build each one. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) A salt marsh is built by low grasses and herbs, while a mangrove forest is built by salt-tolerant trees. ✓
  • B) Both a salt marsh and a mangrove forest take root in the muddy edge where the land meets the sea along a coast.
  • C) Both kinds of wetland slow the water at the shore and shelter young fish among their stems and tangled roots.
  • D) The grasses of a marsh die back and return with each season, while many mangroves keep their leaves all year round.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. The sentence draws the contrast the goal asks for, low grasses building the marsh against salt-tolerant trees building the mangrove forest. Choice B states what the two share, their muddy coastal footing, rather than how their plants differ. Choice C names another shared trait, sheltering young fish, again a similarity not a difference. Choice D contrasts the leaves' seasonal habit rather than the plants that build each wetland the goal specifies.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A fictionalized field journal modeled on early polar expeditions records the crew's slow progress across the drifting sea ice. • One dated entry reads, "The floe carried us miles from our course before we ever woke to feel it move." • The same journal notes elsewhere, "We hauled the boats over pressure ridges that rose like walls of broken glass." • A later page reflects, "No chart we carried showed this water, and we wrote our own as we crept along it." • The crew survived the season and brought the journal home, where its pages were later copied and studied.

Question 4. The student wants to quote a line from the journal that conveys how the drifting ice carried the crew off course. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) The journal's account of the season closes by noting that the crew survived and carried the volume safely home.
  • B) The journal records hauling the boats over pressure ridges that "rose like walls of broken glass" along the way.
  • C) One entry observes that "no chart we carried showed this water, and we wrote our own as we crept along it."
  • D) One dated entry records that "the floe carried us miles from our course before we ever woke to feel it move." ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence quotes the line about the floe carrying the crew miles off course, the exact idea of drifting ice the goal asks for. Choice A paraphrases the crew's safe return and quotes nothing about the drifting ice. Choice B quotes a real line, but it describes hauling over pressure ridges rather than being carried off course. Choice C quotes a real line about missing charts, not the drift of the ice the goal targets.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Annealing and quenching are two ways of cooling heated steel that leave it in opposite conditions. • In annealing, the steel is cooled very slowly, often in the dying heat of the forge, which leaves it soft and easy to shape. • In quenching, the steel is plunged into water or oil and cooled fast, which leaves it hard but more brittle. • A smith may anneal a piece to work it freely, then quench the finished edge to make it hold its sharpness. • The same bar of steel can be made soft or hard depending only on how quickly the smith lets it cool.

Question 5. The student wants to compare annealing and quenching by the effect each cooling method has on the metal. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) A smith may anneal a piece so it can be worked freely, then quench the finished edge so that it holds its sharpness.
  • B) The very same bar of steel can be left soft or made hard depending only on how fast the smith allows it to cool.
  • C) Annealing cools steel slowly and leaves it soft, while quenching cools steel fast and leaves it hard but brittle. ✓
  • D) In annealing, the steel is cooled slowly, often in the fading heat of the forge, which leaves it soft and easy to shape.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence compares the two methods by their effects, slow cooling leaving the steel soft against fast cooling leaving it hard but brittle. Choice A describes how a smith uses both steps in sequence rather than comparing their effects. Choice B states that cooling speed sets the result without naming each method's effect. Choice D gives only the effect of annealing, one method rather than a comparison.