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SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 22)

Drill 22 · Reading & Writing · Hard Rhetorical Synthesis

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 22) 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: • For decades it was widely believed that a woodpecker's skull works like a helmet, cushioning its brain against the force of repeated hammering. • A 2022 study tested this idea and concluded the opposite: the skull behaves as a stiff hammer, transmitting nearly all the impact to the wood rather than absorbing it. • The researchers reasoned that any cushioning would waste pecking energy, making the bird a less effective driller. • They attributed the brain's safety instead to its small size, its tight fit, and the very brief duration of each strike. • The bird's long tongue wraps around the back of the skull, but its main job is anchoring and extending the tongue, not protecting the brain.

Question 1. The student wants to correct the common belief that a woodpecker's skull cushions its brain. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) A woodpecker's long tongue wraps around the back of its skull, where it serves chiefly to anchor and extend the tongue as the bird feeds, a structure unrelated to the force of each peck.
  • B) For many years people assumed that the skull of a woodpecker acts as a helmet that softens the blows of its hammering.
  • C) The small size of a woodpecker's brain, its snug fit, and the brevity of each strike are often discussed in studies of pecking.
  • D) A 2022 study found that a woodpecker's skull does not cushion the brain but acts as a stiff hammer, passing the force into the wood rather than absorbing it. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence directly contradicts the cushioning belief by stating the skull transmits rather than absorbs the force, correcting the belief head-on. Choice A describes the tongue's path and role, but offers no fact that disproves the skull-cushioning belief itself. Choice B restates the mistaken belief without rebutting it, so it sets up the correction rather than making it. Choice C lists the factors that actually protect the brain but never says the skull fails to cushion, so it does not deny the myth.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Suminagashi is a Japanese method of decorating paper by floating ink on the surface of a shallow tray of water. • The artist touches loaded brushes to the water in turn, dropping concentric rings of ink and a clear repellent that push against one another. • Gently breathing on the surface or drawing across it with a single hair coaxes the floating rings into swirling, marbled bands. • A sheet of paper laid briefly on the water lifts the pattern away in one motion, capturing the design exactly as it floated. • Because each floating pattern is transient and lifted away in a single transfer, every print is unique and cannot be repeated.

Question 2. The student wants to explain to readers how a suminagashi pattern is formed and transferred. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Suminagashi produces designs that can never be repeated, since each floating pattern is one of a kind.
  • B) The artist floats rings of ink and repellent on water, coaxes them into swirling bands with breath or a single hair, then lays paper on the surface to lift the whole pattern away. ✓
  • C) Suminagashi is a Japanese technique for decorating paper using ink floated on the surface of a shallow tray of water.
  • D) The artist touches loaded brushes to the water in turn, dropping concentric rings of ink and a clear repellent that press against one another and spread across the surface.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence walks through floating the ink, shaping the bands, and lifting the print, covering formation and transfer as the goal requires. Choice A states that each print is unique, an outcome of the method rather than an account of it. Choice C identifies the craft in general terms but describes none of the steps. Choice D captures only the first step of dropping the rings, omitting the shaping and the transfer.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Koji is a mold, Aspergillus oryzae, that is grown deliberately on steamed rice, barley, or soybeans to begin many East Asian fermentations. • As it grows, the mold releases enzymes that break the grain's starches into sugars and its proteins into savory amino acids. • This pre-digestion is the first step in making miso, soy sauce, and sake, supplying the simpler compounds that later microbes and yeasts feed on. • The cultured grain is incubated warm and humid for about two days until it is covered in fragrant white growth. • Different strains and growing conditions steer the final flavor toward sweeter or more savory results.

Question 3. The student wants to introduce koji to readers and explain what it does in fermentation. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Koji is incubated in warm, humid conditions for roughly two days, until fragrant white growth covers the grain.
  • B) The particular strain of koji and the conditions it is grown in push the eventual flavor toward sweeter or more savory ends.
  • C) Koji is a mold grown on steamed grain whose enzymes break starches into sugars and proteins into savory amino acids, the pre-digestion that begins miso, soy sauce, and sake. ✓
  • D) Koji is a mold, Aspergillus oryzae, that is deliberately cultivated on steamed rice, barley, or soybeans to start many of East Asia's traditional fermentations.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence names what koji is and states the enzymatic work it performs to start fermentation, satisfying both halves of the task. Choice A gives the incubation time and appearance, which neither defines koji nor explains its role. Choice B notes how strain and conditions shape flavor, a refinement that skips what koji fundamentally does. Choice D identifies the mold and its substrate but stops before explaining the breakdown it carries out, meeting only the first half of the goal.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A dry-stone wall is built entirely from stacked stones, with no mortar or cement binding them together. • The builder fits each stone against its neighbors so that friction and weight alone hold the structure in place. • Two slightly leaning faces are tied together with long stones laid crosswise and a core of smaller rubble packed between them. • Because nothing glues the stones, the wall can shift slightly with frost and settling without cracking, and a displaced stone can be reset. • A well-built wall of this kind can stand for well over a century with only occasional repair.

Question 4. The student wants to state what a dry-stone waller is trying to achieve in fitting the stones. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) The waller aims to make stones with no mortar hold together by fitting each one so that friction and weight keep the wall standing. ✓
  • B) A dry-stone wall is constructed solely from stacked stones, without any mortar or cement to bind them.
  • C) Two gently leaning faces are joined by long stones laid crosswise, with a core of smaller rubble packed in between them to tie the whole structure together.
  • D) A carefully built dry-stone wall can remain standing for more than a hundred years, needing only occasional repair.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. The sentence states the waller's goal, mortarless stability through careful fitting, the builder's aim the goal calls for. Choice B defines the wall as mortarless but says nothing about what the builder is trying to accomplish. Choice C lays out the wall's cross-section in detail, a structural feature rather than a statement of purpose. Choice D reports the wall's longevity, a result of good building rather than the builder's aim.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • An astrolabe is a flat brass instrument, used for centuries to measure the altitude of the sun or a star above the horizon. • The user hangs it vertically by a ring and sights along a pivoting bar until it points at the chosen body. • A scale around the rim then reads off the body's height in degrees, from which the hour or one's latitude can be worked out. • The student plans to quote a fictionalized teaching manual, modeled on historical instructions, in which an instructor guides a student through a first reading. • The manual's instructor stresses that a steady hand matters as much as a correct sighting, because a swinging instrument gives a false angle.

Question 5. The student wants to quote the manual's instructor on why holding the astrolabe steady matters. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) The manual explains that a scale around the rim reads the body's height in degrees, from which the hour or one's latitude follows.
  • B) As the manual puts it, the user "hangs it vertically by a ring and sights along the bar" until it points at the chosen star.
  • C) The manual describes the astrolabe as "a flat brass instrument" used to measure how high the sun or a star stands above the horizon.
  • D) The instructor warns that "a swinging instrument gives a false angle," so a steady hand matters as much as a correct sighting. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence quotes the instructor on exactly why steadiness matters, the line the task asks the student to cite. Choice A paraphrases the manual on reading the scale and carries no quotation about steadiness. Choice B quotes the manual, but on the separate action of hanging and sighting rather than on holding steady. Choice C quotes the manual's definition of the instrument, again not the point about a steady hand.