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SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 3)

Drill 3 · Reading & Writing · Hard Rhetorical Synthesis

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 3) 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 a long time, ships were loaded by hand, with cargo packed in crates and sacks of many sizes. • Loading and unloading a ship this way could take many days at the dock. • In 1956, a shipper sent goods in identical large metal boxes that cranes could lift on and off. • The same boxes could move straight onto trucks and trains without being unpacked. • This 1956 shipment is often marked as the start of modern container shipping.

Question 1. The student wants to emphasize the significance of the 1956 shipment. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Before 1956, ships were loaded by hand with crates and sacks of many different sizes.
  • B) In 1956, a shipper first sent goods in identical large metal boxes that cranes could lift directly on and off the deck of a ship.
  • C) Loading or unloading a ship packed by hand with crates and sacks of many sizes could take many days at the dock, well before the metal boxes were introduced.
  • D) The 1956 shipment of goods in identical metal boxes that cranes could lift is often marked as the start of modern container shipping. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence conveys why the 1956 shipment matters: it is widely treated as the start of modern container shipping, which gives the event its significance. Choice A recalls how ships were loaded beforehand without explaining what made 1956 important. Choice B reports what the shipper did in 1956 but does not say why that act became significant. Choice C notes how slow the old method was without tying 1956 to any larger importance.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Two potters fire their bowls in the same kind of high-temperature kiln. • Mara brushes a thick glaze onto her bowls before firing, which hardens into a glossy coat. • Her glossy bowls are sealed enough to hold water without any liner. • Devi leaves her bowls unglazed and instead burnishes them with a smooth stone before firing. • Her burnished bowls take a soft sheen but stay slightly porous.

Question 2. The student wants to compare how the two potters finish their bowls. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Mara brushes a thick glaze onto her bowls before firing, and that glaze hardens into a glossy coat sealed enough to hold water without a liner.
  • B) Mara seals her bowls with a brushed-on glossy glaze, while Devi leaves hers unglazed and burnishes them to a soft, slightly porous sheen. ✓
  • C) Both potters fire their bowls in the same kind of high-temperature kiln.
  • D) Devi burnishes her unglazed bowls with a smooth stone before firing, giving them a soft sheen.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence compares the two finishing methods side by side: Mara's sealing glaze against Devi's unglazed, burnished surface, with the difference in result included. Choice A describes only Mara's method and says nothing about Devi, so it does not compare how the two potters finish their bowls. Choice C points to what the potters share, the same kiln, rather than comparing how they finish the bowls. Choice D describes only Devi's method and leaves Mara out of the comparison.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • An octopus can change the color and pattern of its skin in under a second. • Its skin holds tiny sacs of pigment that muscles can expand or allow to contract. • When the sacs are expanded, more pigment shows; when they contract, less shows. • A study filmed octopus skin at high speed while the animals reacted to changing backgrounds. • The footage showed the same sacs expanding and contracting to match each new background.

Question 3. The student wants to summarize the study's findings. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) High-speed footage showed an octopus expanding and contracting its pigment sacs to match each new background it faced. ✓
  • B) An octopus is able to change both the color and the pattern of its skin in less than a single second.
  • C) A study filmed octopus skin at high speed while the animals reacted to a series of changing backgrounds placed around them in the tank.
  • D) The tiny pigment sacs held within an octopus's skin are expanded or allowed to contract by the small muscles around them.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. The sentence summarizes what the study found: the footage showed the same pigment sacs expanding and contracting to match each background the octopus faced. Choice B states a general fact about octopuses, not a result of this study. Choice C describes what the study filmed, its method, rather than what it found. Choice D explains how the sacs work in general without reporting the study's result.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Tomas Reyes spent years blowing glass in other people's workshops before opening his own. • In 2015 he founded a small glass studio in a former boat shed by the harbor. • He started with a single furnace and one assistant. • Within a few years the studio was training new glassblowers of its own. • Reyes is now known for tall, twisting vases in deep-sea colors.

Question 4. The student wants to begin a narrative about how Reyes built his glass studio. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Reyes is now known for the tall, twisting vases in deep-sea colors that his harbor studio turns out today.
  • B) Within just a few years of first opening its doors, the studio had already begun training a new generation of glassblowers of its own.
  • C) After years in other people's workshops, Tomas Reyes opened his own studio in a former boat shed in 2015. ✓
  • D) Reyes founded his studio with only a single furnace and one assistant to help him.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence opens the story at a natural beginning: Reyes's years of working for others and the 2015 founding of his own studio, which sets up what follows. Choice A jumps to where Reyes ended up and so works as an ending, not an opening. Choice B describes a later stage of the studio's growth rather than the start of the story. Choice D gives one detail of the studio's early setup but does not open the narrative of how Reyes got there.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • Some shallow lakes turn a vivid pink color in the height of summer. • Researchers wanted to find out what causes the seasonal color change in these lakes. • They measured the water as it warmed and grew saltier through the dry season. • They found that certain microbes in the water produce a red pigment when the water gets salty enough. • As summer raised the salt level, the microbes multiplied and tinted the whole lake pink.

Question 5. The student wants to emphasize the aim of the research study. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Some shallow lakes take on a strikingly vivid pink color during the hottest part of the summer season each year.
  • B) As the summer raised the salt level, the pigment-producing microbes multiplied and tinted the whole lake pink.
  • C) Researchers measured the lake water as it grew warmer and saltier over the course of the dry season.
  • D) Researchers set out to find what causes the seasonal pink color change in these shallow lakes. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence states the study's aim: the researchers set out to find what causes the lakes' seasonal change to pink. Choice A describes the pink color itself but names nothing about what the study aimed to do. Choice B reports the result, how the microbes turned the lake pink, rather than the study's aim. Choice C describes the measurements the team took, its method, not the question it set out to answer.