SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 5)

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) Researchers built a two-step puzzle in which a crow first had to use a short stick to obtain a longer stick that could then reach food set behind a barrier.
• B) The crows solved the two-step stick puzzle on the first try, so the team concluded the birds planned the whole sequence in advance. ✓
• C) Crows can reach food by carrying out a series of separate steps in the correct order.
• D) The longer of the two sticks in the puzzle was the tool that the crow ultimately needed in order to reach the food set behind the barrier.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence presents the study's finding: the crows solved the puzzle on the first try, which led the team to conclude the birds planned the sequence ahead of time. Choice A describes the puzzle the researchers built, the method, not the result. Choice C states a general fact about crows rather than a finding from this study. Choice D explains one part of the puzzle's setup without reporting what the study found.

Question 2. The student wants to introduce the restoration to an audience already familiar with the Seabright Carousel, emphasizing what the restoration achieved. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

• A) The Seabright Carousel is a hand-carved wooden carousel that has stood beside the shore, delighting the town's families, since 1908.
• B) Generation after generation of local families rode the beloved Seabright Carousel as children over the many years since it was built.
• C) Decades of salt air had cracked the paint on the carousel and slowly worn down its hand-carved wooden horses over the years.
• D) In 2021 a group of volunteers restored the worn carousel to working order, reopening it for the summer festival. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence introduces the restoration and what it achieved, returning the worn carousel to working order in time for the festival, without re-explaining a carousel the audience already knows. Choice A explains what the carousel is, which a familiar audience does not need, and says nothing about the restoration. Choice B recalls the carousel's place in local life without addressing the restoration at all. Choice C explains the damage the carousel suffered but does not present the restoration or what it accomplished.

Question 3. The student wants to place the hiring of women typesetters in its historical context. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

• A) During a labor shortage, newspapers began hiring women for typesetting work long closed to them, and the women proved just as capable at it. ✓
• B) In nineteenth-century newspaper offices, type was set by hand, one metal letter at a time.
• C) Setting type by hand, one small metal letter at a time, was painstaking work that had long been closed to women in nineteenth-century newspaper offices.
• D) Some of the women hired as typesetters went on to train the next group of workers.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. The sentence places the hiring in its historical setting: a labor shortage opened a trade previously closed to women, who then proved just as capable at the work. Choice B describes how type was set without addressing when or why women entered the work. Choice C gives background on the work itself but never places the hiring of women in its historical context of a labor shortage. Choice D notes a later outcome without giving the circumstances that brought women into the trade.

Question 4. The student wants to explain what spalted wood is. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

• A) Woodworkers dry out the spalted wood to halt the fungal decay once the dark, wandering pattern they want has fully formed in it.
• B) Spalted wood is wood marked by dark, wandering lines that form where certain fungi grow in it as it begins to decay. ✓
• C) If spalted wood is left to decay for too long, it grows too soft for a woodworker to use.
• D) The dark, wandering lines in spalted wood appear as thin boundaries where one patch of fungal growth meets another patch within the decaying wood.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence explains what spalted wood is: wood patterned with dark lines created by fungi growing in it as it starts to decay. Choice A describes a step woodworkers take with the wood rather than explaining what it is. Choice C notes what happens if the decay goes too far without defining the wood itself. Choice D explains one detail of how the lines form but does not give the overall definition.

Question 5. The student wants to compare the two methods of drawing dye from the roots. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

• A) Natural dyes can be drawn from the roots of certain plants in more than one way.
• B) One dyer simmers crushed plant roots in hot water to pull their color into the liquid.
• C) Hot water is quick but can dull bright shades; cool water is slow but keeps them brighter. ✓
• D) Another dyer soaks the same crushed roots in cool water for several days instead, slowly drawing their color out into the liquid.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence compares the two methods directly, weighing the fast but duller hot-water method against the slow but brighter cool-water method. Choice A states only that more than one method exists and compares nothing. Choice B covers only the hot-water method, so it makes no comparison. Choice D describes only the cool-water method and leaves the hot-water method out.