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SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 9)

Drill 9 · Reading & Writing · Hard Rhetorical Synthesis

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Rhetorical Synthesis (Drill 9) 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: • Bats often fly in dense swarms as they leave a cave at dusk. • A research team wanted to understand how the bats avoid colliding in such crowded flight. • Each bat sends out high-pitched calls and listens for the echoes that bounce back from objects nearby. • The team found that bats in a swarm spread out and adjust their calls in ways that reduce the interference between them. • A single cave may release many thousands of bats over a short span at dusk.

Question 1. The student wants to convey the aim of the research team's study. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) Each bat gives off high-pitched calls and listens for the echoes that return from objects in its path.
  • B) A single cave can send out many thousands of bats within a fairly short stretch of time as evening falls.
  • C) The team set out to understand how bats avoid colliding in a dense swarm. ✓
  • D) The team found that swarming bats spread out and adjust their calls in ways that reduce the interference between them.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence states the team's aim, the question that drove the study: how bats avoid collisions in a crowded swarm. Choice A describes the echolocation the bats use, background rather than the question the team posed. Choice B gives a fact about how many bats a cave releases, unrelated to the study's aim. Choice D reports what the team found rather than what it set out to learn.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • On steep hillsides, farmers cut level terraces to keep soil and water from running off. • Two ways of building these terraces were compared. • A bench terrace cuts a flat step backed by a steep wall of stone or packed earth. • A sloping terrace keeps a gentle incline across each level and slows runoff without a steep retaining wall. • The bench terrace holds water better on very steep ground, while the sloping terrace is quicker to build.

Question 2. The student wants to compare the two ways of building terraces. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) On steep hillsides, farmers carve level terraces to stop soil and water from washing away downslope.
  • B) The bench terrace holds water better on very steep ground, while the sloping terrace is quicker to build. ✓
  • C) A bench terrace forms a flat step held in place by a steep wall of stone or firmly packed earth.
  • D) The sloping terrace holds water better on very steep ground, while the bench terrace is quicker to build.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. The sentence weighs the two methods against each other on the points the notes contrast: water retention versus ease of building. Choice A gives general background on why terraces are cut and names neither method, so it compares nothing. Choice C describes only the bench terrace, with no mention of the sloping terrace to set against it. Choice D compares the two terraces, the right task, but reverses the notes, which say the bench terrace holds water better on steep ground and the sloping terrace is quicker to build.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A weaver had spent years working alone at a single loom in a rented room. • She wanted a place where several weavers could share looms and learn from one another. • She found a vacant hall, installed a row of looms, and opened it as a shared workshop. • Within a year, weavers were gathering there each day to work side by side. • The hall had once been used to store grain.

Question 3. The student wants to write an engaging opening sentence for a narrative about the weaver and her workshop. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) The vacant hall the weaver settled on had at one time been used for storing grain.
  • B) Within a single year, weavers were coming together in the hall each day to work side by side.
  • C) The weaver located an empty hall in the town, set up a long row of looms inside it, and opened the space as a workshop that several weavers could share.
  • D) For years the weaver had worked alone at one loom in a rented room, hoping to create a place where weavers could gather and learn together. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The sentence opens a narrative by drawing the reader into the weaver's situation and the wish that sets the story in motion. Choice A gives a stray fact about the hall's past use, a flat way to begin the story. Choice B describes a later outcome rather than an opening that draws the reader in. Choice C lists the steps she took in plain sequence, more a summary than an engaging opening.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • A sundial shows the time of day by the position of a shadow cast by the sun. • For travelers, sundials carry a drawback that becomes clear over long journeys. • A sundial must be set up for the particular latitude where it is used. • Carried far to the north or south, the same dial reads the hours incorrectly until it is adjusted for the new latitude. • A sundial also gives no reading at night or under heavy cloud.

Question 4. The student wants to explain a drawback of sundials specifically for travelers crossing into different regions. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) A sundial tells the time of day from the position of the shadow that the sun casts across its face.
  • B) A sundial also fails to give any reading at night or when the sky is heavily clouded over.
  • C) A sundial set for one latitude can read wrongly after a traveler carries it far to the north or south. ✓
  • D) A sundial shows the hour by means of a shadow, which moves across the dial as the sun crosses the sky.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. The sentence names the drawback that matters for a traveler crossing regions: a dial set for one latitude misreads the hours once carried to another. Choice A describes how a sundial works and points to no drawback at all. Choice B names a real limitation, but one that affects any user rather than the traveler crossing latitudes. Choice D restates how the dial shows the hour, again with no drawback for the traveler.

Notes
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes: • The Great Pyramid was built from millions of heavy stone blocks. • A long-held assumption was that the blocks were dragged into place entirely by sheer numbers of laborers. • A study examined wall paintings showing teams hauling heavy loads on sledges. • The author of a report on the study questioned whether muscle alone explained how such heavy stone loads were moved. • The report's author wrote, "The paintings hint that wetting the sand in front of the sledge was as important as the men pulling it."

Question 5. The student wants to include a quotation that challenges the long-held assumption about how heavy stone loads were moved. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

  • A) As the report's author observed, "The paintings hint that wetting the sand in front of the sledge was as important as the men pulling it." ✓
  • B) The Great Pyramid was assembled from millions of individual blocks of heavy stone.
  • C) For the study, researchers examined old wall paintings that show teams hauling heavy loads on wooden sledges.
  • D) One summary restates the old view, that the blocks "were dragged into place entirely by sheer numbers of laborers."

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. The sentence quotes the report's author casting doubt on the muscle-alone assumption by pointing to the role of wetted sand. Choice B states a plain fact about the pyramid's construction and quotes no one. Choice C describes the study's method but includes no quotation. Choice D quotes the long-held assumption itself instead of a line that challenges it.