SAT Command of Evidence (Textual) practice questions

Question 1

A team of ecologists observed that a certain songbird sings more often in the early morning than at any other time of day. The team proposed that the birds sing most at dawn because sound carries farther through the cool, still air of early morning than through the warmer, more turbulent air later in the day.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the team's proposal?

Accepted Answer

Recordings show that a given bird's song can be heard over a greater distance at dawn than at midday.

Answer

The songbirds do most of their feeding in the late morning and around midday rather than in the hours right after dawn.

Answer

The songbirds tend to build their nests high in tall trees standing at the edges of wide, open forest clearings.

Answer

Several other, unrelated bird species living in the same area are also most vocal during the early morning hours.

Question 2

Studying an island, ecologists found that a certain plant grew much taller there than the same species did on the mainland. They concluded that the island's soil must be especially rich in nutrients, which allowed the plants to grow larger.

Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the ecologists' conclusion?

Accepted Answer

The island has no large plant-eating animals, which on the mainland regularly crop the plants short.

Answer

Several other unrelated plant species are also found growing across various parts of the same island.

Answer

The island lies only a few kilometers off the mainland coast, well within easy sight of the shore.

Answer

The plant produces clusters of brightly colored flowers each year during the early weeks of the spring.

Question 3

A researcher argued that a species of ant improves the health of the acacia tree it lives in by attacking insects that would eat the tree's leaves. A skeptic countered that the trees with ants might grow in better soil, which alone could account for their health.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researcher's claim?

Accepted Answer

When ants were experimentally removed from some trees but the soil was left unchanged, those trees suffered far more leaf damage than trees that kept their ants.

Answer

Acacia trees of this particular kind are quite common and can be found growing widely across much of the region's dry grasslands.

Answer

The trees that had ants living in them were generally found growing in richer soil than the trees without ants.

Answer

The ants also build their nests inside the swollen, hollow thorns that grow along the branches of the acacia tree.

SAT Command of Evidence (Textual) practice questions

The usual trap

Try three questions

01Question 1

02Question 2

03Question 3

Keep going

More Information and Ideas