SAT Cross Text Connections (Hard) - English – Real Collegeboard Practice Questions with Answers and Explanations

Choice D is the best answer because it reflects how the author of Text 2 would most likely respond to the researchers’ perspective in Text 1 on the behavior of the magpies without trackers. According to Text 1, Dominique Potvin and colleagues observed magpies without trackers pecking at a tracker on another magpie until the device fell off. The researchers suggested that the birds might have been attempting to help the other bird, with no benefit to themselves. Text 2 generally discusses scenarios in which animals have been observed removing trackers from each other. The text cautions that it shouldn’t be assumed that these animals are helping one another deliberately, since they might simply be pecking at trackers out of curiosity, causing them to fall off eventually. Therefore, the author of Text 2 would most likely respond to Potvin and colleagues’ perspective in Text 1 by saying that the behavior of the magpies without trackers could be adequately explained without suggesting that they were attempting to assist the other magpie. Assessment SAT Test Reading and Writing Domain Craft and Structure Skill Cross-Text Connections Difficulty Choice A is incorrect because Text 2 never discusses the novelty, or the newness and unusual quality, of the captive settings in which animals have been observed to remove trackers from other animals, nor does it suggest that such novelty might account for this behavior. Instead, the text suggests that it’s the novelty of the tracking equipment itself that might cause the behavior: interested in the trackers because they’re unusual, animals might paw or peck at them until they fall off. Choice B is incorrect because Text 2 never suggests that when animals remove trackers from other animals, they do so because they wish to obtain the trackers for themselves. Instead, Text 2 argues that animals paw or peck at trackers because they are merely curious about them. Choice C is incorrect because Text 2 doesn’t argue that when captured animals are observed removing trackers from each other, their behavior should be regarded as selfless only if all of them participate in it. Instead, the text argues that the behavior may not be selfless at all and may instead be attributed to animals’ curiosity about the new and unusual trackers.

Choice B is the best answer. Text 1 introduces Wang and colleagues’ study and its surprising results, and then mentions Miller and Simpson’s hypothesis as a possible way to explain them. Text 2, however, challenges Miller and Simpson’s hypothesis by pointing out the difficulties of preserving mammoth carcasses on the surface for thousands of years: “scavengers and weathering” are the additional details that complicate the Miller/Simpson hypothesis. Choice A is incorrect. Neither text compares two different approaches for studying mammoth extinction. Text 1 describes one study and one hypothesis pertaining to it. Text 2 critiques that hypothesis. Choice C is incorrect. Text 1 does not describe a critique of Wang and colleagues’ methodology, but rather an interpretation of their results by Miller and Simpson. Text 2 does not offer additional details showing that methodology to be sound, but rather casts doubt on the Miller/Simpson explanation. Choice D is incorrect. Both components mentioned here (the new “undermining” research and the theory for Assessment SAT Test Reading and Writing Domain Craft and Structure Skill Cross-Text Connections Difficulty reconciling this discovery) are contained in Text 1. Text 2 then shows how the attempt to reconcile the standard view and new research is flawed, and still fails to explain the discrepancy.

Choice B is the best answer. Both texts are critical of The Guns of August, but for different reasons: the author of Text 1 argues that Tuchman missed an important factor leading up to the war because she didn’t consult secondary sources, and the author of Text 2 argues that Tuchman’s main thesis is "reductive," which is a close synonym for "overly simplistic." Choice A is incorrect. This doesn’t accurately describe the difference. This choice’s summary of Text 1 is accurate, but Text 2 never says that Tuchman’s most interesting claims result from her original research. Choice C is incorrect. This doesn’t accurately describe the difference. Text 1 never says that The Guns of August is worthwhile to read despite its research Assessment SAT Test Reading and Writing Domain Craft and Structure Skill Cross-Text Connections Difficulty weaknesses. Text 2 does call out a weakness of Tuchman’s interpretation of events, but it also praises her analysis of primary sources. Choice D is incorrect. This doesn’t accurately describe the difference. Text 1 actually says that Tuchman "fails to address" the influence of events in Eastern Europe, while Text 2 says that Tuchman’s thesis was that European powers (not Eastern European leaders) were committed to military plans.

Choice C is the best answer because it reflects how the author of Text 2 would most likely respond to the assessment of Orlando in Text 1. Both authors agree that Orlando is unusual for Woolf: Text 1 states that the novel examines its characters’ psychologies more superficially than Woolf’s other novels do, and Text 2 describes it as being lighter in tone. However, while Text 1 calls Orlando an “oddity” and mentions that Woolf “began it as a joke,” Text 2 asserts that Orlando engages the same themes as Woolf’s other great novels. Hence, the author of Text 2 would most likely accept that Orlando differs from Woolf’s other novels but would also insist on its importance in the context of Woolf’s work as a writer. Choice A is incorrect. Text 2 does suggest that the humor in Orlando is effective. However, there’s nothing in Text 2 to suggest that the author would agree that Woolf’s talents were best suited to serious novels. Rather, the author of Text 2 compares Orlando favorably to other novels by Woolf that are implied to be darker in tone. Choice B is incorrect because the Assessment SAT Test Reading and Writing Domain Craft and Structure Skill Cross-Text Connections Difficulty author of Text 2 does not indicate that Orlando is less impressive than Woolf’s other novels, but instead points out that it engages the same themes as other novels by Woolf that are considered classics. Choice D is incorrect because there’s nothing in Text 1 or Text 2 to suggest that readers have generally ignored Orlando because of its reputation.

Choice A is the best answer. The author of Text 2 argues that Morrison’s use of the sermon is not only influenced by Ellison, but also by a “community-wide strategy of resistance” to literary conventions practiced by Black American authors. Ellison, Text 2 alleges, is only one of many influences on Morrison. Choice B is incorrect. Neither text specifically mentions sermons in works by authors other than Morrison or Ellison, only a tendency towards eroding “the division between oral and written forms” among Black American writers. Choice C is incorrect. Both texts describe similarities between the works of Ellison and Morrison, and neither points out instances of divergence. Text 2 simply suggests that Morrison was influenced by more than just Ellison. Choice D is incorrect. While Text 2 does discuss Morrison’s resistance to certain literary conventions, it’s unclear what it would mean for the underlined claim to be “indebted” to that tradition. This choice recycles language from the text, but not in a way that makes any coherent point.

Choice B is the best answer because it describes how Hull’s team would most likely respond to the argument in the underlined portion of Text 1, which asserts that volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps range led to changes in the climate and caused the K-Pg mass extinction event. According to Text 2, although Hull’s team found that activity in the Deccan Traps did indeed alter the climate before the K-Pg event, the team determined that the climate had returned to normal before mass extinctions began. This finding and the observation that the K-Pg extinctions closely align with the Chicxulub asteroid impact suggest that Hull’s team would likely dispute the claim in the underlined portion of Text 1 and say that the climate changes caused by the Deccan Traps activity were not the main cause of the extinctions. Choice A is incorrect because Text 2 describes how Hull’s team found that the climate had recovered from the changes brought about by the Deccan Traps activity before the K-Pg event occurred, which suggests that Hull’s team would disagree that the Deccan Traps activity caused the K-Pg event. Additionally, the claim in the underlined portion of Text 1 says nothing about how the Chicxulub impact changed the climate, so while Hull’s team might believe that the impact did in fact change the climate, they could not be said to agree with the claim in Text 1 on this point. Choice C is incorrect because there is no Assessment SAT Test Reading and Writing Domain Craft and Structure Skill Cross-Text Connections Difficulty indication in either text that any scientists assume that the Chicxulub impact caused the Deccan Traps activity, so there is no reason to conclude that Hull’s team would question why the scientists referred to in Text 1 make such an assumption. Choice D is incorrect because Text 2 describes how Hull’s team found that the climate had recovered from the changes brought about by the Deccan Traps activity before the K-Pg event occurred, which suggests that Hull’s team would say that the Deccan Traps activity had a less enduring effect on global conditions than the scientists referenced in Text 1 believe, not that the effect on global conditions was more significant than those scientists claim.

Choice D is the best answer because it reflects how the author of Text 1 would most likely respond to Text 2 based on the information provided. Text 2 discusses how the inconsistent use of credits to identify the contributors to video games can pose an obstacle to scholars of the medium, who rely on such credits to answer questions about the medium’s development. Text 1 notes that in film and television, on the other hand, credits are used consistently and are valuable to researchers studying the cast and crew members in these mediums. Since Text 1 asserts how the consistent use of credits benefits scholars of film and television, it can be inferred that this text’s author would respond to the discussion in Text 2 by observing that the kind of problem faced by scholars of video games—the inability to know who contributed to a particular production and how—is, in film and television studies, largely prevented by the widespread practice of credits in these mediums. Assessment SAT Test Reading and Writing Domain Craft and Structure Skill Cross-Text Connections Difficulty Choice A is incorrect. Although Text 1 discusses a method used by film and television researchers—namely, relying on credits to research the careers of cast and crew members—the author doesn’t explicitly recommend that or any other method. Moreover, Text 1 states that films and television shows themselves, not their researchers, regularly use the method of listing credits. Choice B is incorrect. It can be inferred from Text 2 that when video games do feature credits, they have essentially the same function as credits in film and television—namely, to identify the individuals who worked on a particular production. Therefore, it is unlikely that the author of Text 1 would characterize video game credits as differing in purpose from film and television credits. Choice C is incorrect because, as Text 2 explains, credits are not consistently used in video games. Therefore, it is unlikely that the author of Text 1 would argue that scholars of the medium discussed in this text— video games—rely more heavily on credits than scholars of film and television, two mediums where credits consistently appear.

Choice C is the best answer. Text 2 states that the researchers used cosmogenic nuclide dating to "avoid the potential for misdating" caused by the geology of Sterkfontein, which Text 1 describes as "challenging" and unreliable. Choice A is incorrect. Neither text suggests that the A. africanus fossils have been "corrupted," but only that traditional dating methods are difficult in Sterkfontein because of floods and soil mixing where the fossils were found. Nothing is implied to have compromised the fossils themselves. Choice B is incorrect. This choice misreads Text 2. Text 2 agrees that stratigraphy and other methods are prone to error in the context of Sterkfontein: there’s a "potential for misdating" when evaluating age based on soil layers and bones. Choice D is incorrect. Text 2 does not state that cosmogenic nuclide dating is applied to the fossils directly but rather to the breccia that surrounds them.

Choice C is the best answer because it reflects how Putirka and Xu (Text 2) would likely characterize the conclusion presented in Text 1. Text 1 discusses a study by Mark Holland and colleagues in which they detected traces of lithium and sodium in the atmospheres of four white dwarf stars. The team claims that this supports the idea that exoplanets with continental crusts like Earth’s once orbited these stars. Text 2 introduces Putirka and Xu, who indicate that sodium and lithium are present in several different minerals and that some of those minerals might exist in types of rock that are not found on Earth. Therefore, Putirka and Xu would likely describe the conclusion in Text 1 as questionable because it does not consider that lithium and sodium are also found in rocks that are not like Earth’s continental crust. Assessment SAT Test Reading and Writing Domain Craft and Structure Skill Cross-Text Connections Difficulty Choice A is incorrect because the texts do not indicate how widely held any of the viewpoints described are. Choice B is incorrect because neither text discusses how new this area of study is. Choice D is incorrect because neither text discusses how likely lithium and sodium are to be detected by analyzing wavelengths of light.

Choice D is the best answer. Ishii and O’Mahony were trying to isolate the pure umami flavor, while Jünger was trying to recreate soy sauce, which has a mix of flavors that includes umami. Accordingly, the broths from Text 1 are not described as having any soy sauce in them—just “shiitake mushrooms and kombu seaweed.” So they probably don’t have as much of the dipeptides described in Text 2, which were found to be a key part of soy sauce’s umami-ness and its saltiness. Choice A is incorrect. Neither text supports this. Neither text gets into the diets of people in the United States, nor the diets of people in Japan. Choice B is incorrect. Neither text supports this. Text 2 does talk about the molecular weights of chemical compounds, but there isn’t enough information provided about molecular weights in Text 1 to make an inference about what the scientists in Text 1 would say. Choice C is incorrect. Neither text supports this. Text 1 briefly mentions that Assessment SAT Test Reading and Writing Domain Craft and Structure Skill Cross-Text Connections Difficulty soy sauce is “made from fermented soybeans,” but it never claims that fermentation is responsible for its flavor in any way. And Text 2 never mentions fermentation at all.

Choice A is the best answer. Text 1 states that Sykes felt Fletcher’s contributions to the play were obvious because he had a distinct style in his other plays. Text 2 states that scholars generally agree “on the basis of style” that Fletcher wrote most of the three middle acts. Both texts imply that Fletcher’s writing has a unique, readily identifiable style that can be used to distinguish his work from others. Choice B is incorrect. While Text 1 refers to the women in Massinger plays, neither text compares the women of Fletcher’s plays to the women of Massinger’s plays. Text 2 doesn’t mention Massinger at all. Choice C is incorrect. Text 1 states that Sykes disputed that Shakespeare coauthored the play, and implied that it was coauthored by Fletcher and Massinger instead. Sykes, therefore, would disagree that The Two Noble Kinsmen belongs in a Shakespeare compilation. Choice D is incorrect. Text 1 doesn’t suggest that Massinger was inspired by Shakespeare, and Text 2 doesn’t mention Massinger at all.

Choice D is the best answer. The author of Text 2 acknowledges that nanohybrids may be more toxic than their constituent parts, but also provides an example of a nanohybrid that has reduced toxicity compared to its components: silicon dioxide and zinc oxide together have all the benefits of zinc oxide nanoparticles without any of the DNA harm zinc oxide has on its own. Choice A is incorrect. While the author of Text 2 gives an example of a nanohybrid that isn’t as toxic as its constituent parts, they don’t argue that the benefit outweighs the risk. They merely argue that “the effects of nanomaterial conjugation vary by case.” Choice B is incorrect. The author of Text 2 states that the effects of nanomaterial conjugation “vary by case,” and that the attention that their potential toxicity has drawn is warranted. If the situation in Text 1 weren’t representative, then there would be less attention to the potential danger of these materials. Furthermore, neither passage suggests that researchers Assessment SAT Test Reading and Writing Domain Craft and Structure Skill Cross-Text Connections Difficulty had expected that they could predict the effects of nanomaterial conjugation. Choice C is incorrect. The author of Text 2 agrees that the potential toxicity of nanohybrids “has drawn deserved attention,” so they aren’t denying the problem.

Choice A is the best answer. Brierley et al.’s research directly challenges Wright’s claim that pastoralism turned the Sahara into a desert, suggesting that, in a Sahara that turned arid 500 years earlier than previously thought, pastoral practices may have actually “preserved vegetation” rather than depleting it. Choice B is incorrect. Brierley et al.’s research actually disputes the idea that any Neolithic peoples’ behaviors, including pastoralism, could have contributed to the Sahara’s changing climate. In fact, their research implies that the Neolithic peoples’ practices did not “exacerbate aridity” (i.e., make things worse), but may have slowed environmental changes. Choice C is incorrect. Brierley et al.’s research does not acknowledge that pastoralism can have deleterious (i.e., negative) effects on a region’s vegetation and climate. It only describes one possible beneficial effect: preserving vegetation through practices like selective grazing. Choice D is incorrect. Brierley et al.’s research does not call for more research into factors that likely contributed to the desertification of the Sahara region.