Hard SAT English Practice Test: 5 Reading Questions With Answers

Question 1 (Hard)

The following text is from Jerome K. Jerome's 1889 novel Three Men in a Boat.

We are creatures of the sun, we men and women. We love light and life. That is why we crowd into the towns and cities, and the country grows more and more deserted every year. In the sunlight—in the daytime, when Nature is alive and busy all around us, we like the open hillsides and the deep woods well enough: but in the night, when our Mother Earth has gone to sleep, and left us waking, oh! the world seems so lonesome, and we get frightened, like children in a silent house. Then we sit and sob, and long for the gas-lit streets, and the sound of human voices, and the answering throb of human life.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

• A. To indicate that crowded areas can cause people to feel as though they are children again
• B. To caution people not to be so quick to dismiss the natural beauty that can be found in rural areas
• C. To address common traits that motivate many people to choose to live in urban environments
• D. To illustrate the idea that most people tend to prefer hillsides in the country to certain aspects of towns and cities

Question 2 (Hard)

Water flowing around an obstruction creates vortices (patterns of swirls) of varying size; by detecting the vortices, fish can determine the size and position of the obstruction. Testing by Yuzo R. Yanagisuru, Otar Akanyeti, and James C. Liao using models of three head shapes—narrow (low ratio of width to length), intermediate, and wide (high ratio of width to length)—showed that for large vortices, fish with intermediate heads would be better able than narrow-headed fish to distinguish between vortices and general turbulence in the water. A second research team has therefore hypothesized that in low-visibility conditions, intermediate-headed fish will be more likely than narrow-headed fish to detect obstructions that create large vortices.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the second research team's hypothesis?

• A. A study using obstructions that created large vortices in low-visibility conditions found that the narrow-headed lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) bumped into obstructions more often than the intermediate-headed dusky smooth-hound (Mustelus canis) did.
• B. A study using obstructions that created large vortices in low-visibility conditions found that the lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens), which has a relatively narrow head, bumped into more than half of the obstructions.
• C. A study using obstructions that created large vortices in low-visibility conditions found that some specimens of the intermediate-headed dusky smooth-hound (Mustelus canis) bumped into the obstructions more often than other specimens of the same fish did.
• D. A study using obstructions that created large vortices in low-visibility conditions found that the intermediate-headed dusky smooth-hound (Mustelus canis) avoided more than half of the obstructions.

Question 3 (Hard)

Like many other fruit-eating birds on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, the red-whiskered bulbul helps forest plants spread by dropping seeds from the plants' fruits in different spots (a process called seed dispersal). Ecologists have found that fruit-eating birds disperse some seeds from native plants at risk of extinction in the wild, such as the lapalapa tree. However, the birds disperse a higher number of seeds from night-blooming jessamine shrubs and other non-native plants with large populations, likely because there are so many more of those plants for them to choose from. Therefore, it isn't surprising that______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

• A. on Oahu, the rate of population increase is higher for non-native plants than it is for vulnerable native forest plants, like lapalapa trees.
• B. night-blooming jessamine shrubs and other non-native forest plants only recently began to outnumber native forest plants in the wild.
• C. on Oahu, native plants, such as the lapalapa tree, are already growing in most of the spots where red-whiskered bulbuls would be likely to drop plant seeds on Oahu.
• D. the lapalapa tree and the night-blooming jessamine shrub are the plant species most in danger of going extinct in the wild.

Question 4 (Hard)

Text 1

The poet Audre Lorde once claimed that poetry is the most inexpensive of art forms to practice. While people who pursue other art forms—sculpture, architecture, long-form prose—require large blocks of uninterrupted time as well as money to complete their work, poets can write, as Lorde said, "between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper." So poets can make worthwhile art even if they must earn their living in another way.

Text 2

Any assessment of the state of contemporary poetry must reckon with the professionalization of the field. While it is possible in theory for anyone to publish in Virginia Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review, or a similar major poetry outlet, many people who do so have professional training in poetry and extensive practice writing it, which requires time not often available to those who must also work full-time jobs. Thus, financial security indirectly affects which people become poets.

Based on the texts, how would Lorde (Text 1) most likely respond to the argument presented in Text 2?

• A. By indicating that those poets who publish in major poetry journals are most likely to be able to earn a living by writing poetry
• B. By pointing out that people can produce valuable poetry in other circumstances than those described by the author of Text 2
• C. By suggesting that those artists who specialize in more financially rewarding artistic forms are unlikely to also be successful as poets
• D. By asserting that people often work full-time jobs in order to afford the professional training described in Text 2

Question 5 (Hard)

The following text is from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein, who narrates this portion of text, describes the state of scientific knowledge as he began his own study of the natural world.

The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect, anatomize, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him. I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined.

Which choice best describes the main idea of the text?

• A. Victor became disappointed in science when he realized that the practical knowledge laypeople have of nature is often deeper than the scientific understanding.
• B. Victor was impressed by the layperson's practical understanding of nature but thought science provided a clearer understanding.
• C. Victor was immediately impressed by the advantages of the scientific approach to understanding natural phenomena.
• D. Victor thinks that conventional scientific approaches to understanding natural phenomena will not yield the answers he seeks.