7 THE DIGITAL SAT SAMPLE QUESTIONS
THE DIGITAL SAT SAMPLE QUESTIONS
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READING AND WRITING
RW question 9
Some studies have suggested that posture can influence
cognition, but we should not overstate this
phenomenon. A case in point: In a 2014 study, Megan
O’Brien and Alaa Ahmed had subjects stand or sit while
making risky simulated economic decisions. Standing is
more physically unstable and cognitively demanding
than sitting; accordingly, O’Brien and Ahmed
hypothesized that standing subjects would display more
risk aversion during the decision-making tasks than
sitting subjects did, since they would want to avoid
further feelings of discomfort and complicated risk
evaluations. But O’Brien and Ahmed actually found no
difference in the groups’ performance.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
A) It presents the study by O’Brien and Ahmed to
critique the methods and results reported in
previous studies of the effects of posture on
cognition.
B) It argues that research findings about the effects of
posture on cognition are often misunderstood, as in
the case of O’Brien and Ahmed’s study.
C) It explains a significant problem in the emerging
understanding of posture’s effects on cognition and
how O’Brien and Ahmed tried to solve that problem.
D) It discusses the study by O’Brien and Ahmed to
illustrate why caution is needed when making claims
about the effects of posture on cognition.
Key D
Domain Craft and Structure
Skill Text Structure and Purpose
Key Explanation: Choice D is the best answer. The
passage asserts that “we should not overstate” the effect
of posture on cognition and uses the O’Brien and Ahmed
study as a “case in point” in support of that claim.
Distractor Explanations: Choice A is incorrect
because although the passage indicates that O’Brien
and Ahmed reached different conclusions from those
of other researchers, it does not use the O’Brien and
Ahmed study to criticize how those earlier studies were
conducted or to directly challenge the accuracy of those
studies’ results. Choice B is incorrect because although
the passage indicates that the results from studies
finding a link between posture and cognition have been
overstated, it offers no evidence that the O’Brien and
Ahmed study has often been misunderstood. ChoiceC
is incorrect because the passage suggests that although
O’Brien and Ahmed were interested in studying the
matter of posture and cognition, it does not indicate what
these researchers thought before conducting their study
or that the researchers set out specifically to solve a
problem.
RW question 10
The following text is from Herman Melville’s 1854 short
story “The Lightning-Rod Man.”
The stranger still stood in the exact middle of the
cottage, where he had first planted himself. His
singularity impelled a closer scrutiny. A lean, gloomy
figure. Hair dark and lank, mattedly streaked over his
brow. His sunken pitfalls of eyes were ringed by indigo
halos, and played with an innocuous sort of lightning:
the gleam without the bolt. The whole man was
dripping. He stood in a puddle on the bare oak floor: his
strange walking-stick vertically resting at his side.
Which choice best states the function of the underlined
sentence in the text as a whole?
A) It sets up the character description presented in the
sentences that follow.
B) It establishes a contrast with the description in the
previous sentence.
C) It elaborates on the previous sentence’s description
of the character.
D) It introduces the setting that is described in the
sentences that follow.