Reading and Writing

SAT Suite of Assessments Skills Insight Tool

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Below are the skills and knowledge that students in the content domain and performance score band selected above are typically able to demonstrate as well as examples of the kinds of questions that these students are likely able to answer correctly. To view skill/knowledge statements and example questions in other domains and/or performance score bands, update the selections above and click Go.

Skills

A student in this performance score band can typically demonstrate the following skills in this content domain:

  • Draw a reasonable text-based inference from passages at the early college level
  • Determine the most effective textual evidence (e.g., a finding of a research study) to support or refute a claim in passages at the early college level
  • Interpret and integrate relevant data from informational graphics associated with passages at the early college level in order to support or refute a claim

Example Questions

Example Question 1

Marta Coll and colleagues’ 2010 Mediterranean Sea biodiversity census reported approximately 17,000 species, nearly double the number reported in Carlo Bianchi and Carla Morri’s 2000 census—a difference only partly attributable to the description of new invertebrate species in the interim. Another factor is that the morphological variability of microorganisms is poorly understood compared to that of vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, and algae, creating uncertainty about how to evaluate microorganisms as species. Researchers’ decisions on such matters therefore can be highly consequential. Indeed, the two censuses reported similar counts of vertebrate, plant, and algal species, suggesting that blank

Which choice most logically completes the text?

  1. Coll and colleagues reported a much higher number of species than Bianchi and Morri did largely due to the inclusion of invertebrate species that had not been described at the time of Bianchi and Morri’s census.

  2. some differences observed in microorganisms may have been treated as variations within species by Bianchi and Morri but treated as indicative of distinct species by Coll and colleagues.

  3. Bianchi and Morri may have been less sensitive to the degree of morphological variation displayed within a typical species of microorganism than Coll and colleagues were.

  4. the absence of clarity regarding how to differentiate among species of microorganisms may have resulted in Coll and colleagues underestimating the number of microorganism species.

Key: B

Key Explanation

Choice B is the best answer because it presents the conclusion that most logically completes the text’s discussion of the different counts of species in the Mediterranean Sea. The text states that Coll and colleagues reported almost double the number of species that Bianchi and Morri reported in their study ten years earlier. According to the text, this difference can only be partly attributed to new invertebrate species being described in the years between the two studies, which means there must be an additional factor that made Coll and colleagues’ count so much higher than Bianchi and Morri’s count. The text goes on to explain that factor: researchers have a relatively poor understanding of microorganisms’ morphological variability, or the differences in microorganisms’ structure and form. This poor understanding makes it hard to classify microorganisms by species and means that researchers’ decisions about classifying microorganisms can have a large effect on the overall species counts that researchers report. Additionally, the text says that the two censuses reported similar numbers of vertebrate, plant, and algal species, which means that the difference in overall species did not come from differences in those categories. Given all this information, it most logically follows that Coll and colleagues may have treated some of the differences among microorganisms as indicative of the microorganisms being different species, whereas Bianchi and Morri treated those differences as variations within species, resulting in Coll and colleagues reporting many more species than Bianchi and Morri did.

Distractor Explanations

Choice A is incorrect because the text explicitly addresses this issue by stating that the description of new invertebrate species in the years between the two studies can explain only part of the difference in the number of species reported by the studies. The focus of the text is on explaining the difference between Coll and colleagues’ count and Bianchi and Morri’s count that cannot be accounted for by the inclusion of invertebrate species that had not been described at the time of Bianchi and Morri’s study. Choice C is incorrect because nothing in the text suggests that Bianchi and Morri may have been less sensitive to how much the form and structure of microorganisms vary within the same species than Coll and colleagues were. If Bianchi and Morri had been less sensitive to within-species variation than Coll and colleagues were, Bianchi and Morri would likely have reported more species than Coll and colleagues did, since less sensitivity to within-species variation would lead researchers to classify as different species microorganisms that more sensitive researchers would classify as variations within the same species. The text indicates, however, that Bianchi and Morri reported far fewer species than Coll and colleagues did; since the text also excludes other explanations for this difference, it suggests that in fact Bianchi and Morri were more sensitive to within-species variation than Coll and colleagues were, leading Bianchi and Morri to report fewer overall species. Choice D is incorrect because the text is focused on explaining why Coll and colleagues reported many more species than Bianchi and Morri did, and an underestimate of the number of microorganism species by Coll and colleagues would not explain that difference—it would suggest, in fact, that the difference in the number of species should have been even larger.

Example Question 2

550500450400350300250200150100500Weight (grams)RobotWeight of Three Aerial Robots Ultra-Fast Robot Hand Permanent Magnet Hand Yale Model T
  • The data for the 3 categories are as follows:
    • Ultra-Fast Robot Hand: 505 grams
    • Permanent Magnet Hand: 295 grams
    • Yale Model T: 490 grams

Aerial robots vary considerably in their holding force; the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand, for example, has a holding force of 56 newtons, more than twice that of the Permanent Magnet Hand and more than four times that of the Yale Model T. Since an aerial robot must lift its own weight along with its cargo, engineer Jiawei Meng and colleagues used a ratio of each robot’s holding force to the robot’s weight to calculate payload capacity, with higher ratios corresponding to greater capacity, concluding that the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand has a higher payload capacity than the Yale Model T.

Which choice best describes data in the graph that support Meng and colleagues’ conclusion?

  1. The Ultra-Fast Robot Hand and the Yale Model T each weigh more than 450 grams.

  2. The Ultra-Fast Robot Hand and the Yale Model T each weigh more than the Permanent Magnet Hand does.

  3. The Yale Model T has a lower holding force than the Permanent Magnet Hand despite weighing more.

  4. The Ultra-Fast Robot Hand weighs only slightly more than the Yale Model T does.

Key: D

Key Explanation

Choice D is the best answer because it describes data in the graph that support Meng and colleagues’ conclusion that the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand has a higher payload capacity than the Yale Model T. According to the text, payload capacity is calculated by using a ratio of a robot’s holding force to the robot’s weight, and higher ratios indicate a greater payload capacity. The Ultra-Fast Robot Hand has a holding force of 56 newtons, four times greater than that of the Yale Model T. Additionally, the graph shows that the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand has a weight of approximately 500 grams, slightly more than the Yale Model T’s weight of approximately 480 grams. Therefore, the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand has a higher ratio of holding force to weight than the Yale Model T. Since higher ratios correspond to greater payload capacity, the information from the graph indicating that the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand weighs only slightly more than the Yale Model T combined with the information in the text ultimately supports the conclusion that the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand has a higher payload capacity than the Yale Model T.

Distractor Explanations

Choice A is incorrect. Although, according to the graph, it’s true that both the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand and the Yale Model T weigh more than 450 grams, this statement doesn’t support Meng and colleagues’ conclusion that the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand has a higher payload capacity than the Yale Model T. This statement emphasizes a similarity, not a distinction, between the two robots. Choice B is incorrect. Although, according to the graph, it’s true that the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand and the Yale Model T both weigh more than the Permanent Magnet Hand does, this statement doesn’t support Meng and colleagues’ conclusion that the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand has a higher payload capacity than the Yale Model T. This statement emphasizes a similarity, not a distinction, between the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand and the Yale Model T. Furthermore, the comparison to the Permanent Magnet Hand is irrelevant to the claim about the relative ratios and payload capacities of the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand and the Yale Model T. Choice C is incorrect. Although the text states that the Yale Model T has a lower holding force than the Permanent Magnet Hand, the graph provides no information about holding force. Moreover, information about the Permanent Magnet Hand is irrelevant to the conclusion by Meng and colleagues, which only concerns the Ultra-Fast Robot Hand and the Yale Model T.