Study SHSAT on the FlySHSAT

Study on the flySHSATPractice testELA

SHSAT

SHSAT 2026 ELA practice test

  • 50 questions
  • Nothing is deducted for a wrong answer
  • Free

The ELA section of the SHSAT practice test — 50 questions. Mark your answers, then press Finish at the bottom to see your score.

This is the same test the app serves as Practice Test 1. Working it here spends it: these questions will not be new when you take the test against the clock in the app.

Nothing is marked while you work, just as on the real test. The answers and the worked explanations open when you finish. What you mark is kept in this browser, so closing the tab does not lose it.

Questions 1–5

Beyond the Listener

1
A bat crossing a dark room presents two puzzles, although a human observer may notice only one. Its turns suggest access to information that the darkness should conceal. Yet the flight can seem almost silent, offering little reason to suspect that the animal is continually announcing its position. For early investigators, the conspicuous puzzle was the first: how could a creature avoid obstacles it apparently could not see? The second was hidden inside the observer’s confidence about what counted as silence.
2
In the 1790s, the Italian naturalist Lazzaro Spallanzani investigated the role of sight in bats’ movements. Bats whose eyes were covered could continue avoiding obstacles, and experiments with blinded bats produced similar results. These procedures would raise serious ethical objections today, but their historical significance rests on a precise distinction: the animals retained an ability after losing access to one possible source of information. The experiments challenged the necessity of vision; they did not identify its replacement.
3
The Swiss naturalist Louis Jurine supplied another part of the problem by blocking bats’ ears. Animals that had negotiated obstacles now became disoriented, even though their eyes remained available. Spallanzani repeated and extended the investigation. The contrast was striking: interfering with sight left navigation largely intact, while interfering with hearing disrupted it. An organ that human observers associated with receiving audible noises appeared essential in circumstances that offered them little noise to hear.
4
Blocking an ear, however, changes more than the information reaching it. The obstruction might injure or distress the animal, making poor flight an unreliable guide to the ear’s normal function. In further experiments, small tubes were placed in bats’ ears. With the passages open, the bats could navigate; when the passages were stopped, their performance deteriorated. Because the tubes remained present in both conditions, their presence alone became a less satisfactory explanation for the failure. The difference lay in whether sound could enter.
5
The result was difficult to accommodate within an explanation that also made sense of apparently silent flight. Hearing seemed implicated, but what was being heard? During the following century, proposals included the possibility that sensitive skin or wing membranes detected nearby objects through changes in the surrounding air. Such accounts connected an unfamiliar ability with the familiar experience of touch. Yet making an ability easier to imagine did not resolve the particular difficulty created by the ear experiments.
6
Sound itself offered possibilities beyond ordinary listening. An outgoing sound can strike an object and return as an echo; the return carries information about what the sound encountered. But invoking echoes introduces requirements. There must be a source, a returning signal, and an animal able to distinguish useful information in that return. Humans could hear certain bat noises, but those noises did not reveal the rapid, high-frequency signals on which the eventual explanation would depend.
7
In the late 1930s, the American researcher Donald Griffin worked with physicist George Washington Pierce, whose equipment could detect ultrasonic sound: vibrations at frequencies above the upper limit of human hearing. When bats were examined with this equipment, their apparently quiet activity registered as a stream of calls. The apparatus did more than make a faint noise louder. It gave investigators access to signals whose frequencies had placed them outside the range of an unaided human listener.
8
The detector could settle whether bats produced previously inaccessible sounds. It could not, by itself, establish what the sounds accomplished. A call might serve communication, accompany exertion, or perform another function without helping an animal avoid a wire. The new evidence therefore sharpened the old problem rather than automatically solving it. Scientists now had an identifiable signal whose contribution to flight could be tested, instead of an essential ear with no evident message arriving.
9
Griffin and the physiologist Robert Galambos investigated that contribution through further experiments. Interfering with either the bats’ hearing or their production of calls impaired obstacle avoidance; covering their eyes did not produce the same failure. The production experiments supplied a connection that detection alone had lacked. Together, the findings supported navigation by emitted sounds and returning echoes, a process Griffin called echolocation. The ear experiments from the eighteenth century now belonged within an account that included both a receiver and a source.
10
Seen backward from this explanation, the earlier flights can appear almost straightforward. They were not straightforward to observers who could watch an animal turn but could neither hear its signal nor measure its return. The later instruments altered access to the event, not the event’s underlying operation. A room that had seemed quiet could remain equally quiet to its human occupants while becoming, in the experimental record, crowded with sound.

Question 1

Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?

Show answer

Answer: C — Early experiments established hearing’s importance to bat navigation, but explaining that finding required later access to hidden signals and tests of their function.

The passage connects early evidence about hearing with later detection and experiments establishing the role of bats’ own calls. The claim that early researchers established the mechanism confuses identifying a necessary sense with explaining how it works. The account of progressively better explanations misrepresents the continued importance of interference experiments. The dismissal of observations without instruments contradicts the lasting value of the eighteenth-century findings.

Question 2

In paragraph 8, the word “settle” most nearly means

Show answer

Answer: A — determine conclusively.

The detector could determine conclusively whether bats produced sounds beyond human hearing, although the sounds’ function remained uncertain. Restoring peaceful relations would require a dispute between people, which the paragraph does not describe. Making something permanently stable concerns its condition rather than the answer to a question. Discharging an obligation would involve a debt or duty, neither of which is relevant here.

Question 3

How does paragraph 4 contribute to the passage’s development of ideas?

Show answer

Answer: D — It addresses an alternative cause of the early navigation failures, strengthening evidence that later experiments connect with the bats’ own calls.

Keeping the tubes present while changing whether they were open weakens the possibility that their mere presence caused poor flight. This strengthens the hearing evidence that paragraph 9 connects with sound production. The claim that the paragraph invalidates the early experiments reverses its effect, while the claim that it supplies the mechanism overlooks the still-unidentified signal and echoes. The proposed shift away from interference is contradicted by the later experiments on hearing and call production.

Question 4

Which evidence most directly resolves the uncertainty in paragraph 8 about whether producing calls contributes to obstacle avoidance?

Show answer

Answer: B — Bats became less successful at avoiding obstacles when researchers interfered with their ability to produce calls. (paragraph 9)

Disrupting call production and observing impaired navigation directly connects producing the sounds with avoiding obstacles. Successful flight without sight limits the role of vision but does not identify the contribution of calls. The tube experiments support hearing’s importance without establishing the source of the sounds being heard. Detecting calls establishes their existence, which is precisely the evidence paragraph 8 considers insufficient to establish their function.

Question 5

With which statement would the author most likely agree?

Show answer

Answer: A — An explanation’s apparent plausibility can reflect the observer’s sensory experience more than its ability to account for the evidence.

The touch proposals were easy to imagine through familiar experience, while human inability to hear the relevant signals made the hearing evidence puzzling. Together with the final paragraph, this suggests that familiarity can influence plausibility without improving an explanation’s fit to the evidence. Giving familiar explanations priority is unsupported, and making an observation’s value depend on an immediate mechanism contradicts the usefulness of the early findings. Treating instruments as replacements for earlier methods overlooks the renewed use of interference experiments after ultrasonic detection.

Questions 6–11

Darkroom Light

A red bulb guards its embered watch,
above the waiting tray;
the paper, pale as winter glass,
gives no hidden face away.
5
The photographer rocks the bath
as one might cradle sleep;
then shadows climb from buried light,
from distances they keep.
Outside, the hallway breaks in bells,
10
in lockers slammed and shoes;
inside, the photograph rehearses
the shape it slowly chooses.
A cheek arrives before an eye,
a sleeve before a hand;
15
the clock’s green numbers seem to float
above an unnamed land.
Too much of light would flood the scene;
too little leaves it sealed.
The craft lies not in summoning
20
but letting be revealed.
The fixer stills the silver grains
before they drift or flare,
as though the instant, once made visible,
might vanish into air.
25
Beneath the tap, the image clears;
its borrowed night runs clean.
Yet water cannot rinse away
the hour caught in the scene.
The notebook keeps the measured facts—
30
the paper, lens, and time—
but nowhere can it catalogue
when absence turns to sign.
At last, the print is hung to dry,
still silver, wet, and slight;
35
some truths will not endure a glare
but gather under light.

Question 6

The poem’s main idea about the photographer’s work is that it

Show answer

Answer: C — requires patience and careful control

The gradual appearance of the image and the warning that too much or too little light can prevent revelation show that the work requires patience and careful control. The hallway contrast establishes the darkroom’s atmosphere but is not the central requirement. Precise timing is only one recorded element, not the poem’s main focus. The notebook preserves useful facts, but the poem explicitly says it cannot catalogue the moment when an image emerges.

Question 7

Which lines best support the interpretation that the photographer’s measurements cannot fully explain the moment of revelation?

Show answer

Answer: A — The notebook keeps the measured facts— / the paper, lens, and time— / but nowhere can it catalogue / when absence turns to sign.

Lines 29–32 directly contrast measurable facts with the unrecordable moment when an absence becomes a meaningful image. The hallway lines contrast noise with darkroom quiet but say nothing about measurement. The lines about too much or too little light emphasize technical control rather than its limits. The rinsing lines describe the image clearing and the captured hour remaining, not the inability of records to explain revelation.

Question 8

Read lines 11–12 from the poem.

inside, the photograph rehearses
the shape it slowly chooses.

The word “rehearses” most nearly suggests that the photograph

Show answer

Answer: D — gradually takes on and tests its visible form

By saying that the photograph “rehearses” the shape it slowly chooses, the speaker personifies the developing image as gradually assuming and testing its visible form. “Rehearses” does not mean the photographer staged the same scene many times; the image is choosing a shape as it emerges, not repeating a prior performance. The photograph does not wait for a cue from the photographer, and nothing in the lines suggests a written script prepared before the darkroom work. The process described is chemical and gradual, not theatrical direction.

Question 9

Read lines 33–36 from the poem.

At last, the print is hung to dry,
still silver, wet, and slight;
some truths will not endure a glare
but gather under light.

These lines suggest that

Show answer

Answer: B — some understanding emerges through restrained and patient attention

The contrast between a damaging “glare” and truths that “gather under light” suggests that some understanding emerges through restrained, patient attention. The lines do not claim that repeated measurements guarantee truth; elsewhere, the notebook’s limits are emphasized. Reading the warning as only a physical instruction for drying the print misses the turn to “truths” and how they appear. The poem values careful control, so it does not suggest abandoning technique.

Question 10

The tone of the poem is best described as

Show answer

Answer: D — hushed and attentive

The speaker observes the slowly emerging image with quiet concentration, using images such as cradled sleep, buried light, and an unnamed land. Although the poem mentions technical processes, its personification and reflection prevent it from being clinical or impersonal. It expresses no longing for the past, so it is not nostalgic. The possibility that an image might vanish creates delicacy rather than sustained fear or uneasiness.

Question 11

The poem develops mainly by moving from

Show answer

Answer: A — close observation of a photograph forming to reflection on the limits of measurement and the nature of revelation

The early stanzas closely observe the photograph taking shape, while the later stanzas consider what water and records cannot capture and conclude with a metaphor about truth emerging under restrained light. The hallway contrast establishes atmosphere but does not lead to an argument about disruption. The poem values records without claiming that the notebook can capture the moment of revelation; it says the opposite. Its final reflections emphasize what cannot be precisely repeated or catalogued, not proof that every stage is predictable.

Questions 12–16

The Speed of Intention

1
A conductor approaching Beethoven can encounter an awkward disagreement before the orchestra plays a note. The familiar music, accumulated through years of performances and recordings, seems to demand one pace; a number associated with the composer demands another. Some of Beethoven’s metronome markings have struck musicians as unreasonably fast, even impossible. Yet declaring a number mistaken is a substantial intervention when its purpose was to make the composer’s wishes less vulnerable to interpretation.
2
Beethoven welcomed the metronome promoted by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel in the early nineteenth century. Its swinging mechanism supplied a regular pulse, and a movable weight allowed the user to select a rate. A marking paired a number of beats per minute with a particular note value. In 1817, Beethoven supplied markings for his first eight symphonies, works composed before he adopted the device. The numbers were therefore later specifications for music that already had a performing history.
3
Traditional Italian directions such as allegro could suggest both speed and character, but they left considerable room for disagreement. A numerical marking appeared to narrow that room. It could distinguish between two performances that were both reasonably described as fast. Nevertheless, greater precision did not guarantee greater agreement. Once a number collided with a musician’s sense of how a passage should sound, the apparent solution to uncertainty became another source of it.
4
One explanation places the trouble inside the instrument. A mechanical metronome can malfunction, and researchers have explored ways in which defects could make its actual pulse differ from the rate indicated on its scale. Such an account preserves Beethoven’s musical judgment while questioning the device that translated it into numbers. But demonstrating that a mechanism could produce misleading readings does not establish that his mechanism produced those readings when he selected the disputed tempos.
5
Another explanation moves the error from the mechanism to its reader. Researchers have proposed that Beethoven may have read the scale at the wrong edge of the sliding weight. Under that hypothesis, a functioning machine could still yield misleading written numbers. Its attraction is that a repeated reading error might explain a pattern across several markings, rather than requiring a separate copying mistake or unusual artistic decision for every troublesome passage.
6
Both proposals face a demanding test: an explanation must do more than bring an uncomfortable tempo closer to a familiar one. It must also accommodate the markings that musicians find less troubling. A correction that improves one passage while distorting another has exchanged difficulties rather than resolved them. Moreover, the pace preferred by later performers cannot serve as an unquestioned measuring stick for the intentions of a composer whose instructions those performers are disputing.
7
The possibility that Beethoven meant the numbers has consequently remained alive. Conductors have performed and recorded his music at or near controversial markings. These performances do not make every rapid passage effortless, and technical feasibility alone cannot settle an artistic question. They can, however, reveal relationships that slower performances obscure: a long movement may acquire a more continuous sweep, or recurring rhythmic figures may register as parts of a larger design rather than as separate events.
8
Listening habits complicate the evidence. A broad tempo can acquire the dignity of tradition; a quicker one may then sound disrespectful before a listener has considered what it accomplishes. The reverse prejudice is possible too: an unusually fast performance can advertise its obedience so conspicuously that speed itself becomes the achievement. Neither familiarity nor surprise establishes fidelity. An immediate sense that something sounds wrong may identify a real musical loss, but it may also mark the boundary of someone’s expectations.
9
Even a securely established number would leave much undecided. A metronome gives a pulse; it does not distribute emphasis among notes, determine the length of every release, or decide how strongly a phrase should press toward its destination. Two performances sharing a basic tempo can differ sharply in their sense of motion. Questions about the reliability of a marking therefore coexist with questions about what musicians do after accepting it. Solving the first would not dispose of the second.
10
Beethoven’s numbers deserve the resistance they offer to comfortable habits. They also deserve scrutiny more exacting than either automatic obedience or automatic correction. A performer who tries an unfamiliar pace may discover that an apparently unreasonable instruction opens something in the music; another passage may leave the difficulty unresolved. The score reaches toward a performance with unusual precision, but the distance between the printed beat and the sounding phrase remains occupied by judgment.

Question 12

Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?

Show answer

Answer: C — The dispute over Beethoven’s metronome markings calls for serious attention to precise instructions while revealing the judgment still required to turn them into music.

The passage treats the markings as significant evidence while showing that neither their historical reliability nor their musical application can be settled by a simple rule. The claim favoring established traditions contradicts the warnings about using familiarity as a standard. The claim centering on identifying an error assumes that an error occurred and overlooks the interpretive questions that would remain afterward. The claim about successful performances overstates their force, since the author acknowledges both technical difficulties and possible musical losses.

Question 13

In paragraph 6, the word “accommodate” most nearly means

Show answer

Answer: A — incorporate without creating a contradiction.

An explanation must incorporate both troublesome and less troublesome markings without producing conflicting results. Modifying something to meet a preference describes the very approach the paragraph warns against. Supplying something required does not describe the relationship between a theory and the evidence it must explain. Arranging a compromise would mean negotiating between positions, whereas the paragraph requires an explanation to account for the full pattern.

Question 14

Which evidence most directly supports the discussion in paragraph 8 suggesting that an unfamiliar tempo should be evaluated beyond a listener’s immediate reaction?

Show answer

Answer: B — Performances near disputed markings can reveal continuity and relationships among recurring figures that slower performances obscure. (paragraph 7)

The musical relationships revealed by quicker performances provide a concrete reason to investigate an unfamiliar tempo beyond its initial effect on a listener. The timing of Beethoven’s additions establishes historical context but says nothing about what unfamiliar performances may reveal. The possibility of mechanical defects supports an explanation for inaccurate markings rather than a method of evaluating a listening experience. The proposed reading error likewise concerns the origin of the numbers rather than the musical value of trying them.

Question 15

With which statement would the author most likely agree?

Show answer

Answer: C — A conductor’s case for departing from a numerical marking is stronger when it explains what that departure changes in the music.

The author evaluates tempos through their effects on musical relationships and distinguishes thoughtful scrutiny from preference or automatic obedience. Agreement among performers is insufficient because shared listening habits can make a familiar tempo seem authoritative. Postponing a choice until research settles the dispute conflicts with the passage’s encouragement to explore unfamiliar tempos despite unresolved questions. Establishing a marking’s accuracy would still leave the substantial interpretive decisions described in paragraph 9.

Question 16

How does paragraph 9 extend the discussion developed in paragraphs 4–8?

Show answer

Answer: B — It shows that settling the dispute about a marking’s reliability would still leave questions about how to realize it in performance.

Paragraphs 4–8 consider explanations for the numbers and ways of judging their musical credibility; paragraph 9 examines decisions that would remain even if a number were securely established. Differences in expression do not provide evidence that the historical markings are inaccurate. The paragraph does not assign responsibility for the disputed numbers to musicians’ phrasing. It also does not rank expression above tempo, but explains why numerical precision leaves other aspects of performance open.

Questions 17–23

The Work Beyond the Fence

1
During the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, soil from the Great Plains traveled far beyond the farms from which it had risen. Drought and powerful winds stripped exposed fields, darkened skies, and carried dust into distant cities. Yet the distance traveled was only the most spectacular expression of a quieter difficulty: soil did not respect ownership. A farmer could protect a field and still receive drifting earth from neglected ground nearby. Fences divided responsibility more neatly than they divided consequences. Any lasting response would have to operate across those fences, although most decisions about cultivation remained on the individual farm.
2
The landscape had acquired its vulnerability over decades. Native grasses had held soil with their roots and sheltered its surface; extensive plowing removed that protection. High crop prices during World War I encouraged wheat production, while tractors made larger acreages manageable. Seasons of adequate rainfall helped cultivation appear more dependable than the region’s variable climate warranted. These circumstances did not make every farming decision wise, but they made many decisions understandable. Farmers were responding to markets, equipment, and recent experience. When officials later urged different practices, they were challenging methods that had sometimes paid the mortgage, not merely correcting an absence of knowledge.
3
Federal conservation work expanded as the crisis deepened. Established in 1935 within the Department of Agriculture, the Soil Conservation Service built upon earlier federal erosion-control efforts. Its responsibilities extended beyond the plains and included erosion caused by water as well as wind. Specialists surveyed land, developed conservation plans, and worked with cooperating farmers on demonstration projects. Their task involved matching techniques to particular soils, slopes, and farming operations. The national scale of the emergency justified a substantial federal response; it did not make a single treatment suitable for every acre.
4
Nor did establishing an agency place privately operated farms under its daily command. The service’s approach depended heavily on voluntary cooperation, technical assistance, and agreements with landowners. Persuasion mattered for reasons beyond a farmer’s attachment to independence. Changing the direction of cultivation could complicate machinery use; retiring vulnerable ground could reduce the acreage producing income. A tenant might bear the immediate labor of an improvement whose lasting benefit would go to an owner. For families already struggling with debt and failed crops, a proposal promising future security could look like another demand on an exhausted present.
5
Conservation techniques themselves made these calculations unavoidable. Contour plowing followed the curves of a slope rather than running straight uphill and downhill, helping slow runoff and retain soil. On land exposed to wind, arrangements such as alternating strips of crops and protective cover could interrupt the movement of blowing earth. Leaving crop residue on the surface also offered protection. These were adjustments to a working system, not detachable accessories. Field shape, planting schedules, equipment, and the crops needed for sale or livestock all affected what could be adopted. A diagram could show the desired pattern while concealing the work of producing it.
6
Demonstration projects brought that concealed work into view. On cooperating farms, conservation specialists and farmers put practices into operation where neighbors could inspect them. Visitors could consider the condition of treated ground alongside their knowledge of local weather, soil, and the operator’s abilities. They could also ask about labor, awkward turns, planting delays, and other matters that a general recommendation might leave unresolved. A pamphlet could explain why a practice should work; a nearby farm allowed readers to judge whether it might work under conditions resembling their own. The familiar setting did not eliminate uncertainty, but it gave uncertainty a location where it could be investigated.
7
The assistance supplied to demonstration farms, however, qualified the lesson. Technical advice and help with carrying out a conservation plan were among the benefits of cooperation. A successful demonstration therefore showed what a practice could accomplish with those resources available, not necessarily what an unaided farmer could immediately reproduce. This distinction did not make the result worthless. It made questions about costs and continuing support part of interpreting the result. Neighbors could reasonably admire a protected field while remaining uncertain whether their own labor, cash, or access to assistance would permit the same achievement.
8
Tree planting presented a particularly demanding version of this problem. Through a separate federal effort led by the Forest Service, shelterbelts were planted across parts of the Great Plains. Rows of trees could reduce wind speed near the ground and help protect soil and crops, but they required suitable sites, care, and time to grow. They also occupied land that might otherwise be cultivated. A mature belt’s protection was easier to appreciate than a young planting’s promise. Federal support could help bridge that interval, but agreements on planting were only a beginning: living protection required maintenance after the initial campaign had passed.
9
Beginning in 1937, soil conservation districts supplied another means of extending the work. Organized under state laws and involving local landowners, districts could cooperate with the federal service and help coordinate conservation across multiple farms. They connected national technical resources with institutions nearer to the people expected to use them. The arrangement acknowledged a difficulty that even an excellent demonstration could leave unresolved. Individual consent could produce a protected field without producing a protected landscape. Local organization offered a way to address shared exposure while preserving an important role for the farmers whose everyday decisions would sustain the work.
10
The return of more favorable weather helped ease the Dust Bowl, and conservation programs cannot claim sole credit for its ending. Nor did successful demonstrations remove every economic pressure favoring cultivation of vulnerable land. Their achievement was less final and more demanding than a victory over dust might suggest. Conservation became something that could be inspected, adapted, financed, and organized, rather than simply recommended from a distance. The restored field still depended on decisions made next season, on neighboring land, and by people who might never attend the same meeting. The fence remained; the work had acquired reasons to cross it.

Question 17

Which statement best expresses the passage’s central idea?

Show answer

Answer: C — Conservation required making protective practices credible and workable for individual farmers while organizing support for consequences that crossed property lines.

The passage connects farmers’ practical reasons for hesitation, the value and limits of demonstrations, and the need for support across farms. The explanation centered on mistaken understanding overlooks the economic constraints emphasized in paragraphs 2, 4, and 7. The explanation centered on transferring decisions misrepresents the continuing importance of voluntary cooperation and farmers’ choices. The explanation centered on temporary assistance mistakes improved weather for a reason to abandon conservation.

Question 18

In paragraph 7, the word “qualified” most nearly means

Show answer

Answer: A — placed limits on

The assistance placed limits on what observers could conclude about reproducing a demonstration’s success without similar resources. Providing preparation would concern making someone ready, whereas the sentence concerns interpreting evidence. Giving official approval would endorse the lesson rather than restrict its application. Satisfying requirements would establish eligibility, which is unrelated to the distinction developed in the paragraph.

Question 19

How does paragraph 2 contribute to the passage’s later discussion of persuasion?

Show answer

Answer: D — It explains why damaging practices could have seemed reasonable, preparing for the argument that recommendations had to address experience and livelihood.

Paragraph 2 explains the circumstances that made extensive cultivation attractive, helping readers understand why later recommendations needed practical credibility. Preserving existing methods conflicts with the changes described throughout the passage, and the paragraph does not declare past choices generally sound. Treating crop prices as a replacement for demonstrations extends one historical incentive into an unsupported solution. Assigning separate responsibility ignores the shared consequences established in paragraph 1 and revisited in paragraph 9.

Question 20

How does paragraph 7 develop the discussion introduced in paragraph 6?

Show answer

Answer: B — It distinguishes evidence that a practice can work from evidence that another farmer has the resources needed to adopt it.

Paragraph 6 explains the usefulness of seeing practices under familiar conditions, while paragraph 7 limits what that evidence establishes about affordability and access. Personal trust is not the new issue in paragraph 7, which focuses on resources. Printed recommendations are not presented as more immediately useful than demonstrations. Nationally consistent measures are not proposed, and the importance of local evaluation remains intact.

Question 21

Which evidence most directly supports the distinction in paragraph 9 between protecting an individual field and protecting a landscape?

Show answer

Answer: A — A farmer’s protected ground could still receive soil blown from nearby land that had been neglected. (paragraph 1)

Soil arriving from neglected neighboring land shows why successful protection within one property can remain insufficient across a larger area. The service’s attention to two causes of erosion establishes its range of responsibilities rather than the relationship between neighboring properties. Visitors’ local knowledge supports the credibility of demonstrations rather than the need for coordinated protection. Unequal access to assistance explains barriers to adoption but does not directly establish how one farm’s condition affects another.

Question 22

With which statement would the author most likely agree?

Show answer

Answer: C — A practice may merit public support even when its immediate costs make adoption difficult for an individual farmer.

The discussion of immediate private costs, delayed benefits, and consequences for neighboring farms supports public assistance for valuable practices that individuals struggle to adopt. Adoption speed can reflect financial constraints rather than a practice’s value. Observing success does not remove the resource barriers discussed in paragraph 7. Meaningful participation involves adapting and sustaining changed practices, rather than automatically accepting existing ones.

Question 23

Why does the author include both the complications of contour plowing and the demands of establishing shelterbelts?

Show answer

Answer: B — To show how different protective methods could impose practical burdens that evidence of environmental benefits alone would leave unresolved.

Contour plowing complicates farm operations, while shelterbelts require land, maintenance, and time, illustrating different burdens involved in adopting useful methods. The passage distinguishes federal efforts without describing competition for control. It does not claim that methods offering quicker protection displaced tree planting. The objections concern costs and working conditions rather than chiefly the distinction between water and wind erosion.

Questions 24–28

Room in the Sleeve

1
Her mother had asked Nina to translate at the tailor’s appointment because Grandfather wanted his old jacket altered for Nina’s graduation. Before they left, her mother handed Nina the claim envelope and explained that he would agree to anything rather than admit he was confused. Nina tucked the envelope into her bag. At fourteen, she was usually the person someone reminded to bring things.
2
On the bus, Grandfather carried the jacket across his knees, its sleeves crossed neatly over the front. He asked whether she would wear the silver earrings he had given her. She answered in Arabic, then rehearsed in English what she would tell the tailor. He watched the passing storefronts. At home, someone always explained television jokes to him, usually after he had stopped smiling.
3
The tailor, Ms. Bell, stood Grandfather before three mirrors and slipped the jacket over his shoulders. Nina stationed herself beside the raised platform, where she could see all their reflections. The mirrors made a small, well-lit stage of the fitting area. When Ms. Bell asked what needed changing, she looked at Nina.
4
Grandfather pulled gently at the cloth above his elbows. He wanted room there, he told Nina, but he did not want the shoulders made larger. Nina explained that he wanted the jacket more comfortable. Ms. Bell nodded and began lifting the shoulder seams between her fingers. Grandfather’s hands settled at his sides.
5
“We can give him a cleaner line,” Ms. Bell said. “He’ll probably be sitting through most of the ceremony anyway.” Nina translated the first sentence and added that the jacket would look nice in photographs. The second sentence seemed unnecessary, something that might make him feel old. In the mirror, his eyes moved from Ms. Bell to Nina, though his head remained still.
6
“And when I stand?” he asked in English. Ms. Bell lowered her hands. Nina repeated his question, more clearly, although neither adult had asked her to. Grandfather bent one arm. The sleeve caught above his wrist, exposing the pale strip where his watchband usually rested. He held it there.
7
Nina remembered an afternoon when he had searched for a word while telling her mother about a neighbor. Her mother had supplied three possibilities, then finished the story herself. Afterward, she said that he was becoming stubborn about accepting help. Nina had agreed. Now she could remember the spoon suspended in his hand, but not which word he had been trying to find.
8
“Sitting is also with elbows,” he said. His English was deliberate, the words spaced unevenly, but he was looking at Ms. Bell. “I clap for her. I carry the flowers. This part must move.” He pinched the sleeve again, exactly where he had first shown Nina. This time Ms. Bell followed his fingers.
9
Nina felt herself turn warm beneath her collar. She had translated comfort, which was true, and left out nearly everything he meant by it. Yet he had let her speak. She studied his reflection for an accusation, or perhaps a smile that would make the whole thing harmless. He was watching the tailor examine the sleeve.
10
Ms. Bell pulled a stool closer and turned back the lining. She explained that there was enough cloth inside to widen the sleeve, although the old stitching might leave a visible trace. Now she addressed Grandfather, occasionally glancing toward Nina. He listened without nodding. When she described how the fabric might retain the marks, he touched Nina’s wrist and asked her to explain.
11
For a moment, she was pleased that he needed her, and then less pleased with her pleasure. She translated the warning carefully, including the possibility that the marks would remain even after pressing. Grandfather asked a question in Arabic about the outside of the sleeve. Nina passed it on without answering it herself. Ms. Bell turned the cloth toward him.
12
He examined the exposed seam, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. Nina waited while he considered it. Beyond the fitting area, a machine rattled and stopped; someone shook out a length of fabric with a sound like a sheet snapping in wind. Finally, he said the marks would be acceptable. She translated that, too.
13
While Ms. Bell pinned the sleeve, Nina’s phone lit up with a message from her mother: Did he understand everything? Nina began typing that he understood more than anyone thought. She erased it. Across from her, he was asking Ms. Bell whether the jacket would be ready by Thursday, and waiting through her search of the order book.
14
Outside, he took the claim envelope from Nina and slid it into his own pocket. In the shop window, their reflections floated over the jackets on display. He lifted his arm to point out a bus approaching behind her. Along his shirtsleeve, a narrow fan of creases opened at the elbow, then folded together as his hand came down.

Question 24

Which statement best expresses a theme developed through Nina’s changing role during the appointment?

Show answer

Answer: C — Assistance can limit another person when assumptions about that person replace attention to what they actually express.

Nina initially replaces her grandfather’s specific request with her own idea of his needs, then learns to convey his meaning and let him decide. Quietly correcting difficulties resembles the family’s earlier behavior, which the passage calls into question. Grandfather’s desire to make relatives feel useful is never established. Complete freedom from assistance is also unsupported, since he still requests Nina’s help with part of the explanation.

Question 25

How does Grandfather’s response to Ms. Bell in paragraphs 6 and 8 change the significance of his gesture in paragraph 4?

Show answer

Answer: A — It reveals that the gesture expressed a precise requirement that Nina’s general explanation had failed to preserve.

Grandfather repeats the gesture while explaining the movements he needs to make, revealing the specificity of his original request. His requirement remains consistent rather than emerging from Ms. Bell’s recommendation. His concern is movement, not dissatisfaction with the jacket’s appearance. The gesture is also a practical demonstration, not a request for reassurance, and it precedes Nina’s visible embarrassment.

Question 26

How does the description “a small, well-lit stage” in paragraph 3 contribute to the development of Nina’s experience?

Show answer

Answer: D — It frames the appointment as an occasion for Nina to occupy a visible role, which becomes uncomfortable as her assumptions are exposed.

The stage image follows Nina’s satisfaction at being entrusted with responsibility and precedes her embarrassment when her translation proves inadequate. The fitting is not presented as a rehearsal in which Grandfather will attract attention at graduation. Ms. Bell’s uncertainty is not the focus of the image or Nina’s discovery. Nina initially positions herself confidently, so discomfort with observation does not explain her first translation.

Question 27

What is the main effect of presenting the appointment through Nina’s perspective while revealing Grandfather primarily through speech and gesture?

Show answer

Answer: B — It allows readers to follow Nina’s revised understanding while leaving Grandfather’s reasons for tolerating others’ assumptions partly unresolved.

Readers directly follow Nina’s embarrassment and reconsideration, but Grandfather’s response to being underestimated remains uncertain, especially when she searches his reflection in paragraph 9. Revising an earlier interpretation does not make the events of the appointment doubtful. A deliberate plan to teach Nina a lesson is never established. Grandfather’s request for translation also prevents a conclusion that he has complete command of English.

Question 28

Which sentence best supports the conclusion that adjusting her view of Grandfather also requires Nina to question a source of personal satisfaction?

Show answer

Answer: A — “For a moment, she was pleased that he needed her, and then less pleased with her pleasure.” (paragraph 11)

Nina’s mixed response explicitly connects feeling needed with a pleasure she has begun to question. Searching for an accusation or smile shows concern about Grandfather’s reaction rather than attachment to being useful. Translating the warning carefully demonstrates greater fidelity without identifying the emotional reward she must reconsider. Passing on his question shows changed behavior but does not reveal the personal satisfaction that complicates that change.

Questions 29–34

The Heat and the Clock

1
Deep below the ground, temperatures generally rise with depth. In the nineteenth century, this familiar observation offered William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, a way to investigate an unfamiliar quantity: the age of the Earth. A planet that had begun hot and was gradually cooling should retain a temperature pattern related to the time elapsed. Measurements near the surface, combined with the physics of heat, might therefore reach backward into planetary history. Kelvin’s approach carried considerable authority because it connected an enormous question to quantities that could be measured and relationships that could be calculated.
2
Kelvin treated the Earth as an initially hot body losing heat through a solid exterior. In his model, heat traveled through the interior by conduction, passing through material rather than being carried by large movements of that material. He also allowed no substantial continuing source of internal heat. Under these conditions, the present temperature gradient placed limits on how long cooling could have continued. His published estimates changed as he reconsidered the inputs, eventually favoring ages measured in tens of millions of years. The calculations were serious applications of established physics; the interior to which he applied them remained largely inaccessible.
3
For many geologists, that allowance seemed cramped. Thick sequences of sedimentary rock, interrupted by erosion and followed by renewed deposition, recorded repeated episodes whose accumulated duration was difficult to squeeze into Kelvin’s limits. Darwin likewise found the restricted time troubling for evolution through the gradual accumulation of small inherited changes. Yet neither the thickness of a deposit nor the amount of biological change supplied a dependable conversion into years. Rates could vary, and parts of the record were missing. Their difficulty was more substantial than a preference for an older world, but it did not itself furnish a replacement clock.
4
The discovery of radioactivity in 1896 opened an unsuspected account in the planet’s energy budget. Subsequent research established that radioactive transformations release heat. Rocks containing radioactive elements could therefore generate energy while the Earth was losing it. A given amount of remaining warmth no longer implied the cooling interval Kelvin had calculated for a body without that continuing supply. This did not mean that every temperature measurement had been mistaken, or that the laws of heat transfer had failed. The same measurements could belong to a planet with a thermal history his model had excluded.
5
Even so, the familiar account in which radioactivity alone defeats Kelvin leaves out another weakness. In 1895, the physicist John Perry had already challenged the treatment of the Earth’s interior, exploring how more efficient internal heat transport could permit a much greater age. Earth’s mantle, although predominantly solid, can flow slowly over geological time, carrying heat by convection. The temperature gradient near the surface need not reveal how the whole interior has cooled. Adding an overlooked heat source was therefore only part of revising the physical picture behind the estimate.
6
Radioactivity also offered something more useful than permission to enlarge the old answer. Certain radioactive isotopes transform through a sequence of steps into stable isotopes at rates that can be measured. Uranium, for example, ultimately produces particular isotopes of lead. The relative amounts of these materials can preserve evidence of elapsed time, provided researchers can account for what was present initially and whether material entered or escaped afterward. Heat production complicated one clock while atomic transformation supplied another. But a lead measurement was not automatically an age: lead inherited when a mineral formed had to be distinguished from lead produced within it.
7
Nor was the oldest available terrestrial rock necessarily a sample of the Earth’s beginning. Melting, erosion, and the formation of new minerals have repeatedly rearranged the planet’s materials. A mineral’s measured age may record its crystallization during that later history. Clair Patterson approached the larger problem through meteorites, remnants of bodies formed during the early history of the solar system. Their relevance depended on the evidence that Earth and these bodies originated within the same broad episode of formation. Among his samples, lead from a uranium-poor mineral in the Canyon Diablo meteorite was especially valuable: little uranium meant little subsequent production of lead, helping constrain the starting composition.
8
Patterson compared lead-isotope compositions to work out the time required for the observed differences to develop. Obtaining reliable measurements demanded painstaking control of contamination, because lead introduced by laboratory equipment, reagents, or dust could overwhelm the small quantities under investigation. Cleaning the analytical environment was thus inseparable from interpreting the specimens. In 1956, he reported an age of about 4.55 billion years for the Earth, using meteorite lead-isotope evidence. The result did not emerge from discovering one terrestrial object that had remained untouched since the planet formed. It emerged from relationships among materials with different histories of uranium and lead.
9
That age gave geological and biological change far more room than Kelvin’s later estimates had allowed, but its agreement with their need for time was not the measurement’s foundation. The isotope relationships supplied evidence independent of how slowly a valley might erode or a lineage might change. Nor did 4.55 billion years identify a single moment when a finished Earth appeared. The planet assembled and differentiated through processes that took time. Patterson’s number reached back toward that formative interval with extraordinary precision for the scale involved; precision had not turned formation into an instant.

Question 29

Which statement best expresses a central idea of the passage?

Show answer

Answer: C — Determining Earth’s age required reconsidering the physical history assumed by a calculation and establishing what a different set of measurements could reveal.

Kelvin’s estimate depended on an incomplete thermal history, while Patterson’s estimate required interpreting isotope relationships and the histories of the materials measured. The claim about translating geological and biological evidence overlooks the independent foundation of isotope dating. The claim about preserved specimens contradicts the explanation that Patterson did not measure an untouched object from Earth’s formation. The claim about refining a cooling model overlooks the change in both physical assumptions and dating method.

Question 30

How does paragraph 5 refine the explanation developed in paragraph 4?

Show answer

Answer: D — It broadens the explanation from the production of internal heat to the way internal heat reaches the surface.

Paragraph 4 introduces radioactive heat production, and paragraph 5 adds the neglected importance of internal heat transport. The claim about inaccurate observations conflicts with the passage’s distinction between measurements and the model used to interpret them. Perry’s work permitted a greater age but is not described as producing Patterson’s numerical result. The claim that only one objection proved valid misreads paragraph 5, which presents heat transport as an additional weakness.

Question 31

Suppose Kelvin had obtained substantially more precise measurements of the near-surface temperature gradient while retaining the model described in paragraph 2. Based on paragraphs 4, 5, and 8, how would that improvement compare with Patterson’s control of laboratory contamination?

Show answer

Answer: B — Kelvin’s improvement would have refined an input without resolving the model’s omissions, while Patterson’s controls helped preserve the isotope evidence being interpreted.

More precise temperature measurements would still be interpreted through Kelvin’s incomplete account of heating and transport, whereas contamination controls protected Patterson’s measurements from introduced lead. Neither improvement by itself would make a specimen or observation representative of the whole planet. Surface precision would not directly identify radioactive heating, and Patterson’s result did not identify a single moment of assembly. Reliable observations alone do not establish all the physical assumptions needed to interpret them.

Question 32

Which detail most directly explains how Patterson’s approach addressed the difficulty described at the end of paragraph 6?

Show answer

Answer: A — The uranium-poor Canyon Diablo mineral had produced little additional lead after its formation.

Paragraph 6 identifies the need to distinguish initial lead from lead produced later, and the uranium-poor mineral helped constrain that initial composition. The rearrangement of terrestrial materials explains the search for suitable records rather than the determination of starting lead. The time required for geological and biological change motivated objections but did not establish isotope compositions. Laboratory contamination concerns lead introduced during analysis rather than lead inherited when a mineral formed.

Question 33

In paragraph 9, what attitude toward Patterson’s result is conveyed by the phrase “precision had not turned formation into an instant”?

Show answer

Answer: C — Respect for the measurement’s achievement tempered by attention to the historical process it represents.

The author praises the result’s extraordinary precision while reminding readers that Earth’s formation involved processes extending through time. The expression of doubt is inconsistent with the author’s acceptance of the estimate as meaningful evidence. Disappointment about an unresolved sequence is neither stated nor suggested by the paragraph’s appreciative language. The expectation of one exact moment contradicts the distinction between a gradual formation process and an instantaneous event.

Question 34

Why is paragraph 6 necessary to the transition from the discussion of Kelvin to the discussion of Patterson?

Show answer

Answer: B — It separates radioactivity’s role in undermining a thermal estimate from its role in supplying evidence for a different kind of estimate.

Paragraph 6 moves from radioactivity as a complication for cooling calculations to radioactive transformation as a source of chronological evidence. It does not compare measurements of radioactive heat in meteorites and Earth’s interior. The isotope method is presented as a different clock, rather than an addition to a revised cooling calculation. The paragraph explicitly introduces uncertainties about initial composition and material exchange instead of claiming that stable products eliminate them.

Questions 35–40

Planning a School Garden Schedule

(1) At one school, a student environmental club set out to improve the school garden, but its first proposal was little more than a list of supplies. (2) Four raised beds behind the gym had been mostly weeds since the previous spring. (3) Two beds still held tomato cages left by a class that had already graduated. (4) The club had requested a garden budget once before, but the principal had turned it down because the request looked like a plan for a single afternoon of planting. (5) The club’s first list named soil, gloves, seeds, watering cans, and signs, all of which would be useful on the first workday. (6) The list did not, however, show how the garden would be maintained after planting day, when classes were no longer standing beside the beds. (7) The principal was more likely to approve tools if the proposal also showed who would water, weed, and record growth later in the year.

(8) A stronger proposal organizes the work by season instead of treating the garden as a one-day event. (9) Science teachers can help students choose plants that survive the months when the building is locked. (10) Club members can visit a community garden nearby to see how volunteer shifts actually work. (11) Local frost dates tell planners which crops can mature before summer break and which will fail in July heat. (12) In early spring, students test the soil and add compost before they choose plants. (13) In late spring, classes plant herbs and vegetables that can be harvested before school lets out. (14) During the summer, families who live near campus take one-week watering shifts so the beds do not dry out while the building is closed. (15) A sign-up calendar in the front office, posted in May, makes those shifts public. (16) Each volunteer waters in the morning, when the beds are still shaded. (17) In September, science classes collect data on plant growth and replace any plants that failed in the heat. (18) This schedule solves a problem the supply list had hidden. (19) A garden can look successful on the day it is planted but decline quickly if no one is responsible for later care.

(20) The budget can be revised in the same practical direction. (21) Instead of buying many seed packets at once, the club can request fewer varieties and stronger storage bins for tools. (22) The finished proposal then presents a living project rather than a single event. (23) A one-page seasonal chart attached at the back lets a principal see the year at a glance. (24) Photographs of the beds as they looked in October make the cost of neglect visible. (25) Principals often read the chart before they read the supply list. (26) The principal approved a smaller budget than the club first requested, but she also gave permission to continue the garden the following year.

Question 35

Which sentence should be added before sentence 1 to best introduce the topic of the passage?

Show answer

Answer: B — A school-garden proposal became a maintenance plan rather than merely a supply list.

Choice B states the passage’s central idea: the proposal worked when it became a care schedule rather than a shopping list. Choice A is related to school science but does not introduce the revision of the garden proposal. Choice C names useful supporting resources from later in the passage rather than the change in the proposal’s purpose. Choice D focuses on presentation tools from the end of the passage instead of the maintenance plan that made the proposal persuasive.

Question 36

Read this sentence.

Each stage answered the principal’s concern about what would happen after the first afternoon.

Where should the sentence be added?

Show answer

Answer: C — after sentence 17

The sentence summarizes the seasonal plan after all stages have been listed.

Question 37

Which sentence, if added after sentence 19, would best support the ideas in the second paragraph (sentences 8–19)?

Show answer

Answer: D — For that reason, assigning responsibility over time was more important than adding another tray of seedlings.

Choice D directly supports the paragraph’s central point that a garden needs assigned care throughout the seasons, not merely more plants on the first workday. Choice A returns to plant selection, an earlier supporting step rather than the paragraph’s concluding claim about continued responsibility. Choice B isolates one summer mechanism instead of developing the broader point about care after planting day. Choice C shifts to photographs and a chart, which belong with the finished proposal rather than with the seasonal work plan.

Question 38

What is the best way to combine sentences 20 and 21?

Show answer

Answer: A — The budget can be revised in the same practical direction by requesting fewer seed varieties and stronger storage bins instead of buying many packets at once.

Choice A combines the two sentences by making the request for fewer seed varieties and stronger storage bins the method of revising the budget. Choice B reverses the relationship by treating the request as the cause that forced a budget revision. Choice C uses a contrast even though requesting fewer varieties and stronger bins is an example of revising the budget in a practical direction. Choice D repeats the claim that the budget can be revised instead of showing how the two ideas connect.

Question 39

Which phrase best replaces “improve the school garden” in sentence 1?

Show answer

Answer: B — restore the unused raised beds behind the gym

At sentence 1, the club’s goal is still the neglected beds, not the later seasonal plan. Choice B names that actual condition. Choice A imports the yearlong schedule that begins only after the proposal is revised. Choice C is still vague. Choice D restates the supply-list approach the passage criticizes.

Question 40

Which concluding sentence would best follow sentence 26 and support the topic presented in the passage?

Show answer

Answer: D — A practical maintenance schedule can be more persuasive than a longer shopping list.

Choice D synthesizes the passage’s main lesson: showing how the garden would be maintained made the proposal more persuasive than a longer supply list. Choice A repeats the proposal’s original weakness by emphasizing first-day supplies. Choice B makes an unsupported claim about planting-day success and participation by every family. Choice C focuses only on cost even though the principal’s central concern was responsibility for continued care.

Questions 41–46

Restoring Oysters to New York Harbor

(1) For much of the nineteenth century, New York Harbor supported one of the world’s richest oyster beds, and the oysters that grew there were everyday food for a rapidly growing city. (2) Those reefs also filtered large volumes of water, sheltered young fish and crabs, and reduced the force of storm waves along the shoreline. (3) By the early twentieth century, however, that abundance had almost entirely vanished from the harbor. (4) Overharvesting stripped the reefs faster than oysters could rebuild them, leaving bare mud where living shell had once stacked high. (5) Untreated sewage and industrial waste then poisoned the remnant beds, and oyster diseases spread through the crowded survivors. (6) Health officials closed the last commercial beds in 1927 after repeated outbreaks of illness, and the living reefs continued to shrink for decades. (7) Without the reefs, the harbor lost both a food source and a natural filter, and water quality declined as silt and algae accumulated. (8) Scientists later estimated that the historic population could have filtered the harbor’s water in a matter of days, a service the remnants could no longer provide. (9) Researchers and city agencies then asked whether restored reefs could recover some of those lost functions without repeating the mistakes that destroyed the original beds.

(10) A restoration program launched in the 2010s set out to rebuild reefs using recycled oyster shells and young oysters grown in hatcheries. (11) Volunteers collected shells from restaurants, cured them to remove leftover tissue, and seeded the clean shells with larvae while recording each batch they planted. (12) Some sites failed when sediment buried the young oysters, so project leaders added a survey of current and bottom conditions before each new planting. (13) The survey showed which locations offered firm bottom and enough current to keep silt from settling, which made later plantings more reliable.

(14) A review after the first decade found that restored reefs supported more life than nearby stretches of bare harbor bottom. (15) It also found that oysters on those reefs were surviving long enough to reproduce. (16) Students who monitored the sites reported that water clarity improved near the largest reefs. (17) A few researchers asked for a second set of reefs in the more polluted tributaries of the upper harbor. (18) Harbor managers reported that the restored reefs needed only seasonal inspections once the oysters had attached. (19) Those results were shared with city officials at a regional estuary conference. (20) Volunteers signed a rotating weekend schedule so that no planting date was left short-handed. (21) Because the restored reefs improved habitat while remaining stable, the city plans to expand the program to additional shoreline sites.

Question 41

Which phrase should be added to the beginning of sentence 12 to provide the best transition from the ideas in sentence 11?

Show answer

Answer: D — At first,

Sentence 11 describes a careful process of collecting, curing, seeding, and recording oyster batches. Sentence 12 then reports that some plantings failed and that leaders responded by adding a site survey. ‘At first’ marks that failure as an early setback later corrected, which is the relationship the two sentences have. ‘Meanwhile’ implies a simultaneous event, but the failures followed the first plantings rather than occurring beside them. ‘In comparison’ signals a contrast between two methods, yet sentence 12 does not compare the volunteer process with another approach. ‘For instance’ would introduce an example of the method in sentence 11; the sediment failures are a problem that followed that method, not an illustration of it.

Question 42

Which sentence should be added to follow and support sentence 14?

Show answer

Answer: B — Surveys found eleven fish species on the restored reefs and only four on nearby stretches of bare harbor bottom.

Sentence 14 claims that restored reefs supported more life than nearby stretches of bare harbor bottom. The species counts in the second choice quantify that wildlife comparison with measurements of fish on the reefs. Lower silt in water samples supports a water-quality claim, not the finding about living things on the reefs. More living oysters on restored reefs than on unrestored remnants uses a different comparison and concerns the oysters themselves rather than the fish and crabs that use the reefs. Seasonal inspections show that the reefs became easier to maintain, which does not establish that they held more life.

Question 43

Which sentence presents information that interrupts the focus of the passage and should be deleted?

Show answer

Answer: C — sentence 20

Sentence 20 describes how volunteers arranged weekend planting shifts, a logistics detail that does not explain the harbor’s decline, the reef-building method, or the program’s ecological results. Sentence 6 is needed because it records the 1927 closure that ended commercial harvest. Sentence 13 explains how the site survey improved later plantings. Sentence 21 states the city’s plan to expand the program and belongs as a closing idea. Only sentence 20 interrupts the focus and should be deleted.

Question 44

Read this sentence.

The record also helped biologists notice which batches of larvae had failed to attach before the next planting.

Where should the sentence be placed?

Show answer

Answer: B — after sentence 11

The added sentence refers to records of which larvae failed to attach. Sentence 11 is the first mention of collecting, seeding, and recording oyster batches, so the record-keeping consequence belongs immediately after that process. After sentence 5, no restoration records exist yet; that sentence concerns pollution of the historic beds. After sentence 13, the passage has already moved from seeding records to the site-survey results, so the attachment records would arrive late. After sentence 20, the sentence would sit beside a remark about volunteer weekend schedules, after the passage has already moved to results and next steps.

Question 45

Which revision of sentence 14 uses the most precise language?

Show answer

Answer: A — A review after the first decade found that restored reefs supported more fish and crabs than nearby stretches of bare harbor bottom.

Sentence 14 says only that restored reefs supported ‘more life,’ which does not identify what increased. The first choice names fish and crabs, matching the animals the reefs were described as sheltering earlier in the passage, and keeps the review’s comparison with nearby stretches of bare harbor bottom. The second choice replaces ‘life’ with ‘living things,’ which is no more specific. The third choice names ‘natural activity,’ a vague phrase that could mean water movement or growth rather than animals. The fourth choice keeps the wording broad with ‘wildlife in general’ instead of identifying fish and crabs.

Question 46

Which concluding sentence should replace sentence 21 to best support the ideas presented in the passage?

Show answer

Answer: C — Because the restored reefs increased habitat for fish and crabs and remained stable from year to year, the city plans to expand the program to additional shoreline sites.

The third choice restates the passage’s main outcome—more habitat and a stable reef—and the city’s decision to expand, so it closes the argument. Improved water clarity near the largest reefs is one monitoring note and does not justify relocating the whole program to polluted tributaries before any shoreline expansion. Treating the reefs as merely experimental until the harbor is historically clean ignores the decade of habitat and stability results. Collecting and curing shells is a planting method, not the evidence that the reefs recovered lost functions.

Question 47

Read this paragraph.

(1) The recipe for the oat biscuits was revised because they listed an incorrect baking time. (2) The bakers tested the revised instructions, and they recorded the results of each trial. (3) Each oven maintained its assigned temperature throughout the test. (4) The head baker filed both trial reports after checking that they matched the temperatures listed in the testing plan.

Which sentence contains an error in its construction and should be revised?

Show answer

Answer: A — sentence 1

A pronoun must agree in number with its antecedent, so “sentence 1” should use “it” to refer to the singular noun “recipe.” “sentence 2” correctly uses “they” for “bakers,” “sentence 3” correctly uses “its” for “oven,” and “sentence 4” correctly uses “they” for “reports.”

Question 48

Read this sentence.

The curator placed the colorful map in a drawer because direct sunlight could do some damage to it, gradually making its printed labels harder to read.

What is the most precise revision for the words do some damage to it?

Show answer

Answer: A — fade its ink

Precise language identifies the specific effect being described, and “fade its ink” explains why the map’s printed labels would become harder to read. “Weaken the paper fibers” does not account for the labels’ reduced readability, while “harm the map over time” and “affect its appearance” remain vague.

Question 49

Read these sentences.

(1) The first timer recorded each trial to the nearest second.

(2) The second timer recorded each trial to the nearest tenth of a second, so their results could not be compared directly.

What is the best way to combine the sentences to clarify the relationship between the ideas?

Show answer

Answer: C — Because the first timer recorded each trial to the nearest second while the second recorded each trial to the nearest tenth, their results could not be compared directly.

“Because the first timer recorded each trial to the nearest second while the second recorded each trial to the nearest tenth, their results could not be compared directly” clearly presents the differing precision as the cause of the comparison problem. “Because the first timer recorded each trial to the nearest second, the second timer recorded each trial to the nearest tenth, although their results could not be compared directly.” misuses “because” and “although.” “The first timer recorded each trial to the nearest second, the second timer recorded each trial to the nearest tenth; therefore, their results could not be compared directly.” contains a comma splice, while “The first timer recorded each trial to the nearest second, whereas their results could not be compared directly because the second timer recorded to the nearest tenth.” creates an illogical contrast.

Question 50

Read the paragraph.

(1) After two wet summers washed out the dirt access road, the parks department began rebuilding a pollinator trail that would connect three remnant prairies on the west side of the river. (2) Interpreters who had walked the old route marked wet spots on a field map so that the new boards would not sink in the spring. (3) Crews relocated the trailhead kiosk to a gravel turnout after the original riverbank pad eroded during a flood, whose maps had shown nesting sites for ground-dwelling bees. (4) Naturalists who lead weekend walks remind hikers to stay on the boards so that nesting tunnels in the bare soil are not crushed.

Which sentence is structured incorrectly and should be revised?

Show answer

Answer: C — sentence 3

The clause “whose maps had shown nesting sites” sits beside “flood,” so the flood appears to possess the maps. The clause should follow “kiosk,” the noun that actually had the maps.

In the app the clock runs, you can pause and pick up where you left off, every question is explained afterwards, and your score is estimated on the test’s own scale. Extended time (1.5× or 2×) is there if you have an accommodation.

Take the full practice test in the app

The rest of the test

The full SHSAT practice test · Everything on the SHSAT

Study on the fly is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any testing organization, school, or government body.

SHSAT™ and Specialized High Schools Admissions Test™ are trademarks of the New York City Department of Education.

All practice questions and passages are original works created for Study on the fly and are not reproduced from any official test.