SAT Section One : Critical Reading Sample Questions:

1. In general, new breakthroughs in scientific and biological research allow us to identify origins of many
viruses of formerly ______ origins.

A) mysterious
B) abstract
C) memorable
D) useful
E) escapable

2. Musical notes, like all sounds, are a result of the sound waves created by movement, like the rush of air
through a trumpet. Musical notes are very regular sound waves. The qualities of these waves --how much
they displace molecules, and how often they do so--give the note its particular sound. How much a sound
wave displaces molecules affects the volume of the note. How frequently a sound wave reaches your ear
determines whether the note is high or low pitched. When scientists describe how high or low a sound is,
they use a numerical measurement of its frequency, such as "440 vibrations per second," rather than the
letters musicians use.
All of the following are true statements about pitch, according to the passage, EXCEPT:

A) Nonmusical sounds cannot be referred to in terms of pitch.
B) Pitch cannot be accurately described with letter names.
C) Pitch is closely related to the vibration of molecules.
D) Humans' perception of pitch is not affected by the intensity of the sound wave.
E) Pitch is solely determined by the frequency of the sound wave.

3. Although often confused with each other, global warming and ozone depletion are two separate problems
threatening Earth's ecosystem today. Global warming is caused by the build-up of heat- trapping gases in
the atmosphere. It was dubbed the "greenhouse effect" because it is similar to a greenhouse in that the
sun's rays are allowed into the greenhouse but the heat from these rays in unable to escape. Ozone
depletion, however, is the destruction of the ozone layer. Chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons and
methyl bromide react with ozone, leaving a "hole" in the ozone layer that lets dangerous UV rays through.
Both are serious threats to life on Earth. While the greenhouse effect maintains the appropriate
temperature for life on Earth, problems are exacerbated when the quantity of greenhouse gases in the
Earth's atmosphere increases drastically. When this occurs, the amount of heat energy that is insulated
within the Earth's atmosphere increases correspondingly and results in a rise in global temperature.
An increase of a mere few degrees Celsius does not appear very threatening. However, numbers can be
deceiving. When you consider that the Ice Age resulted from temperatures only slightly cooler than those
today, it is obvious that even very subtle temperature changes can significantly impact global climate.
Global warming threatens to desecrate the natural habitats of organisms on Earth and disturb the stability
of our ecosystem. The climate changes that would result from global warming could trigger droughts, heat
waves, floods, and other extreme weather events.
Like most other environmental problems, humans are the cause of global warming. The burning of fossil
fuels is largely responsible for the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Every time someone drives a car or powers their home with energy derived from power plants that use
coal, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide
and methane have risen meteorically since preindustrial times, mainly due to the contributions of factories,
cars, and large-scale agriculture. Even if we immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases, we would
continue to see the effects of global warming for decades because of the damage we have already
inflicted.
Despite the pessimistic outlook, there are things that can be done to reduce global warming. Although the
problem may seem overwhelming, individuals can make a positive difference in combating global
warming. Simple things like driving less, using public transportation, and conserving electricity generated
by combustion of fossil fuels can help reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. It is important to realize
that it is not too late to make a difference.
If everyone does what they can to reduce their contributions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the
efforts of people around the world will act in concert to thwart the progression of global warming. If the
effort is not made immediately, the delicate global ecosystem could be thrown irreversibly out of balance,
and the future of life on Earth may be jeopardized.
The "greenhouse effect" is

A) another term for the Ice Age
B) a type of gas
C) ozone depletion
D) a chemical that is harming Earth
E) global warming

4. Farmlands, wetlands, forests, and deserts that composed the American landscape in the early twentieth
century have frequently been transformed during the past thirty years into mushrooming metropolitan
areas as urbanization spreads across the country. Many metropolitan areas in the United States are
growing at extraordinary rates. "Urban growth is a vital issue that requires our careful attention from local
to global scales," said Barbara Ryan, USGS Associate Director of Geography.
"It is not until we begin to take a broad census of the land itself--tracking landscapes from a spatial
perspective in a time scale of decades--that we can grasp the scale of the changes that have already
occurred and predict the impact of changes to come."
On average, between 1984 and 2004, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Memphis,
Minneapolis- St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham, Reno-Sparks, Sacramento,
Seattle- Tacoma, and Tampa-St. Petersburg averaged 173 square miles of additional urban land over the
two decades, with Houston, Orlando, and Atlanta as the top three regions by area. The growth leaders by
percentage change were Las Vegas (193 percent), Orlando (157 percent), and Phoenix (103 percent).
You can infer from this article that

A) the author heartily endorses urban growth
B) Seattle-Tacoma is getting overcrowded
C) the author believes that further study on the issue of urban growth is needed
D) the author is very much against urban sprawl and is actively working to limit it
E) the author is inflating the change in land use to further his or her own agenda

5. This passage discusses the work of Abe Kobo, a Japanese novelist of the twentieth century.
Abe Kobo is one of the great writers of postwar Japan. His literature is richer, less predictable, and wider-
ranging than that of his famed contemporaries, Mishima Yukio and Nobel laureate Oe Kenzaburo. It is
infused with the passion and strangeness of his experiences in Manchuria, which was a Japanese colony
on mainland China before World War II.
Abe spent his childhood and much of his youth in Manchuria, and, as a result, the orbit of his work would
be far less controlled by the oppressive gravitational pull of the themes of furusato (hometown) and the
emperor than his contemporaries'.
Abe, like most of the sons of Japanese families living in Manchuria, did return to Japan for schooling. He
entered medical school in Tokyo in 1944--just in time to forge himself a medical certificate claiming ill
health; this allowed him to avoid fighting in the war that Japan was already losing and return to Manchuria.
When Japan lost the war, however, it also lost its Manchurian colony. The Japanese living there were
attacked by the Soviet Army and various guerrilla bands. They suddenly found themselves refugees,
desperate for food. Many unfit men were abandoned in the Manchurian desert. At this apocalyptic time,
Abe lost his father to cholera.
He returned to mainland Japan once more, where the young were turning to Marxism as a rejection of the
militarism of the war. After a brief, unsuccessful stint at medical school, he became part of a Marxist group
of avant-garde artists. His work at this time was passionate and outspoken on political matters, adopting
black humor as its mode of critique.
During this time, Abe worked in the genres of theater, music, and photography. Eventually, he
mimeographed fifty copies of his first "published" literary work, entitled Anonymous Poems, in 1947. It
was a politically charged set of poems dedicated to the memory of his father and friends who had died in
Manchuria. Shortly thereafter, he published his first novel, For a Signpost at the End of a Road, which
imagined another life for his best friend who had died in the Manchurian desert. Abe was also active in the
Communist Party, organizing literary groups for workingmen.
Unfortunately, most of this radical early work is unknown outside Japan and underappreciated even in
Japan. In early 1962, Abe was dismissed from the Japanese Liberalist Party. Four months later, he
published the work that would blind us to his earlier oeuvre, Woman in the Dunes. It was director
Teshigahara Hiroshi's film adaptation of Woman in the Dunes that brought Abe's work to the international
stage. The movie's fame has wrongly led readers to view the novel as Abe's masterpiece. It would be
more accurate to say that the novel simply marked a turning point in his career, when Abe turned away
from the experimental and heavily political work of his earlier career. Fortunately, he did not then turn to
furusato and the emperor after all, but rather began a somewhat more realistic exploration of his
continuing obsession with homelessness and alienation. Not completely a stranger to his earlier
commitment to Marxism, Abe turned his attention, beginning in the sixties, to the effects on the individual
of Japan's rapidly urbanizing, growth driven, increasingly corporate society.
The author refers to "the orbit" of Abe's work (2nd paragraph) to emphasize that

A) his work covers a wide range of themes.
B) the emperor is often compared to a sun.
C) Abe's work is so different from his contemporaries' that it is like another solar system.
D) Abe's travels were the primary themes in his work.
E) conventional themes can limit an author's individuality.

Solutions: