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SAT Reading and Writing 2024 past questions and answers

This 2024 SAT Reading and Writing set has 27 practice questions. Try these 5 free sample questions, tap a question to reveal the answer and explanation. Then practise the whole 2024 set with instant marking.

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Sample SAT Reading and Writing 2024 questions

1. In a report on an urban bird-counting project, ecologist Mara Lin notes that the first week produced an unusually large number of sightings because volunteers focused on a single park. After the team expanded its route to several neighborhoods, Lin cautioned that the early figures should be treated as provisional until the broader survey was complete. As used in the passage, what does provisional most nearly mean?
  1. Accurate
  2. Delayed
  3. Unimportant
  4. Temporary

Answer: D. Temporary

Lin says the figures should be treated as provisional until more surveying is done, so they are temporary rather than final.

2. For years, historians assumed that the town's stone footbridge had been built mainly for travelers. Recently discovered maintenance ledgers show that the bridge was repaired most often during harvest months, when farmers moved carts between fields and the market. The ledgers do not settle who first commissioned the bridge, but they suggest that its everyday function was more agricultural than historians had realized. Which choice best describes the overall structure of the passage?
  1. It presents a longstanding interpretation, introduces new evidence, and explains how that evidence revises the interpretation.
  2. It describes two competing construction methods and argues that one was safer.
  3. It recounts the discovery of a bridge and then lists the people who repaired it.
  4. It challenges the reliability of historical records by showing that they contradict one another.

Answer: A. It presents a longstanding interpretation, introduces new evidence, and explains how that evidence revises the interpretation.

The passage first states historians' assumption, then presents ledger evidence, and finally explains how that evidence modifies the assumed function.

3. Text 1: Architect Nia Vale argues that small neighborhood libraries remain valuable because they offer quiet public spaces that people can reach on foot. She says their importance is not measured only by how many books they lend. Text 2: Planner Oren Bell agrees that libraries provide community space, but he cautions that branches with very low attendance may need to share staff or services with nearby schools to remain sustainable. How would Bell most likely respond to Vale's argument?
  1. By rejecting the idea that libraries have any role beyond lending books
  2. By agreeing that libraries offer benefits beyond book lending while emphasizing that some branches may need operational changes
  3. By arguing that neighborhood libraries should be replaced by larger central buildings
  4. By claiming that attendance is unrelated to whether a branch can continue operating

Answer: B. By agreeing that libraries offer benefits beyond book lending while emphasizing that some branches may need operational changes

Bell shares Vale's view of libraries' broader value but adds that low-attendance branches may need to change how they operate.

4. When a museum began digitizing its collection of handwritten recipes, archivist Sora Patel expected the work to be straightforward. Instead, she found that many pages had smudged ink and inconsistent spellings. Patel therefore devised a flexible cataloging system that could accommodate uncertain readings without forcing each recipe into a single standardized form. In context, what does flexible most nearly mean?
  1. Bendable
  2. Temporary
  3. Adaptable
  4. Informal

Answer: C. Adaptable

The cataloging system can accommodate differing and uncertain readings, so flexible means adaptable.

5. A nineteenth-century map of the coast labels several inlets as rivers, while a later map identifies them as tidal channels. Comparing the maps alone cannot reveal why the labels changed. A travel diary from the same period, however, describes boats moving through the inlets only at high tide. That account helps explain how improved observation, rather than a change in geography, altered the mapmakers' classification. What is the main purpose of the passage?
  1. To explain how a historical account helps clarify a change in map classification
  2. To argue that old maps are generally more accurate than travel diaries
  3. To show that coastal geography changed dramatically between two mapmaking periods
  4. To describe the equipment sailors used to navigate tidal channels

Answer: A. To explain how a historical account helps clarify a change in map classification

The passage uses the diary's observation about high tide to explain why later mapmakers reclassified the inlets.

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