12.Practice.Tests.for.the.SAT_2015-2016_1128p

12 Practice Tests for the SAT
730
Practice Test Eight Answers and Explanations
poignant. Choice (C) is incorrect because it wouldn't be
surprising that someone with animosity, or ill will, toward
dramatic stories would find the film irrelevant. Anachronistic
means chronologically out of place, while perspicacity
means shrewdness. Affected describes something that is
faked in order to impress people, for example, a foreign
accent.
6. c
Difficulty: Medium
To fill in the blank, you need an adjective that describes
Lovecraft's correspondence. The first half of the sentence
(before the semicolon) indicates that Lovecraft wrote
five volumes of letters, which is quite a bit, so you can
predict that the blank will be a word like abundant or
extensive. Voluminous, which means capable of filling
several volumes, fits perfectly. Laconic, which means using
a minimum of words, has the opposite meaning of the
predicted word. There is no indication in the sentence that
Lovecraft's correspondence is unknown or popular, and
verbal is out because you wouldn't need to specify that a
bunch of letters contained words.
7. c
Difficulty: High
This question tests vocabulary. It's fairly easy to see that
the principal would want other students to imitate Lisa's
performance, but finding the choice to match this prediction
may be more difficult. The choice that means to imitate is
emulate, (C). Elucidate means to illustrate or clarify; mollify
means to soothe or calm; castigate means to chastise or
reprimand. One cannot reflect a performance, so (E) is
wrong.
8. E
Difficulty: High
There's no reason to get worried as soon as you see words in
the sentence you don't understand, like epiphytic in this one.
Usually you can either figure out what the word means or you
don't need to know what it means, as with epiphytic. What
you do need to see is that the semicolon signals that the two
halves of the sentence are related in meaning. If epiphytic
ferns can't survive without constant moisture, then they can
only live in tropical rain forests, which have a lot of moisture.
You can predict something like only found in for the blank.
Endemic to, which means restricted to a region, matches the
prediction. This is a tough word, but that's to be expected,
since we're at the end of the set. Steeped in means plunged
into a liquid. For example, tea bags are steeped in hot water
to make tea. Inimical to means hostile to.
Questions 9- 12
These two short paired passages present different views on
the issue of school cafeteria food. The first passage focuses
on the failure of school food to meet the nutritional needs
of children. The second passage discusses this failure, but
it also describes how financial pressures influence school
cafeteria offerings.
9. c
Difficulty: Medium
As the cited word is used to describe a body of evidence
that continues to grow and has been bolstered by new
studies, the adjective thorough is the best fit. While
complete and flawless come close to matching the context,
the fact that the body of evidence is growing stronger
indicates that it is not yet complete or flawless.
10. D
Difficulty: Medium
The referenced sentence makes two statements: that
parents may not want fast-food restaurants influencing what
their children eat and that an unprofitable cafeteria can be a
financial burden. By bringing these two statements together
in a single sentence, the author implies that it is fast-foodlike
lunch options that can make a cafeteria profitable, (D).
The passage never discusses the profitability of cafeterias
in general, so (A) is out. Choice (B) is distortion. The
passage only suggests that school boards must sometimes
go against the will of the parents, not necessarily that such
decisions are difficult. Choice (C) is also distortion. The
passage only suggests that fast food can better attract
the appetites of teenagers, not that most students are
uninterested in healthy foods. Choice (E) is extreme. While
the passage suggests that school boards sometimes must
pick profitability over nutrition, it doesn't go so far as to
suggest that they are unconcerned with nutrition.