All SAT Writing Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #391 : Sat Writing
1 Today, different methods are adopted to strive off these threats to biological diversity. 2 By now, the occurrence of invasive species is a common place problem. 3 It occurs when a non native species of plant or animal is introduced into a new environment. 4 Invasive species cause problems, such as kudzu, Asian carp, and zebra mussels. 5 Habitats can be destroyed and human economies can be damaged by the invidious effects of species that are inoculated or even charming pets in other ecosystems. 6 For example, rabbits in Australia. 7 They were introduced in the 1780s by British penal colony ships and became widespread after an 1859 outbreak, destroying millions of dollars worth of crops. 8 Pheromone traps can lure in insect pests and genetic modification can cause invasive carp to produce only male offspring, limiting their reproduction. 9 Given our widespread global commerce and travel, however, it may be impossible to foresight all damage done by species that end up somewhere they don’t belong.
Where should Sentence 1 be moved in the passage?
After Sentence 6
After Sentence 7
After Sentence 4
After Sentence 8
After Sentence 5
After Sentence 7
Sentence 1 contains an unclear pronoun referent, which means that it does not work well as the introductory sentence to the passage. Because Sentence 1 discusses modern-day approaches to fight invasive species, it would fit nicely between Sentence 7 (a discussion of historical invasive species) and Sentence 8 (an elaboration on these modern-day approaches to invasive species).
Example Question #71 : Analyzing, Combining, And Moving Content
1 As anyone who has tried it can tell you, Filipino food is an exciting intriguing blend of flavors. 2 Due to interaction with various nations and cultures, it’s cuisine is marked by influences from Austronesia, Spain, China, Malaysia, and the United States. 3 Some typical dishes including pancit, longganisa, lumpia, kare-kare, pinakbet, sinigang, and adobo. 4 For example, one could find everything from Spanish paella and Chinese spring rolls (locally called lumpia) if you walked into a Filipino restaurant.
5 Another important compound of Filipino cuisine is street food. 6 These street foods include many fried foods, such as bananas, plantains, dumplings, squid balls, battered quail eggs, and fruit or vegetable spring rolls.7 Taho, a warm street food, is composed of bean curd, a caramel syrup or arnibal, and tapioca pearls.8 Don’t forget dessert! 9 With such a variety of flavors, textures, and cooking styles, there’s certainly to be something for every gourmand.
Where should Sentence 4 be moved?
The sentence should not be moved.
Before Sentence 6
Before Sentence 2
Before Sentence 3
Before Sentence 7
Before Sentence 3
Sentence 4 is providing further evidence for the assertion made in Sentence 2, so it should immediately follow Sentence 2.
Example Question #71 : Separating, Combining, Or Moving Sentences
1 The lost-wax casting method may sound cryptic, but its really a fairly simple and comprehendible process. 2 It is also known as investment or precision casting. 3 It involves twelve steps in that an artist makes an original wax model; creates rubber and plaster molds from the model; fills the molds with wax; coats the new wax models with a ceramic material; and fires the wax-ceramic mixture into a kiln so that the outer layer becomes a reusable mold and the inner wax melts away. 4 Despite involves technical jingo such as spruing, metal-chasing, and burnout, it is a very versant process that can be applied to everything from jewelry making and sculpture, automobile and gun manufacturing.
5 Lost-wax has been used by sculptors from ancient Greece all the way to modern day Germany. 6 Lost-wax has even been applied to dentistry, it is most frequently used to make gold crowns and inlays.7 Why not give it a try?
Where should Sentence 6 be moved?
After Sentence 2
After Sentence 1
After Sentence 3
It should not be moved.
After Sentence 4
After Sentence 4
Sentence 6 discusses specific applications of the lost-wax method, as does Sentence 4. The two sentences should appear together, and since Sentence 4 provides an introduction to the various applications of the process, it should precede Sentence 6.
Example Question #72 : Analyzing, Combining, And Moving Content
1 Unlike most languages, Esperanto was created artificially and not arrived naturally from other language’s evolution. 2 If you’ve ever traveled in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, you’ll be familiar with the motives of the creators of Esperanto; a universal language constructed in 1887. 3 It was invented by the linguist L.L. Zamenhof, its name translating roughly to “the hopeful one,” and it was intended as a simple, neutral language that could transfer national differences and promote international harmony.
4 Implementing Esperanto, although, was more difficult than anticipated. 5 Yet more than two million people world-wide are fluent in Esperanto, far more are fluent in so-called global languages, such as English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and Hindi. 6 Linguistically, Esperanto relies within a Latin alphabet and a grammar and vocabulary based primarily on Indo-European languages. 7 Luckily, free online resources, local clubs, and interminable school-sponsored instruction have kept this valuable linguistic experiment from dying out altogether.
Where should Sentence 1 be moved?
After Sentence 5
After Sentence 3
After Sentence 2
After Sentence 4
The sentence should not be moved.
After Sentence 2
Sentence 2 makes a far superior introduction to the passage. Because Sentence 2 is discussing the construction of Esperanto and because Sentence 1 develops this discussion in more detail, the two should be presented in order.
Example Question #71 : Analyzing, Combining, And Moving Content
1 The famous artist Man Ray is not nearly as well known as Picasso or Dalí, however, he contributed significantly to 20th century art. 2 Man Ray was particularly influential in Surrealism and Dadaism. 3 He worked in a variety of media including painting and photography, and he renamed a certain type of shadow-image photography “rayographs” after himself. 4 Born in Pennsylvania Ray lived in both New York City and Paris. 5 He also worked with fabric and collage.
Where should Sentence 5 be moved?
It should not be moved.
Before Sentence 3
Before Sentence 4
Before Sentence 2
Before Sentence 1
Before Sentence 4
Sentence 5 discusses media in which the artist worked, so it should immediately follow Sentence 4, which introduces the same subject.
Example Question #192 : Improving Paragraphs
1 The tornado, a dreaded meteorological phenomena and a verifiable force of nature. 2 But what is it really? 3 Also known as a twister or a cyclone, tornadoes are rapidly rotating funnels of air linked between a cloud and either the surface of the earth or water. 4 They are caused by the creation of strong thunderstorms by rotating columns of air, resultantly increased rainfall causes increased downward air movement. 5 Rather than the Richter scale measures the strength of hurricanes the Fujita scale measures the strength of a tornado. 6 This natural disasters’ destructive mite is commemorated in such classic films as the 1996, movie, Twister. 7 And the 2014 “Into the Storm” and even the 2013 sparse “Sharknado.” 8 The Fujita scale, also called the F-scale, was named after an employee at the University of Chicago and originally had 13 different levels. 9 The thirteenth level of the scale is used to describe only the most awe inspiring of tornadoes.
What change should be made to Sentence 8?
It should be deleted
It should not be moved, deleted, or altered in any way.
It should be moved after Sentence 5
It should be rewritten to correct grammatical errors
It should be moved before Sentence 5
It should be deleted
While grammatically correct, Sentence 8 is not relevant to the passage as a whole. It may be tempting to move it after the sentence in which the Fujita scale is first discussed, but this decision would interfere with the flow of the text and would preserve irrelevant, unnecessary information.
Example Question #72 : Analyzing, Combining, And Moving Content
1 That’s why codes of discipline have arisen for raising factual or difficult children. 2 Some experts avow for strict authoritative castigation at all times while others argue for gentle or praise centric approaches. 3 Many parents find themselves confounded with the problem of unruly children. 4 Most adults however can agree that consistency and consequences are two key components of disciplining any child from the most pugilist to the most mild-mannered. 5 Being too permissive or too authoritarian can ultimately result with many instances of bad behavior.
Where should Sentence 3 be moved in the passage?
Before Sentence 5
Before Sentence 1
Before Sentence 6
Before Sentence 2
It should not be moved.
Before Sentence 1
It’s clear from the beginning words (“That’s why”) that Sentence 1 is not a good introduction for this essay; it explains a problem that hasn’t fully been developed in the passage yet. Moving Sentence 3 to the beginning of the passage would provide a seamless introduction and transition into the rest of the passage.
Example Question #73 : Analyzing, Combining, And Moving Content
1 Most of you probably know essays to be boring, tendentious assignments required for English class. 2 However the essay has a fascinating history.3 Did you know that the first known example of an essay came in the 16th-century? 4 Its author was Michel de Montaigne the French philosopher. 5 Today the genre includes such disparate types as the dialectic, the narrative, the critical, the historical, the descriptive, and the lyric essay. 6 The genre progressed with essays such as Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s On Poesy or Art, and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of Her Own.” 7 It remains to be, see how the essay will evolve in the future.
Where should Sentence 6 be moved?
Before Sentence 5
Before Sentence 4
Before Sentence 1
Before Sentence 2
Before Sentence 3
Before Sentence 5
The events in Sentence 6 occur chronologically after Sentence 4 and before Sentence 5, so that is where the sentence belongs.
Example Question #74 : Analyzing, Combining, And Moving Content
1 W. Somerset Maugham was a proliferate and English author of more than two dozen books. 2 Born in 1874 and orphaned at a young age, also working as an ambulance driver in World War I and studying medicine in London. 3 Among his life he traveled in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, within other places, these experiences were also reflected in his writing. 4 His first novel, Liza of Lambeth, drew on these real-life experiences and became an instant bestseller, when it was published, in 1897. 5 One of Maugham’s most famous works, the American writer Theodore Dreiser gave a glowing review to the 1915 novel Of Human Bondage. 6 His legacy includes many plays, film adaptations, a tumultuous love life, an epigrammatic British literary award (the Somerset Maugham Award), and a steady if unexperimental oeuvre of fiction.
Where should Sentence 3 be moved?
After Sentence 1
After Sentence 4
After Sentence 6
It should not be moved.
After Sentence 5
After Sentence 4
Since we can infer that Sentence 3 occurred chronologically after the events of Sentence 4, they should be ordered accordingly.
Example Question #74 : Analyzing, Combining, And Moving Content
1 Whether or not you are superstitious. 2 Fortunetelling has played a major role in many cultures.3 Also known as divination. 4 Western fortunetelling arose from the Romani people and such as reading tea leaves’, gazing into crystal balls, tarot reading, palmistry, and observing the flights, innards, or eating patterns of birds. 5 In William Shakespeare’s famous play “Julius Caesar,” for example, a soothsayer warns the soon to be assassinated Caesar to beware the Ides of March. 6 Western fortunetelling has also been influenced by Eastern divination methods such as the I Ching and to read coffee beans. 7 Unfortunately several major religions prescribe fortunetelling with very degrees of severity. 8 Despite, fortunetelling still thrives in contemporary culture, psychics and Magic-8 balls are just two of many fun ways to attempt to see into the future.
Where should Sentence 5 be moved?
Before Sentence 3
Before Sentence 2
It should not be moved.
Before Sentence 1
Before Sentence 4
Before Sentence 4
Sentence 3 discusses the fact that fortunetelling has played a significant role in many cultures, and Sentence 5 is an example of just such a role. Therefore, the former should precede the latter.