ACT & SAT Sample Questions: Math

ACT

SAT

Solve the problem and choose the correct answer.

1. If a + 4, 2a – 3, and 3a – 10 are all integers, and a + 2 is the median of these integers, which of the following could be a value for a?

A. 7
B. 5
C. 4
D. 3
E. 1

Solve the problem and record the result.

2. Over a period of 11 days, Seth counted a total of 143 customers in his father’s diner. Throughout the 11-day period, exactly two more customers came in each day compared to the previous day. What was the difference between the average (arithmetic mean) number of customers per day and the median number of customers per day during the 11-day period? (grid in)

ACT & SAT Sample Questions: Grammar

ACT

SAT

In the passages that follow, certain words and phrases are underlined and numbered. Below the passage, you will find alternatives for the underlined part. In most cases, you are to choose the one that best expresses the idea, makes the statement appropriate for standard written English, or is worded most consistently with the style and tone of the passage as a whole. You are to choose the best answer to the question.

There was something exciting that was keeping us going, however. The man at the shop told my dad to look for a Great Blue Heron that lived out in the woods, so my dad brought a pair of binoculars for bird watching. The only birds I saw was a couple of
crows (3) traveling from tree to tree. My dad was still excited, though; he says (4) that he thought there was a nice stretch of river in a few minutes upcoming. (5)

3. F.  NO CHANGE
    G. were a couple of crows
    H. were crows – a couple of them –
    I.  were nothing but a couple of crows

A black hole was created (4) by the death of star. A star is kept burning by its (5) immense supply of gas, but when this gas eventually runs out, the star explodes in what is called a supernova.

4. A. NO CHANGE
    B. is created
    C. are created
    D. created

The following sentence tests correctness and effectiveness of expression. Part of the sentence or the entire sentence in underlined; beneath the sentence are five ways of phrasing the underlined material. Select the best answer from among the choices given.

5. Jonah’s sense of humor, his keen listening skills, and his being unfailingly tactful, make him naturally suited to the role of diplomat.

(A) humor, his keen listening skills, and his being unfailingly tactful, make
(B) humor, together with his keen listening skills and unfailing tact, making
(C) humor, keen listening skills, and unfailing tact make
(D) humor, having keen listening skills, and being unfailingly tactful, has made
(E) humor, keen listening skills, and unfailing tact makes

The following sentence tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice E.

6. While it (A) is true that we require (B) oxygen to breathe, our atmosphere is actually being composed (C) primarily of (D) nitrogen.
No error (E)

ACT & SAT Sample Questions: Critical Reading

30 Walcott never had the time to work on the fossils he discovered as thoroughly as he wished, but he did make some preliminary observations. These observations were highly influential. Walcott placed all the Burgess Shale fossils into already known groups of animals, noticing resemblances to shrimp, crabs, and so on. This seemed to make sense to many people. After all, you might expect that if you traced life back over 500 million years, you would come to some ancestors of species that exist in the present day.

37 But this did not turn out to be true. Walcott did not place the fossils so much as shoe-horn them into these groups. In 1966, a Cambridge geologist names Harry Whittington reexamined the fossils. He discovered they had a three-dimensional structure, preserved within the rocks. Walcott had thought the fossils were squashed flat on the rock surface. Whittington drilled down with a dentist’s drill and found there was more structure below. He was thus able to reconstruct the animal in much more detail.

43 The animal turned out to be very different from what Walcott had believed. Scientists who studied Whittington’s drawings have come to the conclusions that these were not primitive versions of modern animals. These animals, they believe, were related to modern forms, but as separate early radiations within a broad category and not as ancestors.

ACT

SAT

After reading the passage, choose the best answer to the question.

7. As it is used in line 38, shoe-horn most nearly means:

A. To categorize something inaccurately and with considerable effort.
B. To pry something away from its surface.
C. To squeeze a large item into a small area.
D. To isolate something from its main structure.

Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

8. By using the word “shoe-horn” in line 38 the author implies that:

(A) Walcott should not have attempted to classify the fossils without further research
(B) The fossil record itself was distorted and inaccurate
(C) The fossils really did not belong in the groups to which Walcott assigned them
(D) The scientific community did not question his work closely enough
(E) Walcott could have benefited from scientific discoveries later in the twentieth century

ACT Sample Questions: Science

After reading the passage, choose the best answer to the question.

Experiments have shown that the rate at which a chemical reaction can take place can be affected by experimental variables, such as temperature and atmospheric pressure. In this study, two experiments were run to test the effects of these variables on the reaction rate.

Experiment 1

In the first experiment, 0.1 M butyl chloride is placed in water. As the reaction proceeded forward the concentrations of the reactants (butyl chloride and water) should drop as the products form. Data was taken every 100 seconds to measure the concentration of the remaining butyl chloride as the reaction went forward at 20?C. The experiment was repeated in two identical setups with the exception that they had the temperatures of 50?C and 80?C respectively. The data is represented in Table 1 below:

Experiment 2

The same chemical reaction of butyl chloride and water was repeated. In this experiment, all trials were performed at 20?C. Two different samples of butyl chloride were used: the first at a standard pressure of 1 atm and the second under pressurized conditions of 1.3 atm. Table 2 summarizes the results:

9. Ideal conditions for a slow reaction rate would be:

F. 0 degrees C at 1 atm of pressure.
G. 20 degrees C at 1.3 atm of pressure.
H. 60 degrees C at 1 atm of pressure.
J. 80 degrees C at 1.3 atm of pressure.

SAT Sample Questions: Sentence Completions

The sentence below has 2 blanks, each blank indicating that something has been omitted. Beneath the sentence are five words or sets of words labeled A through E. Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

10. Disregarding her exceptional_________mathematics and science, Jasmine__________a career in the arts.

(A) disinterest in .. entertained
(B) vacuity in .. looked into
(C) facility in .. aspired to
(D) dissatisfaction with .. entered on
(E) interest in .. refused