Sat practice Test #8 Answer Explanations

Choice C is the best answer. In the second paragraph of Passage 1, 
Douglas uses a rhetorical question to stress that the division into slave 
and free states has existed since the beginning of the United States: 
“I now come back to the question, why cannot this Union exist forever, 
divided into Free and Slave States, as our fathers made it?” It can 
be inferred from this question that Douglas believes that since this 
division is long-standing, the provisions for it in the US Constitution 
have provided a good basic structure that doesn’t need to be changed.
Choice A is incorrect because in Passage 1, Douglas doesn’t observe 
that the US Constitution’s provisions for slavery lack a means for 
reconciling differences between slave states and free states. Choice B 
is incorrect because although Douglas stresses that the provisions 
for slavery are long-standing, he doesn’t characterize them as having 
somehow anticipated the Union’s expansion to the west. Choice D 
is correct because although it can be inferred from Passage 1 that 
Douglas believes the provisions for slavery have had a positive 
economic impact, he nowhere implies that the founders based them on 
an assumption that slavery was economically necessary.
QUESTION 34
Choice B is the best answer. The previous question asks about how 
Douglas, in Passage 1, characterizes the Constitution’s provisions for 
slavery. The answer, that Douglas believes they provided a good basic 
structure and don’t need to be changed, is best supported in the first 
sentence of the second paragraph of Passage 1: “I now come back to 
the question, why cannot this Union exist forever, divided into Free 
and Slave States, as our fathers made it?”
Choices A, C, and D are incorrect because the cited lines don’t support 
the answer to the previous question. Instead, they describe the various 
ways in which the nation has expanded since its founding (choice A), 
stress the likelihood that the nation will only continue to expand 
(choice C), and assert the importance of the sovereignty of individual 
states to the future expansion of the nation (choice D).

---

ANSwER ExPlANATIONS
| SAT Practice Test #8
QUESTION 35