Sat practice Test #8 Answer Explanations

Choice C is the best answer. The previous question asks what 
potential criticism might be made of Volkov’s testing of Hodick and 
Sievers’s model. The answer, that a central element of that model 
wasn’t corroborated by Volkov’s measurements, is best supported 
in the last paragraph: “This made the trap close without any direct 
touch to its trigger hairs (while they didn’t measure calcium levels, 
the current likely led to increases).” Because the physical touch to the 
hairs figured in Hodick and Sievers’s model, it can be said that Volkov’s 
decision to apply an electrical current directly to the plant means that 
he failed to corroborate a central element of their model.
Choices A, B, and D are incorrect because the cited lines don’t support 
the answer to the previous question. Instead, they summarize the 
basic agreement of Volkov’s work with Hodick and Sievers’s model 
(choice A) and describe steps in Volkov’s experimental design that 
are related to the application of an electrical current but don’t directly 
address the omission of the central element of the physical touch to the 
hairs (choices B and D).
QUESTION 52
Choice C is the best answer. The second sentence of the last 
paragraph says that the focus of Volkov’s work was the role of 
electricity in the Venus flytrap’s closing mechanism. The paragraph 
goes on to explain that by applying electricity directly to the plant 
and “altering the amount of electrical current, Volkov could determine 
the exact electrical charge needed for the trap to close.” It is therefore 
accurate to say that Volkov and his colleagues made the most extensive 
use of information obtained from measuring the plant’s response to 
varying amounts of electrical current.
Choice A is incorrect because although the last paragraph explains 
that Volkov’s work was based on Hodick and Sievers’s mathematical 
model in which an electrical charge is required to close the Venus 
flytrap, that model isn’t described as predicting the precise amount of 
charge required; moreover, although Volkov made use of this earlier 
model, it served as a starting point, and his work made greater use 
of the findings generated by his experiment. Choice B is incorrect 
because the passage doesn’t describe Volkov’s work as having 
involved analysis of data from earlier studies on the plant’s response to 
electricity. Choice D is incorrect because although the last paragraph 
explains that Volkov based his work on Hodick and Sievers’s earlier 
model, this was the sole model that Volkov relied on, and there is 
no suggestion that he made use of multiple “published theories” 
or “earlier models”; moreover, he made more extensive use of data 
generated by his own experiment than of Hodick and Sievers’s model.

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Section 2: writing and language Test
QUESTION 1