Sat practice Test #8 Answer Explanations

Choice C is the best answer. The first sentence of the fifth paragraph 
states, “Not unexpectedly, the statistical strength of the findings made 
a huge difference in whether they were ever published.” This statement 
is supported by the graph, which shows that more than 60 percent of 
social science studies that produced strong results were published, 
while only about 50 percent of studies with mixed results and about 
20 percent of studies with null results were published.
Choices A, B, and D are incorrect because none of the cited lines 
contain information that is represented by the data in the graph. 
Instead, they recount scientists’ explanations for why they didn’t 
publish their null results (choices A and B) and highlight claims about 
the importance of Malhotra’s study (choice D).
QUESTION 22
Choice A is the best answer. The first paragraph explains that in the 
nanoworld, salt can be seen “stretching like taffy.” The third paragraph 
notes that while this elasticity was expected in metals, it wasn’t 
imagined for salt: “But scientists don’t expect this superplasticity in a 
rigid, crystalline material like salt.” The rest of the passage explores 
this unexpected behavior of salt. Therefore it can be said that one of 
the central ideas of the passage is that materials don’t always behave 
as scientists might expect them to.

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ANSwER ExPlANATIONS
| SAT Practice Test #8
Choices B, C, and D are incorrect because the passage focuses on the 
unexpected way that salt reacts in the nanoworld, not on the role of 
inputs and outputs in systems (choice B), the relative strengths and 
weaknesses of models (choice C), or how the properties of systems 
differ from the properties of their parts (choice D).
QUESTION 23
Choice D is the best answer. The first five paragraphs introduce salt’s 
ability to stretch “like taffy to more than twice its length.” In the fifth 
paragraph, the passage shifts into an explanation of how “Moore and 
his colleagues discovered salt’s stretchiness.” The last paragraph 
speculates about the possible application of this discovery: “The work 
also suggests new techniques for making nanowires, which are often 
created through nano-imprinting techniques.” The passage’s overall 
structure can therefore be seen as consisting of an introduction to an 
interesting salt property, followed by a description of how the property 
was discovered, followed by a speculation regarding applications of 
this property.
Choice A is incorrect because the passage discusses only one way 
in which salt differed from researchers’ expectations. Choice B is 
incorrect because the passage begins not with a hypothesis about 
salt’s behavior but with an explanation of its behaviors. Choice C is 
incorrect because the passage discusses complementary observations 
of salt crystals rather than two experiments involving salt that yield 
seemingly conflicting results.
QUESTION 24