SAT Information and Ideas Practice Test
Main ideas, evidence, tables, inferences. 26% of Reading and Writing. Here are 10 SAT information and ideas questions, each with the answer and the reason.
Updated by the Tigertest team. Original questions written to the digital SAT specifications. Not affiliated with College Board. Score estimates are unofficial.
When the ship Endurance became trapped in the pack ice of Antarctica's Weddell Sea in 1915, its crew spent months waiting for the ice to release it. Their diaries describe how expedition leader Ernest Shackleton kept the men to a steady routine: they cared for the sled dogs, played football on the ice, held evening concerts, and kept the ship in order. Several crew members wrote that these ordinary tasks helped them stay hopeful through the long polar winter.
1.Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
- A.
Diaries from the Endurance expedition suggest that a steady daily routine helped the trapped crew keep up their spirits.
- B.
The crew of the Endurance spent most of their time trying to cut the ship free from the ice.
- C.
Shackleton believed that caring for the sled dogs was the most important task aboard the ship.
- D.
Diaries from the expedition show that crew members disagreed about how best to pass the time.
Answer: A.A main idea must cover the whole text: the details about dogs, football, and concerts all build toward the last sentence, which says these tasks kept the men hopeful, and choice A combines both parts. Choice C is tempting because the sled dogs are mentioned, but they are just one item in a list, and the text never ranks them above the other tasks. If a choice focuses on a single detail, it is probably too narrow to be the main idea.
- A.
In 1991, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted and sent millions of tons of sulfur dioxide high into the atmosphere. There, the gas formed tiny droplets that reflected some incoming sunlight back into space. Climate scientists predicted that, as a result, average temperatures around the world would drop temporarily.
2.Which finding, if true, would most directly support the scientists' prediction?
- A.
Average global surface temperatures in 1992 were about half a degree Celsius lower than in the years just before the eruption.
- B.
Ash from the eruption fell on towns and farmland across a wide area of the Philippines.
- C.
The eruption of Mount Pinatubo was one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the twentieth century.
- D.
Small amounts of sulfur dioxide are also released by many volcanoes that are not erupting.
Answer: A.The prediction is about a temporary drop in average global temperatures, so the best support is a finding that global temperatures did fall after the eruption, as choice A reports. Choice C is tempting because a huge eruption makes cooling seem more likely, but it says nothing about temperature itself. To support a prediction, the evidence has to show the predicted outcome actually happening.
- A.
Many fish living in the dim middle depths of the ocean produce their own light. Some species have light-producing organs along their bellies that glow with about the same brightness and color as the faint sunlight filtering down from the surface. A predator looking up from below normally sees the dark outline of a fish against the dimly lit water above. For a fish with glowing belly organs, then, the light most likely serves to ______
3.Which choice most logically completes the text?
- A.
hide its silhouette from predators swimming beneath it.
- B.
attract prey toward its mouth from the darkness below.
- C.
signal to other members of its species during mating.
- D.
warm the surrounding water in the cold ocean depths.
Answer: A.Connect the clues: the belly light matches the light from above, and predators below spot fish by their dark outline, so the glow erases that outline and hides the fish. Choice B is tempting because some deep-sea fish do use light as a lure, but nothing in this text mentions prey, and a glow matched to the background would make the fish less noticeable, not more. Base your answer only on the information the text provides.
- A.
Between 1851 and 1858, Henry David Thoreau recorded in his notebooks the dates on which hundreds of plant species first flowered around Concord, Massachusetts. He kept the records out of curiosity, not to test any theory. More than a century later, biologists compared his dates with their own observations of the same species and found that, on average, plants in Concord now begin flowering about a week earlier, a shift linked to the region's warming springs.
4.According to the text, what made Thoreau's notebooks useful to the biologists?
- A.
They included Thoreau's own theory about how warmer springs would change flowering times.
- B.
They contained dated records of flowering that could be compared with modern observations of the same species.
- C.
They recorded the temperature of each spring in Concord during the 1850s.
- D.
They described plant species that no longer grow anywhere near Concord.
Answer: B.The biologists "compared his dates with their own observations of the same species," so the value of the notebooks was their dated flowering records. Choice A is the most tempting because the text links the shift to warming springs, but it says Thoreau kept his records "not to test any theory," so the warming connection came from the biologists. For detail questions, find the sentence that answers the question and make sure every part of your choice is stated there.
- A.
Hundreds of thousands of Islamic silver coins called dirhams, minted in Baghdad and Central Asia during the 800s and 900s, have been found buried in hoards across Scandinavia. Some historians argue that the coins arrived mainly through direct trade: Scandinavian merchants, in this view, traveled down Russian rivers to markets near the Caspian Sea, sold furs and other goods, and carried the silver home themselves.
5.Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the historians' argument?
- A.
Many of the dirhams found in Scandinavia were minted in the same years as dirhams found at markets near the Caspian Sea.
- B.
Scandinavian stories written down centuries later describe merchants traveling along Russian rivers to trade.
- C.
Few Scandinavian-made objects have been found at markets near the Caspian Sea, and the coins show signs of having changed hands many times in markets farther north.
- D.
Some Scandinavian hoards also contain silver jewelry that was made by melting down dirhams.
Answer: C.The argument says Scandinavians themselves traveled to Caspian markets and carried the coins home; a lack of Scandinavian objects at those markets, plus evidence that the coins passed through many hands farther north, suggests the silver arrived through a chain of middlemen instead. Choice B is the most tempting because it mentions the same river journeys, but it supports the argument rather than weakening it. For a weaken question, identify the argument's key assumption, here direct travel, and choose the finding that undercuts it.
- A.
The following text is from a short story published in 1911. Marta, a seamstress, has just finished a gown for a wealthy client.
Marta held the gown to the window and turned it slowly, watching how the light caught the seams. No one would ever praise the seams. The lady who wore the dress would be praised for her figure, and the shop would be praised for its taste, and the dress itself might be praised for its color. But the seams, which had taken her three nights and had cost her a needle broken on the stiff silk, would be noticed only if they failed. She found that she did not mind. The seams were hers, and their silence was a kind of signature.
6.Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
- A.
Marta takes private satisfaction in craftsmanship that she knows others will not recognize.
- B.
Marta resents the wealthy client who will receive credit for her labor.
- C.
Marta worries that the seams of the gown will fail and expose her poor workmanship.
- D.
Marta hopes the dress will bring the shop enough praise to improve her position.
Answer: A.The text builds to the statements that Marta "did not mind" going unpraised and that the seams' silence was "a kind of signature," showing she finds quiet satisfaction in work no one else will notice. Choice B is the strongest distractor because the passage lists others who will receive praise, but Marta explicitly says she does not mind, which rules out resentment.
- A.
Some linguists have proposed that evidentiality, a grammatical feature in which verbs are marked to show how the speaker knows something (by direct observation, by hearsay, or by inference), spread through the languages of the Andes and Amazon through contact among neighboring groups rather than through inheritance from a shared ancestral language. Linguist Ana Villalobos supports this contact hypothesis by noting that evidential systems in the region cut across established language families, appearing in languages that are not known to be related.
7.Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken Villalobos's argument?
- A.
Reconstructions show that the ancestral languages of several unrelated families in the region each possessed evidential marking before those families came into contact.
- B.
Languages in the region known to have been in prolonged contact share many vocabulary items in addition to evidential marking.
- C.
Several languages outside the Andes and Amazon also mark verbs for evidentiality, though with fewer distinctions.
- D.
Speakers of languages with evidential systems in the region frequently learn neighboring languages as adults.
Answer: A.Villalobos infers contact from the fact that unrelated families share the feature; if each family already had evidentiality before contact, the shared feature would no longer be evidence of borrowing, which undercuts the argument. Choice B is the strongest distractor, but shared vocabulary among languages in contact would, if anything, make borrowing of grammar more plausible, strengthening rather than weakening the claim.
- A.
Spider silk has long fascinated materials scientists because it combines strength and elasticity in a way few synthetic fibers can match. Yet producing it in quantity has proven stubbornly difficult. Spiders cannot be farmed like silkworms, since they are territorial and prone to eating one another, and attempts to produce silk proteins in bacteria or yeast have yielded fibers that lack the precise molecular arrangement of the natural material. Recent work suggests the problem lies not only in the protein itself but in the spinning process: the spider's gland subjects the liquid protein to specific changes in acidity and pressure that organize it into fibers, and reproducing these conditions may matter as much as reproducing the protein.
8.Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
- A.
Efforts to manufacture spider silk have been hampered by the difficulty of replicating both the silk protein and the conditions under which spiders spin it.
- B.
Spider silk is valued because it is both stronger and more elastic than any synthetic fiber yet developed.
- C.
Scientists have abandoned attempts to farm spiders in favor of producing silk proteins in microorganisms.
- D.
The molecular structure of spider silk is determined entirely by the acidity and pressure within the spider's gland.
Answer: A.The text's focus is the difficulty of producing spider silk artificially, first through the protein and then through the spinning conditions, and choice A ties these two obstacles together. Choice B describes only the opening sentence, which sets up the problem rather than stating the main idea. Choice D overstates the final sentence, which says the spinning conditions 'may matter as much as' the protein, not that they determine structure entirely.
- A.
Gothic cathedrals in medieval Europe used flying buttresses, external stone arms that brace the walls, to counteract the outward thrust of their high vaulted ceilings. Because the buttresses carried much of the load, the walls between them no longer needed to be thick and solid, and builders took advantage of this freedom by filling those walls with enormous stained-glass windows. Romanesque churches of the preceding era, which lacked flying buttresses, had thick walls pierced by only small windows. This contrast suggests that the small windows of Romanesque churches were ______
9.Which choice most logically completes the text?
- A.
a structural necessity rather than a purely aesthetic preference.
- B.
intended to make the interiors appear larger than they actually were.
- C.
a deliberate rejection of the stained-glass tradition.
- D.
the result of a shortage of skilled glassmakers.
Answer: A.The text explains that large windows became possible only when buttresses relieved the walls of their load. Since Romanesque builders lacked buttresses, their walls had to bear the load themselves and so could not be opened up, which makes small windows a structural requirement. Choice C is tempting, but nothing in the text suggests that Romanesque builders rejected stained glass; the text explains the size of their windows by the load the walls had to carry, not by a choice about glass.
- A.
It is often claimed that eating breakfast helps people lose weight, because surveys have found that regular breakfast eaters tend to weigh less than people who skip the meal. Nutrition researcher Priya Nair hypothesizes that breakfast does not by itself cause weight loss, and that the survey results reflect other habits that breakfast eaters happen to share.
10.Which finding, if true, would most directly support Nair's hypothesis?
- A.
In a study in which participants were randomly assigned to eat or skip breakfast for four months, the two groups lost similar amounts of weight.
- B.
In a large national survey, adults who ate breakfast every day weighed less on average than adults who usually skipped it.
- C.
People who eat breakfast report feeling less hungry in the late morning than people who skip it.
- D.
Most participants in weight-loss programs say they believe that eating breakfast is important.
Answer: A.A study that assigns people to eat or skip breakfast at random removes the influence of other habits, so finding no difference in weight loss directly supports Nair's claim that breakfast itself is not the cause. The survey result is the most tempting distractor, but it is exactly the kind of evidence Nair is questioning, since it cannot separate breakfast from other habits. Hunger levels and participants' beliefs do not test whether breakfast causes weight loss.
- A.
Drill every information and ideas question in the SAT Information and Ideas drill: questions you miss come back until you have mastered them. Then take a timed practice test with the Reading and Writing section in it.
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