Cross-Text Connections on the Digital SAT

Text 1: Dance choreographer Alvin Ailey's deep admiration for jazz music can most clearly be felt in the rhythms and beats his works were set to. Ailey collaborated with some of the greatest jazz legends, like Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, and perhaps his favorite, Duke Ellington. With his choice of music, Ailey helped bring jazz to life for his audiences.

Text 2: Jazz is present throughout Ailey's work, but it's most visible in Ailey's approach to choreography. Ailey often incorporated improvisation, a signature characteristic of jazz music, in his work. When managing his dance company, Ailey rarely forced his dancers to an exact set of specific moves. Instead, he encouraged his dancers to let their own skills and experiences shape their performances, as jazz musicians do.

Based on the texts, both authors would most likely agree with which statement?

1. Dancers who worked with Ailey greatly appreciated his supportive approach as a choreographer.
2. Ailey's work was strongly influenced by jazz.
3. Audiences were mostly unfamiliar with the jazz music in Ailey's works.
4. Ailey blended multiple genres of music together when choreographing dance pieces.

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Text 1: Microbes are tiny organisms in the soil, water, and air all around us. They thrive even in very harsh conditions. That's why Noah Fierer and colleagues were surprised when soil samples they collected from an extremely cold, dry area in Antarctica didn't seem to contain any life. The finding doesn't prove there are no microbes in that area, but the team says it does suggest the environment severely restricts microbes' survival.

Text 2: Microbes are found in virtually every environment on Earth. So it's unlikely they would be completely absent from Fierer's team's study site, no matter how extreme the environment is. There were probably so few organisms in the samples that current technology couldn't detect them. But since a spoonful of typical soil elsewhere might contain billions of microbes, the presence of so few in the Antarctic soil samples would show how challenging the conditions are.

Based on the texts, Fierer's team and the author of Text 2 would most likely agree with which statement about microbes?

1. Most microbes are better able to survive in extremely dry conditions than in harsh temperatures.
2. A much higher number of microbes would probably be found if another sample of soil were taken from the Antarctic site.
3. Microbes are likely difficult to detect at the Antarctic study site because they tend to be smaller than typical soil microbes.
4. Most microbes are probably unable to withstand the soil conditions at the Antarctic study site.

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Text 1: Some historians argue that the eighteenth-century expansion of literacy in Britain was driven primarily by the rise of cheap printed pamphlets. Their argument: as production costs fell, more households could afford reading material, and children growing up surrounded by books learned to read out of necessity.

Text 2: Recent research challenges the assumption that supply drove literacy growth. Schools and religious institutions, not households, accounted for most new readers in the period. The supply of cheap pamphlets followed rising literacy, not the other way around.

How would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the historians cited in Text 1?

1. By agreeing that cheap pamphlets were essential to teaching children to read at home.
2. By arguing that the historians have reversed the direction of cause and effect: literacy growth came first, then the pamphlets.
3. By proposing that the historians focus more on the economic conditions of household readers.
4. By suggesting that both supply and demand together drove literacy growth in the period.

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Text 1: Researchers studying urban birds have found that house sparrows in cities sing at higher pitches than rural sparrows. The leading explanation: city noise is concentrated at lower frequencies, so sparrows that sing higher are more easily heard by mates.

Text 2: A 2022 study of urban robins found similar high-pitched singing patterns. But the researchers discovered that urban robins also sing at louder volumes, regardless of frequency. They suggested that volume, not pitch, is the more direct adaptation to noisy urban environments.

Based on the texts, the authors would most likely agree with which statement about urban birdsong?

1. Urban environments influence the singing characteristics of birds.
2. Pitch is the most important factor in mate selection for urban birds.
3. All bird species adapt to urban noise in exactly the same way.
4. Rural bird populations are declining due to noise from cities.

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Text 1: The introduction of dockless electric scooters in major cities has reduced car traffic on short trips, according to surveys of scooter users. About 30% of riders report they would have driven if scooters were unavailable. Cities should view scooters as a tool for decongesting downtown corridors.

Text 2: Self-reported behavior overstates how much scooters actually replace cars. A 2024 GPS study showed most scooter trips replace walking or transit, not driving. Roughly 8% of scooter trips substituted for car trips that would otherwise have occurred — far below the 30% suggested by rider surveys.

Which choice best describes a difference between the two texts?

1. Text 1 cites self-reported survey data; Text 2 cites direct GPS measurement.
2. Text 1 focuses on environmental benefits while Text 2 focuses on safety risks.
3. Text 1 discusses dockless scooters; Text 2 discusses docked scooter systems.
4. Text 1 was written before scooters were introduced; Text 2 was written years later.

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Text 1: Researchers in cognitive science have long argued that learning is most effective when followed by a full night's sleep, during which the brain consolidates new information into long-term memory. Students who study before sleeping outperform those who study and stay awake.

Text 2: A 2023 review of memory studies confirmed sleep's role in consolidation but added an important nuance: even brief naps of 20–40 minutes during the day produced comparable consolidation effects, especially when taken within an hour of learning.

How does Text 2 relate to the claim in Text 1?

1. Text 2 contradicts Text 1 by suggesting sleep plays no role in memory consolidation.
2. Text 2 supports Text 1's general claim but adds a nuance about brief naps.
3. Text 2 argues that Text 1's research methods were fundamentally flawed.
4. Text 2 proposes that only certain learners benefit from post-learning sleep.

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