Inferences: SAT Practice Questions & Study Guide

The following text is adapted from a 2020 botany article. Carnivorous plants, such as Venus flytraps and sundews, grow primarily in bogs and wetlands where the soil is extremely low in nitrogen. Unlike most plants, which absorb nitrogen from soil through their roots, carnivorous plants supplement their nitrogen intake by trapping and digesting insects and other small organisms. This allows them to thrive in habitats where non-carnivorous plants struggle to survive. Which inference is most strongly supported by the text?

The following text is adapted from a 2021 article on food preservation history. Before refrigeration, salt was one of the most valuable commodities in the ancient world—used not for flavor alone but as the primary technology for preserving food. Salting dried out meat and fish by drawing out moisture through osmosis, preventing the bacterial growth that caused spoilage. Cities situated along salt trade routes prospered, and control of salt mines and salt production was a strategic military and economic objective for ancient states. Which inference is most strongly supported by the text?

The following text is adapted from a 2022 neuroscience article. In a series of experiments, researchers found that the brain's dopamine system is activated not only by rewards themselves but also—and more powerfully—by cues that predict rewards. When an animal receives an unexpected reward, dopamine neurons fire strongly. After repeated pairings of a cue with a reward, the dopamine response shifts: neurons now fire strongly to the cue and barely at all when the expected reward arrives. If the expected reward is then omitted, dopamine neuron activity drops below baseline—a signal that researchers interpret as encoding a "prediction error." Which inference is most strongly supported by the text?

The following text is adapted from a 2019 essay on architectural acoustics. Concert halls built before the age of electronic amplification were designed with acoustic performance as a primary constraint: ceiling height, wall material, seat arrangement, and the shape of reflective surfaces were all calculated to distribute sound evenly and maintain warmth and clarity without amplification. Many of these halls remain acoustically superior to modern venues, which are often designed with multiple use cases in mind—lectures, amplified concerts, film screenings—and therefore make acoustic compromises that dedicated concert halls avoid. Which inference is most strongly supported by the text?

The following text is adapted from a 2023 political science essay. In parliamentary democracies with proportional representation, small parties often hold significant political power because governing coalitions must be assembled from multiple parties to form a majority. A party that controls only 8–10% of seats can become a "kingmaker" if it is the only viable coalition partner for larger parties. Conversely, in majoritarian systems where single-member districts reward the plurality winner, small parties consistently fail to translate vote shares into seats at proportional rates, discouraging voters from supporting them and reinforcing two-party dominance through what scholars call "Duverger's Law." Which inference is most strongly supported by the text?

The following text is adapted from a 2022 oceanography article. Ocean stratification—the division of ocean water into layers of different temperatures and densities—limits the mixing of nutrient-rich deep water with the sunlit surface layer where photosynthesis occurs. In warmer oceans, the temperature difference between surface and deep water increases, strengthening stratification and further limiting nutrient upwelling. Because phytoplankton at the surface depend on these upwelled nutrients, stronger stratification can reduce phytoplankton productivity and, consequently, the productivity of the entire marine food web that depends on it. Which inference about the effects of ocean warming is most strongly supported by the text?

The following text is adapted from a 2020 psychology article on social comparison. People frequently evaluate their own performance, attractiveness, or success not against an absolute standard but relative to others around them. Leon Festinger, who introduced social comparison theory in 1954, argued that when objective criteria are unavailable, people turn to social comparison as the primary means of self-evaluation. Research in this tradition has consistently found that upward social comparison—comparing oneself to someone perceived as better-off—tends to produce negative affect, while downward comparison—to someone perceived as worse-off—tends to produce positive affect, at least in the short term. Which inference is most strongly supported by the text?

The following text is adapted from a 2023 essay on the history of urban planning. The urban renewal programs of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States demolished thousands of inner-city neighborhoods, many of them home to low-income communities and communities of color. Urban planners and policymakers of the era characterized these neighborhoods as "blighted"—a designation that justified demolition and displacement. Sociologist Herbert Gans, who studied one such neighborhood before its destruction, documented a thriving social fabric: dense networks of mutual support, local institutions, and shared public life that the aggregate statistics used to designate blight entirely failed to capture. Which inference is most strongly supported by the text?