The rules that solve most questions
- Read the goal first and underline its key words (contrast, emphasize, explain, introduce).
- Every choice is usually true according to the notes. Accuracy doesn't decide the answer; the goal does.
- For a contrast, the answer must mention both things being contrasted.
- For an explanation, look for a cause signal: because, so, as a result.
Traps the wrong answers are built on
- Choosing the choice with the most details instead of the one that meets the goal.
- Choosing a choice that covers only one side of a comparison.
Worked example
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
• The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest on Earth.
• It spans parts of nine countries.
• Brazil contains the largest share of it.
• It is home to an enormous variety of plant and animal species.
The student wants to emphasize how many countries the Amazon rainforest spans. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
- A. The Amazon is a tropical rainforest found in Brazil.
- B. The Amazon is home to an enormous variety of plant and animal species.
- C. Brazil contains the largest share of the Amazon rainforest.
- D. The Amazon, the largest tropical rainforest on Earth, spans parts of nine countries.
Answer: D. Only this choice states that the rainforest spans nine countries.
Practice set
Answer each question to see whether you're right and why.
0 of 4 answered · 0 correct
- Question 1Medium
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
• The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest on Earth.
• It spans parts of nine countries.
• Brazil contains the largest share of it.
• It is home to an enormous variety of plant and animal species.
The student wants to emphasize how many countries the Amazon rainforest spans. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D
Only this choice states that the rainforest spans nine countries.
- A: This mentions only Brazil and suggests the forest is in one country.
- B: This is about biodiversity, not countries.
- C: This focuses on one country, Brazil.
- Question 2Medium
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
• Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun.
• It completes an orbit in about 88 Earth days.
• Neptune is the farthest planet from the Sun.
• Neptune takes about 165 Earth years to orbit the Sun.
The student wants to contrast the orbital periods of two planets. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A
This states both orbital periods and contrasts them.
- B: This contrasts distance, not orbital period.
- C: This gives only one planet's period.
- D: This also gives only one period.
- Question 3Medium
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
• The Rosetta Stone was found in 1799.
• It carries the same decree in three scripts: hieroglyphic, Demotic and ancient Greek.
• Scholars could read the Greek text.
• It helped Jean-François Champollion decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs in the 1820s.
The student wants to explain why the Rosetta Stone was useful to scholars. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
This explains the reason: the same text in a readable script and in hieroglyphs.
- A: The date found doesn't explain its usefulness.
- C: This leaves out the three scripts, the key to its usefulness.
- D: This states what happened but not why the stone helped.
- Question 4Medium
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
• A leap year has 366 days instead of 365.
• The extra day is February 29.
• Leap years keep the calendar in step with Earth's orbit, which takes about 365.24 days.
• Under the Gregorian rules, years divisible by 100 are not leap years unless they are also divisible by 400.
The student wants to explain why the year 1900 was not a leap year. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C
This applies the century rule directly to 1900.
- A: This explains why leap years exist, not why 1900 wasn't one.
- B: This is about 2000, not 1900.
- D: This describes leap years in general.
More Expression of Ideas practice
Questions people ask
Is this rhetorical synthesis practice like the real SAT?
The questions follow the format of the digital SAT's Expression of Ideas domain: a short text with one blank or question and four choices. They are written for this site; they are not official College Board questions.
Where is the domain on the test?
Expression of Ideas is one of the four content domains of the SAT Reading and Writing section, alongside Information and Ideas, Craft and Structure, Standard English Conventions.