9 original Cross-Text Connections questions, easiest first. Two short texts — work out how the second author would answer the first. Answer them all, then submit once to see every answer explained.
Text 1: Hydrologist Amara Nnamdi's model predicts that a particular river delta will lose significant land area to sea-level rise within 35 years given current trends. Text 2: A separate research team led by Soren Lindgren found that sediment deposited by seasonal flooding upstream is building new delta land fast enough to offset a meaningful portion of the projected loss, though not all of it.
How does the finding described in Text 2 relate to the prediction in Text 1?
B — It suggests Nnamdi's timeline may be too pessimistic, though significant land loss is not ruled out.. Sediment deposits offsetting 'a meaningful portion... though not all' of the loss suggests the delta may lose land more slowly than projected, but significant loss isn't ruled out—softening, not confirming or negating, Nnamdi's timeline.
Text 1: Political scientist Wendell Cho argues that ranked-choice voting reduces political polarization by rewarding candidates who appeal broadly rather than to a narrow base. Text 2: Political scientist Aditi Rao counters that ranked-choice voting can increase voter confusion and lower overall turnout, particularly among first-time and lower-income voters, potentially offsetting any polarization-reducing benefit with a participation cost.
Which choice best describes the relationship between the two arguments?
C — They agree that candidate appeal matters but disagree about ranked-choice voting's net effect.. Both scholars are engaging with ranked-choice voting's effects, but Cho sees a net benefit (reduced polarization) while Rao raises a potential offsetting cost (reduced turnout)—shared topic, differing conclusions about net effect.
Text 1: Hydrologist Priya Nair's model predicts that a particular desert aquifer will be fully depleted within 40 years given current agricultural pumping rates. Text 2: A separate research team led by Omar Siddiqui found that a shift toward drip irrigation among farmers drawing from the aquifer has reduced water withdrawal rates enough to meaningfully slow, though not halt, the depletion trend Nair projected.
How does the finding described in Text 2 relate to the prediction in Text 1?
B — It suggests Nair's timeline may be too pessimistic, though depletion is not ruled out entirely.. Reduced withdrawal rates slowing 'though not halting' depletion suggests the aquifer may last longer than 40 years, but eventual depletion isn't ruled out—softening, not confirming or negating, Nair's timeline.
Text 1: Glaciologist Kirsten Vold's model predicts that a particular alpine glacier will disappear entirely within 25 years given current warming trends. Text 2: A separate research team led by Hana Yamada found that increased snowfall at the glacier's highest elevations, linked to a regional shift in storm patterns, is adding mass at the top of the glacier fast enough to partially offset the melting occurring lower down, though not eliminate it.
How does the finding described in Text 2 relate to the prediction in Text 1?
A — It suggests Vold's timeline may be too pessimistic, though the glacier's eventual disappearance is not ruled out.. Added mass at high elevations offsetting melting 'though not eliminate it' suggests the glacier may persist longer than 25 years, but disappearance isn't ruled out—softening, not confirming or negating, Vold's timeline.
Text 1: Psychologist Rina Okafor's study of 200 employees found that workers who received frequent, small praise from managers reported higher job satisfaction than those who received infrequent, large rewards, and she concluded that praise frequency matters more than praise magnitude. Text 2: A subsequent study by psychologist Ben Holt replicated Okafor's design but sampled 200 employees in a different industry and found the opposite pattern: infrequent, large rewards produced higher satisfaction, suggesting the relationship between praise structure and satisfaction may vary by workplace context.
Which choice best describes the significance of Holt's study in relation to Okafor's?
D — It suggests that Okafor's conclusion may not generalize across all types of workplaces.. Holt replicated the method but found the opposite result in a different industry, implying context-dependence rather than a universal rule—this challenges the generalizability of Okafor's conclusion without claiming her data collection was flawed.
Text 1: Psychologist Odalys Marin's study of 190 employees found that those who received feedback in writing retained more of the feedback's content a month later than those who received identical feedback verbally, and she concluded that the written format itself improves retention. Text 2: A subsequent study by psychologist Felix Backer replicated Marin's design with a different group of 190 employees and found no retention advantage for written feedback, though those employees did report feeling less anxious receiving it, suggesting the original retention effect may not generalize to all workplace populations.
Which choice best describes the significance of Backer's study in relation to Marin's?
B — It suggests that Marin's conclusion about retention may not generalize across all workplace populations.. Backer replicated the method but found no retention advantage in a different group, implying the original result may be population-specific rather than universal—challenging generalizability without claiming fabrication.
Text 1: Psychologist Farah Zaidi's study of 160 workers found that those who took a ten-minute walk outdoors during lunch reported higher afternoon focus than those who remained indoors, and she concluded that outdoor exposure itself improves focus. Text 2: A subsequent study by psychologist Connor Reilly replicated Zaidi's design with a different group of 160 workers and found no focus advantage for outdoor walkers, though they did report improved mood, suggesting the original focus effect may not generalize to all worker populations.
Which choice best describes the significance of Reilly's study in relation to Zaidi's?
B — It suggests that Zaidi's conclusion about focus may not generalize across all worker populations.. Reilly replicated the method but found no focus advantage in a different group, implying the original result may be population-specific rather than universal—challenging generalizability without claiming fabrication.
Text 1: Political scientist Julia Novak argues that term limits reduce political corruption by preventing officials from accumulating entrenched networks of influence over decades in office. Text 2: Political scientist Devon Marsh counters that term limits can increase certain forms of corruption by pushing out experienced officials and handing more relative power to unelected staff and lobbyists who possess institutional knowledge that new officials lack.
Which choice best describes the relationship between the two arguments?
C — They agree on the goal of reducing corruption but disagree on whether term limits achieve it.. Both scholars are concerned with corruption, but Novak sees term limits as reducing it while Marsh sees them as potentially increasing a different form of it—shared concern, opposing conclusions about the specific mechanism.
Text 1: Political scientist Henrik Aasland argues that citizen assemblies, in which randomly selected residents deliberate on policy questions, produce more thoughtful recommendations than standard public comment periods. Text 2: Political scientist Fatima Rashid counters that randomly selected citizens often lack the specialized background needed to evaluate technically complex policy questions, meaning their recommendations may be well-intentioned but poorly informed compared with input from subject-matter experts.
Which choice best describes the relationship between the two arguments?
D — They agree that the process for gathering input matters but disagree about citizen assemblies' net value.. Both scholars are engaged with how best to gather public input, but Aasland sees citizen assemblies as an improvement while Rashid raises a concern about their informational limits—shared topic, differing conclusions about net value.
Score:
Every question above is now marked up: the correct answer is highlighted, any wrong option you picked is flagged, and each explanation is open.
No. Every question here is original, written to the College Board's published Digital SAT Reading & Writing specification for the Cross-Text Connections skill. No retired or copyrighted College Board material appears anywhere on this site.
Cross-Text Connections gives you Text 1 and Text 2 on the same subject and asks how one author would respond to the other, or how their positions relate. It is the only Reading & Writing question type that requires holding two arguments in mind at once, which is why it is consistently one of the hardest.
Before reading the choices, write each author's claim in your own words in five or six words — "wage rises cut jobs" versus "study found no job loss". Then decide the relationship between those two summaries: agree, disagree, or agree-with-a-qualification. Only then read the choices, and reject any that misstate either author, however well it describes the other.
No, and deliberately so. This drill is 9 Cross-Text Connections questions back to back; a real Reading & Writing module is 27 questions in 32 minutes drawn from all eleven skills. Use a drill to fix one weakness, then take a full module to practice the real thing.
No. The SAT has no penalty for a wrong answer — a blank and a wrong guess both score zero — so answer every question, including the ones you have to guess.