CruxStudy › Practice by skill › Expression of Ideas
Rhetorical synthesis practice
SAT, PSAT and ACT Expression of Ideas · 94 questions in the bank
A synthesis question gives you a set of bulleted research notes and a stated goal: emphasize a difference, explain something to an unfamiliar audience, present a finding. Your job is to pick the sentence that accomplishes that specific goal using the notes.
These look time-consuming and are not, once you know that the goal sentence does almost all the work.
How to answer these
- Read the goal first, before the notes. Underline the verb: emphasize, explain, compare, introduce. Everything after that is filtering.
- Turn the goal into a test. 'Emphasize a difference' means the right answer must mention both things and set them against each other. Now you have a checkable requirement rather than a vibe.
- Check each option against the test, not against whether it is true. Every option is usually true. Truth is not what is being asked.
- Do not reward completeness. An option that uses five of the six notes is not better than one that uses two, if the two are the ones the goal asked for.
What the wrong answers look like
- States a similarity when the goal asked for a difference. The most common wrong answer of all, and it reads perfectly well.
- Covers only one of the two things being compared. Accurate, detailed, and it fails the goal on its own terms.
- Adds a claim the notes never make. Usually a cause or a trend that sounds plausible and appears nowhere in the bullets.
- Accomplishes a different goal fluently. It would be the right answer to the question next door.
Practice questions
Four real questions from the CruxStudy bank, with the keyed answer marked and the explanation behind a click so you can try them first.
Example 1Easier
- Kelp forests along the Pacific coast shelter fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
- Sea urchins graze on kelp and can destroy entire kelp forests when their numbers grow unchecked.
- Sea otters eat large quantities of sea urchins.
- In areas where sea otters returned after near extinction, kelp forests regrew within a decade.
The student wants to emphasize the sea otter's role in maintaining kelp forests. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
- Kelp forests along the Pacific coast shelter fish, seabirds, and a range of marine mammals, and they can be destroyed entirely when sea urchin numbers grow unchecked.
- Sea urchins graze on kelp, and when their numbers grow unchecked they can destroy entire kelp forests.
- By preying on the sea urchins that would otherwise strip kelp away, sea otters allow kelp forests to survive and even regrow. correct
- Sea otters, which were once hunted to near extinction, eat large quantities of sea urchins.
Show the explanation
The goal is the otter's role in maintaining kelp forests, and only this choice links otters, urchins, and kelp survival in one causal chain. The choice about otters eating urchins never connects that diet to the health of kelp forests.
Example 2Medium
- The Atacama Desert in Chile is the driest nonpolar desert on Earth.
- Some weather stations there have never recorded rainfall.
- In 2015, an unusual storm brought rain to parts of the Atacama.
- Within weeks, dormant seeds germinated and fields of mallow flowers covered the desert floor.
The student wants to emphasize how surprising the 2015 bloom was. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
- Remarkably, a landscape so dry that some of its weather stations have never recorded rainfall erupted into fields of flowers within weeks of a single 2015 storm. correct
- The Atacama Desert in Chile is the driest nonpolar desert on Earth, and some of its weather stations have never once registered a fall of rain in all their records.
- In 2015 an unusual storm brought rain to parts of the Atacama, the kind of system that reaches that stretch of desert only rarely and moves on within a day or two.
- Mallow seeds can lie dormant in the soil of the desert for years until rain finally arrives, and they germinate within weeks of the ground being wetted.
Show the explanation
Surprise comes from the contrast, and only the remarkably, a landscape so dry that some of its weather stations have never recorded rainfall option sets that dryness directly against fields of flowers within weeks. The Atacama Desert in Chile is the driest nonpolar desert on Earth dwells on the dryness but never reaches the bloom, in 2015 an unusual storm brought rain to parts of the Atacama reports the trigger and stops there, and mallow seeds can lie dormant in the soil of the desert for years explains the bloom away, which makes it read as ordinary rather than astonishing.
Example 3Harder
- People often describe someone with poor eyesight as 'blind as a bat.'
- All bat species have functioning eyes.
- Many fruit bat species rely primarily on vision and do not echolocate at all.
- Echolocating bats use sound to hunt in darkness but still use their vision in daylight.
The student wants to correct a common misconception about bats. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
- Echolocating bats use sound to hunt their prey in total darkness, building a picture of the moths and beetles around them out of the echoes that come back to them.
- Contrary to the saying 'blind as a bat,' all bats can see, and many fruit bat species rely primarily on vision rather than echolocation. correct
- People often describe someone with poor eyesight as 'blind as a bat,' a saying so old and so familiar that most of those who use it have never questioned it.
- Bats that echolocate go on using their vision when they are out flying in daylight, so sound is not the only sense in play for them at every hour of the day.
Show the explanation
Correcting a misconception takes two moves, naming the false belief and knocking it down, and only the contrary to the saying 'blind as a bat,' all bats can see option makes both. People often describe someone with poor eyesight as 'blind as a bat,' a saying so old and so familiar states the belief and leaves it standing, while echolocating bats use sound to hunt their prey in total darkness and bats that echolocate go on using their vision in daylight offer facts about one group of bats without ever naming the misconception at issue.
Example 4Medium
- Native plants evolved alongside local insects and birds.
- Lawns of non-native turf grass support few pollinator species.
- A study found that yards with native flower beds hosted three times as many bee species as all-turf yards.
- Native plants, once established, generally need less watering than turf grass.
The student wants to persuade home gardeners to replace some turf grass with native plants. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
- Native plants evolved alongside the local insects and birds, over a span of time long enough that many of those species will now feed on nothing else.
- A study compared bee diversity in yards planted in different ways, counting the species that came to each yard across a full season of flowering.
- Home gardeners who convert even part of a lawn to native flower beds can host three times as many bee species while spending less effort on watering. correct
- Lawns of non-native turf grass support few pollinator species, and a lawn kept closely mown offers even those few almost nothing in the way of flowers.
Show the explanation
Persuading gardeners means telling them what to do and what they get for it, and only the home gardeners who convert even part of a lawn to native flower beds option speaks to that audience and pairs the three times as many bee species with the reduced watering. Native plants evolved alongside the local insects and birds, a study compared bee diversity in yards planted in different ways, and lawns of non-native turf grass support few pollinator species each report a fact or a method at length without ever asking the reader to change anything.
Drill all 94 of them
Open the drill inside CruxStudy and it serves rhetorical synthesis questions one at a time, with an explanation after every answer and your accuracy tracked. Free, no account.
Start a drill
See the lesson
Common questions
What is rhetorical synthesis on the SAT?
A question type that gives you bulleted research notes plus a stated goal, and asks which sentence best accomplishes that goal using the notes.
Should I read the notes or the question first?
The question first, always. The goal tells you what to look for, and reading six bullets without knowing what you need is how these become slow.
Is the longest answer usually right in synthesis questions?
No, and assuming so is a real trap. The correct answer is the one meeting the stated goal, which is often not the one using the most notes.