Daily Drill: SAT® Main Idea Practice Question
Also Great Practice for ACT® Reading
Today’s Daily Drill is a mock SAT® Main Idea question. It follows the digital SAT® format1 but is also great preparation for ACT® Reading.
For effective time management on test day, you should aim to answer this question correctly in a maximum of 60 seconds.
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Free SAT® Practice Question (mock)
James Johan has documented an unexpected negative correlation between the percentage of urban neighborhoods' land area devoted to parks and those neighborhoods' levels of physical activity among residents. This might seem surprising—parks provide dedicated spaces for exercise and recreation that should encourage active lifestyles—but Johan observes that large parks can create transportation barriers and reduce walkability by forcing residents to take longer routes to reach daily destinations, leading to increased car dependency that typically reduces overall physical activity.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
A) Although it may seem surprising that physical activity declines in neighborhoods with more parkland, that decline happens because parks require too much space that could otherwise be used for exercise facilities.
B) Although residents of urban neighborhoods tend to become less dependent on physical activity as parks make up a larger share of their land area, this pattern may not hold if the parks create transportation barriers or reduce neighborhood walkability.
C) Although one might expect that physical activity would increase as parks make up a larger share of neighborhoods' land area, the opposite occurs because extensive parkland can create conditions that reduce overall movement in daily life.
D) Although many neighborhoods initially resist the creation of large parks in residential areas, physical activity may increase significantly as parks are redesigned and transportation barriers are removed.
(Answer Explanations and Strategy Brief Below.)
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