Free SAT® Practice Question: Command of Evidence
Learn to quickly and accurately support complex claims for higher SAT® scores.
Today’s drill is a mock Command of Evidence question. It follows the digital SAT® format but is also great practice for ACT® Science.
For effective time management on test day, you should aim to answer this question correctly in a maximum of 90 seconds.
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Free SAT® Practice Question
Neurologists Joe Smith and David Patel have proposed that regular mindfulness meditation—a practice of focused attention on the present moment without judgment—can reduce autonomic stress responses and thereby improve cognitive flexibility when making complex decisions. Smith, along with researchers Alex Wong, Leila Christian, and colleagues, claims to have found evidence for this effect in a recent study where participants were randomly assigned to either complete an 8-minute guided mindfulness exercise focusing on breath awareness (reported to effectively reduce physiological stress responses) or listen to 8 minutes of neutral educational audio content. After this activity, all participants were asked to complete a challenging puzzle while a disruptive noise played intermittently in the background.
Which finding from the researchers' study, if true, would most strongly support their claim?
A. Participants who had completed the mindfulness exercise persisted significantly longer on the puzzle and found more alternative solutions than did participants who had listened to the educational content.
B. Participants who successfully completed the puzzle reported lower levels of frustration with the noise in a post-experiment survey than did participants who did not complete the puzzle.
C. Participants who had listened to the educational content were significantly more accurate in their estimation of how much time had passed during the puzzle task than were participants who had completed the mindfulness exercise.
D. Participants who abandoned the puzzle early were significantly more likely to report having regular meditation experience, regardless of whether they completed the mindfulness exercise or listened to the educational content.
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