Free SAT Practice Question

Question 1 of 1
ID: SAT-RW-CS-022
Section: SAT Reading & Writing (RW) – Craft and Structure
Topic: Text Structure and Purpose
Difficulty level: Easy

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The following text is adapted from a science article.

Each year a tree adds a fresh ring of wood — wide in a good growing season, narrow in a poor one. Because the weather differs from year to year, the run of wide and narrow rings across a region forms a distinctive pattern. Researchers match the outer rings of a younger sample to the inner rings of an older one, and by overlapping many samples this way they build an unbroken sequence of rings reaching back centuries. A beam of unknown age can then be dated by finding where its own pattern of rings fits into that sequence.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

ATo explain how the pattern of a tree's rings can be used to date a piece of wood.

BTo describe the difference between the wide rings and the narrow rings within a single tree.

CTo contrast tree-ring dating with an older method it has replaced.

DTo give a general account of how trees grow over the course of their lives.

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