Free SAT Practice Question

Question 1 of 1
ID: SAT-RW-II-040
Section: SAT Reading & Writing (RW) – Information and Ideas
Topic: Command of Evidence – Quantitative
Difficulty level: Medium

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A materials scientist tested four exterior roof coatings to learn how well each reflects sunlight and how hot the roof beneath it becomes. For every coating she recorded its solar reflectance — the percentage of incoming sunlight the surface bounces away — and the midday surface temperature of a panel painted with that coating on a clear day. The results are shown in the table.

Coating	Solar reflectance (%)	Midday surface temperature (°C)
Charcoal	22	58
Slate	40	51
Sand	58	51
Snow	85	41

The scientist hypothesized that a coating reflecting more sunlight leaves the roof beneath it cooler. Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to support this hypothesis?

ACharcoal, which reflected 85% of the sunlight that struck it, reached a midday surface temperature of 58 °C.

BSnow reflected 85% of the sunlight that struck it, the highest solar reflectance of any coating tested.

CSlate and Sand each reached a midday surface temperature of 51 °C, showing how reflectance changes a roof’s temperature, with Slate turning away 40% of the sunlight that struck it and Sand turning away 58%, the two readings placed side by side in the table.

DSnow, with the highest solar reflectance (85%), had the lowest midday surface temperature (41 °C), while Charcoal, with the lowest reflectance (22%), had the highest temperature (58 °C).

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