Free SAT Practice Question

Question 1 of 1
ID: DSAT-RW-14
Section: Digital SAT Reading & Writing (RW) - Broadly Reading - Craft and Structure
Topic: Cross-Text Connections
Difficulty level: Hard

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Text 1

Astronomers have long wondered how tens of thousands of asteroids can persist in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter while orbiting the same star and drawing on the same material. According to conventional wisdom, gravity-driven accretion should let a few bodies sweep up the rest. So why do so many remain as separate objects after billions of years? Despite many proposed models, researchers still have not reached a fully satisfying explanation.

Text 2

Dynamical astronomer Leena Varma and colleagues connect the belt's diversity to orbital stirring. Because these rocky bodies are small and widely spaced, they rarely meet at gentle speeds. Jupiter's resonances continually jostle their paths, turning potential mergers into shattering impacts. In such conditions, direct growth by sticking probably happens far less than previously believed, which reduces the kind of head-to-head competition that the older picture assumed.

Based on the texts, how would Varma and colleagues (Text 2) most likely respond to the "conventional wisdom" discussed in Text 1?

ABy arguing that it rests on a misconception about how often asteroids can merge with one another in the stirred belt environment.

BBy asserting that it ignores the continual delivery of fresh fragments from comets that prevents competition among belt asteroids.

CBy suggesting that their own findings help clarify how asteroids are able to compete directly with Jupiter's powerful gravitational field.

DBy recommending that more astronomers examine how merger rates among asteroids are increased when their typical encounter speeds become higher.

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