2021年5月SAT回顧

2021 年 5 月 SAT (美國/北美版) 考題回顧:所有 5 篇閱讀文章!

過去這個週末學生考了 2021 年 5 月的 SAT 考試。如果這是你最後一次考 SAT,恭喜你完成了一個艱難的任務!

我們整理了 2021 年 5 月 SAT 考試當中的 5 篇閱讀文章,幫助學生準備未來的考試。


這些閱讀文章可以如何的幫助你?

1. 這些文章可以讓你知道你的英文程度以及準備考試的程度

首先,讀這些文章。你覺得他們讀起來很簡單還是很難?裡面有沒有很多生字,尤其是那些會影響你理解整篇文章的生字?如果有的話,雖然你可能是在美國讀書或讀國際學校、也知道 “如何讀跟寫英文”,但你還沒有足夠的生字基礎讓你 “達到下一個階段” (也就是大學的階段)。查一下這一些字,然後把它們背起來。這些生字不見得會在下一個 SAT 考試中出現,但是透過真正的 SAT 閱讀文章去認識及學習這些生字可以大大的減低考試中出現不會的生字的機率。

2. 這些文章會告訴你平時應該要讀哪些文章幫你準備閱讀考試

在我們的 Ivy-Way Reading Workbook(Ivy-Way 閱讀技巧書)的第一章節裡,我們教學生在閱讀文章之前要先讀文章最上面的開頭介紹。雖然你的 SAT 考試不會剛好考這幾篇文章,但你還是可以透過這些文章找到它們的來源,然後從來源閱讀更多相關的文章。舉例來說,如果你看第二篇文章 “The Problem with Fair Trade Coffee”,你會看到文章是來自 Stanford Social Innovation Review。閱讀更多來自 Stanford Social Innovation Review 的文章會幫助你習慣閱讀這種風格的文章。

3. 這些文章會幫助你發掘閱讀單元的技巧(如果閱讀單元對你來說不是特別簡單的話)

如果你覺得閱讀單元很簡單,或是你在做完之後還有剩幾分鐘可以檢查,那麼這個技巧可能就對你來說沒有特別大的幫助。但是,如果你覺得閱讀很難,或者你常常不夠時間做題,一個很好的技巧是先理解那一種的文章對你來說比較難,然後最後做這一篇文章。SAT 的閱讀文章包含這五種類型:

  • 文學 (Literature):1 篇經典或現代的文學文章(通常來自美國)
  • 歷史 (History):1 篇跟美國獨立/創立相關的文章,或者一篇受到美國獨立 / 創立影響的國際文章(像是美國憲法或者馬丁路德金恩 (Martin Luther King Jr.) 的演說)
  • 人文 (Humanities):1 篇經濟、心理學、社會學、或社會科學的文章
  • 科學 (Sciences):1-2 篇地理、生物、化學、或物理的文章
  • 雙篇文 (Dual-Passages):0-1 篇含有兩篇同主題的文章

舉例來說,假設你覺得跟美國獨立相關的文章是你在做連續的時候覺得最難的種類,那你在考試的時候可以考慮使用的技巧之一是把這篇文章留到最後再做。這樣一來,如果你在考試到最後時間不夠了,你還是可以從其他比較簡單文章中盡量拿分。


所有 2021 年 5 月 (美國/北美) SAT 考試閱讀文章

Passage 1

This passage is adapted from Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Before We Visit the Goddess. ©2016 by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. It is 1973, and Bela and Sanjay have recently moved to the United States. Bishu, Sanjay’s friend and mentor since childhood, helped arrange their move.

        Bela was grateful to Bishu, she really was. But she

couldn’t help being annoyed that Bishu felt entitled

to drop in unannounced for dinner whenever he

wanted.

        “Ah, good, solid Bengali food, Bela,” he would say

with an appreciative belch once he had finished

eating. “That fried fish was quite fine. But the

cauliflower curry could have done with a little more

coriander.” She resented him, too, for continuing to

advise Sanjay about his career, though Sanjay now

made more money than he did. She hated how, at

such times, Sanjay, though otherwise masterful (just

last week he had fought with a neighbor who had

parked in their spot, making him remove his car),

regressed into a teenagerish deference. Yes, Bishu-da,

you’re right, Bishu-da, I should be careful about what

I say to my supervisor.

        This night, once he had caught his breath, Bishu

said, “We have some great news for you, Bela!”

        Bela looked at her husband. Why, she asked in

wordless husband-wife code, didn’t you tell me this

great news? Why do I have to hear it from a stranger?

Bishu-da isn’t a stranger, he coded back with a

frown.
        “You tell her, Shonu,” Bishu offered regally.

        A boyish grin split open Sanjay’s face. “We’re

buying a house!”

        The words swooshed around in Bela’s head like

wild birds. That was her secret dream: a house of her

own. She had lived in a house only once, in her

childhood, a magical sprawling place in Assam with

giant hydrangea bushes that leaned up against the

walls. Her father was still alive then; she remembered

walking with him in the mango grove, gathering

golden fruit from the ground. Was that why she

wanted a house so badly? She hadn’t told Sanjay

because it was an unreasonable longing, with her

earning only minimum wage, and loans, so many of

them.

        “Bishu-da found us an excellent deal,” Sanjay said,

handing her a blurry photo. “Look!”

She thought the shingle-roofed tract home was

the most beautiful house she had seen. She traced,

with a shaky finger, the narrow front window, the

line of the roof, the wood fence. She imagined herself

cooking in a kitchen with new flooring and enough

shelves so her spices and dals didn’t have to be piled

in untidy heaps on the counter. She would sit with

Sanjay at the dining table drinking tea on a Sunday

morning, and look out at the backyard where she had

planted gardenias.

        “We can’t afford it,” she said flatly, though she

couldn’t bear to hand the photo back to him.

        “It isn’t to live in, silly.” Bishu was avuncular in

his kindness. “It’s an investment. We’re pooling our

savings for the down payment. We’ll rent it out. The

rent will cover the monthly mortgage. Property

values increase fast in the Bay Area. In a few years we

can sell it, or take out a second mortgage and buy

another home.”

        All through dinner, the men discussed the things

they’d have to do: negotiate with the realtor, who was

known to Bishu, and bring down the price; get the

loan-thank goodness Bishu knew an agent, because

otherwise they wouldn’t qualify; advertise for a

tenant. The house needed new carpets; the rooms

had to be painted so they could charge more rent.

They could do the painting themselves, couldn’t they,

and save money? Their voices were excited and

self-assured and conspiratorial, the way they used to

be in India, when they were political leaders.

        Immersed in her own plans, Bela heard only

snippets. As she carried dishes back and forth from

the kitchen, she glanced at the photo, which she had

propped up on the counter, and which she would

paste, afterward, into the album where she was

accumulating-slowly, because film was expensive­-

Polaroids of their American life. She had seen an

announcement at Lucky’s a couple days back. They

needed shelf stockers. She could get on a late shift,

after her stint at Tiny Treasures. Save the entire

amount. When she had enough, she would hand it

triumphantly to Sanjay and insist that he buy out

Bishu. Finally, then, she would have a house of her
own.


Passage 2

This passage is adapted from Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum. Originally published in 1891.

        [I]t has come to pass that working men have

been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the

hardheartedness of employers and the greed of

unchecked competition. The mischief has been

increased by rapacious usury,which, although more

than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless,

under a different guise, but with like injustice, still

practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this

must be added that the hiring of labor and the

conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of

comparatively few; so that a small number of very

rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming

masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than

that of slavery itself.

        To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working

on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving

to do away with private property, and contend

that individual possessions should become the

common property of all, to be administered by the

State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus

transferring property from private individuals to the

community, the present mischievous state of things

will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will

then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy.

But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end

the controversy that were they carried into effect the

working man himself would be among the first to

suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for

they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the

functions of the State, and create utter confusion in

the community.

        It is surely undeniable that, when a man engages

in remunerative labor, the impelling reason and

motive of his work is to obtain property, and

thereafter to hold it as his very own. If one man

hires out to another his strength or skill, he does

so for the purpose of receiving in return what is

necessary for the satisfaction of his needs; he

therefore expressly intends to acquire a right full

and real, not only to the remuneration, but also to

the disposal of such remuneration, just as he pleases.

Thus, if he lives sparingly, saves money, and, for

greater security, invests his savings in land, the land,

in such case, is only his wages under another form;

and, consequently, a working man’s little estate thus

purchased should be as completely at his full disposal
 
as are the wages he receives for his labor. But it is

precisely in such power of disposal that ownership

obtains, whether the property consist ofl and or

chattels. Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to

transfer the possessions of individuals to the

community at large, strike at the interests of every

wage-earner, since they would deprive him of the

liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all

hope and possibility of increasing his resources and

of bettering his condition in life.

        What is of far greater moment, however, is the

fact that the remedy they propose is manifestly

against justice. For, every man has by nature the

right to possess property as his own. This is one of

the chief points of distinction between man and the

animal creation, for the brute has no power of self

direction    Itis the mind, or reason, which

is the predominant element in us who are human

creatures; it is this which renders a human being

human, and distinguishes him essentially from the

brute. And on this very account-that man

alone among the animal creation is endowed with

reason-it must be within his right to possess things

10 not merely for temporary and momentary use, as

other living things do, but to have and to hold them

in stable and permanent possession; he must have

not only things that perish in the use, but those also

which, though they have been reduced into use,

continue for further use in after time.


1  The lending of money at an excessively high interest rate


Passage 3

This passage is adapted from Matthew Savoca, “The Oceans Are Full of Plastic, but Why Do Seabirds Eat It?” ©2016 by The Conversation US, Inc.

         Pioneering research by Dr. Thomas Grubb Jr. in

the early 1970s showed that tube-nosed seabirds use

their powerful sense of smell, or olfaction, to find

food effectively, even when heavy fog obscures their

vision. Two decades later, Dr. Gabrielle Nevitt and

colleagues found that certain species of tube-nosed

seabirds are attracted to dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a

natural scented sulfur compound. DMS comes from

marine algae, which produce a related chemical

called DMSP inside their cells. When those cells are

damaged—for example, when algae die, or when

marine grazers like krill eat it—DMSP breaks down,

producing DMS. The smell of DMS alerts seabirds

that food is nearby—not the algae, but the krill that

are consuming the algae.

         Dr. Nevitt and I wondered whether these seabirds

were being tricked into consuming marine plastic

debris because of the way it smelled. To test this idea,

my coauthors and I created a database collecting

every study we could find that recorded plastic

ingestion by tube-nosed seabirds over the past

50 years. This database contained information from

over 20,000 birds of more than 70 species. It showed

that species of birds that use DMS as a foraging cue

eat plastic nearly six times as frequently as species

that are not attracted to the smell of DMS while

foraging.

         To further test our theory, we needed to analyze

how marine plastic debris smells. To do so, I took

beads of the three most common types of floating

plastic—polypropylene and low- and high-density

polyethylene—and sewed them inside custom mesh

bags, which we attached to two buoys off of

California’s central coast. We hypothesized that algae

would coat the plastic at sea, a process known as

biofouling, and produce DMS.

         After the plastic had been immersed for about a

month at sea, I retrieved it and brought it to a lab

that is not usually a stop for marine scientists: the

Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine Science

at UC Davis. There we used a gas chromatograph,

specifically built to detect sulfur odors in food

products, to measure the chemical signature of our 

experimental marine debris. Sulfur compounds have

a very distinct odor; to humans they smell like rotten

eggs or decaying seaweed on the beach, but to some

species of seabirds DMS smells delicious!

         Sure enough, every sample of plastic we collected

was coated with algae and had substantial amounts of

DMS associated with it. We found levels of DMS that

were higher than normal background concentrations

in the environment, and well above levels that

tube-nosed seabirds can detect and use to find food.

These results provide the first evidence that, in

addition to looking like food, plastic debris may also

confuse seabirds that hunt by smell.

         Our findings have important implications. First,

they suggest that plastic debris may be a more

insidious threat to marine life than we previously

believed. If plastic looks and smells like food, it is

more likely to be mistaken for prey than if it just

looks like food.

         Second. we found through data analysis that

small, secretive burrow-nesting seabirds, such as

prions, storm petrels, and shearwaters, are more

likely to confuse plastic for food than their more

charismatic, surface-nesting relatives such as

albatrosses. This difference matters because

populations of hard-to-observe burrow-nesting

seabirds are more difficult to count than surface-

nesting species, so they often are not surveyed as

closely. Therefore, we recommend increased

monitoring of these less charismatic species that may

be at greater risk of plastic ingestion.


Passage 4

This passage is adapted from David Rotman, “It Pays to Be Smart.” ©2017 by MIT Technology Review.

       Our economy is increasingly ruled by a few

dominant firms. We see them everywhere, from

established giants Amazon. Facebook, Google, Apple,

and Walmart to fast-growing newcomers like

Airbnb. Tesla, and Uber. There have always been

large companies and outright monopolies, but there’s

something distinctive about this new generation of

what some economists call superstar companies.

They appear across a broad range of business sectors

and have gained their power at least in part by

adeptly anticipating and using digital technologies

that foster conditions where a few winners essentially

take all.

       According to recent research by economists at

Harvard and MIT. the share of sales by superstar

companies—which the authors define as the four

largest firms in a given industry—has gone up

sharply in all the sectors they looked at, from

transportation to services to finance. The trend

toward superstar firms is accelerating, says Lawrence

Katz, a Harvard economist and coauthor of the

study. It has become more uniform across industries

and developed economies during the past decade or

so. These companies’ dominance is particularly

strong in markets undergoing rapid technological

change. Katz says that’s probably because of the wide

disparity in how well companies take advantage of

new advances. In other words, you have to be the

smartest company in your field or you might as well

not bother.

       In itself, that might not be bad. But the authors

identified a deeply troubling result of an economy

where just a few top-tier companies dominate.

One of the economic truths of much of the 20th

century was that the portion of the country’s overall

income that went to labor was constant; as the

economy grew, workers got a proportionate share of

that growing pie. But labor’s share of the national

income has been shrinking over the past few decades.

This is true in many countries, and the decline

speeded up in the United States in the 2000s.

        The trend puzzles economists. Some suggest it

reflects the rise of cheap robots that can do the jobs

of human workers, but the data isn’t convincing.

Instead, Katz and his coauthors blame the emergence

of the superstar companies. As these companies grow 

and become more efficient and more adept at using

digital technologies, they need fewer workers relative

to their soaring revenues. The fact that these labor-

frugal firms have so much of the market share in

their sectors means labor gets a smaller portion of

the nation’s overall income.

        The rise of the superstar companies also might

help explain another disturbing economic trend.

Despite the proliferation of impressive new advances

in software, digital devices, and artificial intelligence

over the last decade and the great profits generated

by Silicon Valley, economic growth in the United

States and other developed countries has been

sluggish. In particular, an economic measure called

total factor productivity1 which is meant to reflect

innovation, has been dismal. How can overall growth

be so lackluster while the high-tech sector is

booming?

       Economists with the Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development (OECD) think they

have found the answer. It turns out that productivity

at the top companies in various sectors—what the

OECD economists call the frontier firms—is growing

robustly. These are the companies making the best

use of the Internet, software, and other technologies

to streamline their operations and create new market

opportunities. But most companies aren’t actually

harnessing new technologies very effectively. And the

relatively poor productivity of these laggards, says

Australian OECD economist Dan Andrews, is

dragging down the overall economy.


Passage 5

Passage 1 is adapted from Morten E. Allentoft, “Recovering Samples for Ancient DNA Research-Guidelines for the Field Archaeologist.” ©2013 by Antiquity Publications Ltd. Passage 2 is adapted from Sam Kean, “Ancient DNA.” ©2015 by Chemical Heritage Foundation.

Passage I

        Working with ancient and degraded DNA is not

without challenges. Most serious perhaps is the risk

of contamination with contemporary DNA, which

can easily “swamp” the small amount of authentic

DNA in an ancient sample. This fact became

painfully clear in the earlier years of ancient DNA

research, when a number of high profile publications

seemingly presented evidence of DNA from samples

of extreme age—including 80-million-year-old

dinosaur bones and greater than 120-million-

year-old insects. We are now aware that these results

reflected modern contaminants, in part because the

rate of post mortem fragmentation of DNA excludes

the existence of DNA that old. In response to these

claims, a set of ancient DNA “rules” was established

to minimise the risk of contamination and to provide

some means for downstream authentication of the

results and, since then, numerous studies have

identified and assessed contamination problems in

ancient samples.

         In essence, however, most of these rules

represent “symptomatic treatment.” If a sample is

contaminated with modern DNA before entering the

laboratory, for example during excavation, it can be

difficult to remove the contamination, and it can be

impossible to distinguish between authentic ancient

DNA and contaminants. This latter problem is

particularly pertinent if the target DNA and the

contaminant DNA are from the same species, as is

often the case when research is conducted on ancient

human material.

        In the era of high-throughput sequencing,

statistical tools based on DNA damage signatures are

now available to assess the overall authenticity of

“bulk” ancient DNA data. Considerable time and

resources, however, are expended before the

contamination can be identified, and if a sample has

been contaminated decades or centuries ago it may

result in contaminant DNA that displays degradation

damage patterns similar to that of true ancient DNA.

Although strict laboratory exercises are often

combined with bioinformatic analyses to respectively

remove and identify DNA contamination, it would

be extremely beneficial if the risk of contamination

could be lowered in the first place.

Passage II

        Studying ancient DNA (aDNA) is a lot like

playing Whac-A-Mole: stamp out one problem

and another will pop up and take its place.

Contamination, corruption, chromosomal

shredding—it’s a miracle scientists can even find

aDNA in specimens, much less glean information

from it. But a few recent breakthroughs have greatly

expanded our ability to read aDNA and have already

opened whole new vistas of evolution.

        DNA disappears after cells die for a few reasons.

All healthy cells have enzymes that shred DNA to

recycle it, and unfortunately those enzymes keep

right on shredding after death. Water and oxygen in

the environment also react with DNA’s backbone

and degrade it further. I’d say these processes reduce

DNA to confetti, but that doesn’t do justice to just

how thorough the destruction is. It’s more like

confetti making its own even tinier confetti, which in

turn makes its own confetti. After a few thousand

years a multibillion-base-pair genome might be

reduced to scraps a few dozen letters long—a

100-million-fold reduction.

         The best aDNA comes from samples unearthed in

tundras or caves. Recent advances in computing

power have also allowed scientists to assemble

sequences from even minute scraps of DNA.

The oldest recovered genome so far came from a

horse’s leg bone buried in Canada’s Yukon Territory

for 700,000 years; with the right sample and

ever-better software to analyze it, scientists think

they can push that back to one million years.

        Finding the right sample solves only one problem,

though. In most ancient tissues 99% of the DNA

present comes from contamination by invading fungi

and bacteria. So scientists have to deploy chemical

snares, like “RNA bait.” If searching for human

DNA, researchers would prepare the bait by

manufacturing millions of strips of human RNA

(DNA’s chemical cousin), albeit with one

modification: these RNA strips have chemical Velcro

attached to one end. When mixed into a sample, this

RNA gloms onto the human DNA and only the

human DNA. Scientists then pour in tiny metallic

beads that—here’s the key—also have chemical

Velcro attached, locking the beads and the 

RNA/DNA strips together. Finally, a magnet holds

onto the beads as the un-Velcroed microbial DNA

washes away, leaving behind pristine samples.

While this technique is expensive—developing the

RNA bait can cost $300,000—new methods promise

to drop that price to roughly $50.


2021 年 5 月 (美國/北美) SAT 考試閱讀題目

Ivy-Way 學生在上課的過程就會做到 2021 年 5 月以及其他的官方歷年考題。除此之外,我們也有讓學生來我們的教室或在家做模考的服務讓學生評估自己的學習進度並看到成績。如果你想預約時間來我們的教室或在家做模考,請聯繫我們!如果你想購買考題在家做,學生可以在Ivy-Way蝦皮商城Ivy-Way臉書粉專、或 Line (ivyway) 直接購買喔!

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