SAT March 2022 US

Reading Test

Questions 1-10 are based on the following passage.
This passage is adapted from Michael Ondaatje, The Cat’s Table.
©2011 by Michael Ondaatje. The novel’s narrator reflects on his
journey as a young boy traveling by ship from the former British
colony Ceylon—now Sri Lanka—to England during the 1950s.
Ramadhin and Cassius are friends he made during the journey.

His name was Mr. Fonseka and he was travelling to
England to be a teacher. I would visit him every few days. He
knew passages from all kinds of books he could recite by
heart, and he sat at his desk all day wondering about them,
⁵ thinking what he could say about them. I knew scarcely a
thing about the world of literature, but he welcomed me with
unusual and interesting stories, stopping abruptly in mid-tale
and saying that someday I should find out what happened
after that. “You will like it, I think. Perhaps he will find the
¹⁰ eagle.” Or, “They will escape the maze with the help of
someone they are about to meet. . . .” Often, during the
night, while stalking the ship with Ramadhin and Cassius, I’d
attempt to add to the bare bones of an adventure Mr.
Fonseka had left unfinished.
¹⁵ He was gracious, with his quietness. When he spoke, he
was tentative and languid. Even then I understood his
rareness by the pace of his gestures. He stood up only when it
was essential, as if he were a sick cat. He was not used to
public effort, even though he was now going to be a part of a
²⁰ public world as a teacher of literature and history in England.
I tried to coax him up on deck a few times, but his
porthole and what he could see through it seemed enough
nature for him. With his books, some bottled Kelani River1
water, as well as a few family photographs, he had no need to
²⁵ leave his time capsule. I would visit that room if the day was
dull, and he would at some point begin reading to me. It was
the anonymity of the stories and the poems that went
deepest into me. And the curl of a rhyme was something
new. I had not thought to believe he was actually quoting
³⁰ something written with care, in some far country, centuries
earlier. He had lived in Colombo2 all his life, and his
manner and accent were a product of the island, but at the
same time he had this wide-ranging knowledge of books.
He’d sing a song from the Azores or recite lines from an
³⁵ Irish play.

I brought Cassius and Ramadhin to meet him. He had
become curious about them, and he made me tell him of
our adventures on the ship. He beguiled them as well,
especially Ramadhin. Mr. Fonseka seemed to draw forth an
⁴⁰ assurance or a calming quality from the books he read.
He’d gaze into an unimaginable distance (one could almost
see the dates flying off the calendar) and quote lines written
in stone or papyrus. I suppose he remembered these things
to clarify his own opinion, like a man buttoning up his own
⁴⁵ sweater to give warmth just to himself. Mr. Fonseka would
not be a wealthy man. And it would be a spare life he would
be certain to lead as a schoolteacher. But he had a serenity
that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And
this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those
⁵⁰ who have the armour of books close by.
I am aware of the pathos and the irony that come with
such a portrait. All those foxed Penguin editions of Orwell
and Gissing and the translations of Lucretius with their
purple borders that he was bringing with him. He must
⁵⁵ have believed it would be a humble but good life for an
Asian living in England, where something like his Latin
grammar could be a distinguishing sword.

I wonder what happened to him. Every few years,
whenever I remember, I will look up any reference to
⁶⁰ Fonseka in a library. I do know that Ramadhin kept in
touch with him during his early years in England. But I did
not. Though I did realize that people like Mr. Fonseka came
before us like innocent knights in a more dangerous time,
and on the very same path we ourselves were taking now,
⁶⁵ and at every step there were no doubt the same lessons, not
poems, to learn brutally by heart.

I think about Mr. Fonseka at those English schools
wearing his buttoned sweater to protect himself from
English weather, and wonder how long he stayed there, and
⁷⁰ if he did really stay “forever.” Or whether in the end he
could no longer survive it, even though for him it was “the
centre of culture,” and instead returned home on an Air
Lanka flight that took only two-thirds of a day, to begin
again, teaching in a place like Nugegoda. London returned.
⁷⁵ Were all those memorized paragraphs and stanzas of the
European canon he brought back the equivalent of a bottle
of river water?

Questions 11-20 are based on the following passage and supplementary material.

This passage is adapted from Daniella Kupor and Zakary L.
Tormala, “Glowing Reviews Aren’t Always the Most Persuasive.”
©2018 by Harvard Business School Publishing.

Online reviews can play a big role in influencing people’s
purchase decisions, but what makes a review most
persuasive one way or the other? Certainly bad reviews can
dissuade customers, but it turns out that some good reviews
⁵ can too. Our research on persuasion and marketing is the
first to find that a moderately positive review can be more
persuasive than an extremely positive review. We found that
a moderately positive review is even more persuasive when
the default review selection is extremely positive. This is
¹⁰ because reviews that deviate from a default review selection
are perceived to be more thoughtful—and thus more
accurate—than reviews that conform to the default.
We first tested this phenomenon by showing participants
a consumer review for a particular brand of granola bar. The
¹⁵ review platform preselected a 10-star rating for the granola
bars, but previous customers who wished to rate the granola
bar as less than ten stars could change the rating. We had
participants read a single review from a previous customer
and we varied whether that review gave 10 stars (the
²⁰ preselected default) or eight stars (a lower but still positive
rating that deviated from the default). When we offered
participants the choice between a free granola bar or a
commensurate amount of money, we found that people who
viewed the eight-star review were more likely to choose the
²⁵ granola bar than were people who viewed the 10-star review.
We also found that the moderately positive reviews were
not just seen as more persuasive, but as more helpful. In
another study, we analyzed a retail platform that asks
customers to rate products on a five-star scale, and on which
³⁰ a five-star rating is the most frequent (and thus is the
perceived default). The platform allows consumers to
indicate if they find a particular review to be helpful.
Because previous research suggests that consumers rate
reviews as more helpful when those reviews are more
³⁵ persuasive, we analyzed “helpful” votes as a proxy for the
review’s persuasiveness. These data revealed that consumers
rated deviatory (non-five-star) reviews as more helpful than
non-deviatory (five-star) reviews. Again, less positive
reviews appear to be more persuasive than more positive
⁴⁰ reviews in the context of an extremely positive default.
In a follow-up study we found that extreme reviews
regain their persuasiveness if they are long. We presented

consumers with real consumer reviews for pens, and
varied the reviews’ star ratings so that some deviated
⁴⁵ from a five-star default. In the first part of this study,
consumers viewed brief reviews that included either a
four-star or a five-star rating in the context of a 5-star
default. Just as in our earlier studies, those consumers
were more likely to purchase the pen when they viewed a
⁵⁰ four-star review. But when we gave them longer reviews
with either four- or five-star ratings, the review’s
deviatory status no longer impacted consumers’ desire to
purchase the pen.
Consumers are largely unaware of how influenced
⁵⁵ they can be by moderate reviews. In another study, we
found that when consumers want to persuade another
shopper to make a similar purchase, they will often leave
the highest possible rating even when they know that
this highest rating is the default. In their attempts to
⁶⁰ increase their own persuasive influence, then, consumers
may inadvertently decrease it by avoiding moderate
endorsements, even when they themselves find such
endorsements to be more persuasive.

Questions 21-31 are based on the following passage and supplemental material.

This passage and accompanying graph are adapted from
Marian Y. L. Wong and Peter M. Buston, “Social Systems in
Habitat-Specialist Reef Fishes: Key Concepts in Evolutionary
Ecology.” ©2013 by American Institute of Biological Sciences.
Reproductive suppression occurs when some sexually mature
members of a species are prevented from breeding.

Paragobiodon xanthosomus is an obligate coral-

dwelling goby (Gobiidae) that resides in just one type of
host coral, Seriatopora hystrix. Within groups, only the
largest male and female breed monogamously with each
⁵ other, and all other group members are nonbreeding
subordinate females that are reproductively suppressed. To
determine whether resource limitation was the cause of
female reproductive suppression, University of
Wollongong biologist Marian Y. L. Wong and her
¹⁰ colleagues began by identifying three key resources that
could affect female reproductive success. First, the
reproductive success of females may be limited by a
shortage of suitable breeding sites with which to
successfully rear offspring, given that P. xanthosomus lays
¹⁵ eggs in a nest site within the coral colony itself. Second, the
reproductive success of females may be limited by the
availability of food resources necessary to produce or feed
offspring, given that female fecundity in fishes is often
limited by the abundance of food. Third, because parental
²⁰ care is only provided by the breeding male, the
reproductive success of females could be limited by
paternal care if the males can successfully care for the eggs
laid by only one female at a time.
To determine whether nest sites were limiting, Wong
²⁵ and colleagues experimentally removed the existing nest
site used by breeding pairs within the coral. In all cases of
removal, the pair simply picked another branch and laid
their eggs, which suggests that nest sites were not limiting.
To determine whether food was limiting, a field
³⁰ experiment was performed in which both males and
females in natural pairs were fed by squirting high-protein
marine fish pellets into their coral colony using a syringe.
After a 3-week feeding period, egg clutches from each pair
were collected as soon as they were laid, and clutch sizes
³⁵ were compared between fed and unfed pairs. As was
predicted, the females that were fed laid significantly larger
clutches than those that were unfed, which suggests that
food was a limiting factor for female reproduction. In the
same experiment, Wong and colleagues also determined
⁴⁰ whether paternal care was limiting by collecting egg
clutches from fed and unfed pairs just prior to hatching
(approximately 4–5 days after laying). Since P.
xanthosomus males provide sole care of eggs, the size of a
clutch at hatching essentially reflects the ability of males to

⁴⁵ care for their eggs. Therefore, if the males in fed pairs
did not hatch significantly larger clutches than did the
males in unfed pairs, despite the females in the fed pairs
laying larger clutches than those laid by the unfed pairs,
this would suggest that males are unable to care for the
⁵⁰ eggs laid by more than one female under natural
circumstances. Indeed, there was no difference in clutch
sizes at hatching between the fed and unfed pairs, which
indicates that male parental care is another limiting
reproductive resource over which females may compete.
⁵⁵ In summary, a refined experimental assessment of the
benefits of reproductive suppression and monogamy has
demonstrated that resource limitation underlies
reproductive suppression and female competition.
Therefore, habitat-specialist reef fishes have provided an
⁶⁰ important new insight into mating system theory. Since
these experiments, the role of resource limitation has
been reported in a social mammal, and those results
suggested that resource limitation could serve as a
widespread explanation for reproductive suppression
⁶⁵ and the mating systems of social species in general.

Questions 32-42 are based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from a speech delivered in 1860 by
Frederick Douglass, “A Plea for Free Speech in Boston.”
Douglass was a prominent African American abolitionist

The world knows that last Monday a meeting
assembled to discuss the question: “How Shall Slavery Be
Abolished?” The world also knows that that meeting was
invaded, insulted, captured, by a mob of gentlemen, and
⁵ thereafter broken up and dispersed by the order of the
mayor, who refused to protect it, though called upon to
do so. If this had been a mere outbreak of passion and
prejudice among the baser sort . . . hounded on by some
wily politician to serve some immediate purpose,—a mere
¹⁰ exceptional affair,—it might be allowed to rest with what
has already been said. But the leaders of the mob were
gentlemen. They were men who pride themselves upon
their respect for law and order.
These gentlemen brought their respect for the law
¹⁵ with them and proclaimed it loudly while in the very act
of breaking the law. Theirs was the law of slavery. The law
of free speech and the law for the protection of public
meetings they trampled underfoot, while they greatly
magnified the law of slavery. . . .
²⁰ No right was deemed by the fathers of the
Government more sacred than the right of speech. It was
in their eyes, as in the eyes of all thoughtful men, the great
moral renovator of society and government. Daniel
Webster called it a homebred right, a fireside privilege.
²⁵ Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s
thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all
rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they
first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones,
dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in
³⁰ injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are
allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a
judgment to come in their presence. Slavery cannot
tolerate free speech. Five years of its exercise would
banish the auction block and break every chain in the
³⁵ South. They will have none of it there, for they have the
power. But shall it be so here?
Even here in Boston, and among the friends of
freedom, we hear two voices: one denouncing the mob
that broke up our meeting on Monday as a base and
⁴⁰ cowardly outrage; and another, deprecating and
regretting the holding of such a meeting, by such men, at
such a time. We are told that the meeting was ill-timed,
and the parties to it unwise.

Why, what is the matter with us? Are we going to
⁴⁵ palliate and excuse a palpable and flagrant outrage on the
right of speech, by implying that only a particular
description of persons should exercise that right? Are we,
at such a time, when a great principle has been struck
down, to quench the moral indignation which the deed
⁵⁰ excites, by casting reflections upon those on whose
persons the outrage has been committed? After all the
arguments for liberty to which Boston has listened for
more than a quarter of a century, has she yet to learn that
the time to assert a right is the time when the right itself is
⁵⁵ called in question, and that the men of all others to assert
it are the men to whom the right has been denied?
It would be no vindication of the right of speech to
prove that certain gentlemen of great distinction, eminent
for their learning and ability, are allowed to freely express
⁶⁰ their opinions on all subjects—including the subject of
slavery. Such a vindication would need, itself, to be
vindicated. It would add insult to injury. Not even an old-

fashioned abolition meeting could vindicate that right in
Boston just now. There can be no right of speech where
⁶⁵ any man, however lifted up, or however humble, however
young, or however old, is overawed by force, and
compelled to suppress his honest sentiments.
Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free
speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the
⁷⁰ hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal
to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be
to rob him of his money. I have no doubt that Boston will
vindicate this right. But in order to do so, there must be
no concessions to the enemy. When a man is allowed to
⁷⁵ speak because he is rich and powerful, it aggravates the
crime of denying the right to the poor and humble.
The principle must rest upon its own proper basis.
And until the right is accorded to the humblest as freely
as to the most exalted citizen, the government of Boston
⁸⁰ is but an empty name, and its freedom a mockery. A
man’s right to speak does not depend upon where he was
born or upon his color. The simple quality of manhood is
the solid basis of the right—and there let it rest forever.

Questions 43-52 are based on the following passages.

Passage 1 is adapted from Philip Ball, “Did Cracking Continent
Trigger a Deep Freeze?” ©2004 by Springer Nature. Passage 2
is adapted from Annie Sneed, “A New Idea on How Earth
Became a Giant Snowball.” ©2017 by Scientific American, a
division of Springer Nature America, Inc.

Passage 1

The theory that the Earth was once completely
frozen emerged in the 1960s, when scientists realised
that global freezing could happen if the polar ice sheets
grew above a certain threshold size. Because bright ice
⁵ reflects sunlight and heat back into space, growing ice
sheets cause further cooling. This feedback loop could
tip the climate system into a deep freeze.
The planet could eventually thaw as carbon dioxide
from volcanoes poking through the ice warms it.
¹⁰ In the late 1980s, Joe Kirschvink nicknamed this
state ‘Snowball Earth’. Around the same time,
geologists began to uncover hints in the geological
record that this freeze-thaw process might have
happened at least once in the distant past—at the end
¹⁵ of the Proterozoic eon, 600 to 800 million years ago.
But it was unclear what could have tipped the
world into that state in the first place. Yannick
Donnadieu in Gif sur Yvette, France, and co-workers
provided an explanation.
²⁰ Donnadieu and colleagues have run computer
simulations of global climate change 750 million years
ago during the break-up of Rodinia, a supercontinent
in which nearly all of the present-day continents were
welded together around the South Pole. As the vast
²⁵ land mass fragmented into smaller pieces, driven by
the engine of continental drift, they found that
evaporation from smaller seas between the isolated
continents increased the rainfall over land areas.
The increased rainfall in turn speeded the
³⁰ weathering of any exposed rock. As rock is worn away
by water, chemical reactions take place in which
carbon dioxide from the air becomes bound up in
carbonate minerals. The more rain there is, the more
of this greenhouse gas is extracted from the air.
³⁵ The team also note that the break-up of Rodinia
was prompted in part by the eruption of great plains of
volcanic rock. The fresh rock from a volcano is more
reactive than old rock, and so it weathers more
quickly, sucking up even more carbon dioxide.
⁴⁰ In the researchers’ computer models, the combined
effects of higher rainfall and quick-weathering rock

reduced the levels of carbon dioxide below the
threshold needed to trigger a Snowball Earth.

Passage 2

One of the most popular ideas [about what
⁴⁵ sparked snowball Earths] focuses on weathering, a
natural process that captures and stores carbon via
the chemical breakdown of rocks. When the
supercontinent Rodinia broke up around 750 million
years ago, the new, smaller continents scattered to
⁵⁰ locations around the equator where it was warm and
wet—prime conditions for weathering. In addition,
large volcanic regions would have emerged as the
giant land mass fragmented, which would have been
extremely vulnerable to weathering.
⁵⁵ The problem: weathering works incredibly slowly
—the process is constantly happening but it affects
the global climate on a million-year time scale. Earth’s
climate system usually self-corrects in that amount of
time. Plus, the greater volcanic activity would have
⁶⁰ released carbon dioxide, making it even harder to
push Earth into a snowball state. This supercontinent
breakup scenario could have caused a runaway
cooling effect only if weathering outpaced other
feedbacks in the climate system, explains Francis
⁶⁵ Macdonald.
Macdonald dated a volcanic region, called the
Franklin Large Igneous Province (LIP). He
discovered the Franklin LIP became active close to
when the first snowball Earth event began around 717
⁷⁰ million years ago. “I started thinking: How could
these be so coincident? How might they be related?"
he says.
Macdonald and Robin Wordsworth used a
combination of geologic evidence and modeling to
⁷⁵ test whether the Franklin LIP could be the culprit. In
a new study, they show the Franklin LIP’s volcanic
activity could have caused extreme climate cooling.
That is because of a unique combination of factors:
First, the Franklin LIP formed in an area rich in
⁸⁰ sulfur; as it erupted, large plumes of hot gas and dust
would have lofted sulfur particles kilometers into the
air. Sulfur particles block the incoming sun and also
keep heat from escaping Earth, which can create
either a warming or cooling effect, depending on the
⁸⁵ location. That’s why the next piece of physical
evidence is key—geologic records show the Franklin
LIP sat at the equator where Earth receives more solar
energy than the amount of heat it radiates back out to
space. According to the researchers’ model, if enough

⁹⁰ sulfur particles reached high enough into the
atmosphere at this equatorial location, it would block
enough of the sun’s incoming energy to trigger runaway
cooling.

Writing and Language Test

Questions 1-11 are based on the following passage.

In Search of Vikings

In 1961, Norwegian archaeologists set out across the
Atlantic Ocean to investigate the legendary Viking
presence in North America. While many scholars
believed the land referred to in the Norse epics as
Vinland was a part of Canada or the United States, no
physical evidence of a Norse village had ever been
discovered in North America. 1 The absence of
physical evidence can be a major issue for crime
investigators, but historians struggle with this problem as
well.

The team of researchers, which included Anne Stine
Ingstad, who studied archaeology at the University of
Oslo, sailed around the coast of Newfoundland, Canada,
2 looked for a place that fit the description in the Norse
sagas. A local fisherman from the village of L’Anse aux
Meadows led them to a nearby site that featured large,
unusual dirt-covered mounds that looked like houses,
and the team decided to begin digging. 3 With Ingstad
supervising the dig 4 at the course of several years, their
excavations provided the first solid archaeological
evidence for the theory of Norse contact with North
America. Ingstad and her team uncovered the remains of
nine structures, including a great hall with a central
fireplace just like the ones the Vikings built in Greenland,
Iceland, and Scandinavia.

While the architectural elements found by Ingstad’s
team indicated possible Norse occupation, some thought
these remains could be evidence of the Indigenous
Beothuk people, who populated the area at least five
hundred years prior to the alleged Viking landing.
Ingstad sought proof that the remains were Norse in
particular. The Beothuk people were hunter-gatherers
who made advanced tools and structures out of wood and
bone, 5 and they used canoes made of bark for many
activities. When Ingstad and her team found one-

thousand-year-old scraps of iron, melted metal, and part
of a stone anvil, they concluded the remains were Norse,
providing proof of a westward Norse migration.

Not only did Ingstad’s excavation establish the
presence of Vikings, but it also 6 revealed much about
their daily lives. Ingstad uncovered 7 structures. These
structures included sheds for protecting boats as well as
the remains of a bathhouse. She also found a small stone
spinning wheel. According to the sagas, spinning yarn
was work generally performed by Norse 8 women this
find suggested that women were among the settlers on

the site. The artifacts that Ingstad found led 9 her, to
conclude that more than one hundred Vikings had lived
at the site for several years, using 10 them as a base to
explore other parts of the coastline. The archaeologists’
findings definitively 11 rewrote the history of Viking
exploration, confirming that Europe and North America
had far older links than people had previously believed.

Questions 12-22 are based on the following passage and supplementary material.

The New Fish on the Block

Species throughout time have been shaped by
divergent evolution, in which a population becomes
more distinct from the rest of its species as 12 they
adapt to a habitat. Biologists have long assumed that
most organisms will 13 initially struggle in the
beginning to survive when faced with an unfamiliar
environment. 14 However, a recent study by biologists
Daniel Bolnick and William Stutz at the University of
Texas at Austin shows how newcomers to an ecosystem
can 15 thrive. When they thrive it allows locally rare
traits to persist and keeps different populations within
the same species genetically closer together.
The experiment’s subject was the three-spined
stickleback fish. Bolnick and Stutz examined how two
16 ecotypes, or, geographic variants, of stickleback—
relatively smaller ones from lakes and larger ones from
streams—fared when removed from their usual habitats.

They also wanted to test whether there was an advantage
to being the less-common 17 ecotype, the researchers
placed sticklebacks from each environment into multiple
cages in lakes and streams. Each cage contained two fish
of one ecotype and one of the other. In half the cages, lake
sticklebacks were in the 18 majority; in the other half,
stream sticklebacks were in the majority. The scientists
then measured fish survival rates over six weeks.

The results suggested that moving into a new habitat
could be beneficial. The survival rate 19 of lake-origin
sticklebacks in both lake and stream cages was higher
than that of stream-origin sticklebacks in both cages,
regardless of whether they were in the majority or the
minority. This advantage was attributed to the greater
amount of nutrients in stream ecosystems. Independent
of a fish’s origin or destination, though, both ecotypes
survived at higher rates when they were in the minority.
When stream fish were placed into lake cages, for
example, their survival rate as the majority ecotype was
about 20 60 percent. When they were in the minority,
nearly 75 percent survived. The researchers inferred that
an advantage of the rare ecotype was having a diet that
differed from that of the residents. “You come in and you
eat something nobody else around you eats, so you aren’t
competing for food,” Bolnick notes.

The 21 researcher’s concluded that because
newcomers face less competition, they are able to survive
more often and pass on their genes in their new
environment. As a result, the pace of divergent evolution,
the process by which populations within a species
become genetically different, slows. In addition, as genes
are passed on, genetic variation increases. Since variation
allows species to express traits that were once rare but are
often advantageous, the 22 species can rely on diet to
survive.

Questions 23-33 are based on the following passage.

A Space of One´s Own

23 Until Shelly Palmer—the CEO of a technology
and marketing company—returned home from a
meeting, he found that a family member had cleaned and
organized his notoriously messy desk. Palmer quickly
realized that he could not find the materials he needed
and that the space was poorly suited to the way he was
used to working. 24 Stringent workplace rules may
trigger employee complaints in many traditional offices,
where employers implement “clean desk policies” based
on the notion that having too many items on and around
one’s desk can be distracting, hampering an employee’s
performance. 25 As it turns out, the state of an
employee’s desk can reflect a number of things about an
employee’s personality.

As a study by psychologists at the University of Exeter
in the United Kingdom 26 have suggested, employees
may experience increased productivity 27 and satisfaction
when they are allowed to determine the number and
arrangement of items on their desks or in their offices.
The psychologists, Craig 28 Knight and S. Alexander
Haslam, asked some participants to do administrative
tasks in a “clean” office that contained only a chair and an
empty desk. Other participants were given the same
furniture along with pictures and plants and told to
decorate the office and desk using any items they liked.
They then conducted the same tasks as those in the bare
office. Participants who had the freedom to arrange their
spaces completed tasks more quickly and with fewer
errors than those confined to the “clean” office, and more
frequently reported feeling empowered.
Some employers might argue that 29 a clean desk
policy is necessary. In the absence of a clean desk policy,
workers would be free to let their desks devolve into
outright clutter. However, a University of Minnesota
study led by Dr. Kathleen D. Vohs shows that disorderly
work spaces can be an asset. Vohs placed participants
either at a tidy desk with papers arranged in piles or
30 placed them at a messy desk with papers strewn across
the desk and floor. She then instructed the participants to
brainstorm new uses for Ping-Pong balls for a
manufacturer. Those at the messy desk were judged to
have developed more creative ideas than those at the tidy
desk, leading Vohs and her team to conclude that
“disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of
tradition, which can produce fresh insights.”

Requiring workers to maintain sparse desks may
31 have a negative impact on office productivity. For
example, employers may have little choice but to adopt a
clean desk policy in cases where limited office space
requires that single desks be shared by multiple
employees. 32 Still, in workplaces where people have
their own desks, employers would 33 as well consider the
potential benefits of permitting workers to arrange—or
clutter—their desks as they like.

Questions 34-44 are based on the following passage.

The U-Wing´s Design Makes a U-Turn

Doug Chiang had a problem with his spaceship.
Designed for the 2016 film Rogue One, the vehicle
sketched out by Chiang and his team of concept
34 artists (professionals who help filmmakers and video
game producers translate ideas from page to screen—
looked a little too 35 above this planet. In any other film,
perhaps the futuristic design would have sufficed, but
Chiang wasn’t working on just any film. He was working
on the latest installment of Star Wars, a franchise of
science-fantasy films whose 36 merchandise includes toy
versions of the spaceship Millennium Falcon.

When preparing to make the original Star Wars film
in the 1970s, director George Lucas turned to concept
artists Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston to create art
depicting the 37 creatures vehicles and locations
described in the screenplay. The aesthetic that emerged
from the artists’ pens and paintbrushes was a blend of
cinematic and world history, incorporating 38 a “used
universe” feel: nothing looked shiny and new. Chiang’s
designs needed to mesh seamlessly with those of

McQuarrie and Johnston because the events depicted in
Rogue One occur immediately before those of the original
Star Wars film. However, when Chiang’s new ship, the U-

Wing, was placed alongside the iconic X-Wing from the
original film, the two vehicles 39 looked as different as
night and day. The Rogue One team would need to take
the U-Wing back to the drawing board.
[1] He had been working on Star Wars films since the
mid-1990s, when Lucas selected him to be the head of the
Lucasfilm art department. [2] At the time, Lucas was
developing 40 a trilogy of three prequels to the original
Star Wars, and 41 he encouraged Chiang to take bold
risks and explore the gray area between “what is Star
Wars and what is not.” [3] This artistic risk-taking often
meant that designs would go through dozens of iterations
before being finalized, but the results were usually
stunning. [4] For Chiang, the U-Wing was just the latest
in a series of Star Wars design challenges. 42

For the next version of the spaceship, Chiang and his
team began incorporating elements from real-world
vehicles, such as the widely recognized 1960s-era “Huey”
helicopter. They also drew directly on 43 McQuarrie’s
and Johnston’s visual vocabulary by integrating the
engine design from the X-Wing. In the end, the team
produced 781 versions of the U-Wing before the director
of Rogue One approved the design. The result was a
spaceship that looked like it could have appeared in the
original film. Chiang says that the final design “looks very
obvious,” but he adds that 44 “we knew the U-Wing was
going to be very challenging.”