Question Bank / Reading and Writing / Cross-Text Connections
Cross-Text Connections SAT question
Reading and Writing · Craft and Structure · Hard · Answer it here, explanation included.
Text 1
Soy sauce, made from fermented soybeans, is noted for its umami flavor. Umami—one of the five basic tastes along with sweet, bitter, salty, and sour—was formally classified when its taste receptors were discovered in the 2000s. In 2007, to define the pure umami flavor scientists Rie Ishii and Michael O’Mahony used broths made from shiitake mushrooms and kombu seaweed, and two panels of Japanese and US judges closely agreed on a description of the taste.
Text 2
A 2022 experiment by Manon Jünger et al. led to a greater understanding of soy sauce’s flavor profile. The team initially presented a mixture of compounds with low molecular weights to taste testers who found it was not as salty or bitter as real soy sauce. Further analysis of soy sauce identified proteins, including dipeptides, that enhanced umami flavor and also contributed to saltiness. The team then made a mix of 50 chemical compounds that re-created soy sauce’s flavor.
Based on the texts, if Ishii and O’Mahony (Text 1) and Jünger et al. (Text 2) were aware of the findings of both experiments, they would most likely agree with which statement?
ExplanationShow
Choice D is the best answer. Ishii and O’Mahony were trying to isolate the pure umami flavor, while Jünger was trying to recreate soy sauce, which has a mix of flavors that includes umami. Accordingly, the broths from Text 1 are not described as having any soy sauce in them—just “shiitake mushrooms and kombu seaweed.” So they probably don’t have as much of the dipeptides described in Text 2, which were found to be a key part of soy sauce’s umami-ness and its saltiness.
Choice A is incorrect. Neither text supports this. Neither text gets into the diets of people in the United States, nor the diets of people in Japan. Choice B is incorrect. Neither text supports this. Text 2 does talk about the molecular weights of chemical compounds, but there isn’t enough information provided about molecular weights in Text 1 to make an inference about what the scientists in Text 1 would say. Choice C is incorrect. Neither text supports this. Text 1 briefly mentions that soy sauce is “made from fermented soybeans,” but it never claims that fermentation is responsible for its flavor in any way. And Text 2 never mentions fermentation at all.
Drill this skill on Aceit
Adaptive practice, a daily plan, and score tracking take a free account so we can save your work.
More Cross-Text Connections questions
- Text 1 In 1916, H. Dugdale Sykes disputed claims that The Two Noble Kinsmen was coauthored by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Sykes felt Fletcher's contributions to the pla
- Text 1 Public policy researcher Anthony Fowler studied the history of elections in Australia, a country that requires citizens to vote. Fowler argues that requiring citizens to vo
- Text 1 Growth in the use of novel nanohybrids—materials created from the conjugation of multiple distinct nanomaterials, such as iron oxide and gold nanomaterials conjugated for u
- Text 1 Africa's Sahara region—once a lush ecosystem—began to dry out about 8,000 years ago. A change in Earth's orbit that affected climate has been posited as a cause of desertif
- Text 1 Dance choreographer Alvin Ailey's deep admiration for jazz music can most clearly be felt in the rhythms and beats his works were set to. Ailey collaborated with some of th
- Text 1 Microbes are tiny organisms in the soil, water, and air all around us. They thrive even in very harsh conditions. That's why Noah Fierer and colleagues were surprised when