2016SHSAT_English

Specific StrategiesVerbalQuestion 1The correct answer for this question must encompass themain points without being overly broad. Option A is a detail,not a main point. Option C describes only the first paragraph.Options D and E are not mentioned. The best answer isOption B. The passage describes how gulls benefit from livingin human-created surroundings.Question 2To answer this question, read every option before choosing thebest one. According to the passage, while gulls may be nuisancesto people and may damage property, they do not posea threat to the lives of human beings in cities, golf courses,seacoasts, or farms. The only reference to gulls’ potentialdanger to people is in lines 47-49: gulls sucked into airplaneengines have resulted in fatal plane crashes. The correctanswer is Option K, “at airports.”Question 3The eating habits of gulls are mentioned in several placesthroughout the passage. You must keep all of these in mindin order to answer correctly. The passage does not mentionstrong flavors, ruling out Option A. Option B is incorrect;although the passage describes how gulls pick up and dropmetal objects, it does not say that they actually eat them.Gulls eat just about everything, including but not limited togarbage, making Options C and E incorrect. Lines 30-33imply that gulls eat the eggs of other bird species, which isOption D.Question 5The special glands mentioned in line 21 allow gulls to drinksalt water as well as fresh water. All of the gull species in thesecond paragraph, except the ring-bills, live near salt wateroceans or the Great Salt Lake. Thus, they need the specialglands in order drink to salt water. Ring-bill gulls live near theGreat Lakes and other inland fresh water. Fresh water is easilyaccessible to them, so they have little use for the specialglands (Option A).Question 6The gull control industry is described in the last paragraph.Its purpose is to discourage sea gulls from congregating nearhuman communities. Options F, G, and H may attract gulls,not discourage them. Option J can be eliminated because thepassage does not say anything about parks and green spaces,or the lack of them. Option K is mentioned in lines 65-66 as away to deter gulls from roosting on buildings and fences.Question 4The statement about gulls dropping nuts and bolts from thesky is in lines 33-35. To find the reason why they do this,read the entire third paragraph. Lines 24-28 say that gullsbreak open shellfish by dropping them onto a hard surface.Apparently they can’t open the shellfish by other means. Alogical inference is that gulls drop metal objects for a similarreason--to try to crack them open--which is the correctanswer (Option H). Frightening off competitors (Option F) ismentioned in the context of driving ducks away from food(lines 38-40), not with regard to dropping objects from the sky.The other options are not supported by the passage.27