• 48 questions

SAT Reading Practice Test

Unofficial questions on short texts, sorted by the six reading skills the College Board names for the SAT.

Inés had promised herself she would not look at the clock again. The bread would rise when it rose. Still, every few minutes she found a reason to cross the kitchen: a towel to fold, a window to check. Each trip ended at the bowl, where she lifted the cloth and found the dough exactly as she had left it. Which choice best sums up the text's main idea?

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Unofficial practice questions, not affiliated with the College Board, which owns the SAT. Bank checked October 9, 2026.

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All 48 questions

Central Ideas and Details 8

  • Inés had promised herself she would not look at the clock again. The bread would rise when it rose. Still, every few minutes she found a reason to cross the kitchen: a towel to fold, a window to check. Each trip ended at the bowl, where she lifted the cloth and found the dough exactly as she had left it. Which choice best sums up the text's main idea? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Central Ideas and Details. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Kelp are large brown algae that grow in dense groups in cool, fairly shallow water near shore. Like trees in a forest, they give food and shelter to thousands of species of fish, invertebrates and marine mammals. Because kelp need light for photosynthesis, kelp forests form in shallow open water. In ideal conditions kelp can grow as much as 18 inches in a day. According to the text, why do kelp forests form in shallow water? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Central Ideas and Details. Facts in the text: NOAA National Ocean Service, "What is a kelp forest?"
  • Most visitors photograph the mural on Tollgate Road from across the road, where the whole wall fits in one frame. The painter, however, built the picture out of hundreds of small portraits of neighbors, each no larger than a hand. From a distance they blur into a river. Only a viewer standing close enough to touch the wall can see who the river is made of. Which choice best sums up the text's main idea? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Central Ideas and Details. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
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Central Ideas and Details, continued

  • The night school in the port town of Harrowgate had no building of its own. Its teacher, Thea Brandvold, did not wait for one. Three evenings a week she set up a blackboard in the cannery lunchroom after the last shift, and workers who had never finished grade school stayed to learn fractions and letter writing. Which choice best sums up the text's main idea? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Central Ideas and Details. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Rain that falls on land is slightly acidic, so it slowly wears away rock. The ions this releases are carried by streams and rivers to the ocean. Living things in the sea use up many of these ions, but others are not removed, and their concentrations build over time. Two of them, chloride and sodium, now make up about 85 percent of all the ions dissolved in seawater. According to the text, why have some ions become concentrated in seawater? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Central Ideas and Details. Facts in the text: NOAA National Ocean Service, "Why is the ocean salty?"
  • Sponges are often mistaken for plants, but they are animals: simple ones, with no tissues. Like corals, they stay fixed in one place. Unlike corals, which all need salt water, sponges include many species that live in fresh water and in estuaries. On a reef, sponges filter the water and collect bacteria, which can affect water quality for the organisms around them. According to the text, how do sponges differ from corals? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Central Ideas and Details. Facts in the text: NOAA National Ocean Service, "What is a sponge?"
  • Spring tides have nothing to do with the season. The name comes from the idea of the tide "springing forth." They occur twice each lunar month, at the new and full moon, when the Earth, sun and moon are nearly in line. The sun's pull is then added to the moon's, so high tides are a little higher and low tides a little lower than average. According to the text, what happens during a spring tide? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Central Ideas and Details. Facts in the text: NOAA National Ocean Service, "What are spring and neap tides?"
  • Wendell had rehearsed the speech on the bus, in the shower and, quietly, during math. He knew every word. What he had not rehearsed was the walk: eleven steps from his seat to the microphone, with the whole school turning to watch. By the fourth step the first sentence had left him, and by the eighth he was not sure of his own name. According to the text, what had Wendell failed to prepare for? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Central Ideas and Details. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.

Command of Evidence 9

  • A city replaced the walk signals at ten downtown crossings with signals that give people on foot a head start of several seconds before cars get a green light. A transportation planner claims that the change made the crossings safer for walkers. Which finding, if true, would most directly support the planner's claim? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Command of Evidence (textual). The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • A gardener claims that her sunflowers grew taller this year than last because she watered them with rainwater collected from the roof instead of tap water. Which finding, if true, would most weaken the gardener's claim? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Command of Evidence (textual). The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • A library asked 200 visitors what they came for. Bar graph, number of visitors: borrowing books, 90; using computers, 60; studying, 35; attending events, 15. A student writes that most visitors do not come to borrow books. Which choice uses data from the graph to support the student's statement? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Command of Evidence (quantitative). The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • A music store counted instrument rentals for two months. Table, September and October: guitars, 420 and 400; keyboards, 180 and 240; drum kits, 60 and 90. The owner says that interest in instruments other than the guitar is growing. Which choice uses data from the table to support the owner's statement? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Command of Evidence (quantitative). The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • A reviewer discusses "Platform," a poem set in a railway town. The reviewer claims that throughout the poem, the speaker is torn between leaving home and staying. Which lines from the poem best support the reviewer's claim? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Command of Evidence (textual). The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • A student has been watching the minnows in the classroom tank for a month. The student hypothesizes that the minnows swim closer together when they sense danger. Which observation, if true, would most directly support the student's hypothesis? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Command of Evidence (textual). The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • A typing class recorded how many words per minute students gained in a term after practicing for different numbers of minutes a day. Table, daily practice and words gained: 0 minutes, 2; 10 minutes, 10; 20 minutes, 14; 30 minutes, 15. A student concludes that added practice helps most for those who start with little or none. Which choice uses data from the table to support the student's conclusion? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Command of Evidence (quantitative). The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • In a short story, a narrator describes her grandfather's workshop. A student claims that the narrator sees the workshop as a place where time seems to have stopped. Which quotation from the story best illustrates the student's claim? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Command of Evidence (textual). The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Students at a middle school wondered whether the bees visiting their garden prefer certain colors. They set out feeders that were identical except for color, each holding the same sugar water, and counted visits for a week. They hypothesized that the bees favor blue over the other colors. Which finding, if true, would most directly support the students' hypothesis? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Command of Evidence (textual). The answer rests on the text printed in the question.

Inferences 6

  • A bookshop keeps a shelf of rare first editions beside the door, though it sells only two or three of them a year. Asked why she gives them such a prominent spot, the owner pointed to the customers gathered around the shelf. People who stop to look, she said, usually stay and buy a paperback. Her answer suggests that she ______ Which choice fills the blank most logically? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Inferences. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • The diary of a ship's cook, kept on a long voyage, mentions fresh fruit almost daily in its first weeks. After the second month the word never appears again, though the cook goes on listing every meal. The most reasonable conclusion is that ______ Which choice fills the blank most logically? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Inferences. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Ms. Feng has taught the same woodworking class for twenty years, and for twenty years the first project has been a plain box. Students groan. But she has noticed that those who rush the box, leaving gaps at the corners, later struggle with drawers and frames, while those who take care with it rarely do. She keeps assigning the box because she believes that ______ Which choice fills the blank most logically? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Inferences. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Sunlight may be detected as far as 1,000 meters down in the ocean, but there is rarely any significant light below 200 meters. Past that depth, so little light gets through that photosynthesis is no longer possible. It follows that organisms that make their food by photosynthesis ______ Which choice most logically completes the text? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Inferences. Facts in the text: NOAA National Ocean Service, "How far does light travel in the ocean?"
  • Two neighboring towns each built a footbridge over the same river. Brill's bridge leads from its main street to a park. Oakley's leads from a parking lot to a warehouse district that closes at five. On weekend evenings Brill's bridge is crowded, and Oakley's is nearly empty. The difference suggests that how much a footbridge is used depends largely on ______ Which choice most logically completes the text? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Inferences. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • When water grows too warm, corals expel the algae that live in their tissues and turn completely white. This is called bleaching. The algae are the coral's main source of food, so a bleached coral is under stress. It is not dead, however, and corals can survive a bleaching event. A white coral, therefore, ______ Which choice fills the blank most logically? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Information and Ideas, Inferences. Facts in the text: NOAA National Ocean Service, "What is coral bleaching?"

Words in Context 11

  • At her small restaurant by the harbor, the chef's menu is far from ______: she serves dessert first and soup last, and no dish appears two nights in a row. Which word fits the blank most logically and precisely? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Words in Context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "conventional".
  • The bakers set aside the usual fixes, such as larger fans and thicker shades, and tried a novel way to cool their kitchen: pumping night air through hollow floors. In this text, which meaning is closest for the word "novel"? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Words in Context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "novel".
  • Bicycles are so ______ in the old quarter that the city has removed most of the car parking there and put bicycle racks on nearly every corner. Which word fits the blank most logically and precisely? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Words in Context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "prevalent".
  • The coach worried that criticizing the goalkeeper in front of the whole team would ______ the confidence the young player had built up over the season. Which word fits the blank most logically and precisely? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Words in Context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "undermine".
  • Decades later she could still give a vivid account of the flood: the color of the water, the sound of the bridge giving way, the neighbor's dog riding a door downstream. In this text, which meaning is closest for the word "vivid"? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Words in Context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "vivid".
  • The first witness said the truck ran the red light. Video from a nearby shop later ______ her account, showing the light turn red a full second before the truck entered the crossing. Which word fits the blank most logically and precisely? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Words in Context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "corroborate".
  • In the dry season, water in the valley becomes ______: streams shrink to a trickle, and herders must walk their animals for hours to reach the few wells that still hold any. Which word fits the blank most logically and precisely? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Words in Context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "scarce".
  • The leak in the library roof was ______: roofers sealed it three times in one winter, and each time water found its way through again within weeks. Which word fits the blank most logically and precisely? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Words in Context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "persistent".
  • The new swimmers were ______ at the edge of the pool, dipping in a toe and stepping back again, but within a week they were jumping in without a pause. Which word fits the blank most logically and precisely? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Words in Context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "hesitant".
  • The planning committee called its building schedule ______, warning that the dates could change once the builders finished inspecting the site and reported what repairs were needed. Which word fits the blank most logically and precisely? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Words in Context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "tentative".
  • The theater stands beside the busiest road in the city. Decades of traffic noise did nothing to ______ its appeal; if anything, the crowds at its doors grew. Which word fits the blank most logically and precisely? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Words in Context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "diminish".

Text Structure and Purpose 9

  • The first week, the stray cat would not come past the gate. The second week, it ate from a dish on the step while Mr. Haddad stood well back. By the end of the month it slept on his porch chair and looked at him, when he came out with his coffee, as though he were the guest. Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Text Structure and Purpose. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • For years, guidebooks have described the Harlan Trail as an easy walk. The description fits the first mile, which is flat and shaded. It does not fit the second, where the path climbs steeply over loose rock, and it is in the second mile that most rescues take place. Which choice best names the text's main purpose? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Text Structure and Purpose. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • The harbor at dawn belongs to the gulls. By eight the fishing boats are back, and for an hour the docks are all shouting and ice and silver. Then the trucks leave, the hoses come out, and by noon a visitor would never guess that anything had happened here at all. Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Text Structure and Purpose. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • "I know the recipe by heart," my aunt said, and then opened the stained notebook anyway, running her finger down the page as she always did. Her mother's handwriting leaned to the left. She was not checking the amounts. Which choice best describes the function of the last sentence? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Text Structure and Purpose. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Many mangrove forests can be recognized by a dense tangle of prop roots that make the trees look as if they are standing on stilts. These roots let the trees handle the daily rise and fall of the tides. They also slow the moving water, so that sediment settles and builds up the muddy bottom, and the forests help protect the coast from erosion. Which choice best names the text's main purpose? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Text Structure and Purpose. Facts in the text: NOAA National Ocean Service, "What is a mangrove forest?"
  • Most people assume that the town's clock tower has always kept poor time. In fact, for its first sixty years it was accurate to the minute. The trouble began only when the original weights were replaced with lighter ones during a repair. Which choice best describes the function of the second sentence in the text as a whole? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Text Structure and Purpose. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Some residents say the town's cinema closed because the new highway bypass took away passing traffic. Others blame the larger theater that opened in the next town. A box of ticket stubs found last year may settle the matter: it shows attendance falling for a decade before the bypass was built. Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Text Structure and Purpose. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • To join the chess ladder, write your name on the bottom rung of the board in the hall. You may challenge anyone up to two rungs above you. Win, and the two of you trade places; lose, and nothing changes. The ladder is redrawn every Friday. Which choice best names the text's main purpose? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Text Structure and Purpose. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Why would a shop put its cheapest goods at the very back? The grocer on Garrick Street has an answer. Customers who come only for milk, he says, must walk past every other shelf to reach it, and few of them leave with milk alone. Which choice best describes the function of the opening question? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Text Structure and Purpose. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.

Cross-Text Connections 5

  • Text 1: A park ranger writes that the meadow's wildflowers have declined because deer, now more numerous, eat the young plants. Text 2: A botanist fenced deer out of several plots in the meadow for three years. Wildflowers declined inside the fences as much as outside them. Based on the texts, what would the botanist in Text 2 most likely say about the ranger's explanation? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Cross-Text Connections. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Text 1: Handwritten notes help students learn. Because writing by hand is slow, students cannot copy a lecture word for word; they must choose and rephrase, and that work is what makes ideas stick. Text 2: In our school's trial, students who typed their notes did as well on quizzes as those who wrote by hand, provided they were told to summarize and not to transcribe. Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to Text 1? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Cross-Text Connections. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Text 1: The novel's final chapter, in which the narrator simply walks home, is a failure of nerve: after three hundred pages of conflict, nothing is resolved. Text 2: The walk home is the resolution. For the first time the narrator passes her old school, the shuttered shop and her father's house without stopping to argue with any of them. Based on the texts, on which point would the two critics most likely disagree? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Cross-Text Connections. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Text 1: The pool's new online booking system is a success. Swimmers no longer line up at the door at dawn to claim a lane. Text 2: The line at the door is gone, but lanes are now booked up days ahead, and people who cannot plan that far, such as shift workers, rarely get one. Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely describe the view in Text 1? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Cross-Text Connections. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.
  • Text 1: Town records should be kept on paper. A ledger from 1890 can still be read today by anyone who opens it, with no machine at all. Text 2: Paper lasts, but it stays in one room. Since the county scanned its ledgers, people who could never travel to the archive have searched them from home. Which choice best describes the relationship between the two texts? College Board, SAT Suite content domains: Craft and Structure, Cross-Text Connections. The answer rests on the text printed in the question.

How this list was compiled: Our own texts and questions, written to the College Board's published description of the SAT Reading and Writing section (https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/sat/whats-on-the-test/reading-writing and https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/practice/content-domains, read 2026-10-09) and to its Assessment Framework for the Digital SAT Suite, Tables 10 and A34 (https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/assessment-framework-for-digital-sat-suite.pdf): Information and Ideas about 26% and Craft and Structure about 28% of the section, six skills in all. The bank holds 23 and 25 questions. Unless a question names a source, the people, places, studies and stories in the texts are invented for practice and each answer rests on the text printed with it. Seven science texts restate facts from the NOAA National Ocean Service page named in the question (oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts, read 2026-10-09). Word meanings in the eleven Words in Context questions were read at Wiktionary (en.wiktionary.org, read 2026-10-09). Licence: Texts, questions, choices and explanations are original work of this site.

How it works

This free SAT reading practice test has 48 questions of our own, each on one short text or pair of texts. It is unofficial and not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the College Board, which owns the SAT.

Read the full guide

Two reading domains

The College Board's outline, read October 9, 2026, names four domains in the Reading and Writing section. Two are reading: Information and Ideas (about 26% of the section) and Craft and Structure (about 28%). This SAT reading section practice test holds 23 and 25 questions in them.

Six skills

Questions are sorted by the skill names the College Board uses: Central Ideas and Details, Command of Evidence, Inferences, Words in Context, Text Structure and Purpose, and Cross-Text Connections.

Timed round

Exam mode draws 27 questions for 32 minutes, the length and time of one real module. A real module also asks grammar and revision questions; the SAT grammar practice test covers the grammar.

Questions and answers

Is there a reading section on the SAT?

Not on its own. The College Board describes two sections, Reading and Writing, and Math. Reading questions share the first with grammar and revision questions: 54 questions in 64 minutes, each on one short passage or pair of passages.

What kind of passages are on the SAT?

Short ones: 25 to 150 words, from literature, history and social studies, the humanities and science, the College Board says. Here the stories and cases are invented for practice, and each science text names the NOAA page it was checked against.

Is this SAT reading practice test the real exam?

No. The texts and questions were written for this site from the College Board's published description of the section. None repeats or rewords a real, released or sample question, and a result here does not forecast a score.

How is SAT reading scored?

Reading has no score of its own. The College Board's score page gives one Reading and Writing score from 200 to 800, and the score report shows how you did in each of the section's four content areas.

Can I take this SAT reading practice test online or on paper?

Both. It runs in the browser with no sign-up. After a round, Print turns the questions into a sheet you can lengthen to the whole bank, with an answer key if you tick it; the print window can save it as a PDF.

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