SAT #14 Reading (Questions 35 & 36)

Question

One of Sumner’s central claims in Passage 2 is that the Kansas-Nebraska Bill had the effect of [...]?

Answer 1

Answer Choices D and B are the correct answers because Lines 58-61 say that, “Amid overflowing professions of regard for the sovereignty of the People in the Territory, they were despoiled of every essential privilege of sovereignty,” which tells us clearly an effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. These Lines tell us that while the bill made the claim that the rights and authority of citizens would be respected, in reality they weren’t given that privilege. This most closely matches Answer Choice D which says that the Bill had the effect of “giving the impression that the rights of citizens in certain territories were being expanded when they were in fact being curtailed.” 

For Question 36, Answer Choice A is incorrect because it gives more of a description of the Bill itself than its effect, and because it doesn’t clearly match any of the answer choices given. Answer Choice C is incorrect because it only gives Sumner’s opinion of slavery and not of the effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Answer Choice D is incorrect because it gives an address of Sumner to his but doesn’t comment on the effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. For Question 35, Answer Choice A is incorrect because none of the Texts discusses the balance of authority between the two types of territorial governments. Answer Choice B is incorrect because the Passage doesn’t clearly describe a federal policy that has widespread popularity of its legitimacy or how the Nebraska Bill deprived it of its legitimacy. Answer Choice C is incorrect because it less clearly matches the Texts given than Answer Choice D, and because the Passage doesn’t mention a territory where the Compromise yielded no obvious benefit or how the citizens there were disenfranchised.

How to solve this? Question 35 asks, “One of Sumner’s central claims in Passage 2 is that the Kansas-Nebraska Bill had the effect of [...]?” Because this is a Paired Question, to solve it we should begin by going through the answer choices for Question 36, looking for any texts that tell us about an effect the Bill. 

For Question 36, Answer Choice A says [...].