SAT Question 94f4eecb: Answer & Explanation

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Las sergas de Esplandián was a novel popular in sixteenth-century Spain.
• The novel featured a fictional island inhabited solely by Black women and known as California.
• That same century, Spanish explorers learned of an “island” off the west coast of Mexico.
• They called it California after the island in the novel.
• The “island” was actually the peninsula now known as Baja California (“Lower California”), which lies to the south of the US state of California.

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Difficulty:Medium

The student wants to emphasize the role a misconception played in the naming of a place. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

The novel Las sergas de Esplandián featured a fictional island known as California.

To the south of the US state of California lies Baja California (“Lower California”), originally called California after a fictional place.

In the sixteenth century, Spanish explorers learned of a peninsula off the west coast of Mexico and called it California.

Thinking it was an island, Spanish explorers called a peninsula California after an island in a popular novel.

SAT Question 94f4eecb: Rhetorical Synthesis answer and explanation

Explanation

Why the other choices are wrong