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SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 10)

Drill 10 · Reading & Writing · Standard English Conventions

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 10) is a Reading & Writing practice drill covering Standard English Conventions. It contains 5 original questions created by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.

These five questions cover joining two complete sentences, a colon before a list, the comma after an opening clause, a dangling modifier, and choosing a main verb over a participle.

Questions & Explanations

Text
In the eighteenth century, expeditions sailed to remote islands to time the transit of ______ measurements promised a more accurate estimate of the distance from Earth to the sun.

Question 1. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) Venus, the
  • B) Venus; the ✓
  • C) Venus and the
  • D) Venus the

Explanation: Two complete sentences meet at the blank: "expeditions sailed... to time the transit of Venus" and "the measurements promised a more accurate estimate of the distance." Only a semicolon can join two independent clauses like these, which is what (B) does. (A) puts a comma between two full sentences, which is a comma splice. (C) reads as if Venus and the measurements together are the subject of "promised," which scrambles the meaning. (D) runs the two sentences together with no punctuation at all.

Text
The Code of Hammurabi sets fixed penalties for a range of everyday ______ unpaid debts, shoddy building work, and disputes over hired oxen.

Question 2. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) matters: ✓
  • B) matters,
  • C) matters;
  • D) matters

Explanation: A colon sets up the list that follows, and the words in front of it, "sets fixed penalties for a range of everyday matters," form a complete sentence, so (A) works. (B) turns "matters" into the first item of the list, which is not what the sentence says. (C) uses a semicolon, but a semicolon cannot introduce a list. (D) leaves no break at all, so "matters" collides with "unpaid debts."

Text
Because a sourdough starter is really a colony of wild yeast and bacteria kept alive by regular ______ baker who skips too many days can lose years of careful cultivation in one weekend.

Question 3. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) feeding; a
  • B) feeding. A
  • C) feeding a
  • D) feeding, a ✓

Explanation: The sentence opens with a dependent clause, "Because a sourdough starter is... kept alive by regular feeding," which attaches to the main clause with a comma, so (D) is right. (A) uses a semicolon, but a semicolon cannot follow a dependent clause. (B) puts a period after "feeding," leaving the "Because" clause as a fragment. (C) drops the punctuation, so "feeding" runs straight into "a baker."

Text
Translating a French article about Babbage's Analytical Engine in 1843, ______

Question 4. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) the appended notes ran three times longer than the article itself.
  • B) it was Lovelace whose notes ran three times longer than the article, per the passage's account.
  • C) Ada Lovelace added notes that ran three times longer than the article itself. ✓
  • D) Lovelace's notes ran three times longer than the article itself.

Explanation: The opening phrase has to describe whoever did the translating, and that person is Ada Lovelace, so the main clause should start with her name, as in (C). (A) makes "the appended notes" the translator. (B) puts Lovelace inside an "it was" construction, so the noun right after the modifier is still "it," not a person who could translate. (D) puts "Lovelace's notes" in the subject spot, but the notes did not do the translating either.

Text
Mangrove forests, their tangled roots trapping sediment and breaking the force of incoming waves, ______ many low-lying coasts from the worst of tropical storms.

Question 5. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) shielding
  • B) shield ✓
  • C) to shield
  • D) shields

Explanation: The subject "Mangrove forests" needs a main verb, and the plural finite form "shield" supplies it, so (B) is correct. (A) "shielding" is a participle, which leaves the sentence with no main verb and turns it into a fragment. (C) "to shield" does the same thing. (D) "shields" is finite but singular, so it does not agree with the plural "forests."