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SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 11)

Drill 11 · Reading & Writing · Standard English Conventions

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 11) 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 closing an inserted phrase, semicolons in a list whose items already contain commas, a participle in an added phrase, dashes around an interruption, and subject-verb agreement across a long subject.

Questions & Explanations

Text
The Jikji, a Korean Buddhist text printed with movable metal type in ______ Gutenberg's Bible by nearly eight decades.

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

  • A) 1377, predates ✓
  • B) 1377—predates
  • C) 1377 predates
  • D) 1377; predates

Explanation: The phrase "a Korean Buddhist text printed with movable metal type in 1377" describes the Jikji and is opened with a comma, so it needs a closing comma to match, which is (A). (B) closes the same phrase with a dash, so the two marks do not pair. (C) leaves the phrase open with no closing mark. (D) drops a semicolon between the subject "Jikji" and its verb "predates," which cannot be separated that way.

Text
The ancient theater at Epidaurus owes its acoustics to three features: the steep rake of the stone seating, which reflects sound upward; the corrugated limestone of the seats, which filters low murmurs from the ______ the open bowl of the hillside, which helps projected speech reach the back rows.

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

  • A) crowd, and
  • B) crowd and
  • C) crowd; and ✓
  • D) crowd: and

Explanation: Each item in this list already contains its own comma, so the items are separated by semicolons, and the semicolon printed after "upward" sets the pattern, so (C) keeps it going. (A) uses a comma, which blurs into the commas inside each item. (B) drops the punctuation between the last two items. (D) puts a colon inside the series, where it has no role.

Text
A foraging honeybee returns to the hive and performs a looping "waggle dance," its angle and duration ______ the direction and distance of a food source to the watching workers.

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

  • A) encode
  • B) encoding ✓
  • C) encodes
  • D) to encode

Explanation: After the main clause, the phrase "its angle and duration ___ the direction and distance" is a supplement, not a second sentence, so it takes the participle "encoding," which is (B). (A) uses the finite "encode," which joins to the main clause with only a comma and makes a comma splice. (C) "encodes" has the same splice problem and is singular besides. (D) "to encode" leaves the phrase hanging as a fragment.

Text
Harrison's fourth chronometer—a brass instrument losing only a few seconds on the long voyage to ______ the astronomers who had insisted that no clock could survive a rolling deck.

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

  • A) Jamaica, challenged
  • B) Jamaica challenged
  • C) Jamaica; challenged
  • D) Jamaica—challenged ✓

Explanation: The phrase "a brass instrument losing only a few seconds on the long voyage to Jamaica" interrupts the sentence and opens with a dash, so it has to close with a dash, which is (D). (A) closes it with a comma, so the marks do not pair. (B) gives no closing mark, leaving the interruption open. (C) uses a semicolon, which would sever the subject "chronometer" from its verb "challenged."

Text
The set of major genetic changes that helped separate modern maize from its wild ancestor teosinte ______ surprisingly small, though many minor genes also contributed.

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

  • A) is ✓
  • B) are
  • C) were
  • D) have been

Explanation: The subject is "The set," a singular noun, even though "changes," "maize," and "teosinte" sit between it and the verb, so the singular "is" is correct in (A). (B) "are" agrees with the nearer plural "changes" instead of the real subject. (C) "were" is plural and in the wrong tense for a present-day fact. (D) "have been" is also plural.