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SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 12)

Drill 12 · Reading & Writing · Standard English Conventions

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 12) 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 keeping a subject next to its verb, punctuating "however" between two sentences, a dangling modifier, closing a phrase set in parentheses, and separate possessives for two owners.

Questions & Explanations

Text
The team of British scientists who first measured the sudden springtime thinning of ozone above ______ their own instruments before they trusted the data.

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

  • A) Antarctica, double-checked
  • B) Antarctica; double-checked
  • C) Antarctica double-checked ✓
  • D) Antarctica: double-checked

Explanation: The complete subject runs all the way to "Antarctica," and a subject should not be cut off from its verb "double-checked," so the answer adds nothing, which is (C). (A) drops a comma between the subject and its verb. (B) does the same with a semicolon, which also wrongly implies a complete sentence on each side. (D) inserts a colon, but a colon needs a complete clause in front of it, and "The team... above Antarctica" is only a subject.

Text
The Voyager probes carry a gold-plated record of sounds and images from ______ spacecraft will drift through interstellar space for tens of thousands of years.

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

  • A) Earth; however, the ✓
  • B) Earth, however, the
  • C) Earth however the
  • D) Earth; however the

Explanation: Two complete sentences sit on either side of "however," so they need a semicolon before it and a comma after it, as in (A). (B) uses commas on both sides, which leaves a comma splice between the two sentences. (C) drops the punctuation entirely and fuses them. (D) keeps the semicolon but forgets the comma that follows "however."

Text
Carved from a single block of cypress and designed to change expression as the actor turns his head, ______

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

  • A) a skilled performer draws grief or joy from the same fixed face.
  • B) a Noh mask can read as grief one moment and joy the next. ✓
  • C) there is grief or joy in the same unchanging features.
  • D) the actor's slight movements summon grief or joy.

Explanation: The opening describes something "carved from a single block of cypress," and that something is the Noh mask, so the main clause should begin with the mask, as in (B). (A) puts "a skilled performer" next to the modifier, but the performer was not carved from cypress. (C) opens with "there," so no actual noun sits next to the modifier. (D) makes "the actor's slight movements" the carved object, which they are not.

Text
The original Lascaux cave paintings (rediscovered by four teenagers in ______ now off-limits to the public to protect their fragile pigments.

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

  • A) 1940 are
  • B) 1940, are
  • C) 1940; are
  • D) 1940) are ✓

Explanation: The phrase "rediscovered by four teenagers in 1940" sits inside parentheses, and an opening parenthesis has to be matched by a closing one, so only (D) closes it properly. (A) leaves the parenthesis open, so "1940" runs straight into "are." (B) tries to close it with a comma, which cannot pair with a parenthesis. (C) uses a semicolon, which also cannot close a parenthesis and cuts the subject "paintings" from its verb.

Text
At a busy market stall, a buyer and a seller each flick the beads of a suanpan, and ______ totals have to match to the last coin before the sale can close.

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

  • A) the buyer and seller's
  • B) the buyer's and the seller's ✓
  • C) the buyers' and sellers' as used in the sentence
  • D) the buyers and sellers

Explanation: The buyer and the seller each keep their own count, so the sentence needs two separate possessives, "the buyer's and the seller's," which is (B). (A) "the buyer and seller's" marks one shared total, but they keep separate counts. (C) makes both nouns plural, though the stall has a single buyer and a single seller. (D) drops the apostrophes and shows no possession at all.