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SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 15)

Drill 15 · Reading & Writing · Standard English Conventions

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 15) 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 a conjunctive adverb between two clauses, the past perfect for the earlier of two past events, a singular subject pronoun, keeping a subject and verb unpunctuated, and a finite main verb after an opening participial phrase.

Questions & Explanations

Text
The original Globe burned in 1613 when a stage cannon set the thatched roof ______ second Globe opened on the same foundations the next year.

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

  • A) alight, however a
  • B) alight however, a
  • C) alight; however, a ✓
  • D) alight, however, a

Explanation: A full sentence sits on each side of "however," so a semicolon goes before it and a comma after: "alight; however, a second Globe opened" (C). (A) drops the comma after "however" and splices the two clauses. (B) leaves out the semicolon before "however" entirely. (D) uses commas on both sides, which still leaves a comma splice between two complete sentences.

Text
Beethoven ______ much of his hearing long before he completed the quartets that many listeners consider among his greatest works.

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

  • A) had lost ✓
  • B) lost
  • C) was losing
  • D) has lost

Explanation: Beethoven had lost much of his hearing before he finished the quartets, and both events are past, so the earlier one takes the past perfect "had lost" (A). (B) simple past blurs which event came first. (C) past continuous suggests an unfinished process rather than a loss already complete. (D) present perfect ties the loss to the present, but "long before he completed" fixes it in the past.

Text
Although the Pony Express relied on relays of daring young riders, ______ lasted only about eighteen months before the telegraph made it obsolete.

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

  • A) they
  • B) it's
  • C) they're
  • D) it ✓

Explanation: The thing that lasted eighteen months is the Pony Express itself, a single service, so the pronoun is the singular "it" (D). (A) "they" agrees with the nearer plural "riders" instead of the real subject. (B) "it's" means "it is." (C) "they're" means "they are." The sentence needs a plain singular subject pronoun.

Text
The discovery that the young pharaoh's burial chamber had remained nearly intact for more than three thousand ______ archaeologists around the world.

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

  • A) years; astonished
  • B) years astonished ✓
  • C) years, astonished
  • D) years: astonished

Explanation: The whole phrase up to "three thousand years" is one long subject, and "astonished archaeologists" is its verb, so nothing should come between them (B). (A) a semicolon needs a complete clause on each side. (C) a comma wrongly cuts the subject off from its verb. (D) a colon would announce a list or explanation, and none follows.

Text
Colliding with gases high in the atmosphere, charged particles from the solar wind ______ the shimmering curtains of light we call the aurora.

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

  • A) produce ✓
  • B) producing
  • C) to produce
  • D) having produced

Explanation: After the opening "Colliding..." phrase, the sentence still needs a main verb, and "charged particles produce" supplies a finite one (A). (B) "producing" leaves the sentence with no main verb, so it reads as a fragment. (C) "to produce" does the same. (D) "having produced" is another nonfinite form that can't run the main clause.