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SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 16)

Drill 16 · Reading & Writing · Standard English Conventions

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 16) 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 independent clauses with a comma and a coordinating conjunction, parallel structure in a correlative pair, the colon before a list, the past perfect for the earlier of two past events, and the singular possessive pronoun.

Questions & Explanations

Text
Le Verrier never pointed a telescope at the sky to look for the eighth ______ calculations told the Berlin astronomer Johann Galle precisely where to aim one in 1846.

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

  • A) planet, his
  • B) planet, but his ✓
  • C) planet; however his
  • D) planet but his

Explanation: The blank separates two independent clauses: "Le Verrier never pointed a telescope at the sky to look for the eighth planet" and "his calculations told ... where to aim one." To join two independent clauses, you use either a semicolon alone or a comma plus a coordinating conjunction, and the contrast here calls for "but," which (B) supplies. (A) drops the conjunction and leaves a comma splice. (C) uses a semicolon correctly but then adds "however" with no comma after it, and a conjunctive adverb that opens the second clause needs that comma. (D) keeps "but" but loses the comma a coordinating conjunction needs when it links two full clauses.

Text
The 1995 return of wolves to Yellowstone has been credited with reshaping the park's northern range not only by thinning the elk herds that had overbrowsed the riverbanks but also ______ streamside willows the room to recover.

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

  • A) for giving
  • B) it gave
  • C) giving
  • D) by giving ✓

Explanation: The sentence runs on the correlative pair "not only ... but also," and whatever follows "but also" has to match the form of what follows "not only." The first half is "by thinning the elk herds," so the second half needs the same "by + -ing" shape: (D) "by giving." (A) swaps the preposition to "for," which no longer mirrors "by thinning." (B) turns the second half into a full clause, "it gave," which no longer matches "by thinning." (C) keeps the -ing word but drops the "by," so the two halves are no longer parallel.

Text
Near the start of his Elements, Euclid laid out several claims he expected readers to accept without ______ that any two points can be joined by a line, that all right angles are equal, and that the whole is greater than the part.

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

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

Explanation: Everything before the blank is a complete sentence: "Near the start of his Elements, Euclid laid out several claims he expected readers to accept without proof." What follows is the list of those claims, and a colon is the mark that introduces a list after a complete clause, so (C) is right. (A) uses a comma, which is too weak to set up the list cleanly here. (B) uses a semicolon, but a semicolon needs a full sentence on its right, and the three "that ..." items are a list, not an independent clause. (D) adds "and," which reads as if proof were one more item rather than the thing the list explains.

Text
By the time the Brooklyn Bridge finally opened in 1883, its designer, John Roebling, ______ from tetanus more than a decade earlier, leaving his son and daughter-in-law to finish the work.

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

  • A) had died ✓
  • B) died
  • C) was dying
  • D) has died

Explanation: Two past events appear in this sentence: the bridge opening in 1883 and Roebling's death, which came years before that. English marks the earlier of two past events with the past perfect, so (A) "had died" is correct. (B) "died" is plain past; with the opening "By the time ..." pointing back to a still-earlier completed event, the past perfect is the clearer and more standard choice. (C) "was dying" describes an action still in progress, but his death was a single completed event a decade earlier. (D) "has died" is present perfect, which links a past action to the present moment and does not fit a sentence anchored in 1883.

Text
Because the polar jet stream snakes around the globe in a single ribbon of fast-moving air, ______ exact path can swing hundreds of miles north or south from one week to the next.

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

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

Explanation: The jet stream is singular, so the pronoun that points back to it must be singular and possessive: (B) "its." (A) "it's" is the contraction for "it is," which would read "it is exact path." (C) "their" is plural, but there is only one jet stream in this sentence. (D) "they're" means "they are," another verb form where a possessive is needed.