📐 SAT
📝 ACT
🎓 AP Exams
About Contact Blog Privacy Policy

SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 2)

Drill 2 · Reading & Writing · Standard English Conventions

0 / 5
←
Previous drill
Drill 1
Next drill
Drill 3
→
More Sat Reading Writing Standard English Conventions drills
Drill 1 5 questions →
Drill 2 — current you are here
Drill 3 5 questions → Drill 4 5 questions → Drill 5 5 questions → Drill 6 5 questions → Drill 7 5 questions → Drill 8 5 questions → Drill 9 5 questions → Drill 10 5 questions → Drill 11 5 questions → Drill 12 5 questions → Drill 13 5 questions → Drill 14 5 questions → Drill 15 5 questions → Drill 16 5 questions → Drill 17 5 questions → Drill 18 5 questions → Drill 19 5 questions → Drill 20 5 questions → Drill 21 5 questions → Drill 22 5 questions → Drill 23 5 questions → Drill 24 5 questions → Drill 25 5 questions → Drill 26 5 questions → Drill 27 5 questions → Drill 28 5 questions → Drill 29 5 questions → Drill 30 5 questions →

About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 2) 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 hard questions cover punctuation, verb forms, and modifier placement, with a full explanation for every answer.

Questions & Explanations

Text
The harpsichord—a keyboard instrument whose strings are plucked rather than ______ produces a bright tone that the player cannot make louder or softer by changing how hard a key is pressed.

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

  • A) struck,
  • B) struck— ✓
  • C) struck
  • D) struck;

Explanation: The phrase "a keyboard instrument whose strings are plucked rather than struck" interrupts the main clause "The harpsichord ... produces a bright tone." Because the interruption is opened with a dash, it has to be closed with a matching dash, so (B) is correct. (A) closes with a comma, which does not match the dash already used to open the interruption. (C) gives no closing mark, so the aside runs straight into the main verb "produces." (D) uses a semicolon, but a semicolon joins two independent clauses, and "produces a bright tone..." has no subject of its own.

Text
The Cassini family's eighteenth-century maps of France, their topographic detail ______ that of many contemporary European maps, remained a national reference for decades.

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

  • A) surpassing ✓
  • B) surpassed
  • C) had surpassed
  • D) was surpassing

Explanation: The main clause is already complete: "maps... remained." The phrase set off by commas, "their topographic detail ______ that of many contemporary European maps," is a supplementary element, so it needs a nonfinite participle, which makes "surpassing" in (A) correct. The finite verbs in (B), (C), and (D) each create a second main clause wedged between commas, a comma splice; even (D) "was surpassing," which matches the singular "detail" in number, still splices.

Text
Histories of mathematics often credit Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci, with introducing to Europe the number sequence that now bears his name. He was not the first to recognize the ________ Indian scholars studying poetic meter had described the same sequence centuries earlier.

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

  • A) pattern, however
  • B) pattern; however,
  • C) pattern, however; ✓
  • D) pattern, however,

Explanation: The clause "He was not the first to recognize the pattern" is the turn against the previous sentence, which credits Fibonacci with bringing the sequence to Europe, so "however" belongs with that clause: the comma before it sets it off, and the semicolon after it joins the clause to the one that follows. That is what (C) does, so it is correct. (A) sets off "however" but leaves no mark to join the two main clauses, so the sentence runs on. (B) is punctuated in a way that looks right, but it moves "however" onto the second clause, marking that clause as the contrast; the point about earlier Indian scholars is not a contrast to "He was not the first," it is the evidence for it, so "however" does not belong there. (D) joins the two main clauses with a comma after "however," a comma splice.

Text
Trained as a musician and working for years as a church organist before he turned to the night sky, ______

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

  • A) the discovery of Uranus in 1781 made William Herschel famous across Europe.
  • B) it was William Herschel who discovered Uranus in 1781, to great acclaim across Europe.
  • C) William Herschel's discovery of Uranus in 1781 brought him fame across Europe.
  • D) William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781 and won fame across Europe. ✓

Explanation: The opening phrase, "Trained as a musician and working for years as a church organist before he turned to the night sky," can describe only a person, so the clause after it has to begin with the person it describes, William Herschel. (D) puts "William Herschel" right after the modifier, so it is correct. (A) places "the discovery of Uranus" next to the modifier, which says the discovery trained as a musician. (B) opens with the "it was... who" construction, so the grammatical subject is "it," which the modifier cannot describe. (C) begins with "William Herschel's discovery," so the noun next to the modifier is the discovery, not Herschel; the right person is present, but only as a possessive. Each of those three is a dangling modifier.

Text
Praised for their unflinching detail and their refusal to romanticize rural poverty, the photographs produced during the Great Depression by documentary photographer Dorothea ________ remain among the most influential images in the history of American art.

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

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

Explanation: The complete subject is long: "the photographs produced during the Great Depression by documentary photographer Dorothea Lange." Its verb is "remain." No matter how long a subject runs, you never separate it from its verb with punctuation, so (B), with nothing added, is correct. The name "Dorothea Lange" is essential because it identifies whose photographs these are, so it cannot be set off either. (A) drops a comma between the subject and "remain," which both cuts the subject off from its verb and suggests, wrongly, that the name could be removed. (C) and (D) make the same mistake with a semicolon and a colon, and both of those marks expect a complete clause on at least one side, which is not the case here.