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SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 21)

Drill 21 · Reading & Writing · Standard English Conventions

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 21) 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.

Five hard questions on nonrestrictive clauses, the compound predicate, unclear pronoun reference, plural possessives, and punctuating an interrupting phrase.

Questions & Explanations

Text
Magna Carta ______ is often cited as an early written limit on the power of the English crown.

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

  • A) which the barons forced King John to seal in 1215
  • B) , which the barons forced King John to seal in 1215 in the sentence as written
  • C) which the barons forced King John to seal in 1215,
  • D) , which the barons forced King John to seal in 1215, ✓

Explanation: Magna Carta names one specific document, so the clause about King John adds detail rather than identifying which charter is meant, and nonessential detail sits inside a pair of commas, making (D) right. (A) uses no commas, treating the clause as essential though the document's identity is already fixed. (B) opens the pair but never closes it, while (C) closes it but never opens it, so each uses only one of the two commas the clause needs.

Text
Around six million years ago, the Mediterranean was sealed off from the Atlantic ______ dried into broad flats of salt and gypsum.

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

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

Explanation: One subject, "the Mediterranean," does two things here: it was sealed off and it dried. When a single subject takes two verbs, no comma goes before "and," so (A) is right. (B) inserts a comma before "and" as if a new sentence were starting, but there is no second subject. (C) uses a semicolon, which has to join two complete sentences, and "dried into broad flats" is not one. (D) uses only a comma with no conjunction, leaving the two verbs spliced together.

Text
Semmelweis urged the hospital's chief obstetrician to adopt handwashing, but for years afterward ______ resisted the idea that the practice had saved lives.

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

  • A) he
  • B) the man
  • C) the chief obstetrician ✓
  • D) Semmelweis

Explanation: After two singular figures, Semmelweis and the chief obstetrician, the pronoun could mean either one, and the sentence needs to say who held out, so naming the chief obstetrician makes (C) right. (A) keeps "he," which points at both men at once. (B) "the man" is just as vague, leaving the reader to guess. (D) names Semmelweis, the doctor who pushed for handwashing, which reverses what the sentence says.

Text
As soot darkened the tree trunks, the ______ relative numbers reversed, and the dark variety came to outnumber the pale one.

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

  • A) two forms
  • B) two forms' ✓
  • C) two form's
  • D) two forms's

Explanation: Two distinct forms of the moth each hold a share of the population, so the numbers belong to the forms, a plural noun, and a plural ending in s shows possession with an apostrophe after the s. That makes (B), with the apostrophe after the s, correct. (A) drops the apostrophe, so nothing shows possession. (C) "form's" is singular, but the sentence is about two forms. (D) adds an extra s after the apostrophe, which a regular plural never takes.

Text
Zheng He's oceangoing vessels, their decks rising high above the ______ hundreds of sailors across the Indian Ocean to the coast of East Africa.

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

  • A) water carried
  • B) water—carried
  • C) water, carrying
  • D) water, carried ✓

Explanation: The phrase "their decks rising high above the water" interrupts the sentence between the subject "vessels" and its verb, and a comma already opens it after "vessels," so a comma closes it while the verb stays the finite "carried," making (D) right. (A) leaves out the closing comma, so the interrupter never ends. (B) closes with a dash, which does not match the opening comma. (C) keeps the comma but turns the verb into "carrying," which leaves the sentence with no main verb.