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SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 22)

Drill 22 · Reading & Writing · Standard English Conventions

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 22) 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 test joining two complete sentences with a comma and conjunction, punctuating an essential clause, subject-verb agreement in inverted and long-subject sentences, and keeping items in a series parallel.

Questions & Explanations

Text
Crews laid track eastward from Sacramento and westward from ______ two lines finally met at Promontory Summit, Utah, in May 1869.

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

  • A) Omaha and, the
  • B) Omaha, and the ✓
  • C) Omaha, the
  • D) Omaha and the

Explanation: Both halves around the blank are complete sentences on their own: "Crews laid track eastward from Sacramento and westward from Omaha" on the left, and "The two lines finally met at Promontory Summit, Utah, in May 1869" on the right. Two complete sentences joined by "and" need the comma right before the conjunction, so (B) is right. (A) puts the comma on the wrong side of "and," after the conjunction instead of before it. (C) drops the conjunction entirely and joins the two sentences with only a comma, which is a comma splice. (D) drops the comma before "and," and a compound sentence still needs one there.

Text
Of the writing systems created for Native American languages, the ______ one of the best-known today.

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

  • A) one, that Sequoyah created for the Cherokee language, remains
  • B) one that Sequoyah created for the Cherokee language, remains
  • C) one, that Sequoyah created for the Cherokee language remains
  • D) one that Sequoyah created for the Cherokee language remains ✓

Explanation: The clause "that Sequoyah created for the Cherokee language" singles out one writing system from the many just mentioned, so it is essential and takes no commas: (D). (A) puts a pair of commas around the clause, which would mark the information as optional. (B) and (C) each leave a single comma stranded on one side. On the SAT, a clause beginning with "that" is treated as essential and is not set off with commas.

Text
Among the hundreds of quipus that survive, there ______ a few whose arrangement of knots and colors researchers still cannot fully interpret.

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

  • A) are ✓
  • B) is
  • C) remains
  • D) sits

Explanation: After "there," the subject comes later in the sentence, and here it is "a few," which is plural. A plural subject takes a plural verb, so the verb has to be (A) "are." (B) "is," (C) "remains," and (D) "sits" are all singular and would call for a singular subject. The nearby singular noun "arrangement" sits inside a modifier of "a few" and does not control the verb.

Text
Studying an ice core involves drilling deep into the sheet, slicing the cylinder into thin layers, and ______ trapped inside each one.

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

  • A) to analyze the air bubbles
  • B) analysis of the air bubbles
  • C) analyzing the air bubbles ✓
  • D) they analyze the air bubbles

Explanation: The sentence lists three things studying a core involves, and the first two are "-ing" forms: "drilling" and "slicing." The third item has to match, so the blank takes (C) "analyzing." (A) switches to an infinitive, (B) to a noun, and (D) to a full clause. Each one breaks the pattern set by "drilling" and "slicing." Items in a series share the same grammatical form.

Text
Brahe's painstaking catalog of hundreds of individual star ______ far more accurate than any list compiled before the telescope.

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

  • A) positions were
  • B) positions have been
  • C) positions remain
  • D) positions was ✓

Explanation: The verb has to agree with "catalog," not with the nearer plural "positions," so the sentence needs the singular "was": (D). (A) "were," (B) "have been," and (C) "remain" are all plural and would agree with "positions" rather than "catalog." The phrase "of hundreds of individual star positions" describes the catalog but does not change what the verb is matching.