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SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 5)

Drill 5 · Reading & Writing · Standard English Conventions

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 5) 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 mixed Standard English Conventions questions on dangling modifiers, semicolons in a complex series, pronoun agreement, conjunctive-adverb placement, and possessive forms.

Questions & Explanations

Text
Having earned her pilot's license in France because no American flight school would train her, ______

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

  • A) Bessie Coleman's barnstorming shows soon drew crowds across the country.
  • B) Bessie Coleman returned home to barnstorm for crowds across the country. ✓
  • C) it was for American crowds that Coleman would soon barnstorm.
  • D) there followed a barnstorming tour that drew crowds across the country.

Explanation: The opening phrase "Having earned her pilot's license in France…" describes whoever earned the license, and only a person fits, so "Bessie Coleman" has to follow, as in (B). (A) names Coleman but puts "Bessie Coleman's barnstorming shows" right after the phrase, and shows did not earn a license. (C) starts with "it was" and (D) with "there followed," so in each the opening phrase has no person to describe.

Text
A major retrospective traced the Bauhaus school's three successive homes: Weimar, where it was ______ where its workshop wing was sheathed in a famous glass curtain wall; and Berlin, where political pressure finally forced it to close.

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

  • A) founded; Dessau, ✓
  • B) founded, Dessau,
  • C) founded: Dessau,
  • D) founded. Dessau,

Explanation: Each item in the list already has a comma inside it ("Weimar, where it was founded"), so the items themselves are divided by semicolons, as in (A); the printed "; and Berlin" later follows the same pattern. (B)'s comma cannot be told apart from the commas inside the items. (C)'s colon would start a new list, but the colon earlier in the sentence already did that. (D)'s period breaks the list into a fragment.

Text
Neither of the two fiercely competitive dance companies would concede that ______ interpretation of the contested choreography owed anything at all to the other.

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

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

Explanation: The subject is "Neither," which is singular, so it takes the singular "its" in (D), even with the plural "companies" nearby. (A) "their" is plural and does not match "Neither." (B) "they're" means "they are," which cannot show possession. (C) "it's" means "it is," dropping a verb where a possessive belongs.

Text
To his contemporaries, Georg Cantor's theory of infinite sets seemed little more than a ______ it now sits at the very foundation of modern mathematics.

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

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

Explanation: Two complete sentences meet here, and "however" begins the second, so a semicolon closes the first and a comma follows "however," as in (B). (A) puts only a comma before the second sentence, leaving a comma splice. (C) gives no mark, running the sentences together. (D) keeps the semicolon but drops the comma that "however" needs after it.

Text
Although the two languages are often filed together as relics of computing's earliest years, ______ underlying philosophies could hardly have been more different.

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

  • A) Fortran and Lisp's
  • B) Fortrans' and Lisps'
  • C) Fortran's and Lisp's ✓
  • D) Fortran's and Lisps'

Explanation: Each language has its own design philosophy, so each name takes its own singular possessive: "Fortran's and Lisp's," as in (C). (A) puts the apostrophe only on "Lisp," the joint-possession form, as if the two languages shared one philosophy. (B) makes both names plural possessives, but each is a single language, not a group. (D) gets "Fortran's" right but writes "Lisps'" as a plural possessive, as if there were several Lisps; there is one language, so it needs "Lisp's."