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SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 9)

Drill 9 · Reading & Writing · Standard English Conventions

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About This Drill

SAT Reading & Writing: Standard English Conventions (Drill 9) 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 the comma after an opening clause, fencing a nonessential phrase, subject-verb agreement with a long subject, the past perfect for sequencing two past events, and fixing a dangling modifier.

Questions & Explanations

Text
Because the land heats far faster than the surrounding ocean each ______ air rises over the continent and pulls in moisture-laden winds that bring the monsoon rains.

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

  • A) spring, warm ✓
  • B) spring; warm
  • C) spring. Warm
  • D) spring warm

Explanation: "Because the land heats far faster than the surrounding ocean each spring" is an opening dependent clause, and it joins the main clause with a comma, so (A) is correct. (B) uses a semicolon, which cannot follow a clause that is unable to stand alone. (C) puts a period after the opening clause, which leaves it as a fragment. (D) gives no punctuation, so the two clauses run straight into each other.

Text
Hypatia of ______ and teacher of Neoplatonist philosophy, drew students from across the Mediterranean to her crowded lectures.

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

  • A) Alexandria a mathematician
  • B) Alexandria, a mathematician ✓
  • C) Alexandria—a mathematician
  • D) Alexandria; a mathematician

Explanation: "A mathematician and teacher of Neoplatonist philosophy" is extra information about Hypatia, and it is already closed by a comma before "drew," so it needs an opening comma to match, which makes (B) correct. (A) leaves the phrase with no opening mark, so it runs into the rest of the sentence. (C) opens with a dash, but the phrase closes with a comma, and one insertion takes one matched pair. (D) opens with a semicolon, which cannot begin this kind of phrase.

Text
The vast network of underground channels that Persian engineers dug to carry water across the desert ______ still visible today as lines of evenly spaced shafts running for miles toward distant fields.

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

  • A) are
  • B) were
  • C) have been
  • D) is ✓

Explanation: The subject is "network," a singular noun, so the verb is "is," and (D) is correct. (A) "are" and (C) "have been" agree with the plural "channels" or "engineers," neither of which is the subject. (B) "were" is plural too, and it drops the sentence into the past for no reason. Reduce it to "The network is still visible" and the choice is clear.

Text
By the time surveyors finished mapping the delta in the 1880s, the main channel of the river ______ miles to the east, leaving the carefully drawn charts obsolete almost as soon as they were printed.

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

  • A) had shifted ✓
  • B) has shifted
  • C) shifts
  • D) will shift

Explanation: By the 1880s the mapping was finished, but the channel had moved before that, so the earlier event takes the past perfect and (A) "had shifted" is correct. (B) "has shifted" is present perfect, which cannot sit inside a closed past time like the 1880s. (C) "shifts" is present tense and does not fit the past setting. (D) "will shift" is future tense, which makes no sense for an event that had already happened.

Text
Dyed a brilliant red with crushed cochineal insects, ______

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

  • A) Andean weavers prized the cloth for a color that held for generations.
  • B) it took thousands of insects to give the cloth its lasting color.
  • C) the cloth held its vivid color for generations. ✓
  • D) the color of the cloth resisted fading for generations.

Explanation: The opening phrase "Dyed a brilliant red with crushed cochineal insects" describes the cloth, so the cloth has to be the first thing named after the comma, which makes (C) correct. (A) names "Andean weavers" first, which says the weavers were dyed. (B) starts with "it," so nothing is named as the thing that was dyed. (D) names "the color," but the cloth was dyed, not its color.