The Standard English Conventions section of the Digital SAT evaluates students' mastery of fundamental grammatical rules, punctuation conventions, and usage principles in written English. This section assesses students' ability to identify and correct errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics within passages. Students are presented with sentences or paragraphs that may contain errors in subject-verb agreement, verb tense, pronoun reference, punctuation, and sentence structure. Through a series of multiple-choice questions, students are challenged to apply their knowledge of standard English conventions to improve clarity, coherence, and precision in writing. The Standard English Conventions section aims to enhance students' understanding of grammatical principles and their ability to communicate effectively in written English.
Practice Questions
Question for Introduction: Standard English Conventions
Try yourself:According to Naomi Nakayama of the University of Edinburgh, the reason seeds from a dying dandelion appear to float in the air while ______ is that their porous plumes enhance drag, allowing the seeds to stay airborne long enough for the wind to disperse them throughout the surrounding area.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Choice D is the best answer. No punctuation is needed.
Distractor Explanations:
- Choices A, B, and C are incorrect because each inserts unnecessary punctuation (a comma, colon, and semicolon, respectively) between the sentence’s subject (“the reason . . . falling”) and the verb “is.”
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Question for Introduction: Standard English Conventions
Try yourself:Rabinal Achí is a precolonial Maya dance drama performed annually in Rabinal, a town in the Guatemalan highlands. Based on events that occurred when Rabinal was a city-state ruled by a king, ______ had once been an ally of the king but was later captured while leading an invading force against him.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Choice A is the best answer. This choice ensures that the introductory participial phrase “Based on events that occurred when Rabinal was a citystate ruled by a king” appears immediately before the noun it modifies, “Rabinal Achí.”
Distractor Explanations:
- Choices B, C, and D are incorrect because “Based on events that occurred when Rabinal was a city-state ruled by a king” should appear next to the words it modifies, “Rabinal Achí,” whereas all these choices result in dangling modifiers.
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Question for Introduction: Standard English Conventions
Try yourself:Public-awareness campaigns about the need to reduce single-use plastics can be successful, says researcher Kim Borg of Monash University in Australia, when these campaigns give consumers a choice: for example, Japan achieved a 40 percent reduction in plastic-bag use after cashiers were instructed to ask customers whether _______ wanted a bag.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Choice A is the best answer. The convention being tested is pronoun-antecedent agreement. The plural pronoun “they” agrees in number with the plural antecedent “customers.”
Choice B is incorrect because the singular pronoun “one” doesn’t agree in number with the plural antecedent “customers.”
Choice C is incorrect because the second person pronoun “you” isn’t conventional as a substitute for “customers.” It suggests that the audience (“you”) is the customer.
Choice D is incorrect because the singular pronoun “it” doesn’t agree in number with the plural antecedent “customers.”
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Question for Introduction: Standard English Conventions
Try yourself:In ancient Greece, an Epicurean was a follower of Epicurus, a philosopher whose beliefs revolved around the pursuit of pleasure. Epicurus defined pleasure as “the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the _______ that all life’s virtues derived from this absence.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Choice A is the best answer. The convention being tested is punctuation use between a main clause and a participial phrase. This choice correctly uses a comma to mark the boundary between the main clause (“Epicurus…‘soul’”) and the participial phrase (“positing…absence”) that provides additional information about how Epicurus defined pleasure.
Choice B is incorrect because a colon can’t be used in this way to join a main clause and a participial phrase.
Choice C is incorrect because a semicolon can’t be used in this way to join a main clause and a participial phrase.
Choice D is incorrect because it results in a rhetorically unacceptable sentence fragment beginning with “positing.”
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Question for Introduction: Standard English Conventions
Try yourself:British scientists James Watson and Francis Crick won the Nobel Prize in part for their 1953 paper announcing the double helix structure of DNA, but it is misleading to say that Watson and Crick discovered the double helix. _______ findings were based on a famous X-ray image of DNA fibers, “Photo 51,” developed by X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin and her graduate student Raymond Gosling.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Choice C is the best answer. The convention being tested is the use of possessive determiners. The plural possessive determiner “their” agrees in number with the plural conjoined noun phrase “Watson and Crick” and thus indicates that the findings were those of Watson and Crick.
Choice A is incorrect because “they’re” is the contraction for “they are,” not a possessive determiner.
Choice B is incorrect because “it’s” is the contraction for “it is” or “it has,” not a possessive determiner.
Choice D is incorrect because the singular possessive determiner “its” doesn’t agree in number with the plural conjoined noun phrase “Watson and Crick.”
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Question for Introduction: Standard English Conventions
Try yourself:In 1937, Chinese American screen actor Anna May Wong, who had portrayed numerous villains and secondary characters but never a heroine, finally got a starring role in Paramount Pictures’ Daughter of Shanghai, a film that _______ “expanded the range of possibilities for Asian images on screen.”
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Choice C is the best answer. The conventions being tested are punctuation use between titles and proper nouns and between verbs and integrated quotations. No punctuation is needed to set off the proper noun “Stina Chyn” from the title that describes Chyn, “critic.” Because “Stina Chyn” is essential information identifying the “critic,” no punctuation is necessary. Further, no punctuation is needed between the verb “claims” and the following quotation because the quotation is integrated into the structure of the sentence.
Choice A is incorrect because no punctuation is needed before or after the proper noun “Stina Chyn.” Setting the critic’s name off with commas suggests that it could be removed without affecting the coherence of the sentence, which isn’t the case.
Choice B is incorrect because no punctuation is needed before or after the proper noun “Stina Chyn.” Setting the critic’s name off with commas suggests that it could be removed without affecting the coherence of the sentence, which isn’t the case. Additionally, no punctuation is needed between “claims” and the integrated quotation.
Choice D is incorrect because no punctuation is needed between the verb “claims” and its subject, “critic Stina Chyn.” Additionally, no punctuation is needed between the verb “claims” and the integrated quotation.
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Question for Introduction: Standard English Conventions
Try yourself:When writing The Other Black Girl (2021), novelist Zakiya Dalila Harris drew on her own experiences working at a publishing office. The award-winning book is Harris’s first novel, but her writing _______ honored before. At the age of twelve, she entered a contest to have a story published in American Girl magazine—and won.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Choice C is the best answer. The convention being tested is subject-verb agreement. The singular verb “has been” agrees in number with the singular subject “writing.”
Choice A is incorrect because the plural verb “were” doesn’t agree in number with the singular subject “writing.”
Choice B is incorrect because the plural verb “have been” doesn’t agree in number with the singular subject “writing.”
Choice D is incorrect because the plural verb “are” doesn’t agree in number with the singular subject “writing.”
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Question for Introduction: Standard English Conventions
Try yourself:The Alvarez theory, developed in 1980 by physicist Luis Walter Alvarez and his geologist son Walter Alvarez, maintained that the secondary effects of an asteroid impact caused many dinosaurs and other animals to die _______ it left unexplored the question of whether unrelated volcanic activity might have also contributed to the mass extinctions.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Choice B is the best answer. The convention being tested is the coordination of main clauses within a sentence. This choice correctly uses a comma and the coordinating conjunction “but” to join the first main clause (“the Alvarez…out”) and the second main clause (“it left … extinctions”).
Choice A is incorrect because when coordinating two longer main clauses such as these, it’s conventional to use a comma before the coordinating conjunction.
Choice C is incorrect because it results in a run-on sentence. The two main clauses are fused without punctuation and/or a conjunction.
Choice D is incorrect because it results in a comma splice. Without a conjunction following it, a comma can’t be used in this way to join two main clauses.
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Question for Introduction: Standard English Conventions
Try yourself:In winter, the diets of Japanese macaques, also known as snow monkeys, are influenced more by food availability than by food preference. Although the monkeys prefer to eat vegetation and land-dwelling invertebrates, those food sources may become unavailable because of extensive snow and ice cover, _______ the monkeys to hunt for marine animals in any streams that have not frozen over.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Choice C is the best answer. The convention being tested is the use of finite and nonfinite verb forms within a sentence. The nonfinite present participle “forcing” is correctly used to form a participial phrase that supplements the main clause “those...cover,” describing the effects on monkeys of the lack of food sources.
Choice A is incorrect because the finite present tense verb “forces” can’t be used in this way to supplement the main clause (“those...cover”).
Choice B is incorrect. While the nonfinite to-infinitive “to force” could be used to form a subordinate clause that supplements the main clause (“those...cover”), to-infinitives conventionally express purpose, and nothing in the sentence suggests that the food sources become unavailable for the purpose of forcing monkeys to hunt marine animals.
Choice D is incorrect because the finite past tense verb “forced” can’t be used in this way to supplement the main clause (“those...cover”).
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Question for Introduction: Standard English Conventions
Try yourself:Lucía Michel of the University of Chile observed that alkaline soils contain an insoluble form of iron that blueberry plants cannot absorb, thus inhibiting blueberry growth. If these plants were grown in alkaline soil alongside grasses that aid in iron solubilization, _______ Michel was determined to find out.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Choice D is the best answer. The convention being tested is end-of-sentence punctuation. This choice correctly uses a question mark to punctuate the interrogative clause “could the blueberries thrive,” which asks a direct question at the end of the sentence.
Choice A is incorrect because a period can’t be used in this way to punctuate an interrogative clause, such as “could the blueberries thrive,” at the end of a sentence.
Choice B is incorrect because the context requires an interrogative clause. The declarative clause “the blueberries could thrive” incorrectly indicates that it was known that the blueberries could thrive in alkaline soil, whereas Michel had yet to find this out.
Choice C is incorrect because a question mark can’t be used in this way to punctuate a declarative clause, such as “the blueberries could thrive,” at the end of a sentence.
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