SAT Writing: Standard English Conventions, Expression of Ideas

Punctuation is a question about the two halves

Before you look at the four choices, decide whether the words on each side of the gap could stand alone as a sentence. Two complete halves need a period, a semicolon, or a comma with a joining word. One complete half and one fragment usually take a comma, or nothing at all.

A colon needs a complete sentence in front of it and something that explains or lists after it. Testing that one condition settles most colon questions on its own.

A transition is decided before you read the choices

Cover the four options. Say out loud how the second sentence relates to the first - it agrees, it contrasts, it gives an example, it draws a conclusion - and then find the word that means that. Choosing between four transition words while still unsure of the relationship is guessing with extra steps.

The notes questions are about the goal

You are given a student's bullet-point notes and a stated goal, and asked which sentence meets it. Every choice will be true according to the notes. Only one does the job the question named, so read the goal twice and treat it as the entire task.

The rules of written English, tested one at a time.

Sentence boundaries

Where one sentence ends and the next begins - periods, semicolons, colons, and the comma that cannot do a period's job.

Form, structure, and sense

Subject-verb agreement, verb tense and form, pronouns, plurals and possessives, and modifiers that must sit beside what they modify.

Making a passage say what its writer meant it to say.

Rhetorical synthesis

A set of notes and a stated goal; choose the sentence that meets the goal using those notes.

Transitions

One word or phrase between two sentences that names how the second relates to the first.

What helps

• Read the whole sentence with your choice in it

  Grammar questions are decided by words that can sit a long way from the gap - the subject of a verb, or the noun a pronoun stands for.

• Punctuation you cannot justify is wrong

  There is no 'sounds like a pause' comma on this test. If you cannot name the rule that puts a mark there, the choice without it is usually right.

• Keep a list of the rules that catch you

  There are only a couple of dozen conventions in play. A rule you got wrong twice is worth ten minutes; a passage you found hard is worth almost nothing.

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