Question ID 89fbc3eb

Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 89fbc3eb
The Mission 66 initiative, which was approved by Congress in 1956, represented a major investment in the infrastructure
of overburdened national ______ it prioritized physical improvements to the parks’ roads, utilities, employee housing, and
visitor facilities while also establishing educational programming for the public.

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

A. parks and

B. parks

C. parks;

D. parks,
Question ID 960dec02
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 960dec02
A recent study tracked the number of bee species present in twenty-seven New York apple orchards over a ten-year
period. ______ found that when wild growth near an orchard was cleared, the number of different bee species visiting the
orchard decreased.

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

A. Entomologist Heather Grab:

B. Entomologist, Heather Grab,

C. Entomologist Heather Grab

D. Entomologist Heather Grab,

Question ID 37e5c794
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 37e5c794
Despite being cheap, versatile, and easy to produce, ______ they are made from nonrenewable petroleum, and most do
not biodegrade in landfills.

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

A. there are two problems associated with commercial plastics:

B. two problems are associated with commercial plastics:

C. commercial plastics’ two associated problems are that

D. commercial plastics have two associated problems:

Question ID 6f08641e
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 6f08641e
On April 5, 1977, Kitty Cone and 150 other disability rights activists entered a San Francisco federal building. After
pleading for years—to no effect—for the passage of key antidiscrimination legislation, ______ until their demands were
addressed. Finally, on April 28, the legislation was signed.

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

A. pressure on lawmakers increased when the activists staged a sit-in protest

B. a sit-in protest staged by the activists increased pressure on lawmakers

C. lawmakers came under increased pressure when the activists staged a sit-in protest

D. the activists increased pressure on lawmakers by staging a sit-in protest

Question ID 2c49940e
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 2c49940e
French philosopher René Descartes doubted whether he could prove his own existence. Eventually, he found proof in his
famous phrase “I think, therefore I am.” The ______ complexity: only those who exist would be able to ponder their
existence.

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

A. phrases’ simplicity masks its

B. phrases simplicity masks their

C. phrase’s simplicity masks their

D. phrase’s simplicity masks its

Question ID 7f226b4b
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 7f226b4b
In a 2023 study, researchers documented a fascinating behavior in the aquatic plant Elodea densa. When exposed to low
levels of light, the plant’s ______ the cellular organs that generate energy from light—reshuffled to form a tightly packed,
glass-like surface ideal for collecting more light.

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

A. chloroplasts

B. chloroplasts;

C. chloroplasts,

D. chloroplasts—
Question ID 74ce2f05
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 74ce2f05
A study led by scientist Rebecca Kirby at the University of Wisconsin–Madison found that black bears that eat human
food before hibernation have increased levels of a rare carbon isotope, ______ due to the higher 13C levels in corn and
cane sugar. Bears with these elevated levels were also found to have much shorter hibernation periods on average.

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

A. carbon-13, (13C)

B. carbon-13 (13C)

C. carbon-13, (13C),

D. carbon-13 (13C),
Question ID a2816c7f
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: a2816c7f
American abstract artist Richard ______ his installations to make passersby keenly aware of how one’s movements are
affected by the physical features of one’s environment, assembles large-scale steel plates into sculptures that dominate
the outdoor spaces they occupy.

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

A. Serra is intending

B. Serra, intends

C. Serra, intending

D. Serra intends
Question ID eb95235b
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: eb95235b
The Limón technique, developed by Mexican-born dancer and choreographer Jose Limón, is known for its emphasis on
breath control and its interplay of weight and ______ dancers may explore, for example, the moment of mid-air
suspension at the top of a jump.

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

A. weightlessness

B. weightlessness which

C. weightlessness,

D. weightlessness;
Question ID adf210e7
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: adf210e7
The haiku-like poems of Tomas Tranströmer, which present nature- and dream-influenced images in crisp, spare
language, have earned the Swedish poet praise from leading contemporary ______ them Nigerian American essayist and
novelist Teju Cole, who has written that Tranströmer’s works “contain a luminous simplicity.”

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

A. writers. Among

B. writers among

C. writers; among

D. writers, among
Question ID 1ee7b429
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 1ee7b429
Bonnie Buratti of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ______ data about Saturn’s rings collected by the Cassini spacecraft
when she made an interesting discovery: the tiny moons embedded between and within Saturn’s rings are shaped by the
buildup of ring material on the moons’ surfaces.

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

A. studies

B. has been studying

C. will study

D. was studying
Question ID 13fcf575
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 13fcf575
Roughly 300 nights a year, when the cold air descending from the Andes Mountains meets the warm air rising from
Venezuela’s coastal Lake Maracaibo, the result is a spectacular lightning storm, its strikes so bright, so localized, and so
______ that it has become known as “Maracaibo’s Lighthouse.”

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

A. dependable:

B. dependable;

C. dependable

D. dependable,
Question ID 940ff6f7
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 940ff6f7
Jamaican British artist Willard Wigan is known for his remarkable ______ so small that they are best viewed through a
microscope, Wigan’s sculptures are made from tiny natural materials, such as spiderweb strands.

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

A. microsculptures creations

B. microsculptures, creations

C. microsculptures. Creations

D. microsculptures and creations

Question ID aaa1907f
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: aaa1907f
To serve local families during the Great Depression, innovative New York City librarian Pura Belpré offered storytelling in
both English and Spanish, an uncommon ______ celebrated el Día de los Tres Reyes Magos, an important community
holiday; and put on puppet shows dramatizing Puerto Rican folktales.

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

A. practice, at the time

B. practice at the time;

C. practice, at the time,

D. practice at the time,

Question ID 7f48b098
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 7f48b098
Photosynthesis, the mechanism by which plants use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into ______ is fueled in part
by an enzyme called Photosystem II that harvests energy-giving electrons from water molecules.

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

A. nutrients

B. nutrients and

C. nutrients,

D. nutrients—
Question ID 9df6da04
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 9df6da04
Entomologists Yash Sondhi and Samuel Fabian have tried to explain why moths fly erratically around light sources at
night. Knowing that flying insects keep their backs pointed toward sunlight during the day, ______

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

the researchers theorize that moths, mistaking nighttime lights for the Sun, continually try to reorient their bodies
A. while flying near such lights.

the researchers’ theory is that moths mistake nighttime lights for the Sun, continually trying to reorient their bodies
B. while flying near such lights.

moths mistake nighttime lights for the Sun and continually try to reorient their bodies while flying near such lights, the
C. researchers theorize.

moths continually try to reorient their bodies while flying near nighttime lights, the researchers theorize, mistaking
D. such lights for the Sun.
Question ID 0f39b19c
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 0f39b19c
After a spate of illnesses as a child, Wilma Rudolph was told she might never walk again. Defying all odds, Rudolph didn’t
just walk, she ______ the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, she won both the 100- and 200-meter dashes and clinched
first place for her team in the 4x100-meter relay, becoming the first US woman to win three gold medals in a single
Olympics.

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

A. ran—fast—during

B. ran—fast during

C. ran—fast, during

D. ran—fast. During
Question ID ae439895
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: ae439895
In her 1983 book The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild first
explored at length her conception of a “sociology of emotions”—the idea that the various cultural and ideological
frameworks a person has internalized (class, gender, political affiliation, etc.) ______ each emotional reaction that person
has within a situation.

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

A. underlies

B. is underlying

C. underlie

D. has been underlying

Question ID f0864217
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: f0864217
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?

A. Rabinal Achí tells the story of K’iche’ Achí, a military leader who

B. K’iche’ Achí, the military leader in the story of Rabinal Achí,

C. the military leader whose story is told in Rabinal Achí, K’iche’ Achí,

D. there was a military leader, K’iche’ Achí, who in Rabinal Achí

Question ID c91ef0f0
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: c91ef0f0
During the American Civil War, Thomas Morris Chester braved the front lines as a war correspondent for the Philadelphia
Press. Amplifying the voices and experiences of Black soldiers ______ of particular importance to Chester, who later
became an activist and lawyer during the postwar Reconstruction period.

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

A. were

B. have been

C. are

D. was
Question ID 6e193b19
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 6e193b19
Professional American football player Fred Cox invented one of the world’s most popular toys. In the 1970s, he came up
with the idea for the Nerf football, which ______ of the harder and heavier regulation football.

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

A. were a smaller, foam version

B. are smaller, foam versions

C. were smaller, foam versions

D. is a smaller, foam version

Question ID ac5536c1
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: ac5536c1
Beatrix Potter is perhaps best known for writing and illustrating children’s books such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902),
but she also dedicated herself to mycology, the study of ______ more than 350 paintings of the fungal species she
observed in nature and submitting her research on spore germination to the Linnean Society of London.

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

A. fungi; producing

B. fungi. Producing

C. fungi producing

D. fungi, producing
Question ID 9c3630b9
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 9c3630b9
Using natural debris, such as dried ______ such as plastic bags; and more traditional art supplies, such as tree glue,
Ghanaian artist Ed Franklin Gavua creates his striking Yiiiiikakaii African masks, which he hopes can help viewers rethink
how waste is used in their communities.

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

A. leaves, man-made trash:

B. leaves; man-made trash,

C. leaves, man-made trash,

D. leaves; man-made trash;

Question ID 3a2d77d7
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 3a2d77d7
In the 1950s, novel audio technologies allowed the addition of another instrument to jazz and swing ______ relatively
quiet instrument, its full range of sound was finally audible alongside the blaring brass instruments of the time, allowing
flautists like Bennie Maupin and Bobbi Humphrey to perform with other jazz greats.

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

A. music, the flute, a

B. music. The flute, a

C. music; the flute, a

D. music: the flute. A

Question ID 435809d8
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 435809d8
On March 23, 2021, a gust of wind wreaked havoc on global trade. Ever Given, an international shipping container vessel,
became lodged in Egypt’s Suez Canal, a major shipping route between Europe and Asia. The vessel took six days to
______ it’s as heavy as two thousand blue whales when fully loaded.

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

A. dislodge in part due to its sheer size,

B. dislodge, in part due to its sheer size:

C. dislodge, in part due to its sheer size,

D. dislodge, in part, due to its sheer size

Question ID ea0aa676
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: ea0aa676
In the 1970s, Janaki Ammal, a prominent botanist, emerged as a powerful voice in India’s environmental conservation
movement. Her exhaustive chromosomal survey of plants in Silent Valley, a pristine tropical forest in Kerala, India, that is
home to nearly 1,000 species of native flora (many of which are endangered), ______ instrumental in the government’s
decision to preserve the forest.

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

A. are

B. were

C. have been

D. was
Question ID fba5d8d1
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: fba5d8d1
In a 2016 study, Eastern Washington University psychologist Amani El-Alayli found that, among the study participants
who experienced frisson (a physiological response akin to goosebumps or getting the chills) while listening to music,
there was one personality trait that they scored particularly ______ openness to experience.

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

A. high. On

B. high on;

C. high on

D. high on:
Question ID dc645172
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: dc645172
The artistic talents of Barbara Chase-Riboud, most known for her 1979 historical novel Sally Hemings and the
conversation it inspired, ______ limited to the realm of prose: she first excelled in sculpture, where her affinity for bronze—
a material she described as “timeless” due to its use across eras and cultures—became part of her artistic identity.

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

A. hasn’t been

B. wasn’t

C. isn’t

D. aren’t
Question ID a153ad6a
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: a153ad6a
While light is known as one of the fastest-moving substances, it slows down when passing through some types of
matter. One such type of matter is a form of cooled, condensed gas called a Bose-Einstein condensate ______ Dutch
physicist Lene Hau famously used a BEC to slow a beam of light to a complete halt.

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

A. (BEC),

B. (BEC) and

C. (BEC);

D. (BEC)
Question ID 9eb43963
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 9eb43963
Water in the North Atlantic Ocean is pushed eastward by powerful winds, but the rotation of Earth and interference from
nearby landmasses together cause ______ to swirl into a massive, churning whirlpool—also called the North Atlantic Gyre
—that spins clockwise.

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

A. these

B. those

C. them

D. it
Question ID eeb14722
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: eeb14722
The soundtrack to Mira Nair’s 1991 film Mississippi Masala expressively captures the clashing of cultures that happens
when ______ (a young Indian woman from Uganda and a young African American man from Mississippi) meet. Featured
throughout the film are songs from Uganda’s Afrigo Band, the Indian composer L. Subramaniam, and the Mississippi
blues musician Sam Chatmon.

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

A. it’s two protagonists

B. its two protagonist’s

C. it’s two protagonist’s

D. its two protagonists

Question ID 6e071432
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 6e071432
In 1986, conceptual artist Sophie Calle asked twenty-three people, all of whom had been born without sight, to describe
“their image of beauty” in rich detail. Calle paired excerpts of these conversations with photographs—both of
interviewees and the items they ______ to powerful effect in her exhibition The Blind.

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

A. described, from hair to grass to sculptures

B. described, from hair to grass to sculptures—

C. described—from hair to grass to sculptures,

D. described: from hair to grass to sculptures

Question ID 20ea68b7
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 20ea68b7
It can take time for proposed amendments to the US Constitution to become law. For example, the Twenty-Second
Amendment, which limits the number of ______ can serve, was first proposed in 1947 but wasn’t approved by the required
three-fourths majority of state legislatures until 1951.

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

A. terms presidents

B. term’s presidents

C. term’s president’s

D. terms president’s
Question ID 6ea8c23f
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 6ea8c23f
In 2018, a team of researchers led by Dr. Caitlin Whalen compiled every available measurement of ocean mixing rates
from the past two decades. With this novel data set, the team was able to determine how current-driven mixing varies
across ______ and what impact it has on the distribution of heat and nutrients in the ocean.

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

A. regions,

B. regions:

C. regions;

D. regions
Question ID aab74a3b
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: aab74a3b
Researcher Lin Zhi developed a process for increasing the tensile strength—measured in gigapascals, or GPa—of
silkworm ______ dissolving and reweaving the silk in a solution of iron metal ions, zinc, and sugar, Zhi increased the
amount of force required to stretch it from approximately 0.5 GPa to 2 GPa.

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

A. silk, by

B. silk by

C. silk and by

D. silk. By
Question ID a9e5b788
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: a9e5b788
In discussing Mary Shelley’s 1818 epistolary novel Frankenstein, literary theorist Gayatri Spivak directs the reader’s
attention to the character of Margaret Saville. As Spivak points out, Saville is not the protagonist of Shelley’s ______ as the
recipient of the letters that frame the book’s narrative, she’s the “occasion” of it.

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

A. novel

B. novel,

C. novel; rather,

D. novel, rather,
Question ID a3e87535
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: a3e87535
Julia Alvarez’s 1994 novel In the Time of the Butterflies, a fictionalized account of the lives of the Mirabal ______ can serve
as a starting point for those wanting to explore how the rule of dictator Rafael Trujillo has been represented in Dominican
American literature.

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

A. sisters, and

B. sisters and

C. sisters,

D. sisters
Question ID 56315bd0
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 56315bd0
Solarpunk is an art movement that imagines renewable energy–powered technology infused complementarily into
nature. In Paolo Bacigalupi’s solarpunk short story “Efficiency,” an artificial intelligence that absorbs sustainable energies,
redistributing them through intricate networks of weights and generators, ______ Chicago’s energy grid.

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

A. have been powering

B. power

C. powers

D. are powering
Question ID b74f676f
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: b74f676f
Classical composer Florence Price’s 1927 move to Chicago marked a turning point in her career. It was there that Price
premiered her First Symphony—a piece that was praised for blending traditional Romantic motifs with aspects of Black
folk music—and ______ supportive relationships with other Black artists.

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

A. developing

B. developed

C. to develop

D. having developed
Question ID be34a3df
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: be34a3df
In 2008, two years after the death of science fiction writer Octavia Butler, the Huntington Library in ______ received a
collection of more than 8,000 items, including Butler’s private notes, research materials, manuscripts, photos, and
drawings. Today, the Octavia E. Butler Collection is one of the most researched archives at the library.

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

A. California,

B. California:

C. California—

D. California
Question ID 3bceeb93
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 3bceeb93
When they were first discovered in Australia in 1798, duck-billed, beaver-tailed platypuses so defied categorization that
one scientist assigned them the name Ornithorhynchus paradoxus: “paradoxical bird-snout.” The animal, which lays eggs
but also nurses ______ young with milk, has since been classified as belonging to the monotremes group.

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

A. they’re

B. their

C. its

D. it’s
Question ID 6fac7f45
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 6fac7f45
Butterfly is a 1988 painting by the Japanese artist Ay-O. Like many of Ay-O’s paintings, Butterfly, which portrays a
swimmer performing the butterfly stroke, attempts to make use of the entire visual light ______ sporting rainbow-striped
goggles, the rainbow-hued swimmer splashes through a wavy rainbow of water.

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

A. spectrum

B. spectrum:

C. spectrum while

D. spectrum, while
Question ID dab8b8ee
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: dab8b8ee
Known as Earth’s “living skin,” biocrusts are thin layers of soil held together by surface-dwelling microorganisms such as
fungi, lichens, and cyanobacteria. Fortifying soil in arid ecosystems against erosion, ______

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

A. a recent study’s estimate is that these crusts reduce global dust emissions by 60 percent each year.

an estimated 60 percent reduction in global dust emissions each year is due to these crusts, according to a recent
B. study.

C. these crusts reduce global dust emissions by an estimated 60 percent each year, according to a recent study.

D. a recent study has estimated that these crusts reduce global dust emissions by 60 percent each year.
Question ID 8f6d6ae6
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 8f6d6ae6
Archaeologists have estimated that the pre-Columbian Native American city of Cahokia, located across the Mississippi
River from modern-day St. Louis, Missouri, had as many as 20,000 inhabitants in the year 1150 ______ it one of the largest
cities in North America at the time.

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

A. CE making

B. CE. Making

C. CE, making

D. CE; making
Question ID e9aee0d8
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: e9aee0d8
On November 2, 1772, amid rising tensions with Great Britain, Boston colonists formed the Boston Committee of
Correspondence. By 1774, what had started as a local means of mobilizing support for the Patriot cause had grown into
something far more ______ network of such committees that, facilitating communication among the colonies, helped lay
the groundwork for the Continental Congress.

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

A. extensive: a

B. extensive; a

C. extensive, it was a

D. extensive. A
Question ID a75d5984
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: a75d5984
Several advantages—the ability to react strongly with chip components, to avoid interference from other waves, and to be
confined within tiny circuits—______ acoustic waves as a promising alternative to electrical waves for transmitting data
on computer chips; as a result, researchers are invested in developing more acoustic wave–based chips.

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

A. have positioned

B. positioning

C. by positioning

D. having positioned
Question ID 870ae7ec
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 870ae7ec
Detroit natives Timothy Paule and Nicole Lindsey have combined their two passions, Detroit and beekeeping, to improve
the health of their city’s flowers and other vegetation. In 2017, the couple converted a vacant lot in the city into an ______
in the years that followed they acquired nine additional lots and established more than 35 hives.

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

A. apiary,

B. apiary, and

C. apiary and

D. apiary
Question ID 4f2ff5f2
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 4f2ff5f2
Tortoises can be found in many works of literature. For example, in Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play Arcadia, there is a tortoise
that ______ by two names (Plautus and Lightning) and appears in both of the play’s parallel timelines. As a character, the
tortoise symbolizes the connection between the past and present.

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

A. goes

B. will have gone

C. went

D. had gone
Question ID 0fe5ce68
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 0fe5ce68
Ten of William Shakespeare’s plays are classified as histories. Although each one of these plays, which include Henry V
and Richard III, ______ on a single historical figure (specifically, an English king), some, such as Henry VI Part One and
Henry VI Part Two, feature different episodes from the same monarch’s life.

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

A. focuses

B. focus

C. are focused

D. were focused
Question ID b369d54c
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: b369d54c
Woven from recycled yarn and hand tufted using a carpet weaving technique passed down by the artist’s Turkish
grandmother, ______ so lush and tactilely inviting that you are tempted to reach out and touch them.

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

A. the topological tapestries of Argentine textile artist Alexandra Kehayoglou are

B. the Argentine textile artist Alexandra Kehayoglou creates topological tapestries that are

C. when she creates her topological tapestries, Argentine textile artist Alexandra Kehayoglou makes them

D. Alexandra Kehayoglou is an Argentine textile artist whose topological tapestries are

Question ID 790fc366
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 790fc366
Using satellite remote sensing, Dr. Catherine Nakalembe, director of NASA’s Harvest Africa initiative, gathers important
data on crop health. Nakalembe doesn’t just compile the ______ she also shares her findings with African farmers,
enabling them to make data-driven decisions about managing critical food crops.

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

A. information, though;

B. information, though,

C. information; though

D. information though,
Question ID 2bb7416a
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 2bb7416a
In paleontology, the term “Elvis taxon” gets applied to a newly identified living species that was once presumed to be
extinct. Like an Elvis impersonator who might bear a striking resemblance to the late musical icon Elvis Presley himself,
an Elvis taxon is not the real thing, ______ is a misidentified look-alike.

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

A. however but it

B. however it

C. however, it

D. however. It
Question ID b0a525be
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: b0a525be
Santa Clara Pueblo artist Roxanne Swentzell’s sculpture Mud Woman Rolls On consists of five human figures made of
clay and plant fiber and arranged in descending size; each figure holds the smaller one in front of it. The arrangement of
the figures, according to ______ represents her idea that “we all come from the Earth, generation after generation.”

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

A. Swentzell

B. Swentzell,

C. Swentzell:

D. Swentzell—
Question ID eef91a50
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: eef91a50
Nine months before Rosa Parks made history by refusing to comply with the segregated seating policy on a Montgomery,
Alabama, bus, a fifteen-year-old Montgomery girl named Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same ______ to some
historians, Colvin’s arrest led to Parks’s action and eventually to the desegregation of Montgomery’s bus system.

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

A. offense. According

B. offense, according

C. offense according

D. offense and according

Question ID ace95f84
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: ace95f84
By analyzing the level of radioactive decay within a fossil specimen, scientists can establish the age of that fossil with a
high degree of precision. When radioactive elements aren’t present, scientists turn to ______ analysis of Earth’s sediment
layers (strata)—to estimate how old a fossil is based on the age of the strata in which the fossil is found.

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

A. stratigraphy—the

B. stratigraphy (the

C. stratigraphy: the

D. stratigraphy, the
Question ID 6df020e6
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 6df020e6
A study showed that a solar park caused nearby land to cool, though the ecological impact of this temperature decrease
isn’t yet known. Before the park’s construction, the surface temperature 30 meters outside of the park boundary was
0.1°C cooler than that of a control ______ construction, the temperature 30 meters outside of the boundary was 1.7°C
cooler than that of the control area.

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

A. area after

B. area after,

C. area. After

D. area, after
Question ID 684b8bd2
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 684b8bd2
Far from being modern inventions, ______ more than 5,000 years ago.

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

A. Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia used drinking straws

B. drinking straws were used by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia

C. the use of drinking straws by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia happened

D. ancient Mesopotamia was home to Sumerians who used drinking straws

Question ID 67667d72
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 67667d72
Humans were long thought to have begun occupying the Peruvian settlement of Machu Picchu between 1440 and 1450
CE. However, a team led by anthropologist Dr. Richard Burger used accelerator mass spectrometry to uncover evidence
that it was occupied ______ 1420 CE, according to Burger, humans were likely inhabiting the area.

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

A. earlier. In

B. earlier, in

C. earlier, which in

D. earlier in
Question ID 5b8f9cf2
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: 5b8f9cf2
In the canon of North African literature, Moroccan author Driss Chraïbi’s 1954 novel The Simple Past (Le Passé simple)
looms large. A coming-of-age story, a social meditation, and a sober gaze into the dark maw of French colonialism,
______ interrogates systemic power with memorable intensity.

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

A. Morocco gained its independence two years before the publication of Chraïbi’s debut novel, which

B. Chraïbi’s debut novel, published two years before Morocco gained its independence,

C. Chraïbi wrote a debut novel that, published two years before Morocco gained its independence,

D. published two years before Morocco gained its independence, Chraïbi wrote a debut novel that
Question ID 403d7bb5
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 403d7bb5
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?

A. falling,

B. falling:

C. falling;

D. falling
Question ID de3dd17d
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure,

Conventions and Sense

ID: de3dd17d
Planetary scientist Briony Horgan and her colleagues have determined that as much as 25 percent of the sand on Mars is
composed of impact spherules. These spherical bits of glass form when asteroids collide with the planet, ejecting bits of
molten rock into the atmosphere that, after cooling and solidifying into glass, ______ back onto Mars’s surface.

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

A. to rain

B. raining

C. having rained

D. rain
Question ID 6b49f5f1
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 6b49f5f1
In 1727, dramatist Lewis Theobald presented a new play, Double Falsehood, at a London theater. Theobald claimed that
his drama was based on a little-known play by William Shakespeare, Cardenio. Many, including poet Alexander Pope, were
______ historians have determined that Shakespeare’s company did perform a play called Cardenio in 1613.

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

A. skeptical but

B. skeptical, but

C. skeptical,

D. skeptical
Question ID 59094d87
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty

SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Boundaries

Conventions

ID: 59094d87
The Tantaquidgeon Museum in Uncasville, Connecticut, was founded in 1931 with the goal of showcasing the culture and
history of the Mohegan ______ today, nearly a century later, it is the oldest Native-owned and -operated museum in the
country.

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

A. Tribe, and

B. Tribe

C. Tribe and

D. Tribe,