Question ID 6f08641e
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions 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, and
Conventions 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 1ee7b429
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions 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 6e193b19
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions 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 9eb43963
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions 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, and
Conventions 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 20ea68b7
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions 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 56315bd0
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions 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, and
Conventions 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 1f8cd95f
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 1f8cd95f
In the 1950s, a man named Joseph McVicker was struggling to keep his business afloat when his sister-in-law Kay Zufall
advised him to repurpose the company’s product, a nontoxic, clay-like substance for removing soot from wallpaper, as a
modeling putty for kids. In addition, Zufall ______ selling the product under a child-friendly name: Play-Doh.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. suggested
B. suggests
C. had suggested
D. was suggesting
Question ID 7f1df833
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 7f1df833
In 1966, Emmett Ashford became the first African American to umpire a Major League Baseball game. His energetic
gestures announcing when a player had struck out and his habit of barreling after a hit ball to see if it would land out of
______ transform the traditionally solemn umpire role into a dynamic one.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. bounds helped
B. bounds, helping
C. bounds that helped
D. bounds to help
Question ID 59209b6d
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 59209b6d
Based on genetic evidence, archaeologists have generally agreed that reindeer domestication began in the eleventh century
CE. However, since uncovering fragments of a 2,000-year-old reindeer training harness in northern Siberia, ______ may have
begun much earlier.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. researcher Robert Losey has argued that domestication
B. researcher Robert Losey’s argument is that domestication
C. domestication, researcher Robert Losey has argued,
D. the argument researcher Robert Losey has made is that domestication
Question ID 4f2ff5f2
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions 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 dd6a0326
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: dd6a0326
African American Percy Julian was a scientist and entrepreneur whose work helped people around the world to see. Named
in 1999 as one of the greatest achievements by a US chemist in the past hundred years, ______ led to the first mass-produced
treatment for glaucoma.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Julian synthesized the alkaloid physostigmine in 1935; it
B. in 1935 Julian synthesized the alkaloid physostigmine, which
C. Julian’s 1935 synthesis of the alkaloid physostigmine
D. the alkaloid physostigmine was synthesized by Julian in 1935 and
Question ID 684b8bd2
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions 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 dd428136
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: dd428136
Cheng Dang and her colleagues at the University of Washington recently ran simulations to determine the extent to which
individual snow ______ affect the amount of light reflecting off a snowy surface.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. grain’s physical properties’
B. grains’ physical properties
C. grains’ physical property’s
D. grains physical properties
Question ID 9f737b2a
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 9f737b2a
In Death Valley National Park’s Racetrack Playa, a flat, dry lakebed, are 162 rocks—some weighing less than a pound but
others almost 700 pounds—that move periodically from place to place, seemingly of their own volition. Racetrack-like trails
in the ______ mysterious migration.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. playas sediment mark the rock’s
B. playa’s sediment mark the rocks
C. playa’s sediment mark the rocks’
D. playas’ sediment mark the rocks’
Question ID c52652c9
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: c52652c9
The human brain is primed to recognize faces—so much so that, due to a perceptual tendency called pareidolia, ______ will
even find faces in clouds, wooden doors, pieces of fruit, and other faceless inanimate objects. Researcher Susan Magsamen
has focused her work on better understanding this everyday phenomenon.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. she
B. they
C. it
D. those
Question ID 36944347
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 36944347
Official measurements of the Mississippi River’s length vary: according to the US Geologic Survey, the river is 2,300 miles
long, whereas the Environmental Protection Agency records its length as 2,320 miles. This disparity can be explained in part
by the fact that rivers such as the Mississippi expand and contract as ______ sediment.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. they accumulate
B. one accumulates
C. it accumulates
D. we accumulate
Question ID 8d53e7a0
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 8d53e7a0
Slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo’s debut novel The Poet X, winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Young People’s
Literature, is composed of ______ protagonist, fifteen-year-old Xiomara Batista.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. poems putatively written by the novel’s
B. poem’s putatively written by the novel’s
C. poem’s putatively written by the novels’
D. poems putatively written by the novels’
Question ID 75f49353
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 75f49353
The Progressive Era in the United States witnessed the rise of numerous Black women’s clubs, local organizations that
advocated for racial and gender equality. Among the clubs’ leaders ______ Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, founder of the
Women’s Era Club of Boston.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. was
B. were
C. are
D. have been
Question ID 97e7bedc
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 97e7bedc
Oyster mushrooms typically get their nutrients from the damp logs on which they grow, but the fungi are also carnivorous,
with the ability to kill and consume microscopic worms known as nematodes. As researcher Yen-Ping Hsueh has shown, the
mushrooms release a toxin that is deadly to nematodes that ______ in contact with it.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. has come
B. comes
C. is coming
D. come
Question ID 28166dc6
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 28166dc6
In knot theory (the mathematical study of curved, closed loops), knots are characterized by their crossing numbers—that is,
the number of times the knotted thread crosses over itself. The trefoil knot and the figure-eight knot, each with a crossing
number below five, ______ among the simplest possible knots with the fewest number of crossings.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. was
B. are
C. has been
D. is
Question ID 7a0d9031
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 7a0d9031
In many of her landscape paintings from the 1970s and 1980s, Lebanese American artist Etel Adnan worked to capture the
essence of California’s fog-shrouded Mount Tamalpais region through abstraction, using splotches of color to represent the
area’s features. Interestingly, the triangle representing the mountain itself ______ among the few defined figures in her
paintings.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. are
B. have been
C. were
D. is
Question ID 3595a991
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 3595a991
In 1930, Japanese American artist Chiura Obata depicted the natural beauty of Yosemite National Park in two memorable
woodcuts: Evening at Carl Inn and Lake Basin in the High Sierra. In 2019, ______ exhibited alongside 150 of Obata’s other
works in a single-artist show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. it was
B. they were
C. this was
D. some were
Question ID d2cf0e11
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: d2cf0e11
Inventor John Friedman created a prototype of the first flexible straw by inserting a screw into a paper straw and, using
dental floss, binding the straw tightly around the ______ When the floss and screw were removed, the resulting corrugations
in the paper allowed the straw to bend easily over the edge of a glass.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. screw’s thread’s.
B. screws’ threads.
C. screw’s threads.
D. screws threads’.
Question ID 0bcb4417
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 0bcb4417
Oglala Lakota poet Layli Long Soldier’s star quilt poems offer an unusually open-ended reading experience. With ______ eight
panels of text stitched together in the shape of a traditional eight-pointed Lakota star quilt, the poems present viewers with a
seemingly infinite number of ways to read them.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. their
B. it’s
C. they’re
D. its
Question ID c8607bdf
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: c8607bdf
“Praise Song for the Day,” Elizabeth Alexander’s 2009 inaugural poem, asserts that “We cross dirt roads and highways…to see
what’s on the other side.” Alexander’s use of “we” ______ Americans’ collective efforts and shared desire to seek new
opportunity.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. evokes
B. are evoking
C. have evoked
D. evoke
Question ID db2e480a
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: db2e480a
By the time Hawaiian king Kamehameha III ______ the throne, the number of longhorn cattle, first introduced to the islands in
1793, had drastically increased, and so too had the need for paniolo (Hawaiian cowboys) to manage the wild herds that then
roamed throughout the volcanic terrain.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. ascended
B. will ascend
C. ascends
D. is ascending
Question ID a30567fd
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: a30567fd
Nuhād al-Ḥaddād, known as Fairuz, was one of the most beloved Lebanese singers of the twentieth century. Her broad
singing repertoire—which included traditional forms, such as the Arabic qasida and maqam, alongside modern pop and jazz
styles—lent Fairuz a timeless, cross-generational appeal, ______ her the moniker “the soul of Lebanon.”
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. earned
B. had earned
C. earning
D. earn
Question ID b85c19ed
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: b85c19ed
The violins handmade in the seventeenth century by Italian craftsman Antonio Stradivari have been celebrated as some of
the finest in the world. In close collaboration with musicians, Stradivari introduced changes to the shape of a traditional
violin, flattening some of the instrument’s curves and making ______ lighter overall.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. those
B. one
C. them
D. it
Question ID d073983d
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: d073983d
Known for her massive photorealistic paintings of African American figures floating or swimming in pools, Calida Garcia
______ was the logical choice to design the book cover for Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, a novel about an African
American man who can travel great distances through water.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. Rawles—
B. Rawles:
C. Rawles,
D. Rawles
Question ID cd2443c0
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: cd2443c0
A pioneer in the field of taphonomy (the study of how organic remains become fossils), ______ may be just as prevalent in the
fossil record as those of thick-shelled organisms.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. fossils of thin-shelled organisms, Anna Behrensmeyer demonstrated in a 2005 analysis,
B. Anna Behrensmeyer demonstrated in a 2005 analysis that fossils of thin-shelled organisms
C. it was demonstrated in a 2005 analysis by Anna Behrensmeyer that fossils of thin-shelled organisms
D. a 2005 analysis—by Anna Behrensmeyer—demonstrated that fossils of thin-shelled organisms
Question ID e44db0a0
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: e44db0a0
Because a cycle of lunar phases ______ 29.5 days to complete, it’s possible to observe two full moons in a single month, one
at the beginning and one at the end.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. are taking
B. have taken
C. take
D. takes
Question ID 67614549
Assessment Test Domain Skill Difficulty
SAT Reading and Writing Standard English Form, Structure, and
Conventions Sense
ID: 67614549
After winning the 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln appointed Edward Bates, Salmon P. Chase, and William H.
Seward to his cabinet. Lincoln’s decision was surprising, since each of these men had run against him, but historians have
praised it, noting that Lincoln ______ his rivals’ diverse talents to strengthen his administration.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A. has leveraged
B. is leveraging
C. will leverage
D. leveraged
