The SAT Prep Black Book(155)

Page 837, Question 9


This question is another good example of the way zeroing in on a key issue often helps us identify the right answer immediately, without getting bogged down in extraneous stuff.

In this case, the structure “X rather than Y” requires us to put X and Y in the same grammatical form (at least in terms of SAT rules). Since the first half of the sentence has “to appeal and persuade,” we need another option with “to” in it. Only (E) has that, with “to educate and inform.”

Another way to identify that (E) is correct is to note that it’s the shortest answer choice and that it has no grammatical mistakes.





Page 893, Question 8


This question provides us with a good opportunity to observe several of the College Board’s patterns and rules in action.

First, since the underlined portion is short, we can expect that the question is probably meant to test grammar alone, which turns out to be the case.

We might also be tempted to assume that the correct answer would avoid the word “in,” since the first 3 answer choices start with “either” and only 2 start with “in.” But notice that 4 of the choices actually include the word “in” at some point, which suggests that we might want to include it.

Of course, it becomes clear that we need to include “in” when we realize that the question is comparing two things, and that the first part of that comparison is the phrase “in poetry.”

That might get us down to (D) and (E). How do we know that (D) is correct? Well, as always, we arrive at that conclusion by thinking carefully about the elements of the question. In order for the phrase “either X or Y” to work on the SAT, X and Y must be two phrases of similar types. If we choose “either fiction or in drama,” then X would be “fiction” and Y would be “in drama,” which doesn’t work on the SAT since one phrase is just a noun and the other begins with the preposition “in.” So (D) is the way to go.





Page 925, Question 8


This question stumps a lot of test-takers because most of the answer choices sound pretty decent to most people. This is why it’s so important to know the rules of the test. If we know that the shortest answer choice is always correct if it has no grammatical mistakes, we can say with confidence that (C) is the answer choice that the College Board will say is correct.





Page 986, Question 4


This question, like many Improving Sentences questions, is much more straightforward than it probably seems to most untrained test-takers.

(A) is the shortest answer choice and it has no grammatical mistakes, so (A) is automatically correct. That’s all there is to this one.

Let this question and the many questions like it remind you of how important it is to know the rules of the test and to read carefully!





Conclusion


We’ve now discussed all the rules, patterns, and strategies for Improving Sentences questions in the SAT Writing section, and you’ve seen them in action against a wide variety of actual SAT questions published by the College Board in the Blue Book.

After they’ve done a lot of Improving Sentences questions, many of my students often remark that these questions just seem to be repeating the same basic ideas over and over again. They’re exactly right to think that. And while it might seem frustrating to repeat the same basic steps for 2 dozen questions or so on each test, we have to remember that this repetition is what makes the SAT so beatable once we understand how the game is played. (In fact, the whole point of this Black Book is to show you how to exploit the repetitive nature of the SAT.)

We want to get very familiar with the rules and patterns of every type of SAT question so we can always identify correct answers and incorrect answers. This way, when a question goes well we’ll be able to realize that we’ve found the right answer, and when a question seems not to have a right answer that fits the patterns of all the other questions, we’ll know that we’ve made a mistake somewhere, and we can fix the mistake.





Video Demonstrations


If you’d like to see videos of some sample solutions like the ones in this book, please visit www.SATprepVideos.com. A selection of free videos is available for readers of this book.



On the next page, you’ll find a quick summary of the main ideas for Improving Sentences questions. Then we’ll tackle the Improving Paragraphs questions after that. They’re basically a combination of the SAT grammar and style ideas we’ve covered already, with some ideas from the Critical Reading section thrown in.





Improving Sentences Quick Summary


This is a one-page summary of the major relevant concepts. Use it to evaluate your comprehension or jog your memory. For a more in-depth treatment of these ideas, see the rest of the section.