The SAT Prep Black Book(161)

(E) is in the text because sentences 10 and 11 contain quotations.





Page 778, Question 32


This question is essentially a Passage-Based Reading question.

(A) doesn’t work because the topics in sentence 5 have already appeared in the essay.

(B) doesn’t work for basically the same reason that (A) doesn’t work. Even if Nancy Price is an example of something, she’s already been mentioned, so sentence 5 doesn’t provide an additional example of anything.

(C) works, and for a pretty subtle reason: the word “right” in the sentence emphasizes the word “there.” I’ll have more to say on this after we go through the other answer choices.

(D) doesn’t work because there are no contrasting discussions in the essay.

(E) doesn’t work because this is a statement of fact, not an opinion of the author.

This is a question that many test-takers will be inclined to guess on, or to skip, because none of the answer choices is likely to seem too appealing. We can only realize that (C) is correct if we notice that the phrase “right there” is a way to emphasize a particular location—in this context, the only way that the word “right” can make any sense is as a word emphasizing the word “there.”

This is a pretty subtle thing to notice, but it’s also as clear as day once we do notice it. And the ability to pay close attention and notice these kinds of things is exactly the kind of skill we need to have if we’re going to get an elite score on the SAT.





Page 779, Question 35


This question is one that most untrained test-takers will struggle with, because they don’t know the College Board’s style patterns (which we talked about in the section on Improving Sentences questions).

But since we know those patterns, all we have to do is look for the answer choice that would violate those patterns the most (because the question asks us to find the worst answer choice in terms of those patterns, not the best one).

The two choices that would violate the patterns at all are (C) and (E). (C) adds an “-ed” word and makes the sentence a little longer, while (E) adds one extra short word and makes the sentence longer as well. So each choice adds in a new word that goes against the patterns, but if we look closely we can see that (E) makes the sentence slightly longer overall than (C) does. This means that (E) will be the revision that the College Board dislikes the most. Once more, the SAT’s style patterns save the day.

I realize that it’s a little ridiculous that the width of a couple of letters is enough to make one answer choice right and another wrong, but these are the principles the College Board has decided to follow, so these are the principles we have to use when answering questions on the SAT Writing section.





Page 840, Question 32


This question is basically an Improving Sentences question. Since the shortest answer choice, (C), has no grammatical mistakes, it’s the right answer according to the College Board’s rules and patterns. Some students like (A), but (A) is another example of a comma splice: both sets of words on either side of the comma could be a sentence by themselves, which makes a comma inappropriate.





Page 840, Question 34


This question asks us which sentence should be inserted into the paragraph. In these cases, we’ll look for the answer choice that has the most in common with the concepts that are already in the passage, because that’s what the College Board likes.

Choices (A) and (D) might both seem like pretty good options at first glance. In these cases, one of two things is basically possible: either there’s some small distinction between the two choices that makes one of them right, or they’re actually both wrong.

So let’s see if we can identify any differences between them that are relevant to what the SAT likes when it comes to Improving Paragraphs questions.

One thing that jumps out at me is that (A) involves the idea of the mother teaching the speaker something, while (D) omits any mention of the mother.

Since the mother appears throughout the essay, and since we know that the College Board likes us to introduce sentences that include concepts that are already in the essay, we can tell that (A) must be the right answer here.

Remember that knowing the real rules and patterns of the test will always allow us to know which answers are correct with total certainty.





Page 840, Question 35


This question asks us where a new paragraph should begin, which is kind of an unusual thing for the College Board to ask. But we still answer this question by choosing the answer that will group similar concepts together into paragraphs.

(D) is correct because it allows us to group all the sentences about the speaker being an authority at school into one paragraph without other ideas being involved.