Quizzes, exams, and flashcards about Writing — expression and conventions: PSAT Writing — rules, transitions and goals.
← PSAT/NMSQT
The editing half of the Reading and Writing section: Standard English Conventions and Expression of Ideas, which between them are just under half of it, and which reward a rule you can state over an ear for what sounds right.
Standard English Conventions is grammar and punctuation, and it is the most learnable part of the whole test because the rules are finite. Sentence boundaries — what separates two independent clauses and what cannot. Subject-verb agreement across an intervening phrase. Pronoun agreement and clear reference. Verb tense and form. Modifiers attached to the thing they actually modify. Punctuation within a sentence: which pairs of marks may enclose a supplement, and which combinations are simply not available.
Expression of Ideas is about effect rather than correctness. Two shapes recur. Transitions: a sentence is missing its connective and you must supply the one the logic requires — contrast, cause, concession, example — where the wrong answers are real transitions expressing a relationship the passage does not have. And rhetorical synthesis: you are given a short set of bulleted notes and a stated goal, and asked which sentence meets that goal using the notes. Both facts have to be there and the sentence has to do the job asked, not a neighbouring one.
The real test sets many Conventions questions as four versions of one sentence differing only in punctuation. This format cannot be reproduced here. The quiz checker treats options that differ only in punctuation as four copies of the same answer and refuses the item outright.
So these questions do it the other way round: the faulty sentence is shown, and the options describe the change in words — "join the two clauses with a semicolon", "make it one clause by removing the subject of the second". You still have to know which rule applies and why the others do not, which is the part being examined; what is missing is the visual scan of four near-identical lines. For that specific drill, use College Board's own practice, where the questions are in their real form.
Ten questions across both domains: sentence boundaries, agreement, modifiers, punctuation with supplements, transitions, and rhetorical synthesis from notes. Every sentence is invented.
Each explanation names the rule rather than appealing to how a sentence sounds, and says what each wrong option would do to the sentence if you chose it.
