SAT Conventions — when no punctuation is needed

Many Boundaries questions on the SAT are answered by taking a mark out rather than putting one in. The test places a comma, colon or dash where a reader might pause aloud, and students who punctuate by ear choose it. The rule that decides these questions is structural: no punctuation separates a subject from its verb, a verb from its object, or a descriptor from the name it introduces, however long or formal the sentence feels.

The eleven quiz questions each print one original sentence about a real figure in science, literature or American history and ask which change makes it conform to the conventions of Standard English. Because four versions of one sentence that differ only by a comma are hard to compare on a small screen, the options describe each repair in words, for example deleting the comma after a given word or replacing a colon with a dash, so every question tests the rule rather than your eyesight. The errors covered are the ones this skill returns to most often: commas around a name that follows a title such as "marine biologist"; a comma between a long subject and its verb; a comma between a verb and the that-clause it introduces; a colon between a verb and its list of objects; a comma after "such as"; commas around the title of a work that tells you which of the author's works is meant; commas around a restrictive clause beginning with "that"; a comma between an adjective and its noun; a dash between a subject and its verb; and a comma before a quotation woven into the writer's own sentence with "that." One sentence, with a clause after a proper name, is already correct, so "make no change" is sometimes the right answer. The explanations say what each wrong repair would do, including the common half-fix of deleting only one comma of a pair.

The flashcards restate each rule with a short model phrase, separate restrictive from nonrestrictive elements, and give a one-question test for whether a mark belongs in a sentence at all.

The material offers two formats: a multiple-choice quiz with an explanation for every question, and a deck of flashcards. It is practice material written by Zestly and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the College Board, which owns the SAT.

• Recognize that no punctuation separates a subject from its verb or a verb from its object, however long the subject
• Punctuate a title or descriptor placed directly before a name without commas
• Tell essential (restrictive) appositives and clauses from nonessential ones and punctuate each correctly
• Remove colons and commas that wrongly follow a verb or "such as"
• Integrate a quotation introduced by "that" without a comma
• Recognize a correctly punctuated sentence and choose to make no change

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the Standard English Conventions content domain of the digital SAT Reading and Writing section as described by the College Board on satsuite.collegeboard.org (Boundaries). Every sentence, option and explanation is original; nothing is reproduced from any College Board publication or practice test.