PSAT Writing — pronouns, modifiers and matching forms

Three rules make up most of what is left of Standard English Conventions once verbs and punctuation are accounted for, and all three are the kind that an ear trained on speech gets wrong. This material is twelve questions, four on each.

Pronouns first. A pronoun has to find the noun it stands for, and the noun it stands for is rarely the nearest one: in "each of the three drafts has ____ own strengths" the pronoun answers to "each", which is singular, and the verb beside it has already said so. Case is the other half. After a preposition the objective form is required, and a compound object ("between Marcus and ____") is only there to make you forget it — drop the other name and the answer is obvious. One question turns on the place where the preposition rule gives way: in "divided among ____ had signed the petition", what follows the preposition is a whole clause, and the pronoun is that clause's subject.

Modifiers second. An opening participial phrase attaches to whatever the main clause makes its subject, which is why "Having studied the tide tables for a week, the crossing was attempted" has a crossing reading tide tables. The repair is not to move the phrase but to give the main clause a subject that can do what the phrase describes. Each of these questions offers a rewrite that is perfectly grammatical and says something else — the party studying the tables after the crossing rather than before, a mayor who hung the portrait himself — because a fix that quietly changes the meaning is the trap this type is built around. Two of the four turn on a limiting word instead: "only" and "nearly" limit whatever stands directly after them, and the stem states what the writer meant so that the question is about placement rather than about guesswork.

Parallel form last, and it is the most mechanical of the three. Whatever follows "not only" fixes what must follow "but also". Whatever stands on the left of "rather than" fixes what stands on the right. Three items in a list hanging off one "to" must all be bare verbs. The test is always the same: read the sentence back with each item in turn, and listen for the one that will not sit in the pattern the others have set.

Every explanation names the fault rather than appealing to what sounds right, and says for each wrong option which fault it is. Nothing here rests on a usage careful writers dispute: there is no singular-they question in the bank. All the sentences were written for this exercise, and nothing is reproduced from any published test.

• Find the noun a pronoun stands for, discarding the prepositional phrase that sits between them
• Use the objective case after a preposition, and test a compound object by dropping the other name
• Recognize the case where a clause, not the preposition, decides the pronoun's form
• Tell who from whom by asking what the pronoun does inside its own clause
• Repair a dangling modifier by changing the subject of the main clause rather than moving the phrase
• Reject a rewrite that fixes the grammar and changes what the sentence says
• Place only and nearly directly in front of what they are meant to limit
• Match the form of a list or a paired construction by reading each item back into the pattern

All twelve sentences were written for this exercise and each stands alone. Among them: "Each of the three drafts submitted to the prize committee has ____ own strengths"; "The dean divided the archive work between Marcus and ____"; "The prize money was to be divided among ____ had signed the original petition"; "Having studied the tide tables for a week, the crossing was attempted at four in the morning"; "Painted in 1876 and hung in the town hall for a century, the mayor described the portrait as the building's one treasure"; "The restorers nearly spent four months on the ceiling alone"; and "The new bridge is not only cheaper to maintain than the one it replaced but also ____." Zestly is an independent study tool. It is not affiliated with the College Board, which owns the PSAT/NMSQT, and it is not an exam centre.