9 original Form, Structure and Sense questions, easiest first. Agreement, tense, pronouns, modifiers, parallelism. Answer them all, then submit once to see every answer explained.
The senator's revised proposal, along with several accompanying budget projections, ______ presented to the finance committee last week.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
C — was. The subject of the sentence is the singular 'proposal'; 'along with several accompanying budget projections' is a parenthetical phrase that does not change the subject's number. The singular past-tense verb 'was' agrees with 'proposal.'
Scientists believe that the newly discovered comet, along with a trailing debris field, ______ moving on a trajectory that will bring it close to Jupiter within a decade.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A — is. The subject is the singular 'comet'; 'along with a trailing debris field' is a parenthetical phrase that does not make the subject plural. The singular verb 'is' correctly agrees with 'comet.'
A notable proportion of the district's homeowners ______ opposed to the proposed rezoning plan.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A — are. 'A proportion of' followed by a plural noun takes a plural verb. Here, 'homeowners' are plural, so 'are' is correct.
By the time the reviewers examined the manuscript, the editorial team ______ already corrected most of the citation errors.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
B — had. The sentence describes an action (correcting citation errors) that was completed before another past action (the reviewers examining the manuscript), which requires the past perfect tense. 'Had' correctly forms the past perfect.
Each of the bids submitted by the construction companies ______ reviewed according to the same set of specifications.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
B — was. 'Each' is a singular subject, taking the singular past-tense verb 'was,' regardless of the plural noun 'bids' within the prepositional phrase that follows it.
The task force, after reviewing dozens of case files, ______ its recommendations to the city council next month.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
D — presents. 'Task force' is a singular collective noun acting as a unit, requiring the singular present-tense verb 'presents'; the interrupting phrase 'after reviewing dozens of case files' does not change the subject's number.
The organization's board of directors ______ its annual strategic planning session next Tuesday.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A — holds. 'Board of directors' functions as a singular collective noun acting as a unit, requiring the singular present-tense verb 'holds.'
Having spent two years documenting the coral reef's decline, the report ______ finally released to the public by the research team.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A — was. The report was released—a completed single past action, matching the singular subject 'report'—requires simple past 'was,' not the plural 'were' or the non-finite 'having been.'
Neither the lead chemist nor the lab technicians ______ certain how the sample had become contaminated.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
D — were. In a 'neither...nor' construction, the verb agrees with the subject closer to it—here, the plural 'lab technicians.' 'Were' is the correct plural past-tense verb.
Score:
Every question above is now marked up: the correct answer is highlighted, any wrong option you picked is flagged, and each explanation is open.
No. Every question here is original, written to the College Board's published Digital SAT Reading & Writing specification for the Form, Structure and Sense skill. No retired or copyrighted College Board material appears anywhere on this site.
Form, Structure and Sense covers the rest of Standard English Conventions: subject-verb agreement, verb tense and form, pronoun agreement and clarity, modifier placement, and parallel structure within a list or comparison.
For agreement, find the actual subject of the verb and mentally delete every phrase between them — the SAT inserts long prepositional phrases specifically to hide a singular subject behind a plural noun. For tense, find the other verbs and time markers in the passage and match them. For a modifier, check what the phrase sits next to: it modifies that, whether or not that is what the writer meant.
No, and deliberately so. This drill is 9 Form, Structure and Sense questions back to back; a real Reading & Writing module is 27 questions in 32 minutes drawn from all eleven skills. Use a drill to fix one weakness, then take a full module to practice the real thing.
No. The SAT has no penalty for a wrong answer — a blank and a wrong guess both score zero — so answer every question, including the ones you have to guess.