Writing Skills & Essay Flashcards

Which option best improves sentence clarity? 'The report was written by the committee and it was submitted on Friday.'

Answer: The committee wrote the report and submitted it on Friday.

Making the committee the subject of both verbs creates an active, concise sentence without a vague pronoun.

When scoring the SAT essay's 'Writing' domain, graders primarily evaluate:

Answer: Grammar, style, word choice, and sentence variety

The Writing score assesses command of language conventions, vocabulary, and varied sentence structure.

Which punctuation correctly handles a list of items that already contain commas?

Answer: Semicolon

Semicolons are used as 'super-commas' to separate list items that themselves contain commas.

A student writes a strong SAT essay body paragraph. Which element should come LAST in that paragraph?

Answer: Analysis explaining how the evidence supports the claim

After presenting evidence, the writer must analyze it—explaining how it supports the paragraph's argument—before moving on.

Which sentence uses the subjunctive mood correctly?

Answer: If I were you, I would study more.

The subjunctive 'were' is required in contrary-to-fact conditional clauses introduced by 'if.'

An author concludes an essay by returning to the opening anecdote. This structural technique is called:

Answer: A frame narrative or bookend structure

Returning to the opening anecdote at the end creates a 'bookend' or circular structure that gives the essay a sense of closure.

Which choice correctly identifies and fixes the error in: 'Neither the coach nor the players was prepared.'

Answer: Change 'was' to 'were'

With 'neither…nor,' the verb agrees with the nearest subject; 'players' is plural, so the verb must be 'were.'