SAT Reading & Writing section grammar rules & elimination chart

SAT Writing section quick start rules & elimination chart

• the answers & eliminations follow set grammar, punctuation, and usage conventions
• therefore, identify the rules as you practice & apply them in your elimination strategies
• consider each possible answer and identify the RULES that govern its correctness or error:

Category	Item	Rule	Rule/ Test
Clause	independent clause (IC)	has a subject and verb and could be a sentence by itself	subject and verb cannot be separated by a single comma
			IC may contain multiple subjects and/or verbs and/or objects
			IC may contain a parenthetical phrase or
			multiple ICs are combined using comma + coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS)
	dependent clause (DC)	has a subject and verb but cannot be a sentence by itself	introduced by subordinating conjunctions, relative pronouns, etc.
		dependent clauses modify the IC or add information to it	DC types include subordinate (SC) and relative (RC) clauses
	subordinate clause SC	introduced by a subordinating conjunction, such as because, when, which, etc.	if following an IC, the subordinating conjunction "which" usually refers to the object of the prior IC
			make sure the SC is not next to another SC (i.e, 2 SC's in a row is usually incorrect)
	relative clause (RC)	introduced by a relative pronoun (that, which, who, whom, which)	relative clause has a subject (pronoun) & verb but is not an IC, as it serves to modify the IC
		requisite RC = no punctuation if the information is essential (requisite)	relative clauses may preceded (part of the subject) or follow the verb (part of the predicate)
		non-requisite RC = sparated from other sentence part by a comma (not essential)
Phrase	prepositional phrase	prepositional phrases are not subjects of a sentence	preposition and noun = preposition phrase = modifies another noun
			when identifying the subject of the sentence, ignore the prepositional phrase
	introductory phrase	gives context to a sentence, usually as a prepositional phrase	not always separated from the subject by a comma, so be sure to identify/separate it from the subject
	participial phrase	modifying phrase introduced by a verb acting as an adjective (participle)	participial phrases
	parenthetical phrases	sometimes called "interrupters", used to add information outside of sentence flow	marked by parentheses ( ... ) commas , ... , or dashes --. .. --
			comma: identify if the comma is creating a list or acting parenthetically
			dash: identify if the dash is acting as a colon or parentheses
Verb	tense	subject-verb matching (conjugations)	identify the subject and match the verb to the subject (conjugation or singular/plural)
			subjects are never the noun in a prepositional phrase (object of the preposition)
			conjugate the verb to identify 3rd person singular or plural ("it goes" v. "they go")
	participle adjective	verb acting as an adjective	distinguish the action verb from a participle adjective
			linking verbs "is"/ "are" (to be) are often followed by a past participle (subject complement adjective)
			present particple adjective = "-ing" form of the verb
			past participle adjective = "-ed" or other simple past tense of the verb
	gerund noun	verb acting as a noun with the -ing form of the verb	the gerund noun can be a subject
Combining sentences	redundancy	repeats words or ideas already stated	usually (but not always) the shortest answer is the correct answer if redundancy is the rule
		pronoun is redundant or unecessary	(note that comparisons and some other contexts require additional words)
	punctuation	type of clauses created by the sentence combination	if two ICs are created, must be combined by a comma and coordinating conjunction (FANBOY)
			if an IC and a SC are created, must be combined by a comma only
		participial phrase	participial phrases convert the verb of one of the sentences into a participle adjective
			must be attached to an IC and combined with a comma only
Transition words
Sentence placement
apostrophes
parallelism
comparisons