All SAT Writing Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #221 : Sat Writing
1 Tattoos have even been found on ancient Icelandic, Egyptian, and South American mummies.2 On their various voyages to the South Pacific, Captain Cook and other European explorers brought back accounts of colorfully inked natives, and their sailors soon began to adopt the practice. 3 Early medieval Northern European tribes such as the Picts and Visigoths were often heavily tattooed; particularly the warriors. 4 Over the centuries, various cultures have described various meanings to tattoos, with indelible ink signifying everything from royalty to gang membership to magical powers.
5 Interestingly modern-day tattooing’s popularity evolved out of its adoption by wealthy British nobility, and by American celebrities, musicians, and actors. 6 While tattoos do have a dark past, most notably at Auschwitz, where Nazi’s identified prisoners by tattooing numbers on their arms. 7 Tattoos can be signs of joy, belief, or even healing, such as the colorful tattoos that breast cancer survivors use to cover mastectomy scars.
8 Today, there are more options than ever before, tattoo artists often have fine arts training, lengthy apprenticeships, and can offer specialty inks that glow in the dark or are easier to remove. 9 The internet is full of design ideas, tattoo parlor rankings, and even horror stories about bad tattoo experiences. 10 Now more than ever, information about ink abounds. 11 Choose wisely!
Which of the following sentences needs a comma deleted from it?
Sentence 5
Sentence 3
Sentence 6
Sentence 4
Sentence 7
Sentence 5
A comma should only be used before a conjunction (“and”) if that conjunction is separating two independent clauses. In Sentence 5 “by American celebrities, musicians, and actors” is a dependent clause, so no comma should be used.
Example Question #11 : Correcting Grammatical Errors In A Full Sentence
1 Tattoos have even been found on ancient Icelandic, Egyptian, and South American mummies.2 On their various voyages to the South Pacific, Captain Cook and other European explorers brought back accounts of colorfully inked natives, and their sailors soon began to adopt the practice. 3 Early medieval Northern European tribes such as the Picts and Visigoths were often heavily tattooed; particularly the warriors. 4 Over the centuries, various cultures have described various meanings to tattoos, with indelible ink signifying everything from royalty to gang membership to magical powers.
5 Interestingly modern-day tattooing’s popularity evolved out of its adoption by wealthy British nobility, and by American celebrities, musicians, and actors. 6 While tattoos do have a dark past, most notably at Auschwitz, where Nazi’s identified prisoners by tattooing numbers on their arms. 7 Tattoos can be signs of joy, belief, or even healing, such as the colorful tattoos that breast cancer survivors use to cover mastectomy scars.
8 Today, there are more options than ever before, tattoo artists often have fine arts training, lengthy apprenticeships, and can offer specialty inks that glow in the dark or are easier to remove. 9 The internet is full of design ideas, tattoo parlor rankings, and even horror stories about bad tattoo experiences. 10 Now more than ever, information about ink abounds. 11 Choose wisely!
Which sentence contains a semicolon error?
Sentence 6
Sentence 7
Sentence 4
Sentence 5
Sentence 3
Sentence 3
In Sentence 3, a semicolon is incorrectly separating an independent clause from a dependent clause. The correct punctuation mark would be a comma: “Early medieval Northern European tribes such as the Picts and Visigoths were often heavily tattooed, particularly the warriors.”
Example Question #13 : Improving And Correcting Sentences
1 Have you ever went hang gliding? 2 Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ longstanding fascination with self propelled flight. 3 Whereas, it is also a dangerous pastime. 4 Personally, I know many people who are aware of the sport’s relative danger but still enjoy it on a regular basis. 5 With proper technical training and certification, it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts, stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes.
7 In the United States, hang gliding is a relatively new sport and most hang gliders are wealthy and educated devotees. 8 Hang gliding actually originated in the 500s in China, with man-sized kites allowing people to sustain flight for short distances. 9 Continual advances in material technologies’ result in constantly improving hang glider equipment – specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example. 10 Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States include Salt Lake City, Utah, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. 11 The most ardent affiliates say there’s absolutely nothing like the joy of soaring miles above the ground for hours.
How should the tense error in Sentence 1 be corrected?
Have you ever went hang gliding? (no change)
Have you ever gone hang gliding?
Would you ever have went hang gliding?
Would you ever have gone hang gliding?
Will you ever have gone hang gliding?
Have you ever gone hang gliding?
While several of these options are grammatically correct, the version that best preserves the original meaning of the sentence is “Have you ever gone hang-gliding?”
Example Question #12 : Rewriting A Full Sentence
1 Have you ever went hang gliding? 2 Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ longstanding fascination with self propelled flight. 3 Whereas, it is also a dangerous pastime. 4 Personally, I know many people who are aware of the sport’s relative danger but still enjoy it on a regular basis. 5 With proper technical training and certification, it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts, stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes.
7 In the United States, hang gliding is a relatively new sport and most hang gliders are wealthy and educated devotees. 8 Hang gliding actually originated in the 500s in China, with man-sized kites allowing people to sustain flight for short distances. 9 Continual advances in material technologies’ result in constantly improving hang glider equipment – specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example. 10 Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States include Salt Lake City, Utah, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. 11 The most ardent affiliates say there’s absolutely nothing like the joy of soaring miles above the ground for hours.
What is the best way to revise the punctuation of Sentence 5?
With proper technical training and certification, it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts: stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes.
With proper technical training and certification, it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts; stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes.
With proper technical training and certification; it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts, stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes.
With proper technical training and certification, it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts. Stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes.
With proper technical training and certification, it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts, stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes. (no change)
With proper technical training and certification, it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts: stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes.
Here, a colon is the optimal punctuation to introduce a list after an independent clause.
Example Question #225 : Sat Writing
1 Have you ever went hang gliding? 2 Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ longstanding fascination with self propelled flight. 3 Whereas, it is also a dangerous pastime. 4 Personally, I know many people who are aware of the sport’s relative danger but still enjoy it on a regular basis. 5 With proper technical training and certification, it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts, stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes.
7 In the United States, hang gliding is a relatively new sport and most hang gliders are wealthy and educated devotees. 8 Hang gliding actually originated in the 500s in China, with man-sized kites allowing people to sustain flight for short distances. 9 Continual advances in material technologies’ result in constantly improving hang glider equipment – specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example. 10 Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States include Salt Lake City, Utah, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. 11 The most ardent affiliates say there’s absolutely nothing like the joy of soaring miles above the ground for hours.
What is the best way to revise Sentence 2?
Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ long-standing fascination with self propelled flight.
Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ longstanding fascination with self-propelled flight.
Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang-gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ longstanding fascination with self-propelled flight.
Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ longstanding fascination with self propelled flight. (no change)
Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang-gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ longstanding fascination with self propelled flight.
Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ longstanding fascination with self-propelled flight.
Here, “hang gliders” should not be hyphenated (it’s simply a two-word noun), “longstanding” is one word, not two, and “self propelled” should be hyphenated, as with most words that have a “self-” prefix.
Example Question #21 : Improving Paragraphs
1 Have you ever went hang gliding? 2 Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ longstanding fascination with self propelled flight. 3 Whereas, it is also a dangerous pastime. 4 Personally, I know many people who are aware of the sport’s relative danger but still enjoy it on a regular basis. 5 With proper technical training and certification, it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts, stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes.
7 In the United States, hang gliding is a relatively new sport and most hang gliders are wealthy and educated devotees. 8 Hang gliding actually originated in the 500s in China, with man-sized kites allowing people to sustain flight for short distances. 9 Continual advances in material technologies’ result in constantly improving hang glider equipment – specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example. 10 Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States include Salt Lake City, Utah, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. 11 The most ardent affiliates say there’s absolutely nothing like the joy of soaring miles above the ground for hours.
Which of the following sentences should have a comma added to it?
Sentence 4
Sentence 3
Sentence 6
Sentence 5
Sentence 7
Sentence 7
When separating two independent clauses with a conjunction, a comma is always needed immediately before the conjunction. Correctly punctuated, Sentence 7 would read “In the United States, hang gliding is a relatively new sport, and most hang gliders are wealthy and educated devotees.”
Example Question #22 : Rewriting A Full Sentence
1 Have you ever went hang gliding? 2 Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ longstanding fascination with self propelled flight. 3 Whereas, it is also a dangerous pastime. 4 Personally, I know many people who are aware of the sport’s relative danger but still enjoy it on a regular basis. 5 With proper technical training and certification, it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts, stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes.
7 In the United States, hang gliding is a relatively new sport and most hang gliders are wealthy and educated devotees. 8 Hang gliding actually originated in the 500s in China, with man-sized kites allowing people to sustain flight for short distances. 9 Continual advances in material technologies’ result in constantly improving hang glider equipment – specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example. 10 Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States include Salt Lake City, Utah, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. 11 The most ardent affiliates say there’s absolutely nothing like the joy of soaring miles above the ground for hours.
How should Sentence 9 be rewritten?
Continual advances in material technologies result in constantly improving hang glider equipment – specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example.
Continual advances in material technologies’ result in constantly improving hang glider equipment: specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example.
Continual advances in material technologies result in constantly improving hang glider equipment, specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example.
Continual advances in material technologies’ result in constantly improving hang glider equipment – specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example. (no change)
Continual advances in material technologies’ result in constantly improving hang glider equipment; specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example.
Continual advances in material technologies result in constantly improving hang glider equipment – specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example.
Here, we have an apostrophe error. “Technologies” is not a possessive word in this case, so it should not have an apostrophe. Either a colon or an em dash is fine to separate “equipment” and “specialized.”
Example Question #23 : Rewriting A Full Sentence
1 Have you ever went hang gliding? 2 Sailing smoothly across the sky, hang gliders are a sight to behold and capture humans’ longstanding fascination with self propelled flight. 3 Whereas, it is also a dangerous pastime. 4 Personally, I know many people who are aware of the sport’s relative danger but still enjoy it on a regular basis. 5 With proper technical training and certification, it is possible to avoid some of the most common hang gliding catamounts, stalling near the ground, aerobatic stunts gone wrong, and failure to use helmets or parachutes.
7 In the United States, hang gliding is a relatively new sport and most hang gliders are wealthy and educated devotees. 8 Hang gliding actually originated in the 500s in China, with man-sized kites allowing people to sustain flight for short distances. 9 Continual advances in material technologies’ result in constantly improving hang glider equipment – specialized nylon parachutes and lightweight aluminum alloy frames, for example. 10 Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States include Salt Lake City, Utah, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. 11 The most ardent affiliates say there’s absolutely nothing like the joy of soaring miles above the ground for hours.
How should Sentence 10 be rewritten?
Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States include Salt Lake City, Utah – Kitty Hawk, North Carolina – and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States include Salt Lake City, Utah, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. (no change)
Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States include: Salt Lake City, Utah; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina; and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States: include Salt Lake City, Utah, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States include Salt Lake City, Utah; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina; and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Popular hang gliding destinations in the United States include Salt Lake City, Utah; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina; and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Because the items in this list are compound items (phrases or things that contain commas), using only commas to punctuate the list can be confusing or unclear. For this reason, we turn to the semicolon’s second usage and use it as a sort of enhanced comma. We don’t use a colon in this sentence, since the part preceding the list is not an independent clause.
Example Question #221 : Sat Writing
1 Although agritourism is a fairly recent phenomenon in the Western world; it is proving popular in many countries. 2 Agritourism is broadly defined as any activity or attraction that draws visitors to a farm, and it can include anything from corn mazes and apple picking to vineyard tours, workshops on animal husbandry, and work-stay exchange programs. 3 The practice is particularly prevocalic in North America, Europe, and Australia. 4 With a huge variety of farms and activities available to agritourists. 5 For example: visitors can learn how to run a cattle drive in Wyoming, make cheese in France, harvest olives in Sicily, or pick kiwi fruit in New Zealand.
6 Income generated from agritourism can help small family farms remain soluble as well as educate the public about where their food comes from. 7 Henceforth, most people agree that agritourism is benevolent for everyone involved. 8 While there are some who argue that it is a cheap ploy designed to make selfish tourists feel better about their vacations. 9 All in all, it will be interesting to see how agritourism continues to develop in the future.
How should Sentence 1 be rewritten?
Although, agritourism is a fairly recent phenomenon in the Western world; it is proving popular in many countries.
Although agritourism is a fairly recent phenomenon in the Western world; it is proving popular in many countries. (no change)
Although agritourism is a fairly recent phenomenon in the Western world, it is proving popular in many countries.
Although agritourism is a fairly recent phenomenon in the Western world it is proving popular in many countries.
Although, agritourism is a fairly recent phenomenon in the Western world, it is proving popular in many countries.
Although agritourism is a fairly recent phenomenon in the Western world, it is proving popular in many countries.
In the original sentence, a semicolon is incorrectly separating a dependent clause from an independent clause. The correct punctuation is a comma. Generally speaking, no comma is necessary after the word “although.”
Example Question #21 : Improving And Correcting Sentences
1 Although agritourism is a fairly recent phenomenon in the Western world; it is proving popular in many countries. 2 Agritourism is broadly defined as any activity or attraction that draws visitors to a farm, and it can include anything from corn mazes and apple picking to vineyard tours, workshops on animal husbandry, and work-stay exchange programs. 3 The practice is particularly prevocalic in North America, Europe, and Australia. 4 With a huge variety of farms and activities available to agritourists. 5 For example: visitors can learn how to run a cattle drive in Wyoming, make cheese in France, harvest olives in Sicily, or pick kiwi fruit in New Zealand.
6 Income generated from agritourism can help small family farms remain soluble as well as educate the public about where their food comes from. 7 Henceforth, most people agree that agritourism is benevolent for everyone involved. 8 While there are some who argue that it is a cheap ploy designed to make selfish tourists feel better about their vacations. 9 All in all, it will be interesting to see how agritourism continues to develop in the future.
How should Sentence 2 be rewritten?
Agritourism is broadly defined as any activity or attraction that draws visitors to a farm; and it can include anything from corn mazes and apple picking to vineyard tours, workshops on animal husbandry, and work-stay exchange programs.
Agritourism is broadly defined as any activity or attraction that draws visitors to a farm, including corn mazes and apple picking to vineyard tours, workshops on animal husbandry, and work-stay exchange programs.
Agritourism, broadly being defined as any activity or attraction that draws visitors to a farm, and including anything from corn mazes and apple picking to vineyard tours, workshops on animal husbandry, and work-stay exchange programs.
Agritourism, broadly defined as any activity or attraction that draws visitors to a farm, and it can include anything from corn mazes and apple picking to vineyard tours, workshops on animal husbandry, and work-stay exchange programs.
Agritourism is broadly defined as any activity or attraction that draws visitors to a farm, and it can include anything from corn mazes and apple picking to vineyard tours, workshops on animal husbandry, and work-stay exchange programs. (no change)
Agritourism is broadly defined as any activity or attraction that draws visitors to a farm, and it can include anything from corn mazes and apple picking to vineyard tours, workshops on animal husbandry, and work-stay exchange programs. (no change)
Sentence 2 is already clear, concise, and grammatically correct. No rewriting is necessary.
Certified Tutor