SAT WRITING WORKBOOK
PART V
THE HEART OF THE TEST: MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS
Identifying Sentence Errors
In this section of the SAT, you are given eighteen sentences, most of which contain an error in grammar, usage, or style. Your job is to identify which underlined portion of each sentence contains the error. Some sentences have no error.
Sample Question
the two stories, the class that the was the
The sentence contains an error in comparison. When you compare two things, use words in the comparative degree, such as better, lighter, and more able. But when you compare more than two things, use words in the superlative degree, such as best, lightest, and most able. In the sentence, two stories are being compared. Therefore use better instead of best. Choice D is the right answer.
Although Identifying Sentence Errors questions are shorter and less involved than those in the sentence-improvement sections of the exam, they deal with an equally wide range of grammar and usage problems.
The sentence errors you are most likely to meet in this section of the SAT are:
Errors in Expression and Style
Faulty idiom
Faulty diction
Wordiness and redundancies
Faulty parallelism
Incomplete comparisons
Errors in Grammar and Usage
Noun–verb agreement
Pronoun–antecedent agreement
Faulty pronoun reference
Shift in pronoun person
Faulty pronoun case
Faulty verb tense
Faulty verb form