SAT Prep Black Book: The Most Effective SAT Strategies Ever Published (63 page)

In this sentence,

I was thinking about my homework last night.

o
was thinking indicates an action in the past, because it includes the helping verb-form was, which is a past-tense form of the verb to be.

For the purpose of the SAT Writing Section, all verb-forms that use a present-tense form of the verb
to be
indicate actions in the present.

Example:

In this sentence,

I am thinking about pie for dessert.

o
am thinking indicates an action in the present, because it involves am, which is a present-tense form of the helping verb to be.

On the SAT Writing Section, all verbs in a sentence should indicate actions in the same time frame wherever possible.

Examples:

This is an okay sentence on the SAT Writing Section:

The dinner you served us was delicious.

o
served and was are both verb-forms that indicate action in the past.

This sentence would not be acceptable on the SAT Writing Section:

*The dinner you served us is delicious.

o
served is a past-tense verb-form, indicating action in the past.

o
is is a present-tense verb-form, indicating action in the present.

The SAT Writing Section like
s to test your ability to put verbs in the same tenses, so always be on the lookout when a sentence contains verbs that are in different tenses.

English verbs, like verbs in any other language, have specific conjugations that show their tenses. (Conjugations also show things like a verb’s “mood” and “voice,” but those aren’t tested on the SAT Writing Section, so we won’t worry about them.)

Example:

In this sentence,

Mrs. Smith has decided to buy a new car.

o
has decided is the “past participle” conjugation of the verb to decide.

The SAT Writing Section will occasionally show you a verb-form that is conjugated incorrectly.

Examples:

This is a good sentence on the SAT:

The subject of money has arisen many times in our discussions.

o
has arisen is a correct conjugation of the verb to arise.

This is a bad sentence on the SAT:

*The subject of money has arosen many times in our discussions.

o
has arosen is not a verb-form in English; instead, it’s a strange and incorrect combination of the proper past-tense form arose and the proper past participle has arisen.

Two verb-forms can function as nouns. These are the
–ing
and
to
forms of verbs.

Examples:

In this sentence,

Singing is a lot of fun.

o
Singing is a form of the verb to sing that acts like a noun—it’s the subject of the verb-form is.

To be
and
to become
are members of a special group of verbs called “copulars.”  Copular verbs are verbs that show us when two things are, or will be, the same thing. (You don’t need to know the term “copular” for the SAT, by the way.)

To use a copular verb properly, you place a noun phrase before it, and either another noun phrase or an adjective phrase after it.

Examples:

In this sentence,

Muhammad Ali was a great boxer.

o
Muhammad Ali is a noun phrase that is being equated to the noun phrase a great fighter.

o
was is a singular, past-tense form of the copular verb to be, which is equating the noun phrase before it to the noun phrase after it.

o
a great boxer is a noun phrase that is being equated to the noun phrase Muhammad Ali.

On the SAT Writing Section, the noun phrases on either side of a copular verb must have the same number.

Examples:

This is an acceptable sentence on the SAT Writing Section:

My cousins want to become astronauts.

o
My cousins is a plural noun phrase that is being equated to the plural noun phrase astronauts.

o
to become is a copular verb.

o
astronauts is a plural noun that is being equated to the plural noun phrase cousins.

This is an unacceptable sentence on the SAT Writing Section:

*My cousins want to become an astronaut.

o
My cousins is a plural noun phrase that is being equated to the singular noun phrase an astronaut, which is no good on the SAT.

o
to become is a copular verb.

o
an astronaut is a singular noun phrase that is being improperly equated to the plural noun phrase my cousins.

Adjectives are single words that describe nouns. An adjective usually appears immediately before its noun, or before a list of other adjectives that appears before the noun.

Example:

In this sentence,

Sally ordered an Italian salad.

o
Italian is an adjective that tells us something about the noun salad, and appears immediately before it.

When you want to use an adjective to modify something that is not a noun, you have to use the “adverb” form of the adjective. The adverb-form of an adjective almost always ends in -
ly
.

Example:

In this sentence,

That is a very cleverly written essay.

o
cleverly is the adverb-form of the adjective clever, which modifies the word written (note that written not a noun, which is why it can only be modified by an adverb).

The SAT Writing Section will often try to fool you by incorrectly using an adjective form to modify a word that is not a noun.

Examples:

This is a bad sentence on the SAT:

*You have to move quick if you want a seat.

o
quick is an adjective, but there is no noun after it, so it isn’t modifying a noun and should appear as an adverb.

This is a correct sentence on the SAT:

You have to move quickly if you want a seat.

o
quickly is an adverb that describes the verb to move.

Remember our discussion of copular verbs like
to be
and
to become
, which equate the things on either side of them? For these special verbs, we can use adjective forms even when they don’t appear immediately before nouns.

Example:

This is an okay sentence on the SAT:

You have to be quick if you want a seat.

o
you is a pronoun that is correctly modified by the adjective quick.

o
to be is a copular verb that equates the word you with the word quick.

o
quick is an adjective that does not appear before a verb but does appear after a correctly used copular verb.

Conjunctions are words that link ideas to each other.

Examples:

and, either,
or
, neither, nor,
and
because
can all act like conjunctions on the SAT.

On the SAT, w
hen two ideas are linked by a conjunction, the ideas must appear in the same form.

Examples:

This is a good sentence on the SAT Writing Section:

Samantha likes singing, dancing, and acting.

o
singing, dancing, and acting are all being linked together by the conjunction and, and they all appear in their –ing forms.

This is a bad sentence on the SAT Writing Section:

*Samantha likes singing, dancing, and to act.

o
singing, dancing, and to act are all ideas linked together by the conjunction and, but they don’t all appear in the same form—singing and dancing are in their –ing forms, but to act is in its to form.

Prepositions are words that describe the origins or relative positions of ideas in a sentence.

Example:

In the sentence

The letter from your mother is in the drawer under the table.

o
from your mother is a prepositional phrase in which the preposition from shows that the origin of the letter is the noun phrase your mother

o
in the drawer is a prepositional phrase in which the preposition in shows the position of the letter relative to the drawer

o
under the table is a prepositional phrase in which the preposition under shows the position of the drawer relative to the table

Prepositions are also used in certain idioms in English, and the SAT likes to test your knowledge of these idioms occasionally.

Examples:

This is a bad sentence on the SAT:

*Joey’s supervisor fell to love with the new idea.

o
fell to love is an improper usage of an English idiom because the preposition to should be replaced with another preposition.

This is an acceptable sentence on the SAT:

Joey’s supervisor fell in love with the new idea.

o
fell in love is a proper usage of an English idiom.

Sometimes the SAT Writing Section places a prepositional phrase between a subject and its verb, and tries to trick you by making the verb agree with the noun in the prepositional phrase instead of with the actual subject.

Examples:

This is an acceptable sentence on the SAT:

Andrea’s list of chores is very complicated.

o
list is the subject of the verb-form is.

o
of chores is a prepositional phrase that comes between the subject list and the verb is

o
is is a verb, so it has to be singular to match the singular noun list

This is not an acceptable sentence on the SAT:

*Andrea’s list of chores are very complicated.

o
chores is a plural noun, but it is NOT the subject in this sentence—the subject is list, and chores is part of a prepositional phrase that describes the subject.

o
are is a plural verb-form that has incorrectly been made to agree with the plural noun chores, which is not the subject of the sentence.

Comparatives are phrases that compare one idea to another.

They can be formed by pairing the
-er
form of an adjective with the word
than
in order to compare two or more things. (Where necessary, comparatives can also be formed with the words
more
or
less
before an adjective instead of with that adjective’s
-er
form.)

Example:

In this sentence,
nicer than
is a comparative:

I think your new car is nicer than your old one.

In this sentence,
more intelligent than
is a comparative:

This solution seems more intelligent than the old approach.

Comparatives can also be formed with phrases that use the word
as
twice.

Example:

In this sentence, the phrase
as interesting as
is a comparative phrase:

I don’t think our calculus class is as interesting as our art class.

When you see a comparative on the SAT, make sure that the phrase that comes right after the comparative phrase really belongs in the comparison.

Examples:

This is a good SAT sentence:

Your house is smaller than John’s house.

o
smaller than is the comparative phrase that compares the idea of your house to the idea of John’s house.

This is a bad SAT sentence:

Your house is smaller than John.

o
John is not what the phrase Your house should really be compared to; the way this sentence is written, it says that your house is smaller than a person named John.

Be on the lookout for comparatives in the SAT Writing Section! They’re very often handled incorrectly