Why this matters on the SAT
A sentence that opens with a describing phrase owes that phrase something: the right noun, right after its comma. On the SAT, these questions put the blank right after the comma, and the four choices are long and start with different words. Every choice usually makes a grammatical sentence, so the question is really asking one thing: who or what does the opening phrase describe? They make up about one in twenty grammar questions, most of them medium or hard.
Solution to the example
Ask who reviewed the readings: the flight controllers. So the main noun right after the comma must be the flight controllers, and only A does that. The answer is A. B tempts most, because it opens with the controllers' name, but its main noun is their determination, and a determination didn't review anything. C starts with a determination too, and D starts with it. All three keep the controllers in the sentence, but none makes them the main noun right after the comma.
SAT example
After reviewing a spacecraft’s telemetry readings from launch day, ______ that one of the temperature sensors had malfunctioned.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
the flight controllers determined
the flight controllers' determination was
a determination was made by the flight controllers
it was determined by the flight controllers
Lesson 1 showed that a describing form can open a sentence, before the subject. A phrase like that doesn't name what it describes, so it borrows the noun that follows: an opening describing phrase describes the main noun right after its comma. That noun has to be what the phrase describes.
In the examples, the opening phrase is underlined, because it decides, and the words right after its comma are bold, because they're what the choices change.
To test a sentence, ask who or what the phrase describes, then find the main noun right after the comma. In both wrong versions it's every truck, so the sentence says the trucks worked through the night. A sentence says what its words say, not what you know it means.
Grammar books call a describing phrase a modifier. When the sentence leaves out what the phrase describes, as the first wrong version does, it's a dangling modifier. When the right noun is in the sentence but in the wrong spot, as in the second, it's a misplaced modifier. The SAT tests both, and the same test catches both.
The main noun is the one the words around it point to, and it can bring company. A title or a describing word can come before it (night manager Ana Ruiz, the tired crew), and so can an owner's name with an apostrophe (the warehouse's crew), which only says whose. Extra information between commas can follow it; cross that out, as lesson 1 showed. In each case, crew or Ana Ruiz is still the main noun right after the comma.
Correct or not? After missing the last ferry, a hotel room was the travelers’ only option.
Try the test on this question: ask who the phrase describes, then check that the choice puts them right after the comma, not just somewhere in the sentence.
Practice problem
Molecular biologists investigating why identical twins can develop different traits over time often compare patterns of DNA methylation in the twins’ cells. Recognizing that methylation can silence genes without changing the underlying DNA sequence, _____
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
On the SAT, the opening phrase usually comes in one of four shapes. They look different, but each one describes the main noun right after its comma, so the same question decides all four.
| Shape | Example | Ask |
|---|---|---|
| a word like after, by, since or despite, then an -ing form | After checking every tire, | Who checked every tire? |
| an -ed form | Trained by the night manager, | Who was trained? |
| a noun phrase | A team of six, | Who is a team of six? |
| an -ing form on its own | Working through the night, | Who was working? |
An -ing form opens about half of these questions, with or without a word like after in front of it. An -ed form says something was done to the noun, the way lesson 1's was test shows: the crew was trained. So ask who or what was trained. A noun phrase renames the noun after the comma: a team of six is another name for the crew.
This question opens with a noun phrase, so ask who it renames.
Practice problem
An influential architect of the early skyscraper, _____
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
The rule covers phrases that leave someone out. A phrase that only says when or where (Before dawn, In 1937, Among the town's landmarks), or that has a subject of its own (With the drivers waiting, When the drivers arrive), describes no one, so any noun can follow its comma.
So check the words. After the storm only says when. After checking every tire also says someone checked, without naming them, so the main noun right after its comma must be the one who did. With the drivers waiting already names who's waiting.
Once in a while, the blank sits before the opening phrase instead, where one sentence ends and the next begins. Then the phrase tells you where the break goes. It describes the noun after its own comma, so it starts that noun's sentence, and the mark before it has to be one that can stand between two full sentences, usually a period.
With a comma, having waited three hours in the cold hangs on the ferry's sentence, and the passengers hurried ashore is left joined to it by a comma alone. Joining two sentences covers that boundary.
Wrong choices in these questions are rarely nonsense. Most of them contain the right name, just not as the main noun, so they sound right, and many sound smoother or more formal than the answer. Each one makes something else the main noun right after the comma. Only the noun the phrase describes can be that main noun: not something that belongs to it, its work, an action, the thing it acted on, or an empty it or there.
Each wrong version says something checked the tires that couldn't have: a job, an action, the trucks, a warehouse. The crew's job names the crew, but its main noun is job; crew's only says whose. The loading is an abstract noun, a noun for an idea or an action rather than a person or a thing. A passive, a form of be (is, are, was, were) with an -ed form, can also put the wrong noun first: the trucks were loaded by the crew moves the crew to the end. It in it was the crew that and there in there was stand for nothing at all.
On the SAT, the two traps you'll meet most are another noun from the passage, often a place, a date or the person behind a thing, and an abstract noun like the use of, the focus of or a 2005 analysis. So ignore how a choice sounds, and find its main noun.
Which start fits the blank: the captain’s decision was to take, the captain chose or it was the captain who chose? After weighing every option, ______ the northern route.
In this question, ignore how each choice sounds and find its main noun right after the comma.
Practice problem
A scientist who helped reveal how cells recycle their own components through autophagy, ______ are sometimes broken down and reused when nutrients are scarce.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
More than half of these questions describe a thing, not a person: a novel, a scale, a settlement. They include most of the hard ones, because the passage also names someone who made or studied the thing, and that person is the trap. A person feels like the natural start of a sentence, but a person wasn't built, carved or published.
Here, the two forms that were traps in the last section can be the answer, because the rule looks only at the main noun. In the town's lighthouse, the main noun is lighthouse, and in the lamps of the lighthouse, it's lamps.
So a possessive is right when its main noun is what the phrase describes, and wrong when the phrase describes the owner. A passive is right when it puts what the phrase describes right after the comma.
The town's lighthouse was built in 1890, so the first possessive works; the keeper wasn't built, so the second fails. The same goes for the passives: the form doesn't decide, the main noun does.
Right or wrong after the comma: the sculptor’s statue? Carved from a single block of granite, ______ stands at the harbor entrance.
This SAT question describes a thing: name it, treat the person behind it as the trap, and read a possessive by its main noun.
Practice problem
Determining the identity of a mineral sample can be difficult when several minerals share the same color. Still taught in geology courses, _____ ranks minerals by their ability to scratch one another.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
A phrase that compares, like Unlike X or Compared to X, also describes the noun after its comma: that noun is what gets compared with X, so it has to be the same kind of thing. When the phrase says that of, as in Unlike that of the old lighthouse, that stands for a noun that comes after the comma: here, the beam of the old lighthouse. So the words after the comma must start with that noun, the other thing's beam.
Here's the move that makes these questions fast. The choices usually make grammatical sentences, and the wrong ones often sound better than the answer, so reading the choices first pulls you toward whichever sounds best. Name what the phrase describes first, from the passage. Then read only the start of each choice, its main noun right after the comma, and cross out every choice whose main noun is something else.
Usually one choice is left. If two are, the rest of the sentence decides, sometimes by a rule from an earlier lesson, so read each one to the period with the words after the blank.
That makes one routine for every modifier question, the one the worked examples and the practice problems at the end follow:
In this question, the answer is a passive, and the choice that sounds best starts with the people in the scene.
Worked example
Covered in a dense layer of volcanic ash, _____
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
geologists determined that the settlement had been abandoned abruptly.
evidence indicates that the settlement was abandoned abruptly by its inhabitants.
the settlement was discovered by geologists, who concluded that it had been abandoned abruptly.
it was the settlement that geologists discovered had been abandoned abruptly.
Step 1
The sentence opens with Covered in a dense layer of volcanic ash and a comma, and the choices start with four different words: geologists, evidence, the settlement and it. So this is a modifier question.
Covered is an -ed form, and the was test fits: something was covered. Ask what was covered in volcanic ash. Of the words the choices put first, only the settlement could be.
Step 2
B starts with evidence, an abstract noun, not the settlement. D starts with it, which names nothing, and the settlement comes too late. Both go.
Step 3
A tempts most. It's the active sentence, short and direct, and the geologists really did find the settlement. But it puts geologists right after the comma, so it says the geologists were covered in ash.
C is a passive, and A says nearly the same thing more directly, so C can feel wrong. But a passive is right when it puts what the phrase describes right after the comma, and here the passive is what puts the settlement first. The answer is C.
Here the opening phrase has three parts and describes a book, and every wrong choice starts with a person or with someone else's version of the book.
Worked example
In the eighteenth-century London book trade, authors sometimes concealed their identities even from publishers. Submitted to Thomas Lowndes through intermediaries, issued anonymously in 1778, and recognized as Frances Burney’s work only after it became a sensation, ______ established Burney’s literary reputation despite the absence of her name from the title page.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
publisher Thomas Lowndes, who initially did not know the author’s identity,
Burney’s first novel, Evelina,
Frances Burney herself, communicating with Lowndes only through trusted intermediaries,
Lowndes’s first printing of Evelina, prepared from the anonymous manuscript,
Step 1
The sentence opens with three -ed forms joined by “and”, then a comma and the blank. Each choice starts with a different noun and adds extra information, and the words after the blank, established Burney’s literary reputation, fit a person or a book. So the opening phrase has to decide.
Step 2
Ask what was submitted to Thomas Lowndes through intermediaries, issued anonymously in 1778 and recognized as Frances Burney’s work only after it became a sensation. That's a piece of writing: Burney's book.
So the people go. A starts with Lowndes, who received the manuscript; he wasn't submitted to himself. C starts with Burney, and a person isn't issued anonymously or recognized as someone's work. C tempts more than A, because through trusted intermediaries echoes the passage, but the phrase describes what Burney wrote, not Burney.
Step 3
D names Evelina and fits issued anonymously, so it tempts most. But its main noun is printing, and the printing was Lowndes's, made from the manuscript after it reached him. It wasn't submitted to Lowndes; the manuscript was. The phrase describes the book, not the publisher's version of it.
Step 4
In B, the main noun is novel; Burney’s only says whose. Evelina sits between commas as extra information, so cross it out: Burney's first novel was submitted, issued and recognized, and it established her reputation. The answer is B.
These four questions mix the shapes and the traps, so on each one, run the whole routine: spot the phrase, name what it describes, then match.
Practice problem
Painted with reflective ink and meant to be seen at night, ______ along the highway.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Practice problem
At a coastal marsh reserve, biologists compared plots with intact crab populations to plots where crabs were excluded. Crab burrows aerate the sediment, raising oxygen levels that speed the breakdown of dead plant matter. By accelerating this decomposition, _____
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Practice problem
Expanding across the ocean through winter darkness and retreating under nearly continuous summer sunlight, ______ satellite measurements show that its extent usually reaches a minimum in September.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Practice problem
Unlike that of most city councils, _____ the committee’s meeting transcripts are published within hours, not weeks.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Finish the lesson
Finish the remaining questions correctly to complete this lesson.
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