Question 161·Medium·Form, Structure, and Sense
Sprinkled with humor and candid personal anecdotes, Samantha Irby's essays present frank examinations of modern life, ______ readers to confront uncomfortable topics while still laughing.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
For sentence-structure questions like this, first locate the main subject and verb to see whether the part before the blank is already a complete clause. Then, look at the punctuation right before the blank—especially commas—to decide whether you need a modifier (like an -ing phrase), an infinitive, or a full new clause. Eliminate any option that creates a comma splice, adds an unnecessary new subject, or makes the sentence wordier or less smooth than needed, and choose the form that most clearly and concisely connects the ideas.
Hints
Find the subject and main verb
Look at the part of the sentence before the blank. Who is doing what? Is that part already a complete sentence on its own?
Consider the comma before the blank
Because there is a comma before the blank, think about whether the next words should start a whole new sentence-like idea or simply add description to the existing one.
Check for extra subjects
Ask yourself: do we need to introduce a new subject (like "they") after the comma, or should we keep describing what the essays do using a phrase without a new subject?
Test each option in the sentence
Read the sentence out loud with each choice. Which one sounds like a smooth continuation that explains the effect on readers, without creating a comma splice or a wordy, choppy structure?
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the main structure of the sentence
Read up to the comma: "Sprinkled with humor and candid personal anecdotes, Samantha Irby's essays present frank examinations of modern life,".
Here, the subject is "Samantha Irby's essays" and the main verb is "present". That part is already a complete sentence (an independent clause).
Decide what kind of word or phrase is needed after the comma
After a complete clause followed by a comma, we usually add a modifier (like an -ing phrase) or a second complete clause joined correctly.
The words after the blank are: "readers to confront uncomfortable topics while still laughing." Whatever we choose must connect smoothly so the whole chunk describes what happens to the readers as a result of the essays.
Eliminate choices that create the wrong clause structure
Check each option:
- and they encourage and they encourage both introduce a new subject ("they"), turning the part after the comma into another full clause.
- With they encourage and only a comma before it, you would get two complete sentences joined by just a comma, which is a comma splice (always wrong on the SAT).
- With and they encourage, you do get two complete clauses joined by "and," which is grammatically possible but unnecessarily wordy and breaks the smooth modifier pattern the sentence is setting up.
So we want a single modifying phrase, not an entire new clause with its own subject.
Choose the modifier that fits best after the comma
Now compare the remaining structures:
- to encourage is an infinitive phrase of purpose. It would normally follow the verb directly ("present ... to encourage readers"), without a comma. Because the comma is fixed in the sentence, using "to encourage" after it makes the construction awkward and less standard.
- encouraging is an -ing (participial) form that naturally follows a comma to describe an effect or result: "present …, encouraging readers to confront uncomfortable topics while still laughing."
This -ing phrase clearly and smoothly modifies what the essays do to the readers, so the correct answer is "encouraging".