The Top 50 SAT Grammar Skills
Based on Bluebook tests 4 - 10
This is a list of the most common SAT grammar skills from the College Board’s Bluebook tests (#4 - 10). We need to know which questions appear the most in order to create the question base for Grammarchops, so we analyze every question from the Bluebook tests, calculate the frequencies, and produce the list below.
Notes
I said “we”...but most of the heavy lifting was done by Dave Lynch, who also wrote all of the questions for Grammarchops.
These are listed in alphabetical order, rather than by frequency.
We also reviewed all of the items in the College Board’s Question Bank, mostly as a tiebreaker.
Grammarchops also includes transitions and “word in context” items, but they are not part of this list.
The List
Boundary transitions: A transition word like however can occur at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence, and so it may be surrounded by commas, or appear before or after a semicolon. Watch out for comma splices—don’t use a transition word + commas to join two full sentences.
Apostrophes: Mostly an issue for possession: “the cat’s claws are sharp” means one cat owns some sharp claws. For plural possessive, put the apostrophe after the s: “the actors’ union” is a union for multiple actors.
Appositive phrase: An appositive is a noun phrase that describes another noun. You’ll have to decide whether it needs commas or not. An introductory appositive beginning with the, a, an, or one needs a comma: “An avid writer, Sarah published her first novel last year.” A nonessential appositive needs commas around it when it follows the noun it describes: “The river, a winding ribbon of blue, meandered through the valley.” An essential appositive before the noun it modifies does not need commas: “I was accompanied by cultural anthropologist Darren Becker on the tour.” (Cultural anthropologist is the appositive.)
Clause-joining punctuation: A broad category that involves joining two clauses with a punctuation mark, like a semicolon, colon, or dash.
Clear all commas: Many questions tempt you to add a bunch of unnecessary commas. When in doubt, no comma. That doesn’t mean the answer is always “no comma”—just that it’s best to err on the side of no comma if there’s no clear reason to use one.
Colons: They do not always come before a list!!! Sorry – had to get that out. Here is the one rule: you must have a complete sentence before the colon. The colon itself acts like an arrow, but you can have anything after it – one word, a full sentence, and, yes, even a list.
Colon between things that belong together: You don’t want to put a colon between a modifier and a noun (“They found the remote: in the couch cushions.”) or between a verb and object (“He offered: $20 to the first kid to find the remote.”).
Colon vs. semicolon: This is rare, but with a colon, you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. With a semicolon, there’s more freedom to go in a different direction.
Comma between modifier and noun: A common wrong answer choice, particularly with the “title before name” questions.
Comma between subject and verb: Don’t separate a subject from its verb: “Although eating oatmeal, kale, and quinoa, was recommended, Frank opted for the mozzarella sticks.” The comma after quinoa is incorrect.
Comma splice: A dreadful error in which you try to join two complete sentences using nothing but a comma. Example: “I like candy, I like movies.” This wickedness is waiting to trick you multiple times per test.
Comma(s) around essential clause: A wrong answer type. Don’t put commas around essential clauses. You would not want commas around who showed up late in this sentence: “The teacher who showed up late was criticized by the students.”
Compound predicate punctuation: This is when one subject has two verbs: “I walked to the store and bought candy.” Because you can think of this as a list of two verbs, you don’t need a comma before and.
Compound predicate construction: Watch out for a compound predicate with stuff in between the two verbs—it can be hard to keep track of the subject: “Music in this style requires technical facility, rhythmic precision, and harmonic awareness and rewards diligent practice.” (The music requires and rewards.)
Create separate sentences: If you know there are two complete sentences, and separating them with a period is an option, pick that. “The play begins. An elderly man, ensconced in his newspaper, ignores his boisterous grandson, who playfully throws Legos at the ceiling.”
Cross out irrelevant details: Cross out nonessential phrases, modifiers, and any other words that do not affect your decision. Most helpful on agreement questions (subject/verb, noun/pronoun).
Dashes: These are used in two ways. Two dashes bracket nonessential phrases—you can use them instead of two commas or parentheses. One dash is used after a complete sentence and before additional info.
False conjunctions: Transition words like however are not conjunctions and can’t connect two complete sentences.
Introductory modifier: Watch out for the noun right after introductory phrases—that noun must be the thing the intro phrase is referring to. Look at this sentence: “Unlike other animals, the eyesight of cats is extraordinary.” It makes it sound like the eyesight is unlike other animals, when you actually want to say that cats are unlike other animals.
Improper comparison via intro phrase: This sentence is wrong: “Compared with that of Michael Jordan, Lebron James has not earned as many titles.”
Inverted word order: Sometimes the sentences sound kind of backwards (almost in the style of a play-by-play sports announcer). Reordering them can help you with subject-verb agreement: “Last to the dinner table are the twins.”
Its / their / etc.: The most commonly missed pronoun combination. Its is singular possessive: “The painting lost its vibrant colors after years of exposure to the sun.” Their is plural possessive: “The paintings lost their vibrant colors...” They’re is a contraction for they are. That leaves it’s, which is a contraction for it is or it has. Note that its’ is not a thing and will never be correct.
Comma usage in lists: If it’s a list of three or more things, you do need commas between the listed items and before and: “The visitors, residents, and bears tried to preserve the redwood forest.” A list of two does not require a comma: “The plants and animals appreciated the effort.”
Main clause construction: How do we properly put together a complete sentence, with a subject and a verb?
Missing comma before conjunction: If you are connecting two complete sentences with a FANBOYS conjunction, you need a comma before the conjunction: “She sent the letter by mail, but she realized that an email would have been faster.”
Multiple-clause sentence: You have multiple subject/verb pairs (or multiple clauses), and you just have to make sure that they are connected properly. They sometimes contain a word like that: “He liked Grammarchops so much that he decided to ignore his history teacher and play Break the Bank instead.”
Name / title punctuation: The SAT loves to use a person’s role or job title as an essential appositive and their name as the noun. If the appositive comes before the noun, there’s no comma: “The team chose director of marketing Vivian Parks to lead the project.” If the appositive follows the noun, use commas: “The team chose Vivian Parks, director of marketing, to lead the project.”
Nonessential phrase punctuation: If a phrase is not necessary, you can put “brackets” around it. Those brackets can be commas, parentheses, or dashes. Example: “The truth, however, was shocking.” You could get rid of however if you wanted to. Another example: “Ancient civilizations—using only rudimentary tools—had a surprisingly advanced understanding of the stars.”
Parentheses : Other punctuation goes outside the parentheses. The sentence needs to be properly punctuated if you remove the parenthetical.
Participial phrase construction: You can see this in any part of the sentence (intro phrase, nonessential phrase, end-of-sentence phrase). They often have -ing words: “He sat down at the table, hoping they would eat soon.”
Period / semicolon pair: If you see two answer choices with the same words, but one has a period and the other has a semicolon, both must be incorrect because they are the same answer. For example, if choice A is “expressions; they were” and choice B is “expressions. They were”, you can immediately kill both choices and focus your attention on C and D. (The one exception to this trick is if it’s a serial semicolon.)
Plural possessive: When something belongs to more than one person or thing, the apostrophe comes after the s: “The runners’ feet were sore after the marathon.” If you said “the runner’s feet were sore after the marathon,” you would be referring to just one runner and his feet, rather than a bunch of runners with sore feet.
Prepositional phrase punctuation: Prepositions are words like of, in, to, for, and with. Prepositional phrases don’t typically need commas around them, unless they introduce the sentence or create a distinct pause. Unnecessary commas: “The book, on the table, has a red cover.” Good commas: “In 2015, she bought her first car.” “The mayor, along with several other town officials, took part in the festivities.”
Pronoun agreement: Singular nouns need singular pronouns, and plural ones need plural. An example of an error: “When artists use found objects, he or she can create amazing art.” (The pronoun should be they because artists is plural.)
Quotation marks: If the quoted phrase flows within the grammar of the sentence, punctuate as if the quotes weren’t there: “I am not familiar with this “no cap” you speak of.”
Quote punctuation interaction: Sometimes it seems like they are testing this, but some other element actually distinguishes the right answers from the wrong ones.
Relative clause construction: Words like which and that are called relative pronouns and can create relative clauses. Make sure they’re formed and punctuated correctly. “She walked towards the piano that she had noticed earlier.” (The second half is a relative clause.)
Run-on sentence: An error in which two complete sentences are squished into one without the proper punctuation.
Semicolons: These are almost always used to separate two complete sentences: “She finished her homework early; she had the rest of the evening to relax.”
Subject-verb interruption: Cross out the interruption between the subject and verb so that you can hear the agreement more clearly. Correct: “This book, like many others written by athletes, has many anecdotes.”
Subordinate clause: This has a subordinating conjunction such as although, because, or unless. It’s a clause with a subject and verb, but it can’t stand alone as a sentence. It needs a comma when it comes before the main clause: “Although the car looked nice, it often broke down.”
Supercomma: Use a semicolon to separate listed items that themselves already contain commas.
Trailing participial phrase: This is a phrase at the end of the sentence that gives you more information about the preceding situation. You need a comma before the phrase: “He hosted the competition every week for six months, attracting the fiercest arm wrestlers on the planet.”
Trailing phrase or intro phrase?: You’re given a very long stream of text and have to decide if the phrase you are punctuating is a trailing phrase (one sentence) or an intro phrase (two sentences).
Transition words: Pick the right transition, such as however, for example, therefore, moreover, indeed, still, consequently ... and many others. Read before and after the word, then ask yourself what the relationship is.
Unpaired subjects or verbs: A common wrong answer type. Does each subject have a verb, and vice versa? Error: “With the change in weather means I’ll be wearing three sweatshirts today.” The verb means doesn’t have a subject.
Verb agreement: The subject and verb must agree: “The plants in the garden (bloom / blooms) beautifully in the spring.” Singular subjects need singular verbs, and plural ones need plural.
Verb agreement shortcut: If they are testing singular / plural verbs, the answer that’s different from the other three is often correct (maybe 90-95% of the time).
Verb infinitive: Not subject / verb agreement and not singular / plural. Correct example: “She uses a microscope to study cells.” The verb that is paired with the subject is uses rather than to study.
Verb tense: Use the past, present, or other appropriate tense to indicate when an action takes place. “The plane (lands / landed) last night.”
Great read! Thanks Dave and Mike.