Quick Reference

Every distinction here has already been taught. Nothing in this reference is new instruction. It exists for one moment only: standing between two choices, ten seconds before deciding, when the rule you learned has gone quiet in your head. Find the distinction you are missing, look at the paired example, and go back to the question. If a section takes longer than thirty seconds to use, it has failed its job.

1. Sentence boundaries at a glance

Every boundary question is one question in disguise: what is on each side of this mark, and what relationship does that mark require?

Two complete sentences

However, therefore, moreover and similar words do not join sentences by themselves. They explain a relationship but carry no grammatical weight. If both sides are complete sentences, the join still needs a period or semicolon in front of the word.

• Wrong: The bridge did not fail, however, the engineers had not modeled the sway.
• Right: The bridge did not fail; however, the engineers had not modeled the sway.

A complete sentence followed by an explanation

A colon needs a complete sentence in front of it; what follows explains, specifies, lists, or illustrates. A dash can do the same job once, after a complete clause. A semicolon needs a complete sentence on both sides. If what follows cannot stand alone, use a colon.

• Wrong: The site was chosen for one property; the permafrost that would keep the seeds frozen.
• Right: The site was chosen for one property: the permafrost that would keep the seeds frozen.

A main sentence with something extra inserted

Material you could lift out of the middle takes a matching mark at each end: two commas, two dashes, or two parentheses. At the start or end of a sentence, one mark is enough. Test it by removing the material. If the sentence still points at the same thing, the material is extra and needs the pair. If it is restrictive and necessary to identify the noun, it generally takes no commas.

• Wrong: Emmy Noether who was refused a salaried post for four years, proved the theorem in 1918.
• Right: Emmy Noether, who was refused a salaried post for four years, proved the theorem in 1918.
• Essential, no commas: The rift valley that she had drawn from thousands of soundings became decisive evidence.
• Extra, needs a pair: The rift valley, which she had drawn from thousands of soundings, became decisive evidence.

A long subject does not earn a comma before its verb. Wrong: A study of the seventeen letters she wrote after her library was sold, suggests she kept working. Right: ...was sold suggests she kept working.

One subject with two verbs takes no comma before the second verb. Wrong: Lamarr spent the war being photographed for magazines, and spent her evenings at a drafting table. Right: ...magazines and spent her evenings at a drafting table.

An opening piece, then the main sentence

A clause or participial phrase in front of the main sentence is closed with a comma. Wrong: After the mills closed in 1914 the water cooled by two degrees. Right: After the mills closed in 1914, the water cooled by two degrees. A series takes commas between items, including before the final and or or; semicolons separate items in a complex series when the items already contain commas. Right: The bones of a king, a fragment of a crown, and a silver coin lay beneath the slab.

One-line test: Cover the mark and ask what stands on each side. Two complete sentences need a period, a semicolon, or a comma with a joining word. A complete sentence plus an explanation can take a colon. A sentence interrupted by extra material needs a matched pair. An opening dependent clause is normally followed by a comma; an opening phrase commonly takes one, especially a long one, but a short one can sometimes stand without it.

2. What does this word or phrase modify?

Most Form, Structure, and Sense questions ask what actually controls a word, and whether it is obeying that control.

Its, their, whose: expand the contraction

Wrong: The company knew that it's tank had leaked. Right: ...that its tank had leaked.

Owner controls the possessive form

Irregular plurals take the apostrophe before the s regardless: children's, men's. The evidence that settles the form often arrives after the blank, so read the whole sentence. Wrong: The sister's handwriting was the least of her problems; four of them shared a first name. Right: The sisters' handwriting...

One-line test: Before choosing, name the controlling element out loud: which subject, antecedent, owner, noun, earlier moment, first two list items, or compared thing. The answer has to agree with something specific, not with whatever sits nearest the blank.

3. Words with a second meaning

A familiar word misleads because its everyday sense arrives first. Each word below has a common meaning and a less familiar one that a sentence sometimes needs. Read the sentence's actual demand before letting the familiar sense answer for you. If the familiar meaning makes the sentence odd or contradictory, the word is very likely carrying its other sense.

4. Close words with different meanings

Sometimes the choices are two or three words pointing the same direction, and only one matches how far the sentence goes.

A biologist who questions an interpretation has raised a doubt; one who refutes it has shown it wrong. A policy that limits emissions has reduced them; one that prevents them has stopped them entirely. Before choosing, name what would have to be true for the stronger word to be correct. If the passage does not establish that, the weaker word is very likely the answer, whichever sounds more impressive.

5. Answer strength and scope

The last inch between two close answers is almost always the same inch: one choice stays where the evidence stops, and the other takes one more step the evidence never licensed.

• Association and causation. Emergency room visits rose on high-pollen days over one spring. Pollen is associated with more visits; claiming it causes them goes a step past co-occurring counts, since heat, humidity, or other allergens could be doing some of the work.
• Proposed versus demonstrated mechanism. If researchers say heat may trigger a pigment pathway, an answer stating that heat triggers it treats an untested proposal as settled. Preserve the word may.
• Sample size and population scope. Forty patients at one clinic support a claim about this sample, not about patients generally.
• Evidence of absence. If no text describes how a workshop mixed its pigments, the method was not recorded; it did not never exist. A gap in survival is not evidence the thing never happened.

The check: name the exact word carrying the weight, and ask whether the passage gave that word permission to be there. Choose the strongest answer the evidence actually earns, not the strongest that sounds plausible.

6. Match graph data to the claim

A correct number can still support the wrong conclusion when the group, unit, time point, or comparison is not the one the claim needs. Before trusting an answer built from a graph or table, ask six questions:

• What is measured?
• Which group?
• What unit?
• Which time point?
• Is the claim about level or change?
• Is it asking for association or cause?

Say the exact comparison the claim needs, in plain words, before looking back at the numbers. The tallest bar, steepest line, and biggest percentage each answer a specific question. Check that it is the one being asked.

7. Main point and supporting detail

Both statements below each passage are accurate. Only one is what the passage is about. Correctness is necessary for a main-idea answer; it is never sufficient.

Before choosing, ask what the rest of the passage would have no reason to exist for, if this one sentence were the whole point.

8. Function and cross-text relationships

Part A: Content versus function

A sentence's content and its job in the passage are two separate questions. Paraphrasing the content answers only the first.

One sentence can serve two compatible functions at once. Which one is relevant depends on what the question asks the sentence to do.

Part B: Cross-text relationships

Two authors agreeing on a fact does not mean they agree on anything else. Find the exact place the agreement stops.

Before answering a cross-text question, name the exact point where the two texts stop agreeing. It is almost never “everything.”

9. Close transitions with different jobs

Words in the same family are not interchangeable. The relationship between the two ideas decides which word belongs.

Chronology alone does not justify therefore. “After X, Y happened” is about order; “Therefore, Y happened” is about cause.

• Time versus cause. The lab replaced its aging equipment in March. Subsequently, output quality improved (later only). Therefore would claim the equipment produced the improvement.
• Contrast versus concession. The bridge design was untested. However, it held through the storm (a plain difference). Nevertheless claims it survived despite the very doubt the first sentence raised.
• Addition versus example. The committee cited cost overruns. Moreover, the timeline had slipped twice (a separate second problem). For example would fit only if the slip were one instance of an already-stated broader claim.
• Result versus restatement. Attendance fell by half. Consequently, the theater struggled financially (an outcome). In other words would fit only if the struggle were the same fact restated.
• Sequence versus result. The drought lasted three years. Subsequently, farmers switched crops (order only). As a result claims the drought caused the switch.
• When therefore is simply wrong. Sales figures were strong all year. However, the company posted a loss. Therefore would claim strong sales caused the loss.

Say the relationship in plain words before scanning the choices. The word has to match a relationship that is already there, not create one that was never in the passage.

10. Check every part of the goal

Two checks, every time. Does the sentence accomplish every part of the stated goal? Is every factual claim actually supported by the notes? A sentence that passes only one still fails.

A sentence that sounds tailored to the goal has cleared only half the requirement. Check the facts inside it against the notes before trusting how well it fits.

11. High-utility vocabulary under pressure

For one moment: a word in an answer choice you half-know, with ten seconds to decide. Find the word, read the one line, go back to the question.

Recurrent vocabulary by function

Medium-frequency exposure

Words worth recognizing on sight, not necessarily worth a full study session.

Additional high-utility vocabulary

Included for extra exposure; not an official College Board list and not a prediction.

Secondary academic meanings

These common words carry a second, more precise sense in academic writing. If the everyday meaning makes a sentence strange, try the academic one: qualify, novel, sound, check, bearing, register, arrest, temper, yield, sustain, compromise, mark, entertain, measured, harbor, afford, confer, assume, execute, capture, render, appreciate, realize, critical, material, hold, constitute, advance.

Close boundaries

Claims, evidence, and rhetorical action verbs

• Claims and evidence: report, observe, assert, contend, posit, hypothesize, conjecture, infer, deduce, corroborate, substantiate, validate, verify, confirm, qualify, complicate, challenge, undercut, undermine, rebut, refute, concede, endorse.
• Rhetorical actions: introduce, establish, illustrate, exemplify, enumerate, expound, abridge, summarize, synopsis, critique, qualify, rebut, frame, characterize, foreground, underscore.

Tone and degree rescue

Degree words worth keeping in order: modest, marginal, substantial, predominant.

Scarcity, abundance, and variation

Typicality, appearance, interpretation, and stance

Roots as a backup clue

Use this only when every other strategy has failed. A root narrows the field; it does not hand you the answer.

A root gets you to a family, not a definition. Preclude and conclude share no useful root relationship despite looking alike. Treat every root-based guess as a narrowing move to check against the sentence, never as the final answer.