SAT Tips and Strategies Post

Brian's Comma Rule for the SAT Writing Section

Hello to those of you preparing for the upcoming March SAT.

I’ve got a particularly powerful SAT Writing technique for you today. I came up with this rule because my students were struggling to understand how to properly use commas, and were getting SAT Writing questions wrong as a result. This type of error occurs frequently in the Sentence Improvement subsection of the Writing section, which is the first of three subsections (the other two are Error IDs and Improving Paragraphs).

The comma rule is great because it can apply to all types of sentences, and it ALWAYS HOLDS TRUE on the SAT Writing. This is because it’s rooted in the correct grammatical usage of the comma.

Ok, here it is—use this trick wherever you see a comma in a long sentence.

IF YOU COULD PUT A PERIOD IN PLACE OF THE COMMA, AND IT WOULD FORM TWO COMPLETE SENTENCES, THEN IT SHOULD NOT BE A COMMA.

For example:

“I’m ready, let’s go.” is incorrect, because

“I’m ready. Let’s go.” forms two complete sentences.

The OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE SAT loves to test this type of error. Try using the comma rule on Sentence Improvements (and sometimes Paragraph Improvents). Some examples from the big blue book, test #1:

Section 7, pp. 413-418

#4
answer choices A and E are invalidated by the comma rule.

#10
A and B are invalidated.

#34
A, C, and E

Section 10, pp. 492-498

#1
B and C

#13
A

That’s 5 problems total on this test, which is about 10 percent of the entire Writing section. The October 2006 PSAT for juniors was also filled with questions that could be solved using the comma rule. Make sure to request a copy of your test booklet from your guidance counselor so you can go over the ones you got wrong.

(One more thing, students: please don’t be afraid to write me if you have any questions or think you may have found an error in one of my blog postings. I try to post as often as possible to keep my internet readers happy, so sometimes an error slips through the cracks! Please feel free to contribute SAT tips and tricks of your own as well—I will select the best of them and post some of them on my blog.)

Remember that my SAT prep advice is ALWAYS FREE! So please help us build our popularity by telling your friends to check out this site. Feel free to add comments as well.

-Brian

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