SAT Practice- Supplementary Phrases

Interrupters
Dealing with extra info in sentences

The boy almost burned the house down.

The boy, playing with a lighter, almost burned the house down.
Playing with a lighter, the boy almost burned the house down.
The boy almost burned the house down, lighting the rug on fire.

The sentence has to make sense without the extra info.

The boy, playing with a lighter, almost burned the house down.
vs.
Playing with a lighter, could burn down a house.

The melee, a confused mass, resulted in 7 injuries. (noun phrase)

The girl, whose world was crumbling, still had to go to work. (who or which phrase)

The teacher, long-winded and talkative, made everyone late. (adjective phrase)

The girl, worrying about her job, was quiet at school. (-ing verb phrase)

When walking on ice, you should be cautious. (time phrase)

Laughing hysterically, the girls made him feel silly. (-ing verb phrase)

Talkative and rude, Greg was a teacher's worst nightmare. (adjective phrase)

He regretted going to the movie, which ended up being three hours long. (which phrase)

The extra info cannot be a complete sentence.

The melee, a confused mass, resulted in 7 injuries. (noun phrase)

The girl, whose world was crumbling, still had to go to work. (who or which phrase)

The teacher, long-winded and talkative, made everyone late. (adjective phrase)

The girl, worrying about her job, was quiet at school. (-ing verb phrase)

When walking on ice, you should be cautious. (time phrase)

Laughing hysterically, the girls made him feel silly. (-ing verb phrase)

Talkative and rude, Greg was a teacher's worst nightmare. (adjective phrase)

He regretted going to the movie, which ended up being three hours long. (which phrase)

The extra info can come at the beginning, middle, or end of the sentence.

The extra info has to be placed next to whatever it is describing.

Playing with a lighter, the boy almost burned the house down.
The boy almost burned the house down, playing with a lighter.

The interrupter needs the same punctuation mark on each side of it. It can be a comma or a dash.

The girl, who had been practicing since she was young, won the National Championship.

The video game--full of terrible graphics and glitches--did not sell well.

Open Ended

Add an interrupter to this sentence in the beginning.

The basketball game was intense.

Open Ended

Add an interrupter to the middle of the sentence.

The basketball player got ejected.

Open Ended

Add an interrupter to the end of the sentence.

Nobody was more mad than the coach.

Multiple Choice

When particles are suspended in liquid (like pollen in a water glass), they will zigzag randomly through the liquid and collide with one another in perpetuity. This type of random, continuous ______ is known as Brownian motion, can be observed throughout the natural world.

• movement: which

• movement, which

• movement which

• movement. Which

Multiple Choice

In 1959, the film industry debuted Smell-O-Vision. Theaters were fitted with specialized vents that emitted odors at specific points in a _________ as the scent of roses when roses appeared in a scene. Smell-O-Vision failed to impress, however, with one reviewer declaring it "briefly weird and not very interesting."

• movie such

• movie; such

• movie. Such

• movie, such

Multiple Choice

Swedish scientists Eva Engvall and Peter Perlmann developed a method for measuring the concentration of different proteins in a biological sample. Their _________ ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), is used to detect and measure proteins that indicate the presence of certain diseases.

• method (called

• method--called

• method, called

• method called

Multiple Choice

Luci Tapahonso is the inaugural poet laureate of the Navajo Nation. Her book Saanii Dahataal/The Women Are Singing--a combination of fiction and memoir, poetry and _______ serves as a testament to her versatility as a writer.

• prose;

• prose

• prose,

• prose--

Multiple Choice

The poem Beowulf begins with the word "hwaet," which is an Old English ______ as "hark!" or "listen!" in some versions, the word was playfully rendered as "bro!" by Maria Dahvana Headley in her 2020 translation of the poem.

• exclamation, translated

• exclamation and translated

• exclamation translated

• exclamation. Translated

Multiple Choice

From afar, African American fiber artist Bisa Butler's portraits look like paintings, their depictions of human faces, bodies, and clothing so intricate that it seems only a fine brush could have rendered them. When viewed up close, however, the portraits reveal themselves to be _____stitching barely visible among the thousands of pieces of printed, microcut fabric.

• quilts, and the

• quilts, the

• quilts; the

• quilts. The