Digital SAT Form, Structure, & Sense

Draw

Draw how you're feeling right now.

Form, Structure, & Sense Questions​

What are "form, structure, and sense" questions?

On the SAT Reading and Writing Test, some questions will present you with a short passage that contains a blank. The question will then ask you to complete the text in a way that conforms to the conventions of Standard English.

On the SAT, these Standard English conventions are broken down into two categories:

• Form, structure, and sense

• Boundaries

Form, structure, and sense questions focus on the rules surrounding various parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc.) and their usage.

​Which Standard English conventions will be tested in form, structure, and sense questions?

Form, structure, and sense questions focus on these Standard English conventions:

• Subject-verb agreement

• Pronoun-antecedent agreement

• Verb forms

• Subject-modifier placement

• Plural and possessive nouns

To learn more about these conventions, check out the grammar guides, lesson videos, and exercises in the grammar practice unit!

​How to approach form, structure, and sense questions

Step 1: Investigate the blank

Read the text closely. What's missing that the blank needs to provide? A noun phrase? A verb phrase? Something else?

Compare the choices. What changes from choice to choice? Are verbs conjugated differently? Are different pronouns used?

Any patterns we can identify will be useful in the next step.

Step 2: Find the focus

Based on our observations in the previous step, we should be able to identify which Standard English convention(s) is being tested.

For example, if the main difference between the choices is verb conjugation, we should be focused on avoid errors in verb forms and in subject-verb agreement.

If we can narrow our focus to just the convention(s) being tested, we'll have less to think about. This can save us both time and brainpower.

Step 3: Eliminate the obvious errors

Now it's time to take a closer look at the choices!

Plug each choice into the blank, and read the passage through. Keeping in mind the focus grammar rules, eliminate any choice that creates an obvious error.

Multiple Choice

In 1881, French chemist Camille Faure redesigned the rechargeable lead-acid battery. Faure’s design greatly increased the amount of electricity that the original battery, which the French physicist Gaston Planté ______ fifteen years earlier, could hold.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• is inventing

• will invent

• had invented

• invents

Multiple Choice

In the late 1960s, inspired in part by the sight of laundry hanging on a clothesline, African American abstract painter Sam Gilliam began to create his iconic “Drape” paintings. He applied bold, saturated hues to large canvases and ______ them from ceilings or walls, causing the drooping fabric to cascade in dramatic loops and curves.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• suspending

• suspended

• to suspend

• to have suspended

Multiple Choice

American poet Emily Dickinson wrote many of her poems on scraps of paper, but she also took steps to collect these works. From 1858 to around 1864, for example, she copied more than 800 of ______ into forty homemade booklets (known as fascicles).

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• them

• it

• that

• this

Multiple Choice

Wanda Diaz-Merced, an astrophysicist who is blind, has developed software that can translate astrophysical data into sound. Such tools ______ astrophysicists to detect subtle patterns in data—patterns that may not be evident in graphs and other visual formats.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• has enabled

• enable

• is enabling

• enables

Multiple Choice

Classical composer Florence Price’s 1927 move to Chicago marked a turning point in her career. It was there that Price premiered her First Symphony—a piece that was praised for blending traditional Romantic motifs with aspects of Black folk music—and ______ supportive relationships with other Black artists.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• developing

• developed

• having developed

• to develop

Multiple Choice

Oglala Lakota poet Layli Long Soldier’s star quilt poems offer an unusually open-ended reading experience. With ______ eight panels of text stitched together in the shape of a traditional eight-pointed Lakota star quilt, the poems present viewers with a seemingly infinite number of ways to read them.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• their

• they're

• its

• it's

Multiple Choice

Nuhād al-Ḥaddād, known as Fairuz, was one of the most beloved Lebanese singers of the twentieth century. Her broad singing repertoire—which included traditional forms, such as the Arabic qasida and maqam, alongside modern pop and jazz styles—lent Fairuz a timeless, cross-generational appeal, ______ her the moniker “the soul of Lebanon.”

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• earn

• earning

• earned

• has earned

Multiple Choice

Official measurements of the Mississippi River’s length vary: according to the US Geologic Survey, the river is 2,300 miles long, whereas the Environmental Protection Agency records its length as 2,320 miles. This disparity can be explained in part by the fact that rivers such as the Mississippi expand and contract as ______ sediment.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• one accumulates

• they accumulate

• it accumulates

• we accumulate

Multiple Choice

In 1994, almost 200 years after the death of Wang Zhenyi, the International Astronomical ______ the contributions of the barrier-breaking 18th-century astronomer and author of “Dispute of the Procession of the Equinoxes,” naming a crater on Venus after her.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• Union, finally acknowledging

• Union, having finally acknowledged

• 
  Union would finally acknowledge

• Union to finally acknowledge

Multiple Choice

The artistic talents of Barbara Chase-Riboud, most known for her 1979 historical novel Sally Hemings and the conversation it inspired, ______ limited to the realm of prose: she first excelled in sculpture, where her affinity for bronze—a material she described as “timeless” due to its use across eras and cultures—became part of her artistic identity.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• hasn't been

• isn't

• wasn't

• aren't

Multiple Choice

In the canon of North African literature, Moroccan author Driss Chraïbi’s 1954 novel The Simple Past (Le Passé Simple) looms large. A coming-of-age story, a social meditation, and a sober gaze into the dark maw of French colonialism, ______ interrogates systemic power with memorable intensity.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• Chraïbi’s debut novel, published two years before Morocco gained its independence,

• published two years before Morocco gained its independence, Chraïbi wrote a debut novel that

• Chraïbi wrote a debut novel that, published two years before Morocco gained its independence,

• Morocco gained its independence two years before the publication of Chraïbi’s debut novel, which