Question a-harp
A harpsichord may look just like a piano, but the difference between the two instruments is easy to hear. When a harpsichord’s keys are pressed, the strings inside the blank are plucked, not struck.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
instrument:
instrument
instrument—
instrument,
A harpsichord may look just like a piano, but the difference between the two instruments is
Medium-difficulty · SAT Reading & Writing · Boundaries — Parenthetical punctuation: commas, dashes, parentheses. Read the question above, select your answer, and check the full explanation below to understand exactly why the correct choice works.
Answer explanation
Choice B is the best answer. The convention being tested is punctuation use between a subject and a verb. When, as in this case, a subject ("the strings inside the instrument") is immediately followed by a main verb ("are plucked"), no punctuation is needed.
Choice A is incorrect because no punctuation is needed between the subject and the verb. Choice C is incorrect because no punctuation is needed between the subject and the verb. Choice D is incorrect because no punctuation is needed between the subject and the verb.
More Boundaries practice questions
- Award-winning cinematographer James Wong Howe was known for his innovative filming
- Dr. Rocío Paola Caballero-Gill is a paleoceanographer. This means that Dr.
- Nigerian American artist Toyin Ojih Odutola uses black-ink pens to create highly detailed
- The city of Pompeii, which was buried in ash following the eruption of Mount
- Eli Eisenberg, a genetics expert at Tel Aviv University in Israel, recently discovered
- By the time Hawaiian king Kamehameha IIwe ______ blank the throne, the number of
- Why are Rome’s famous concrete structures, such as the Colosseum, still standing
- In 1637, the price of tulips skyrocketed in Amsterdam, with single bulbs of rare
Browse all Expression of Ideas practice questions or return to the full SAT question bank.