PSAT/NMSQT Prep 2019 - Princeton Review 2019

Conventions of punctuation
Writing & Language: Standard english conventions
Writing

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

1. Recognize and correct inappropriate uses of punctuation within and at the end of sentences

2. Identify and correct inappropriate uses of possessive nouns

3. Recognize and omit unnecessary punctuation

SMARTPOINTS

Prepare

END-OF-SENTENCE AND WITHIN-SENTENCE PUNCTUATION

The PSAT Writing & Language Test will require you to identify and correct inappropriate use of ending punctuation that deviates from the intent implied by the context. You will also have to identify and correct inappropriate colons, semicolons, and dashes when used to indicate breaks in thought within a sentence.

You can recognize Punctuation questions because the underlined portion of the text will include a punctuation mark. The answer choices will move that punctuation mark around or replace it with another punctuation mark.

Use commas to:

· Separate independent clauses connected by a FANBOYS conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)

Jess finished her homework earlier than expected, so she started on a project that was due the following week.

· Separate an introductory or modifying phrase from the rest of the sentence

Knowing that soccer practice would be especially strenuous, Tia filled up three water bottles and spent extra time stretching beforehand.

· Set off three or more items in a series or list

Jeremiah packed a sleeping bag, a raincoat, and a lantern for his upcoming camping trip.

· Separate nonessential information from the rest of the sentence

Professor Mann, who was the head of the English department, was known for including a wide variety of reading materials in the curriculum.

· Separate a dependent and an independent clause

When it started to thunder, the lifeguards quickly ushered swimmers out of the pool.

Expert Tip

When you see an underlined comma, ask yourself, “Can the comma be replaced by a period or a semicolon?” If yes, the comma is grammatically incorrect and needs to be changed.

Use semicolons to:

· Join two independent clauses that are not connected by a FANBOYS conjunction

Gaby knew that her term paper would take at least four more hours to write; she got started in study hall and then finished it at home.

· Separate items in a series or list if those items already include commas

The team needed to bring uniforms, helmets, and gloves; oranges, almonds, and water; and hockey sticks, pucks, and skates.

Expert Tip

When you see an underlined semicolon, ask yourself, “Can the semicolon be replaced by a comma?” If yes, the semicolon is grammatically incorrect and needs to be changed. If the semicolon is separating two independent clauses and can be replaced with a period, it is grammatically correct.

Use colons to:

· Introduce and/or emphasize a short phrase, quotation, explanation, example, or list

Sanjay had two important projects to complete: a science experiment and an expository essay.

Use dashes to:

· Indicate a hesitation or a break in thought

Going to a history museum is a good way to begin researching prehistoric creatures—on second thought, heading to the library will likely be much more efficient.

Expert Tip

When you see an underlined colon or dash, ask yourself, “Has the author included a new idea by introducing or explaining something, or by breaking his or her thought process?” If yes, the punctuation is often grammatically correct.

Let’s look at the following Writing & Language passage and questions. After the passage, there are two columns. The left column contains a test-like questions. The column on the right features the strategic thinking a test expert employs when approaching the passage and questions presented.

1. Question 1 is based on the following passage.

2. San Francisco Cable Cars

San Francisco’s cable cars get their name from the long, heavy cable that runs beneath the streets along which the cars travel. This cable system resembles a giant laundry clothesline with a pulley at each end. Electricity turns the wheels of the pulleys, they in turn make the cable move. Under its floor, each car has a powerful claw. The claw grips the cable when the car is ready to move, and it releases the cable when the car needs to stop. The cars themselves are not powered and don’t generate any locomotion. Instead, they simply cling to the cable, which pulls them up and down San Francisco’s steep hills.

POSSESSIVE NOUNS AND PRONOUNS

Possessive nouns and pronouns indicate who or what possesses another noun or pronoun. Each follows different rules, and the PSAT will test both. These questions require you to identify both the singular and plural forms.

You can spot errors in possessive noun and pronoun construction by looking for the following:

· Two nouns in a row

· Context clues

· Pronouns with apostrophes

· Words that sound alike

Questions about possessive pronouns often require you to watch out for contractions and sound-alike words.

Let’s look at the following Writing & Language passage and question. After the passage, there are two columns. The left column contains a test-like question. The column on the right features the strategic thinking a test expert employs when approaching the passage and question presented.

1. Question 2 is based on the following passage.

2. The Discovery of Penicillin

In 1928, bacteriologist Dr. Alexander Fleming observed that a spot of mold had contaminated one of the glass plates on which he was growing a colony of bacteria. Instead of discarding the plate immediately, he noticed that bacteria were flourishing everywhere on the plate except in the molds’ vicinity. He decided to culture the mold and found that a broth filtered from it inhibited the growth of several species of bacteria. Nine years later, a team of scientists led by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain isolated the active antibacterial agent in Fleming’s broth: penicillin. Florey and Chain went on to demonstrate that penicillin could cure bacterial infections in mice and in humans. Penicillin became a “miracle drug.”

PARENTHETICAL/NONRESTRICTIVE ELEMENTS AND UNNECESSARY PUNCTUATION

Use commas, dashes, or parentheses to set off parenthetical or nonrestrictive information in a sentence.

Definition

Parenthetical or nonrestrictive information includes words or phrases that aren’t essential to the sentence structure or content. Sometimes, however, this information is explanatory.

The PSAT will also ask you to recognize instances of unnecessary punctuation, particularly commas.

Do NOT use a comma to:

· Separate a subject from its predicate

· Separate a verb from its object or its subject, or a preposition from its object

· Set off restrictive elements

· Separate adjectives that work together to modify a noun

Expert Tip

To determine whether information is nonessential, read the sentence without the information. If the sentence still makes sense without the omitted words, then those words need to be set off with punctuation.

Let’s look at the following Writing & Language passage and question. After the passage, there are two columns. The left column contains a test-like question. The column on the right features the strategic thinking a test expert employs when approaching the passage and question presented.

1. Question 3 is based on the following passage.

2. Raymond Carver

American author, Raymond Carver, once said that everything we write is in some way autobiographical. This observation applies particularly to Carver’s own work. In his seven books of short stories, Carver wrote almost exclusively about the working-class environment in which he grew up, portraying a neglected section of the American people with honesty and clarity. Born in the blue-collar town of Yakima, Washington, Carver was raised in a house where Zane Gray westerns and the local newspaper constituted the world of literature. After graduating from high school with Ds in English, he held a variety of jobs, ranging from scrubbing floors in a hospital to assembling bicycles at the local Sears. Few would have predicted that he would become a master of the short-story form, a literary figure mentioned in the same breath as Hemingway and Chekhov. And yet, it was in these humble surroundings that Carver found the inspiration for his unique narrative style: a plainspoken voice that enabled him to express the fears and aspirations of ordinary people.

Practice

You have seen the ways in which the PSAT tests you on Punctuation in Writing & Language passages and the way a PSAT expert approaches these types of questions.

Use the Kaplan Method for Writing & Language to answer the four questions that accompany the following Writing & Language passage excerpt. Remember to look at the strategic thinking questions that have been laid out for you—some of the answers have been filled in, but you will have to complete the answers to others.

Use your answers to the strategic thinking questions to select the correct answer, just as you will on Test Day.

1. Questions 4-7 are based on the following passage.

2. The Sistine Chapel

One shudders to contemplate Michelangelo’s reaction if he were to gaze up today at the famous frescoes* he painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel over four centuries ago. A practical man, he would no doubt be unsurprised by the effects of time and environment on his masterpiece. He would be philosophical about the damage wrought by mineral salts left behind when rainwater leaked through the roof. The layers of dirt and soot from coal braziers that heated the chapel and from candles and incense burned during religious functions would—prior to their removal during restoration—likely have been taken in stride as well, however, he would be appalled by the ravages recently inflicted on his work by restorers.

The Vatican restoration team reveled in inducing a jarringly colorful transformation in the frescoes with special cleaning solvents and computerized analysis equipment. However, this effect was not as they claimed achieved merely by removing the dirt and animal glue (employed by earlier restorers to revive muted colors) from the frescoes; they removed Michelangelo’s final touches as well. Gone from the ceiling is the quality of suppressed anger and thunderous pessimism so often commented on by admiring scholars. That quality was not an artifact of grime, not a misleading monochrome imposed on the ceiling by time, for Michelangelo himself applied a veil of glaze to the frescoes to darken them after he had deemed his work too bright. The master would have felt compelled to add a few more layers of glaze had the ceiling radiated forth as it does now. The solvents of the restorers, in addition to stripping away the shadows, reacted chemically with Michelangelo’s pigments to produce hues the painter never beheld.

Of course, the restorers left open an avenue for the reversal of their progress toward color and brightness. Since the layers of animal glue were no longer there to serve as protection, the atmospheric pollutants from the city of Rome gained direct access to the frescoes. Significant darkening was already noticed in some of the restored work a mere four years after it’s completion. It remains to be seen whether the measure introduced to arrest this process—an extensive climate-control system—will itself have any long-term effect on the chapel’s ceiling.

*fresco: a style of painting on plaster using water-based pigments

Perform

Now try a test-like Writing & Language passage on your own. Give yourself 5 minutes to read the passage and answer the questions.

1. Questions 8—15 are based on the following passage.

2. Museums

City museums are places where people can learn about various cultures by studying objects of particular historical or artistic value. The increasingly popular “design museums” that are opening today perform quite a different function. Unlike most city museums the design museum displays and assesses objects that are readily available to the general public. These museums place everyday household items under spotlights. Breaking down the barriers between commerce and creative invention.

Critics have argued that design museums are often manipulated to serve as advertisements for new industrial technology. Their role however is not simply a matter of merchandising—it is the honoring of impressive, innovative products. The difference between the window of a department store and the showcase in a design museum is that the first tries to sell you something while the second informs you of the success of the attempt.

One advantage that the design museum has over other civic museums is that design museums are places where people feel familiar with the exhibits. Unlike the average art gallery patron, a design museums visitor rarely feels intimidated or disoriented. This is partly because design museums clearly illustrate how and why mass-produced consumer objects work and look as they do, and show how design contributes to the quality of our lives. For example, an exhibit involving a particular design of chair would not simply explain how it functions as a chair. It would also demonstrate how its various features combine to produce an artistic effect or redefine our manner of performing the basic act of being seated. Thus, the purpose of such an exhibit would be to present these concepts in novel ways and to challenge, stimulate, and inform the viewer. An art gallery exhibit, on the other hand, would provide very little information about the chair and charge the visitor with understanding the exhibit on some abstract level.

Within the past decade, several new design museums have opened their doors. Each of these museums has responded in totally original ways to the public’s growing interest in the field. London’s Design Museum, for instance, displays a collection of mass-produced objects ranging from Zippo lighters to electric typewriters to a show of Norwegian sardine-tin labels. The options open to curators of design museums seem far less rigorous, conventionalized, and preprogrammed than those open to curators in charge of public galleries of paintings and sculpture. Societies humorous aspects are better represented in the display of postmodern playthings or quirky Japanese vacuum cleaners in pastel colors than in an exhibition of Impressionist landscapes.

8.

1. NO CHANGE

2. museums; the

3. museums: the

4. museums, the

9.

1. NO CHANGE

2. spotlights; breaking

3. spotlights, breaking

4. spotlights breaking

10.

1. NO CHANGE

2. role; however, is

3. role, however is

4. role, however, is

11.

1. NO CHANGE

2. impressive innovative

3. impressive, and innovative

4. impressively innovative

12.

1. NO CHANGE

2. museums’ visitor

3. museum’s visitor

4. museum visitor’s

13.

1. NO CHANGE

2. do and show

3. do: show

4. do—show

14.

1. NO CHANGE

2. ways to challenge,

3. ways; to challenge,

4. ways—to challenge,

15.

1. NO CHANGE

2. Society’s

3. Societys’

4. Societie’s

On your own

The following questions provide an opportunity to practice the concepts and strategic thinking covered in this chapter. While many of the questions pertain to Conventions of Punctuation, some touch on other concepts tested on the Writing & Language Test to ensure that your practice is test-like, with a variety of question types per passage.

1.

1. Questions 1-11 are based on the following passage.

2. The Modern Professional

Despite the honor accorded them by society and the usually substantial monetary rewards they enjoy for their work, many modern professionals complain and they feel demoralized. They don’t command the respect of the public or enjoy special privileges as members of exclusive groups to the extent that professionals once did. This decline in the profession’s status is difficult for them to bear because, they vehemently maintain, the knowledge and unique skills of professionals are as vital and indispensable to society as they have ever been.

Originally, being a professional meant practicing in one of the “learned professions,” a category that included only law, theology, university scholarship, and (eventually) medicine —long considered a practical art. Members of these groups distinguished themselves from the rest of society by their possession of certain special knowledge that brought with it power and abilities most others could not even fully fathom. Aspirants, to a profession, were required not only to devote themselves to a demanding life of learning but also to adhere to a specifically tailored system of ethics to prevent the misuse of professional powers. The special deference and privileges these professionals received were their reward for using their knowledge in the service of others rather than of themselves.

Because many of today’s professionals would argue that this description still applies to them, the truth of the matter is that the professional scene has changed quite a bit since the days of the “learned professions.” When the members of the professions began to organize themselves in the nineteenth century, establishing work standards and policing themselves to prevent the government from cleaning house for them, they proclaimed that they were doing this for the good of the public. The professional associations that emerged from this structuring proved to be, however, far more advantageous to the professionals than to the general populace. The associations began to function as lobbies, and interest groups.

A further consequence of this organizing was that the elevated position of the professional gradually eroded as members of other occupations jumped on the bandwagon. When just about any group could organize itself and call itself a profession, the concept of the professional as the possessor of special knowledge and abilities didn’t seem to be as valid. Thus, many professions have had to struggle to sustain and preserve the notion that their members provide a critical service to society that no one else can.

1.

1. NO CHANGE

2. complain; they

3. complain, and they

4. complain that they

2.

1. NO CHANGE

2. professional

3. professions’

4. professions

3.

1. NO CHANGE

2. maintain the

3. maintain. The

4. maintain; the

4.

1. NO CHANGE

2. —considered a practical art.

3. —for a long while considered to be a practical art.

4. DELETE the underlined portion.

5.

1. NO CHANGE

2. Aspirants to a profession were

3. Aspirants to a profession, were

4. Aspirants, to a profession were

6.

1. NO CHANGE

2. As a result

3. In addition

4. Although

7.

1. NO CHANGE

2. who

3. whom

4. when

8.

1. NO CHANGE

2. populace because the

3. populace, and the

4. populace; the

9.

1. NO CHANGE

2. lobbies and, interest groups.

3. lobbies and interest groups.

4. lobbies, interest groups.

10.

1. NO CHANGE

2. claimed professional status

3. joined in on the fun

4. stated their wishes to be seen professionally

11.

1. NO CHANGE

2. sustain, and preserve

3. preserve and sustain

4. sustain