Digital SAT Practice: Writing/Verb Choice Questions

1. The officer nodded, took the boy by the arm, and in a trice ___________ with him into the adjoining store.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. have disappeared
B. disappears
C. disappeared
D. disappear

2. ________ the white light burn on, Mr. Gryce, by a characteristic effort, shifted his attention to the walls, covered, as I have said, with tapestries and curios.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. Letting
B. Let
C. Had let
D. Have let

3. And sure enough, in another instant this strange being, losing all semblance to his former self, entered upon a series of pantomimic actions which to the two men who watched him seemed both to explain and illustrate the crime which _________________________ there.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. had just been enacted
B. have just been enacted
C. were just enacted
D. had just enacted

4. The butler’s lips opened and a string of strange gutturals poured forth, while with his one disengaged hand (for the other was held to his side by Styles) he _________ his ears and his lips, and violently shook his head.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. touches
B. was touching
C. touched
D. had touched

5. This absence of the usual means of eliciting knowledge from the surrounding people, adds to, rather than detracts from, the interest which Mr. Gryce  feels in the case, and a little before midnight the army of reporters, medical men, officials, and such others as had followed in the coroner’s wake, _______ out of the front door and leave him again, for a few hours at least, master of the situation.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. files
B. file
C. filing
D. filed

6. The hour was late, and only certain portions of the city showed any real activity. Into one of these thoroughfares they presently came, and before the darkened window of one of the lesser shops ________, while Jake pointed out the two stuffed frogs engaged with miniature swords in mortal combat at which he had been looking when the lady came up and spoke to him.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. paused,
B. pausing,
C. pause,
D. pauses,

7. The officer went out, and Mr. Gryce sat for a few moments communing with himself, during which he took out a little package from his pocket, and __________ out on his desk the five little spangles it contained, regarded them intently.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. emptied
B. empties
C. had emptied
D. emptying

8. Sweetwater, to whom the song of the sirens would have sounded less sweet, listened with delight and ______________ with a frank smile.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. respond
B. had responded
C. responds
D responded

9. This time he approached with considerable feebleness, passed slowly into the study, ­­­­­­­­­­­______________ to the table, and reached out his hands as if to lift something which he expected to find there.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. advances
B. advanced
C. have advanced
D. advance

10. But her ears, and attention, _______________toward two girls chatting on a bench near her as freely as if they were quite alone on the lawn.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. was turned
B. are turned
C. were turned
D. is turned

11. Was it that courage comes with despair? Or was he too absorbed in his own misery to note the shadow it cast about him? His brooding brow and vacant eye _______ of a mind withdrawn from present surroundings.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. speaks
B. speak
C. spoke
D. spoken

12. So I wrote to my brother, Felix Cadwalader, or, rather, Felix Adams, as he preferred to be called in later years for family reasons entirely disconnected with the matter of his sudden demise, and, ________ him I had become interested in a young girl of good family and some wealth, asked him to settle upon me a certain sum which would enable me to marry her with some feeling of self-respect.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. told
B. tells
C. telling
D. had told

13. Eva, to whom I had said little of this brother, certainly nothing which would lead her to anticipate ___________ either so handsome a man or one of such mental poise and imposing character, looked frightened and a trifle awe-struck.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. seeing
B. to see
C. having seen
D. saw

14. Your stay in Mr. Adams’s house was quite productive, ma’am. Did you prolong it after the departure of this old man?” “No, sir, I _____________my fill of the mysterious, and left immediately after him.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. had had
B. have had
C. was having
D. could have

15. Mr. Gryce, with something of the instinct and much of the deftness of a housewife, proceeded to pull up a couple of rugs from the parlor floor and ­­_________ them over these openings.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. strung
B. string
C. had strung
D. strings

16. Miss Butterworth drew a long breath, ________ Mr. Gryce with some curiosity, and then triumphantly exclaimed, “Can you read the meaning of all that? I think I can.”

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. eyes
B. had eyed
C. eying
D. eyed

17. Mr. Gryce, whose eye is travelling over the wall, reaches over her shoulder to one of the dozen pictures hanging at intervals from the bottom to the top of the staircase, and pulling it away from the wall, on which it hangs decidedly askew, _________ a round opening through which pours a ray of blue light which can only proceed from the vault of the adjoining study.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. revealed
B. revealing
C. reveals
D. has revealed

18. The study—that most remarkable of rooms—________ a secret which has not been imparted to you; a very peculiar one, madam, which was revealed to me in a rather startling manner.

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

A. did contain
B. contains
C. is containing
D. contain

19. Young Sweetwater, who was now all nerve, enthusiasm, and hope, ______________.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. bow
B. bowed
C. bowing
D. have bowed

20. The two gentlemen, on the contrary, with an air of total indifference to her proximity, continued their walk until they reached the end of the piazza, and then __________ and proceeded mechanically to retrace their steps.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A. turned
B. turning
C. turn
D. turns

  1. C. In the sentence, the officer does three things. He nods, takes the boys arm, and disappears. In the sentence the first two actions are in the past tense “nodded, took”. In order to maintain parallel structure, the third verb should also be in the past tense. This makes option C the best answer. Options B and D are in the present, and option A is the plural present perfect, not the singular simple past.
  2. A. In English we can use the present participle or gerund (word ending in ing) to indicate that something is currently happening at the point in time being discussed. In this case, Mr. Gryce is letting the light burn while in the past he shifted attention to the walls. The other answers do not appropriately choose a tense that allows the reader to understand this.
  3. A. Answer options C and D are incorrect because they say that the crime enacted something instead of the crime being enacted itself. Option B is incorrect because it uses the plural “have” to describe the singular “crime”. Answer option A is therefore the best choice because it uses the singular “had” and correctly explains that it is the crime that was enacted.
  4. C. In this sentence, the butler is doing three things. His lips open, he touches his ears and lips, and he shakes his head. All three of these actions must be in the same tense. This makes option C correct as it matches “touched” to “opened” and “shook”.
  5. A. Be careful in identifying the subject of your verb in such lengthy sentences. Who is it who is filing out the front door? It isn’t Mr. Gryce. Nor is it the reporters, medical men, officials etc. (the subject of your verb will never be in a prepositional phrase).  Rather, the subject of the verb is “army”. Army is a singular noun, so you much choose the singular “files”. In addition, the passage is in present tense, making option D incorrect.
  6. A.  Since the passage is in the past tense and “paused” is in the past tense, answer A is the only correct answer.
  7. D. While the passage is in the past tense, at that point in the past, Mr. Gryce is presently “emptying” the package out onto his desk. One way to be clued into this is to put the answers into the context of the last part of the passage “regarded them intently.” Which only makes sense when answer D is selected. If answer A is selected the sentence is awkward.
  8. D. Sweetwater is doing two things—match your answer to “listened” and the correct answer “responded” becomes obvious.
  9. B. The man did four things: approached, passed, advanced, and reached. Only answer option B correctly matches “advanced” with the others.
  10. C. Since the subject “ears” is plural, options A and D are incorrect as they have singular verbs “was” and “is”. Since the sentence is in the past tense, the verb “were” is the most appropriate answer.
  11. C. This passage is in the simple past, so our verb must be “spoke”. Options A and B are in the present, and option D is the past participle which would go with a helping verb to create the past perfect instead of building the simple past.
  12. C. Even though this passage is in the past tense, this particular sentence is put into the past with the words “had become”. What the author is saying is that at a point in the past, the author of the letter was currently “telling” his brother that he (the writer) had become interested. The only answer that fits this complicated idea is answer option C.
  13. A. Since Eva is anticipating something, that something will be happening in the future. This means that we must use the gerund form—that is—the verb with “ing” at the end. This makes option A the best answer and the other options incorrect.
  14. A. In the past, the lady had already had her fill of the mysterious. She “had had” it. While this seems intuitively wrong, it is the correct way to express that in the past someone already had something. Option B would be used if the subject were plural instead of a singular person.
  15. B. Mr. Gryce does two things the first is to “pull” and the second, therefore must be to “string” so that the tenses of the verbs match.
  16. D. Miss Butterworth “drew”, “eyed”, and “exclaimed”. In order for her three actions to be in parallel structure (all in the simple past), we must pick option D.
  17. C. Since this passage is describing Mr. Gryce’s actions in the present tense, the best option is option C, the third person present singular. Options A and D are forms of the past tense and option B is the gerund form.
  18. B. The subject of this verb is singular: the study. This make option be the only correct answer since it is the third person singular conjugation of the verb “contain”.
  19. B. The subject of the verb is “Young Sweetwater”. When you put the subject directly in front of the answers it becomes clear that only option B is the right verb. Answers A and D are both plural while the subject is singular. Option C is the gerund form which is not appropriate in this context.
  20. A. Make sure that your answer is parallel in form to the second verb “proceeded”. In this case, that would mean choosing answer option A: turned.  The other options are not parallel.


All passages have been adapted from The Circular Study by Anna Katharine Green. Read more of this mystery novel on project Gutenberg:

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18761/pg18761-images.html


Digital SAT Words in Context Practice Questions

1.  It was comical in a way, with the dramatic irony of a farcical play. He had studied through the lens of his microscope the waste of germs and infinitesimal parasites- invisible to most- that provoke such majorities of the world’s ___________. And yet, in so focusing his view, he had failed to perceive an affliction that towered before him for fifteen years on that to others was unmistakable.

Which of the following choices best completes the text with the most logical word?

A.  Happiness

B.  Suffering

C.  Failure

D.  Calamities

2.  In times of widespread economic distress, experts will sometimes turn to the outliers of a downtrend in order to study the features of their commercial, governmental, and social structures that have seemingly immunized them to financial meltdown. Recently, Sweden’s system has come under particular scrutiny due to the ____________________ of its economy throughout the recession that struck the majority of the Western world in 2007.

Which of the following choices best completes the text with the most precise phrase?

A.  Relatively stable condition

B.  Incredible crash

C.  Loss of the value

D.  Fragmentation

3.  As Mendeleev assembled the table, he had noticed several gaps in the pattern of properties which- cleverly- he hypothesized to be areas held by yet undiscovered elements. Apart from reserving space on the table for these elements, he went to far as to predict not only their existence, but their ______________ as well. Several years later, the spectroscopic discovery of one of these elements- specifically gallium- and the confirmation of Mendeleev’s predictions caused the popularity of his theory to skyrocket, and the periodic table quickly became a standard fixture in the study of chemistry.

Which of the following choices best completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A.  Chemical properties

B.  Present locations

C.  Findings

D.  Theory

4.  Once this multitude is united into a body, an offense against one of its members is an offense against the body politic. It would be even less possible to injure the body without its members feeling it. Duty and interest thus equally require the two contracting parties to aid each other ________. The individual people should be motivated from their double roles as individuals and members of the body to combine all the advantages which mutual aid offers them.

Which of the following choices best completes the text with the most logical and precise word?

A.  Completely

B.  Intermittently

C.  Hesitantly

D.  Mutually

5.  The columns, in true Mannerist style, are without function; crowded together chaotically in the corners of the room and crushed halfway into its walls. The pilasters at the sides of the windows are unaccountably tapered- further challenging the neat verticality of classical tradition- and ________ with capitals belonging to no established style whatsoever.

Which of the following choices best completes the text with the most logical and precise word?

A.  Carved

B.  Found

C.  Crowned

D.  Felt

6.  As a whole, the vast exhibition displays how the modernist movement progressed across the three Latin American cultures using furniture as a microcosm of the three societies. Although many might find this to be ________________ of a complex phenomenon, few can argue that the exhibition is, at least, intriguing.

Which of the following choices best completes the text with the most logical and precise phrase?

A.  a misunderstanding

B.  an oversimplification

C.  a failure to display the furniture

D.  an elaboration

7.  Millions of people carry the defective gene, but because it is a recessive disorder, an individual will contract cystic fibrosis only if he or she inherits two mutated genes from his or her parents. If the father and mother both _________ the mutated gene, the child will inherit the disease. However, if only one of the genes is mutated, the child will not contract the disease. If both parents carry the mutated gene, every child they have has a twenty-five percent chance of inheriting the disease and a fifty percent chance of passing it on.

Which of the following choices best completes the text with the most logical and precise word?

A.  lack

B.  grant

C.  avoid

D.  donate

8.  One of the questions that Plato’s fifth book of The Republic grapples with is what role kinship relations play in the function of society. In The Republic, Plato attempts to create a blueprint for a just city-state in which its constituents prescribe to reason and live in communal harmony. In his construction of an ideal city-state, Plato reevaluates the kinship relations that comprise society. Plato believes that the kinship structure is a reflection of the social structure, and that the social and political structures that organize society are not biological or necessary, but rather __________ and subject to change.

Which of the following choices best completes the text with the most logical and precise word?

A.  avoided

B.  unavoidable

C.  exemplary

D.  created

9.  Justice, it might be said, is when tenacity is met with opportunity, and that opportunity came on August 24, 2002 when the Dodgers finally called me up to The Big Show. I pitched that night in a home game against the Braves. The opposing pitcher was Hall of Famer Tom Glavine, and wouldn’t you know that I beat the son of a gun! After the game, my teammates congratulated me in the clubhouse, and, though I don’t remember all of the details, I remember it as one of the ____________ days of my life.

Which of the following choices best completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A.  happiest

B.  most stressful

C.  nicest

D.  darkest

10.  Forsythe’s disposition, so recently buoyant and carefree, swiftly darkened to the extent that, were he to auscultate himself at that moment, the _____________ could only reveal an acute saturninity, or else some other sinister malady that corrupts the body and gives the mind a likeness of wetted ash.

Which of the following choices best completes the text with the most logical and precise word?

A.  doctor

B.  patient

C.  feeling

D.  diagnosis

Answer Explanations

1.  B. The character is studying germs and parasites. It is an irony that, though he studies these creatures, he didn’t realize when he himself was “afflicted” with one. It therefore follows that those germs and parasites would create the world’s “suffering” (B). It isn’t (A) as that is the opposite of what the germs and parasites would cause. It isn’t (C) as the world’s failures aren’t caused by germs or parasites.  It isn’t (D) as calamities can be caused by any number of natural disasters and man-made situations in addition to infectious diseases and parasites.

2.  A.   The first sentence of the passage says that during economic disasters, experts turn to outliers. Since the 2007 financial crisis was a recession, the outlier would need to be a country that didn’t experience that recession. Sweden being in a “relatively stable condition” (A) would make it of interest to economists. (B) and (C) are incorrect since if Sweden had crashed or lost value it would not have been an outlier. (D) is incorrect as there is no evidence that the Swedish economy split up into pieces, or fragmented.

3.  D. From the context we know that Mendeleev is predicting the existence of elements as well as something else about them. We know that he reserved spaces for them on the periodic table, so we wouldn’t repeat that he predicted their “present locations” therefore (B) is incorrect. Elements wouldn’t have “findings” or “theory”, so (C) and (D) are incorrect as well. This only leaves “chemical properties,” (A), for him to predict in addition to predicting their existence.

4.  D. In the final sentence we learn that “individuals should be motivated…to combine all the advantages which mutual aid offers them”. This context tells us that the author is calling for the “two contracting parties to aid each other mutually”. In other words, that each should help the other.  This rules out (B) “intermittently” and (C) “hesitantly” since those would both be less than the “mutual aid” the author is calling for. (A) “Completely” is not a word that can be used to describe aiding a person.

5.  C. A “capital” is the top part of a column which often flairs out from the column (or pilar) and is often engraved with a decorative motif. Be careful not to confuse this with a “capitol” which is the building in which a government meets.   Since “capitals” are at the top of a column or pilar, the best word to use in this sentence is (C) “crowned” which indicates that the “capitals” are at the top of the pilar. (A), (B), and (D) would not describe the placement of the capitals.

6.  B. The first sentence sets up a fairly complex topic- the advancement of an entire movement. It makes logical sense that trying to show this complex topic through a display of furniture might be thought to be “an oversimplification” (B) of the topic. There is no evidence that the display is a “misunderstanding” (A) of the movement. We know that the furniture was displayed, so it is not (C). “An elaboration” (D) would be the opposite of an oversimplification and is therefore incorrect.

7. D. In this sentence, the author is describing the process by which both parents must pass on the gene in question in order for the child to have cystic fibrosis. The answer which most closely means “pass on” is “donate”, making (D) the correct answer. If the parents lack or avoid the gene, then the child will not have Cystic Fibrosis, making (A) and (D) incorrect. “Grant” (C) does not fit the context of the sentence.

8.  D. We see in the context of the last sentence that this structure is “not biological or necessary” we are therefore looking for an answer that is the opposite of biological and necessary. “Created” (D) would be the best answer since things that are created can be changed and people can choose not to create them.  They are therefore not “biological” or “necessary”. (A), (B), and (C) do not fit into the context, even though they are grammatically correct.

9.  A. In this passage, the speaker describes the day in which he was given a huge opportunity and not only grabbed that opportunity, but managed to beat one of the best opponents he ever faced. The best way to describe such a day would be as the “happiest” (A) day of his life. “Nicest” (C) is not a strong enough word to describe such a day. “Darkest” (D) is not at all appropriate for such a momentous day.  While the day may have been stressful, the passages is overwhelmingly positive about the experience, so focusing on the negative stress (B) would be inappropriate.

10.  D. While you might not know what “auscultate” means in the passage, context shows that where he to auscultate himself, he was scared of finding a “sinister malady”. This makes “diagnosis” (D) the best option since it is a “diagnosis” that would show such a malady. Since he is auscultating himself, there wouldn’t be a “doctor” involved, so (A) is incorrect. It would be very odd for him to discuss himself in the third person as the “patient”, so (B) is incorrect. He is not looking at a “feeling” but rather at something that will show him something that will “corrupt the body”, making (C) incorrect.