Must Know DSAT English Grammer Rules

Hey everyone! As summer continues to roll around, SAT prep begins and we continue to push to achieve the highest score possible.

In this post, I am going to list some of the must know rules for the English section of the DSAT.

Rule 1: No punctation between a relative pronoun and the relative clause

While this does logically make sense, but in some contexts this rule is about harder to discern. In the following example:

"In 2011, these two writers joined forces to found CAKE Literary, a book packaging ____ specializes in the creation and promotion of stories told from diverse perspectives for children and young adults."

The blank is "company that" and not other options like "company, that" as adding in the comma makes the sentence incorrect.

Rule 2: Know when sentences are run-ons or not

Some sentences are going to continue on for far too long, so know when the sentence should end. For an example:

"American writer Edwidge Danticat, who emigrated from Haiti in 1981, has won acclaim for her powerful short stories, novels, and ____ her lyrical yet unflinching depictions of her native country’s turbulent history, writer Robert Antoni has compared Danticat to Nobel Prize–winning novelist Toni Morrison."

The blank is "essays. Praising". All of the other options do not stop the run on. These options are "essays, praising", "essays and praising" and "essays praising"

Rule 3: Make sure to match the pronoun and verb with the correct plural noun.

"In 1930, Japanese American artist Chiura Obata depicted the natural beauty of Yosemite National Park in two memorable woodcuts: Evening at Carl Inn and Lake Basin in the High Sierra. In 2019, ______ exhibited alongside 150 of Obata’s other works in a single-artist show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum."

The blank is "they were"

"The violins handmade in the seventeeth century by Italian craftsman Antonio Stradivari have been celebrated as some of the finest in the world. In close collaboration with musicians, Stradivari introduced changes to the shape of a traditional violin, flattening some of the instrument’s curves and making ______ lighter overall."

The blank in this case is "it". While it may make sense to choose the answer "them", "it" matches with the singular noun "violin"

"In many of her landscape paintings from the 1970s and 1980s, Lebanese American artist Etel Adnan worked to capture the essence of California’s fog-shrouded Mount Tamalpais region through abstraction, using splotches of color to represent the area’s features. Interestingly, the triangle representing the mountain itself ______ among the few defined figures in her paintings."

The blank is "is".

"Researchers studying the “terra-cotta army,” the thousands of life-size statues of warriors found interred near the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang of China, were shocked to realize that the shape of each statue’s ears, like the shape of each person’s ears, ______ unique."

The correct answer is "is". In this sentence, the noun being described as unique is shape, not ears which is why the verb is singular.

Rule 4: Finite verb usage in a main clause

"His energetic gestures announcing when a player had struck out and his habit of barreling after a hit ball to see if it would land out of ______ transform the traditionally solemn umpire role into a dynamic one."

The blank in this case is "bounds helped". This is the correct answer because it shows what the “gestures” and “habit” helped accomplish. The other options are "bounds, helping", "bounds that helped", "bounds to help".

Rule 5: Do not put punctuation between a subject and a verb

"In crafting her fantasy fiction, Nigerian-born British author Helen Oyeyemi has drawn inspiration from the classic nineteenth-century fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Her 2014 novel Boy, Snow, Bird, for instance, is a complex retelling of the story of Snow White, while her 2019 novel ______ offers a delicious twist on the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel."

The blank here is "Gingerbread" and not "Gingerbread," because the comma between the title and "offers" is incorrect. The other options are "Gingerbread—" and "Gingerbread:".

Rule 6: Very, very weird semicolon

This example is meant to be odd and is meant to trick you.

"During the English neoclassical period (1660–1789), many writers imitated the epic poetry and satires of ancient Greece and Rome. They were not the first in England to adopt the literary modes of classical ______ some of the most prominent figures of the earlier Renaissance period were also influenced by ancient Greek and Roman literature."

The correct answer is "antiquity, however;". The other options are "antiquity, however", "antiquity, however," and, "antiquity; however,". The correct answer is correct because the word "however" is necessary because the first phrase of the second sentence is contradictory to the first sentence.

Rule 7: Noun Phrases and Restrictive Appositives

"When external forces are applied to common glass made from silicates, energy builds up around minuscule defects in the material, resulting in fractures. Recently, engineer Erkka Frankberg of Tampere University in Finland used the chemical ______ to make a glassy solid that can withstand higher strain than silicate glass can before fracturing."

The correct answer is "compound aluminum oxide". No punctation is needed which makes the other answers of "compound, aluminum oxide", "compound aluminum oxide," and "compound, aluminum oxide," incorrect.

Rule 8: Punctation should not break up titles

"Stomata, tiny pore structures in a leaf that absorb gases needed for plant growth, open when guard cells surrounding each pore swell with water. In a pivotal 2007 article, plant cell ______ showed that lipid molecules called phosphatidylinositol phosphates are responsible for signaling guard cells to open stomata."

The correct answer "biologist Yuree Lee" doesn't use punctation which makes the sentence correct. All the other options use punctation which is incorrect

Rule 9: Colons are used for explanations

"Researchers studying magnetosensation have determined why some soil-dwelling roundworms in the Southern Hemisphere move in the opposite direction of Earth’s magnetic field when searching for ______ in the Northern Hemisphere, the magnetic field points down, into the ground, but in the Southern Hemisphere, it points up, toward the surface and away from worms’ food sources."

In this questions, the answer is "food:" with a colon to show that the phrase after "food" is explaining the phrase before "food". The other options are "food", "food,", and "food while".

"In 1943, in the midst of World War II, mathematics professor Grace Hopper was recruited by the US military to help the war effort by solving complex equations. Hopper’s subsequent career would involve more than just ______ as a pioneering computer programmer, Hopper would help usher in the digital age."

The correct answer is "equations, though:" as the colon is used to explain how Hopper's career uses more than equations. The other options are "equations, though," which makes a comma splice, "equations. Though," makes the last sentence illogical and sentences shouldn't start with "Though,", and "equations though" makes a run-on sentence.

If I missed anything, please let me know so I can add them on. I hope this helps you study!

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