Language: Conventions and Clear Revision
What the Language test measures
Two clusters dominate: conventions of standard English and effective writing. Conventions include sentence completeness (fragments, run-ons, comma splices), subject-verb agreement across interrupting phrases, pronoun case and agreement, consistent verb tense, punctuation (commas, semicolons, colons, apostrophes, quotation marks), capitalization, modifier placement, parallelism, and commonly confused words such as its/it's, their/there, and affect/effect. Writing items ask about topic sentences, transitions, paragraph unity and order, and revising sentences to remove vagueness or repetition.
Traps that cost points
- Apostrophes used for plurals instead of possession, or confusion between its and it's.
- Agreement errors caused by a phrase between subject and verb, as in "The box of tools is," not "are."
- A comma joining two complete sentences; that is a comma splice. Use a period, semicolon, or conjunction.
- Dangling modifiers: in "Walking to the store, the rain began," the rain is not walking.
- Choosing the fanciest version instead of the clearest correct one.
- Shifting tense when the passage gives no signal that time has changed.
Rule of thumb
For any sentence question, locate the subject and its verb first, then check what each punctuation mark is doing between clauses. Every comma should have a job.
Worked example
"Each of the students (has/have) a locker." The subject is Each, which is singular, so the verb is has. The plural students sits in a prepositional phrase and does not control the verb.