- The writer wants to add a concluding sentence that unifies the three benefits listed in sentences 2–4 and reinforces the paragraph's opening claim. Which sentence best accomplishes this?
Answer: In short, a plot of tomatoes is really a plot of connection, education, and relief.
When a question asks for a concluding sentence, look for two things: does it echo the opening claim, and does it tie together the specific points made in between? A good conclusion works like a bow on a package — it must gather everything already given, not introduce new ideas or contradict the setup.
The opening claim (sentence 1) says community gardens do "more than grow vegetables." Sentences 2–4 list three benefits: friendship (connection), teaching children (education), and lower grocery bills (relief). Choice A explicitly names all three — "connection, education, and relief" — and playfully echoes the vegetable image ("a plot of tomatoes is really a plot of..."), which reinforces the opening claim that gardens are about more than produce. It unifies and concludes.
B fails because it shifts from describing benefits to issuing a call to action. A conclusion should summarize, not command, and "everyone should join" isn't supported by the paragraph. C introduces a brand-new fact (geographic distribution) that has nothing to do with the three benefits or the opening claim — it's off-topic. D actually contradicts the opening claim by insisting vegetables are still "the primary purpose," undermining the whole point that gardens do more than grow food.
A useful test-taking move: underline the thesis and list the supporting points before reading the choices. The right conclusion will mirror both. Watch out for distractors that (1) add new information, (2) contradict the thesis, or (3) turn description into persuasion — these are the three most common wrong-answer traps on conclusion questions.
- The writer wants to develop sentence 4 by adding specific evidence. Which revision most effectively strengthens the paragraph?
Answer: Recent research shows that test scores predict college GPA moderately well, but poorly predict creativity, persistence, or leadership.
When a question asks you to "develop" a sentence with "specific evidence," you should look for the choice that adds concrete, verifiable details—numbers, findings, named outcomes—rather than vague generalizations. Effective evidence answers the reader's implicit question: Like what? Show me.
Sentence 4 sets up a claim that research supports "both sides." A strong revision needs to identify what research shows for each side. Choice B does exactly that: it names a specific finding (test scores predict college GPA moderately well) that supports the pro-testing camp, and it lists specific traits (creativity, persistence, leadership) that tests fail to measure, supporting the critics. This gives the reader concrete grounds for the original claim and ties directly back to sentences 2 and 3.
Choice A only adds that "many studies have been done"—that's filler, not evidence. It tells you research exists without saying what any of it found. Choice C actually retreats from the claim in sentence 4 by calling the research "complicated and contradictory," which weakens rather than develops the paragraph. Choice D restates the original sentence in different words ("both sides have valid points" = "supports both sides"); it's a paraphrase, not evidence.
When a revision question asks for "specific evidence" or "concrete details," scan each choice for actual facts, figures, or named examples. Answers that use vague quantifiers ("many," "often," "complicated") or that merely rephrase the original sentence are almost always traps.
- Which revision of sentence 5 best eliminates wordiness while preserving the tone of the paragraph?
Answer: It remains, for me, a quiet inheritance.
Revision questions like this ask you to do two things at once: cut unnecessary words and keep the voice of the surrounding writing consistent. Before choosing, notice the tone of the passage — it's reflective, quiet, and a little sentimental (a grandmother, a Bible, a tin of soil). Your revision should sound like it belongs in that same paragraph.
Sentence 5 is wordy because it says the same thing twice: "very meaningful" and "something I care about a lot" are redundant. Choice C, "It remains, for me, a quiet inheritance," compresses the idea into a single evocative image. The word "inheritance" echoes the theme of what was carried from Portugal, and "quiet" matches the understated tone. It's concise and stylistically consistent.
A still doubles up — "means a great deal to me" and "I care about it deeply" repeat the same sentiment, so wordiness isn't fixed. B is concise but flat; it strips out all the reflective tone and reads like a bare summary, breaking the mood established in sentences 1–4. D is concise but wildly mismatched in register — "Super meaningful" and the rhetorical question sound like a text message, not a memoir-style reflection.
When a revision question mentions both wordiness and tone, don't just pick the shortest option. Test each choice against the passage's voice: read it aloud in sequence with the sentences before it. The right answer will feel seamless, not jarring.
- Which revision most effectively opens the essay by eliminating throat-clearing and stating a clear position?
Answer: Libraries are the last free public spaces where anyone can learn, gather, or exist without paying.
When you're asked to revise an opening sentence, watch for two common weaknesses: throat-clearing (filler phrases like "There are many reasons why..." or "This essay will discuss...") and vagueness (sentences that announce a topic without taking a stand). A strong opener skips the warm-up and delivers a specific, arguable claim.
Choice C does exactly that. "Libraries are the last free public spaces where anyone can learn, gather, or exist without paying" makes a bold, concrete claim that immediately tells the reader what the writer believes and why libraries matter. There's no announcement of intent — the argument simply begins.
A trims the original but keeps the meta-commentary "this essay will discuss," which is textbook throat-clearing. It also recycles the vague phrase "many reasons," so it never actually states a position. B improves the style slightly but still tells you the essay "will explore" the topic instead of making a claim, and "surprisingly important institutions" is fuzzy. D is the weakest: "This essay is about libraries" is pure throat-clearing, and "many reasons they still matter" states no reason at all.
The pattern to remember: any sentence that describes what the essay will do ("this essay will discuss/explore/examine") is almost always weaker than a sentence that just does it. On revision questions, eliminate choices that announce the topic and favor those that assert something specific and debatable.
- In revising the paragraph for focus, which sentence should be deleted because it does not support the paragraph's central claim?
Answer: Sentence 4
Questions about paragraph focus ask you to identify the paragraph's central claim and then test each sentence against it. A sentence can be true, interesting, or well-written and still not belong—if it drifts away from the main point, it hurts focus.
Start by pinning down the central claim here: sentence 1 tells you the paragraph is about Frankenstein as a warning about unchecked scientific ambition, and sentence 5 reinforces that Victor is responsible for the tragedy. Every supporting sentence should develop that argument.
Sentence 4 states that Mary Shelley was eighteen when she wrote the novel. That's a biographical fact about the author, not evidence about Victor's ambition or responsibility. It interrupts the argument to introduce an unrelated topic, so C is the sentence that should be cut.
A is wrong because sentence 2 directly supports the claim—Victor's failure to consider consequences is the "unchecked ambition" the paragraph describes. B is wrong because sentence 3 explains how the creature's suffering (caused by Victor's neglect) leads to violence, which supports the idea that Victor bears responsibility. D is wrong because sentence 5 is essentially a restatement of the paragraph's thesis; deleting it would remove the paragraph's strongest focus, not improve it.
When you see a "which sentence should be deleted" question, underline or mentally mark the topic sentence first, then ask of each remaining sentence: "Does this advance that specific idea?" A true statement that changes the subject is the classic trap.
- Which revision most effectively tightens the sentence without losing essential information?
Answer: After months of review, the committee decided to fund the robotics team.
Questions about "tightening" a sentence test concision—cutting wordiness while keeping the essential meaning intact. The trick is to distinguish between filler (redundant phrases, wordy verbs) and information that actually matters to the sentence's meaning. Ask yourself: what does the reader truly need to know?
The original sentence tells you three things: (1) the committee reviewed proposals over a long period, (2) they made a decision, and (3) the robotics team got the funding. Option A preserves all three: "After months of review" captures the time and effort, "decided" replaces the bloated "ultimately came to the decision that," and "fund the robotics team" cleanly conveys the outcome. It's tight and complete.
B is too tight—it strips out the review process entirely, losing essential context about how the decision was reached. C barely trims anything; phrases like "ultimately came to a decision that they should give the funding to" are exactly the wordy constructions you're supposed to eliminate. D drops the time element ("months") and replaces it with the vague "many proposals," losing the sense of a deliberate, extended process; it also keeps a slightly clunky passive construction ("funding should go to").
When revising for concision, watch for verb phrases like "came to the decision that" (→ "decided"), "in order to" (→ "to"), and "due to the fact that" (→ "because"). The best answer usually replaces multi-word verb phrases with single strong verbs while keeping every meaningful detail from the original.
- During revision, the writer wants to combine sentences 3 and 4 to emphasize the contrast between the octopus's two behaviors. Which revision best accomplishes this goal?
Answer: In one study, an octopus consistently squirted water at a researcher who had previously irritated it, but it ignored one who had fed it.
When a question asks you to combine sentences to show a specific relationship—like contrast, cause, or sequence—your job isn't just to make one grammatical sentence. You need to pick the connector (conjunction, punctuation, or phrasing) that signals that exact relationship. For contrast, the go-to coordinating conjunction is "but" (or "yet"); "and" signals addition, and a semicolon signals only that two ideas are closely related, without specifying how.
Here, the octopus does opposite things to two different researchers: it attacks one but ignores the other. Choice B uses "but" to explicitly mark that opposition, which is exactly what the prompt asks for. It also tightens the second clause ("one who had fed it") for smoother style.
Choice A uses "and," which merely adds the second action rather than contrasting it—the reader has to infer the opposition. Choice C uses a semicolon, which is grammatically correct but neutral; it links the ideas without emphasizing contrast, so it fails the specific goal of the revision. Choice D changes the meaning: "an irritating researcher" describes the researcher's personality rather than saying the researcher had irritated the octopus, and the participial phrase "ignoring…" subordinates the second action instead of contrasting it as an equal, opposite behavior.
When a revision question specifies a rhetorical purpose (contrast, cause, emphasis, sequence), underline that word in the prompt and eliminate any choice that doesn't clearly signal it—even if the choice is grammatically flawless. Grammar alone isn't enough; the connector must match the intent.
- A peer reviewer suggests that the paragraph moves too quickly between ideas. Which revision most improves the flow by adding an effective transition between sentences 2 and 3?
Answer: Insert after sentence 2: "Despite their importance, bees are in trouble."
When a paragraph "moves too quickly," it usually means there's a logical gap between ideas that a reader has to jump across on their own. A good transition sentence acts as a bridge: it should connect what came before to what comes after, often by acknowledging a shift in direction (from positive to negative, cause to effect, general to specific, etc.).
Look at the paragraph's structure: sentences 1–2 establish that bees are important, while sentences 3–4 pivot to the bad news that bees are declining. The gap between "bees matter" and "bees are disappearing" needs a bridge. Choice D, "Despite their importance, bees are in trouble," does exactly that — the word "Despite" explicitly signals the contrast, referencing the previous idea (importance) while introducing the next one (trouble/decline).
Choice A introduces a completely new topic (social behaviors) that never gets developed and doesn't connect to the decline. It's a distraction, not a transition. Choice B similarly veers off into honey production, which isn't relevant to the paragraph's argument about pollination and food security. Choice C uses the transition word "Firstly," but it points backward to expand on pollination rather than forward to the decline — and no "Secondly" follows, so the signal is misleading.
When a question asks about improving flow, don't just look for sentences that sound smooth or use transition words. Check whether the sentence actually links the specific ideas on either side of it. The best transition mirrors the paragraph's logical turn — here, a contrast.
- The writer wants to revise sentence 6 so that it feels less abrupt and more clearly emerges from the story. Which revision best achieves this?
Answer: That mile taught me what my coach already knew: patience is its own kind of strength.
When a revision question asks you to make a conclusion "feel less abrupt" or "emerge from the story," you're being tested on narrative cohesion—how well a closing sentence ties back to specific details and images from the passage rather than just stating a lesson.
Choice D works because it anchors the moral in a concrete detail from the story ("that mile") and connects it to a character already introduced ("my coach"). This transforms the lesson from a tacked-on statement into an insight that grows organically out of the events. The colon also elegantly links the earned experience to the abstract truth.
Choice A simply adds the transition "In conclusion," which is a formal essay signal, not a narrative technique—it actually makes the ending feel more abrupt and academic, not more integrated. Choice B just tags on "which is important," a vague filler phrase that weakens the sentence rather than connecting it to the story. Choice C sounds like a general life-advice statement ("everyone should learn"); by broadening the audience, it pulls away from the personal narrative rather than emerging from it.
The trap in A, B, and C is thinking that adding more words or a transition automatically improves flow. Real cohesion comes from callbacks to specific story elements.
Strategy tip: On revision questions asking for smoother or more connected endings, look for the choice that references a concrete image, person, or moment from earlier in the passage. Generic phrases like "in conclusion" or "everyone should" are usually distractors on narrative-writing items.
- The writer wants to combine sentences 4, 5, and 6 into a single sentence that emphasizes a chain of cause and effect. Which revision best achieves this?
Answer: Because students arrive tired, they struggle to focus, and consequently their grades suffer.
When a question asks you to combine sentences to show a chain of cause and effect, look for explicit causal signals—words like because, since, so, therefore, and consequently. Simply listing events in a row isn't enough; the sentence must show that each event causes the next.
Choice C uses "Because" to establish the first causal link (tiredness → trouble focusing) and "consequently" to establish the second (trouble focusing → falling grades). This creates the exact chain the writer wants: tired → unfocused → poor grades. The subordinating conjunction and transition word make the causal relationship explicit rather than leaving the reader to infer it.
A simply strings the three events together with commas and "and." This is a list, not a cause-and-effect chain—the reader has to guess how the ideas connect. B has the same problem, just with semicolons; punctuation alone doesn't signal causation. D changes the grammar awkwardly ("with grades that suffer" is a vague modifier) and, more importantly, still fails to use any causal language. It reads as description, not consequence.
Strategy tip: On sentence-combining questions, first identify the relationship the prompt asks you to emphasize (contrast, cause/effect, sequence, addition). Then scan the choices for the transition words that match that relationship. If two choices convey the same information but only one uses explicit logical connectors, the one with the connectors is almost always correct when the prompt specifies a logical relationship.
- The writer wants to add a sentence between sentences 3 and 4 to strengthen the argument by addressing a likely counterargument. Which sentence best accomplishes this?
Answer: Copenhagen and Melbourne are, of course, much larger cities than ours, but data from smaller towns such as Burlington, Vermont, show similar gains.
When a question asks you to address a counterargument, you're looking for a sentence that acknowledges an opposing point and then refutes or weakens it. This is different from simply adding more supporting evidence or introducing a new topic. Identify the counterargument first (here, shop owners' fear of losing business), then look for the choice that concedes something to skeptics while still defending the main claim.
The likely objection to sentence 3's evidence is that Copenhagen and Melbourne are too different from "our" city to be relevant. Choice B anticipates exactly that pushback ("Copenhagen and Melbourne are, of course, much larger cities than ours") and then neutralizes it by citing comparable data from a smaller town. That concession-plus-rebuttal structure is the hallmark of effective counterargument handling.
A introduces environmental benefits — a new supporting reason, not a response to any objection raised. It changes the subject rather than defending the argument. C adds background about struggling businesses, which might even support the shop owners' fears rather than address them; it doesn't rebut anything. D criticizes the shop owners for not reading the data, which is a dismissive ad hominem move, not a substantive engagement with their concern — it weakens the argument's tone rather than strengthening its logic.
Strategy tip: On rhetorical-purpose questions, match the sentence's function to what the prompt asks for. "Addressing a counterargument" almost always requires a concession ("admittedly," "of course," "while") followed by a rebuttal ("but," "however," "still").
- The writer wants to revise sentence 4 so that its structure is parallel to that of sentences 2, 3, and 5. Which revision best accomplishes this?
Answer: The Petersons' fence lay in splinters.
Parallel structure means that ideas of equal importance should be expressed in matching grammatical form. When you spot a question about parallelism, look at the surrounding sentences and identify their shared pattern first, then find the choice that mirrors it.
Look at sentences 2, 3, and 5:
- "A large oak had fallen across two driveways." (active verb)
- "The mailbox was gone." (active/linking verb, no "by" phrase)
- "Power lines dangled from the poles." (active verb)
Each uses a subject followed by an active or simple linking verb describing the state or action of the damaged object. None uses the passive "was [verb]ed by..." construction. Sentence 4 as written ("was destroyed by the wind") is passive, breaking the pattern.
Choice D, "The Petersons' fence lay in splinters," matches perfectly: subject + active verb + short descriptive phrase, focusing on the fence itself rather than on what did the damage.
Choice A keeps the passive voice AND adds a subordinate clause, making it even less parallel. Choice B flips to active voice but shifts the subject to "the wind," breaking the pattern where each sentence's subject is the damaged object on the street. Choice C introduces "You could see that...," a completely different sentence structure with a new subject ("you") and an embedded clause.
When revising for parallelism, don't just check verb tense — check the entire sentence architecture: subject type, voice (active vs. passive), and phrase structure. The best revision usually looks and sounds like a rhythmic echo of its neighbors.
