Question #62120607 - SAT Suite Question Bank

ID: 62120607

Modded SAT Question Bank by Abdullah Mallik

From afar, African American fiber artist Bisa Butler’s portraits look like paintings, their depictions of human faces, bodies, and clothing so intricate that it seems only a fine brush could have rendered them. When viewed up close, however, the portraits reveal themselves to be blank stitching barely visible among the thousands of pieces of printed, microcut fabric.

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

quilts, and the
quilts, the
quilts; the
quilts. The

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Correct Answer: B

Rationale

Choice B is the best answer. The convention being tested is punctuation use between a main clause and a supplementary phrase. This choice correctly uses a comma to mark the boundary between the main clause (“the portraits...quilts”) and the supplementary noun phrase (“the stitching...fabric”) that provides a further description of how the portraits can be identified as quilts.

Choice A is incorrect. A comma and the conjunction “and” can’t be used in this way to join a main clause and a supplementary noun phrase. Choice C is incorrect because a semicolon can’t be used in this way to join a main clause and a supplementary noun phrase. Choice D is incorrect because it results in a rhetorically unacceptable sentence fragment beginning with “the stitching.”

Question Difficulty: Hard