Mastering SAT® Verb Form Questions

Learn powerful strategies and shortcuts for this challenging SAT® Reading and Writing question type. Includes strategy walk-throughs and practice questions with detailed answer explanations.

Just in time for Saturday’s national SAT® administration, welcome to my brand new strategy guide on SAT® Verb Form Questions. The guide includes example exercises with strategy walk-throughs, plus several independent practice questions with detailed answer explanations.

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I. Introduction

Verb Form Questions don't appear as frequently on SAT® Reading and Writing as some other grammar question types, but they're crucial for students targeting top scores. These questions can be particularly challenging, requiring precise grammatical knowledge and careful analysis.

Verb Form Questions present you with a sentence containing a blank and ask you to select the correct form of a verb to complete it. What makes these questions challenging is that they often require you to determine whether the sentence needs a true verb (an action or state-of-being word that can serve as the main verb in a clause) or a verbal (a word derived from a verb but functioning as another part of speech).

Before diving into specific strategies, we need to establish a fundamental distinction: the difference between verbs and verbals. This distinction is crucial because the difference between choosing correctly and incorrectly often comes down to your ability to identify whether a sentence needs a main verb or a verbal.

Success on Verb Form Questions builds on several knowledge sets and skills you've hopefully already developed as a Walker Prep premium subscriber:

• Your understanding of verb tenses from the Verb Tense strategy guide

• Your ability to identify subjects from the Subject-Verb Agreement strategy guide (especially Part 2)

• Your mastery of sentence simplification techniques and parts of speech from the SAT® Grammar Crash Course

By combining these skills with a clear understanding of verbs versus verbals, you'll be well-equipped to tackle these questions efficiently and accurately, even under test-day pressure.

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II. Verbs vs. Verbals: A Critical Distinction

Verbs and verbals may sound similar, but understanding their different functions is essential for success on SAT® Verb Form Questions.

(Note - This section serves as a brief refresher of concepts covered in depth in the Grammar Crash Course guides. If you need more detailed information, please revisit those guides.)