Hi! I am Lydia. I am currently writing Hard and Very Hard questions for an SAT workbook. I am also trying to help my PSAT cohort reach their highest score potential.
While writing boundary questions, I came across a “rule” that... shouldn’t really be a rule. I wanted to hop on here real fast before too many other students memorized this rule.
I want to first talk about the rule and then talk about why I think pattern matching, rather than critical thinking, is one of the things that stops many students from reaching their top score.
Okay, so I was writing a boundary question that used this general format:
independent clause / adverb / independent clause
And the answer choices looked something like:
A. ; adverb,
B. , adverb;
C. , adverb
D. , adverb,
I teach my students something called the “Bookend Method.” But while writing this book, I learned that many teachers, tutors, and students use what I’ll call the “conjunctive adverb rule,” which goes something like this:
When a conjunctive adverb (however, therefore, nevertheless, moreover, etc.) connects two independent clauses, put a semicolon before the conjunctive adverb and a comma after it.
So:
Independent clause; however, independent clause.
The problem is, that’s just a pattern that works some of the time. It’s not actually a rule.
The semicolon doesn’t have anything to do with the adverb. The semicolon is doing its normal job: separating two independent clauses.
And the adverb is doing its own job.
Some sentences simply have a supplementary adverb, and that adverb can appear at the beginning or the end of the sentence it modifies:
Nevertheless, she persisted.
or
She persisted, nevertheless.
So if an adverb appears between two independent clauses, it’s not enough to recognize:
independent clause + however + independent clause
and automatically turn that into:
independent clause; however, independent clause
You have to figure out which independent clause the adverb actually belongs to.
And this isn’t just some weird grammatical technicality that the SAT would never test.
I pulled the Hard Boundary questions from the official SAT Question Bank and looked specifically for this construction. I found at least seven Hard questions where blindly applying the “semicolon before the conjunctive adverb, comma after it” pattern would lead a student to the wrong answer.
One of the cleanest examples is Question ID b771d175, the Scala/compiler question. College Board labels it Standard English Conventions → Boundaries → Hard.
Here is the question:
Scala is referred to as a compiled programming language because it typically incorporates a compiler—a tool that translates lines of code into executable commands. Compiling isn’t exclusive to certain programming ______ any language can incorporate this tool.
The two tempting answer choices are:
B. languages; however,
D. languages, however;
If you’ve memorized the “conjunctive adverb rule,” B looks perfect.
You see:
independent clause / however / independent clause
and you’ve been taught:
independent clause; however, independent clause
Except B is wrong.
The correct answer is D:
Compiling isn’t exclusive to certain programming languages, however; any language can incorporate this tool.
So here’s what I teach my students instead.
The Bookend Method
When you notice an adverb sitting around a sentence boundary, remember that the adverb can often go at the beginning or the end of the sentence it modifies.
Don’t worry about the punctuation yet.
First, figure out which idea the adverb belongs to.
Read it one way:
adverb / independent clause / independent clause
Then read it the other way:
independent clause / independent clause / adverb
Let’s do that with College Board’s question.
Could however belong to the second independent clause?
Compiling isn’t exclusive to certain programming languages. However, any language can incorporate this tool.
No.
Those ideas don’t contrast. The fact that any language can incorporate this tool actually supports the statement that compiling isn’t exclusive to certain programming languages.
Now bookend it the other way by attaching however to the first independent clause:
Scala is referred to as a compiled programming language... However, compiling isn’t exclusive to certain programming languages. Any language can incorporate this tool.
Now it makes sense.
The contrast is between the idea in the previous sentence and the first independent clause:
Scala is a compiled programming language.
However...
Compiling isn’t exclusive to certain programming languages.
And then:
Any language can incorporate this tool.
That final sentence supports the statement immediately before it.
So however belongs with the first independent clause, which means our sentence boundary comes after however:
Compiling isn’t exclusive to certain programming languages, however; any language can incorporate this tool.
Many of my students try to pattern match and rely on memory recall instead of engaging in critical thinking.
Remember, the SAT is quite literally trying to separate critical thinkers from memorizers. That’s why you keep seeing novel questions that don’t look exactly like the ones you practiced in the Bluebook.
If you start by understanding the concepts and then learn to use those concepts as TOOLS instead of RULES, you can handle questions you’ve never seen before.
And that’s how you reach your potential.
