YOUR GOING TO BE TESTED ON APOSTROPHE’S (AND
INTERNET SPELLING IS A TERRIBLE GUIDE!)
As with commas, apostrophes have only a very limited set of applications. Apostrophes are a little
trickier, though, because you can’t really hear them in speech, so people misuse them all the time. Think
about the header of this section. The apostrophes are wrong there. Here’s the correct way of punctuating
it: You’re going to be tested on apostrophes. Can you hear the difference? Neither can we.
Therefore, as with commas, if you can’t cite a reason to use an apostrophe, don’t use one. There are only
two reasons to use apostrophes on the SAT:
- Possessive nouns (NOT pronouns)
- Contractions
Let’s see some examples.
Some of those very 7 selective schools’ require really high score’s.7.
A) NO CHANGE
B) selective school’s require really high scores’.
C) selective schools require really high score’s.
D) selective schools require really high scores.Here’s How to Crack It
Check what’s changing in the answer choices. In this case, the words are all staying the same, but the
apostrophes are changing. Remember, we don’t want to use apostrophes at all if we can’t cite a good
reason to do so.
Does anything belong to schools or score? No! Are they forming contractions like school is or score is?
No! Therefore, there’s no reason to use apostrophes, and the only possible answer is (D), which
dispenses with the apostrophes altogether.
As in the previous question, there’s no need for any punctuation, and in a question like this, you’re being
tested on whether you can spot unnecessary punctuation.