Function Words vs Content Words
Updated: Jul 21, 2020

The College Board factors in two grammatical structures when it creates multiple choices: Function words and Content words.
To briefly introduce, Content words (noun, verb, adjective, and some adverbs) help us create story. On the other hand, Function words (pronoun, determiner, preposition, auxiliary verb) connect words grammatically. Function words don’t give us any story in our head.
We do not need them to understand a story. Function words generally come in clause forms while Content words generally in a phrase form in in SAT.
The College Board priorities-gives the answer to—a phrase over a clause for many reasons.
With a little practice, you can distinguish a clause from a phrase.
You will witness, throughout this book, that I often predict the answer should be
A) No Change without even reading the passage. That’s because we find B), C), and D) are not organically working a singular algorithm or because individual choice is inherently defective.
You will find the entire answers with great confidence, not through step-by-step passage reference in order to justify the answer but through our straightforward educated pattern recognition.
If you find some difficulties in grammar terms such as adjective, verb, noun, or modifier, etc., google it. That’s the best source to understand what you are exactly looking for. You do not need to buy a basic grammar book.
If you still find some difficulties, we can go over basic grammar to together.