- In part one of our conjunctions lessons, we're going to talk about subordinate conjunctions, the words that create dependent clauses. But before we get into the specifics of subordinate conjunctions, let's talk about why conjunctions matter.

Conjunction questions test whether you understand sentence structure, specifically how clauses are joined and where sentence boundaries belong. Knowing conjunction rules matters for boundaries questions, and if punctuation and conjunctions are in the answer choices, the content of this lesson and the second part of this lesson should immediately jump into your mind.

Now, when it comes to conjunctions, there are two types that you need to be familiar with, subordinate conjunctions, which we will talk about in this lesson and are used to connect unequal ideas in a sentence, and the conjunctions we'll cover in part two, coordinating conjunctions, which connect equal ideas in a sentence.

Knowing whether ideas are equal or whether one is supporting the other will help you determine which kind of conjunction and which punctuation the SAT wants. Now, let's fully focus on the topic of this lesson, subordinating conjunctions.

Words like because, although, if, when, and whereas, and many, many more fall into this category. These words are used to connect dependent clauses to independent clauses, and they tell us something important about the ideas because they indicate that one idea is clearly less important than the other.

When you see a subordinating conjunction, you should immediately think, "One of these ideas cannot stand alone." That's the key structural signal the SAT wants you to notice. Here are some of the common relationships and common subordinate conjunctions that frequently appear on the test.

Cause and effect, you're probably familiar with most of those, contrast, time and sequence, and a couple more, the conjunctions that set up conditions, and finally, the conjunctions that establish place.

Of course, these examples are not an exhaustive list of all the subordinate conjunctions out there in the universe, but these are the ones you're most likely to run across during the exam. Now, let's talk about what really matters, and that's placement.

When a subordinate conjunction starts a sentence, that means something very important, which is the dependent clause comes before an independent clause and a comma is required 100% of the time in that scenario.

We talked about that briefly in the clauses lesson, but it definitely bears repeating. You should memorize this pattern. Dependent clause followed by a comma followed by an independent clause. That's the correct structure.

Here is a simple example. "Because she was late," dependent clause followed by a comma, "she missed out on those incredibly delicious cookies." And although this for-demonstration-purposes-only sentence is a lot simpler than most of what you'll encounter on the test, the rule is true regardless of complexity.

If a sentence starts with a dependent clause, the SAT requires a comma. Now, what about when the subordinate conjunction appears toward the middle of the sentence? Well, in that pattern, the independent clause comes first, and if that's the case, then a comma is usually not required.

Here's that pattern. There is no punctuation between that starting independent clause and the dependent clause that follows, and here's that example again, but in reverse order. The independent clause, "She missed out on those incredibly delicious cookies," followed by the dependent clause, "because she was late." Notice there is no comma.

And at this point, some of you might be wondering, "What do you mean by a comma is usually not required? "How am I supposed to know when "or when not to include a comma in this sentence structure?" Let me clarify. To comma or not to comma when you have a sentence that starts with an independent clause, that is the question.

In some SAT passage texts and certainly in the writing you encounter in your classrooms, maybe even your own, you might see an independent clause and then a comma linking that independent clause to a dependent clause.

That is typically a stylistic choice made by the writer and can be acceptable in real world writing. But here's the key point. The SAT is not real world writing. The SAT avoids testing stylistic choices by focusing on rules that cannot be debated.

So if you're pondering whether a comma is optional or stylistically okay, eliminate it. The test rewards clear mechanical rules, not stylistic judgment. In fact, the SAT only tests about five comma rules, and we will cover each of those rules in a later lesson.

You're going to learn that if you can't name the comma rule being tested, it would be unwise to pick an answer choice with a comma. Let's check out how you might see subordination tested. This is a medium-ish question, kind of leans a little bit easy.

If you feel so inclined, pause, solve, and resume the lesson when you're ready to see the answer. All right, the answer choices tell us that we're being tested on how to link ideas together at the point between telescopes and but. So we wanna see what kind of ideas we have.

No matter what, telescopes will belong to the first clause, so let's see what type of clause we have to the left including telescopes. "Although early astronomers lacked modern telescopes," well, we know right away that we have a dependent clause since the sentence begins with the subordinating conjunction although, and to the right of the blank, "they carefully recorded the movement of stars "and planets over many years," is an independent clause, and to correctly link a dependent to an independent clause, we just need a comma between them.

The answer is B, telescopes,. As for the rest of the answer options, A creates an incomplete sentence since the main clause isn't correctly attached to the subordinate clause, C is missing the necessary comma, and D has the comma, but adds an unnecessary but, which we certainly don't need when the sentence begins with although.

If you're hankering for more conjunction practice, you can always start a custom practice session focused on boundaries, but that's a wrap for part one of our conjunctions lessons. Head on over to part two whenever you're ready.