Question no. 3, Page 130, THE SAT GRAMMAR by Erica L. Meltzer
Lisa See, author of the best-selling novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, has always been intrigued by stories that have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately covered up.
A) NO CHANGE
B ) best-selling novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
C) best-selling novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
D) best-selling novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,
Not sure I get your question but the answer is D.
Yes, how?
The original sentence is very good, except for the asterisks 
What is the point of these questions? Surely your test preparation books have answer keys. Do you disbelieve the answers they provide or are you looking for more explanation?
@Lynnski ,
Given Answer is D. (No explanation provided)
But, I am searching for explanation.
That’s a tough one. Being 30 years removed from the SAT, I would have answered A.
Here is an explanation of why it would be D.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/107257/is-a-comma-needed-to-offset-a-title
Interestingly, I would have chosen A because I feel the title needs to be set off, but if the title had been in italics (as recommended in the above link), I think the commas are less necessary.
D. If you can remove the part between commas and still have a functioning sentence, the sentence needs commas.
Lisa See has always been intrigued by stories…
Doesn’t the Metzler book provide explanations? If not, get a book that does include explanations—there are many SAT review books, if you have a local library see if there are some you like better than what you currently have. If English is your second language perhaps invest in a good grammar book.
@3kids2dogs,
Thanks a lot. I understood.
Strongly agree that the SAT prep books need explanations. This example, in particular, isn’t going to be addressed in a grammar book. I can understand why D would work, but I’d still prefer A. This is not intended for argument, but to support the assertion that prep books need to include explanations.
The segment in question, “best-selling novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fani,” when, correctly, enclosed by commas (making the answer D) functions as an apposite clause for “Lisa See.” That is, it redefines her in a sense, and follows a general rule that it should be separated by commas. In the form of another correct example, consider: “Dr. Smith, a board certified neurologist, will be performing the operation.”
Of possible further interest, if the “the” preceding the segment had been an “a,” then two apposite clauses would have appeared, requiring additional comma placement: “Lisa See, author of a best-selling novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, has always been intrigued by stories that have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately covered up.” If you had initial confusion, @Tan029, it might have related to this aspect of the sentence structure.
Also, you can ignore that a book title has been included. It’s not, by itself, relevant to the sentence structure.
Wow, I learned something today.
Not an incorrect answer–though I am not quite sure the SAT would ask this question. If something is between two commas it should be gramatically eliminable from the sentence (the sentence should be gramatically correct without it). ‘American Gothic’ is gramatically eliminable from the sentence, meaning A might be correct.
Still, this does not eliminate B from consideration. We have not yet shown that B is incorrect. The reason B is incorrect is that the phrase ‘Grant Wood’s best known painting’ is uniquely identifying. By this I mean that it picks out one particular painting–it is not ambiguous what it refers to. Let me clarify what I mean here with the following examples.
(1) The tall mountain K2 is hard to climb.
(2) The tallest mountain in the world, Mt. Everest, is hard to climb.
‘The tall mountain’ is not a uniquely identifying phrase. If we didn’t have ‘K2’ right after it, it would be unclear what mountain we would be talking about. For this reason, we do not want ‘K2’ to be gramatically eliminable from the sentence. As such we do not place it between commas.
‘The tallest mountain in the world’ is uniquely identifying (there is only one tallest mountain in the world). We would know exactly what mountain we are talking about (or could figure it out by doing some basic research) without mentioning Everest (no amount of research would help us find out that ‘the tall mountain’ refers to K2). Thus, the sentence would not become more ambiguous by eliminating ‘Mt. Everest’ from it. Thus, it is fine to make ‘Mt. Everest’ gramatically eliminable by placing it between two commas.
Similarly, it is fine to make ‘American Gothic’ gramatically eliminable because ‘Grant Wood’s best known painting’ is uniquely identifying.
@TheSATTeacher,Thanks, I understood what you are explaining.
But, why same logic is not working in this question???
Read the explanations in the other thread carefully. In the other question, you cannot remove the book title and have a grammatically correct sentence remain.
You also make an error in your first post which is extremely common among non-native speakers of English. “Doubt” is not a synonym of “question;” we do not “ask a doubt.”
@merc81 , very thorough explanations. However, my explanation is a lot easier for my students to understand?, especially as it pertains to either the SAT or ACT.
And am I wrong in thinking that you sentence starting “The segment in question…” is not correct? IMO, it would flow better if the commas were placed thus: ‘The segment in question, “author of the best-selling novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,” when correctly enclosed by commas (making the answer D), functions as an apposite clause for “Lisa See.”’
Better still, could it not just be ‘The segment in question- "author of best-selling novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan- functions as an apposite clause for “Lisa See.”’?
Ha, love this can of worms! This gets trickier because we have to remember that we are actually talking about the whole segment from “author” to “Fan.”
I recently asked a doubt from the same book,
I have a similar kind of question. However, it has different answer.
The question is ??
Grant Wood’s best known painting, American Gothic, is one of the few images to reach the status of universally recognized cultural icon.
A) NO CHANGE
B ) painting American Gothic
C) painting American Gothic,
D) painting, American Gothic
This time Given Answer is A!
So, my question is ,
Why similar question => Different Answer ?
@Lindagaf: Yes, you were correct to observe that my first sentence, a casualty of excessive rearrangement within a time constraint, was improper. This might suffice: