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ACT English 3.2 Sentence Structure 233 Views


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Description:

ACT English: Sentence Structure Drill 3, Problem 2. How should the underlined portion of the sentence be changed?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by Aunt Sue. She's got a thing for litigation.

00:07

How should you change the underlined portion below, if at all?

00:11

Sweeping up the paper from the floor, the missing key was found by Aunt Sue.

00:23

If we've recently reminded ourselves of the rule about modifying phrases, we can answer

00:27

this question without breaking a mental sweat.

00:30

The noun or pronoun that's being modified has to come directly after the modifying phrase, right?

00:33

So, all we have to do is ask ourselves who or what the phrase is describing and plop

00:37

that noun or pronoun where it's supposed to be.

00:39

In this question, "sweeping up the paper from the floor" is the phrase. So, if choice (A)

00:43

is correct, then it's the missing key that's making the floor spic-and-span.

00:48

It doesn't make much sense for a key to sweep a floor to find itself, or for a key to do

00:52

any sweeping at all for that matter. Therefore we can confidently move on to other options.

00:59

We can easily eliminate choice (B) as well, since it makes the same error as (A).

01:03

Though it might not look like it at first glance, choice (C) actually makes the same

01:07

mistake as (A) and (B).

01:09

The first noun that follows our modifying phrase is again "key." "Aunt Sue" might be

01:15

a noun on its own, but here the apostrophes makes it possessive, and therefore it functions

01:21

as a modifier.

01:22

By describing whose key this is, the noun becomes an adjective.

01:26

Choice (D) correctly places Aunt Sue in her place of glory directly after the modifying

01:31

phrase.

01:32

This version makes it clear that Aunt Sue was the one doing the sweeping that then helped

01:36

her find the missing key.

01:37

For the record, if anybody has a magic key that wants to sweep some floors, we're interested.

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