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Usage and Mechanics Videos 116 videos

ELA Drills, Advanced: Punctuation 1
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ELA Drills, Advanced: Punctuation 1. Which option best completes the sentence?

ACT English 1.1 Grammar and Usage
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ACT English: Grammar and Usage Drill 1, Problem 1. What should replace the underlined word?

ACT English 1.2 Grammar and Usage
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ACT English: Grammar and Usage Drill 1, Problem 2. Does the underlined word match the subject and tense?

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ACT English 1.12 Passage Drill 199 Views


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Description:

ACT English: Passage Drill 1, Problem 12. Correct comma use.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by scientists who specialize in coconuts.

00:08

Hey, there’re worse things to do with your life.

00:13

Check out the following passage.

00:32

How would you correct the following underlined portion from the passage? Does it need correcting?

00:36

the exocarp and the mesocarp,

00:40

Here are the potential answers...

00:44

To answer this question correctly, we need to wrestle with the eternal problem of how

00:48

to correctly use commas.

00:50

Let’s start by taking a look at (D), which places a comma after “exocarp.”

00:54

This is incorrect because there’s no grammatical reason to place a comma here.

00:58

Doing so unnecessarily separates “and the mesocarp” from the rest of the sentence.

01:04

Guess we’d better move on before it gets separation anxiety.

01:11

Maybe choice (C) will make a better show of itself.

01:14

Nah, not really. Like (D), choice (C) places a comma after “exocarp.”

01:18

Taking out the word “and” does nothing to make this choice grammatically correct.

01:22

If anything, it makes the sentence even more confusing by tricking us

01:25

into thinking we’ve got a list on our hands.

01:28

Commas are only needed when more than two things are being listed.

01:32

For example, if we were talking about the exocarp, mesocarp, and endocarp.

01:39

Then we would need commas to separate them.

01:43

This, of course, is not the case, so we can move on to the next option.

01:46

OK, time to compare choices (A) and (B), which are having a serious disagreement.

01:51

Choice (A) separates “the exocarp and the mesocarp” from the rest of the sentence

01:55

with commas, while choice (B) uses no commas at all.

01:58

The rule of thumb is that commas separate things that are nonessential to the sentence,

02:02

while things that are essential should be comma-free.

02:07

An easy way to tell if a part of a sentence is essential

02:10

is to omit the part in question as you read the sentence out loud.

02:15

Check it out: “when you buy a coconut at the super market are removed and what you see is the endocarp.”

02:22

Wow, that was gibberish.

02:24

Removing “the exocarp and the mesocarp” definitely takes something essential from the sentence.

02:28

Therefore, comma-free choice (B) is the correct answer.

02:31

A lesson learned the hard way: it’s best not to read sentences out loud while in public.

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