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ACT English: Punctuation Drill 2, Problem 3. Where does the semicolon fit best?
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 3, Problem 4. Which choice best formats this list of items?
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 2, Problem 5. Which choice indicates the best place for a semi-colon in the sentence?
The Conjunction and the Comma 439 Views
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Description:
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 1, Problem 4. Which conjunction fits best with the comma?
Transcript
- 00:03
Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by Moby Dick.
- 00:09
I like poetry much more than ancient novels, my brother is exactly the opposite and prefers
- 00:15
Moby Dick to Emily Dickinson.
- 00:21
Look at that sentence.
- 00:22
It's just two sentences that the writer unsuccessfully tried to stick together with
Full Transcript
- 00:25
a comma. Alert, alert, comma splice!
- 00:28
There are two acceptable ways to combine two independent clauses.
- 00:32
With a comma AND a conjunction... or with a semicolon.
- 00:37
There are no options with a semicolon here... so we need to find one of the other choices
- 00:40
that uses a comma with a conjunction.
- 00:43
Let's look at all the answers carefully here. Besides the original sentence, they
- 00:46
all use a comma, and then a conjunction quite nicely. So our job is to figure out which
- 00:51
conjunction is the best for the job. In the sentence, there is a pretty clear contrast
- 00:56
between the two parts. "I like poetry", in contrast, "my brother likes the opposite."
- 01:02
And doesn't really communicate that contrast, and neither does so.
- 01:06
But, on the other hand, works perfectly -- communicating that he does not like this but that.
- 01:12
Here is a general strategy we should take away from this problem.
- 01:16
Read through all the answers before we choose one. If we just looked for a comma and a conjunction,
- 01:21
B would have worked. If we had rushed through this question, it
- 01:23
might have kicked our... but.
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ACT English: Punctuation Drill 3, Problem 4. Which choice best formats this list of items?
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 2, Problem 1. Which choice of punctuation best completes the sentence?