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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?
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 2, Problem 2. Where should the semi-colon be placed?
ACT English 1.5 Sentence Structure 256 Views
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Description:
ACT English: Sentence Structure Drill 1, Problem 5. What should be done to the beginning of this sentence?
Transcript
- 00:03
Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by subordinate conjunctions. They're a lot
- 00:07
easier to get along with than the insubordinate ones.
- 00:11
How should you change the highlighted portion below, if at all?
- 00:14
By paying too much attention to polls can make a political leader unwilling to propose
- 00:20
innovative policies.
Full Transcript
- 00:28
The answer choices give us different options for the first word of the sentence, which
- 00:31
is a big clue that this is a sentence fragment.
- 00:34
"By" is a subordinating conjunction, which is a word used to connect subordinate clauses
- 00:39
to the main clause in a complex sentence.
- 00:42
We know a subordinate clause when we see one because it's generally less important than
- 00:45
the main clause on which it's totally dependent.
- 00:48
Of course, in this case, there's no other clause for this one to connect with.
- 00:52
Wow, that's kind of a sad thought, huh?
- 00:53
It's like E-Harmony writing back and saying there's literally nobody in the world for
- 00:57
you.
- 00:58
Anyway, because there's no other clause here, "by" turns our sentence into a fragment. Therefore
- 01:03
we can go ahead and take choice (A) out of the running.
- 01:05
Choices (B) and (C) are now easy to eliminate because "while" and "through" are both subordinating
- 01:10
conjunctions as well.
- 01:11
Just like their buddy, "by," they turn our sentence into a fragment, which we're sure
- 01:15
it doesn't appreciate.
- 01:16
Choice (D) is correct, because it's the only choice with no troublemaking subordinating
- 01:20
conjunctions.
- 01:21
We guess even the most subordinate of conjunctions can be insubordinate sometimes...
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