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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 3.1 Passage Drill 194 Views
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Description:
ACT English: Passage Drill Drill 3, Problem 1. Where does "however" best fit into this sentence?
Transcript
- 00:04
Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by
- 00:06
strong winds. Not the kind brought on by beans.
- 00:18
How would you correct this underlined segment from the passage, if at all?
- 00:22
Strong winds are powerful enough to lift animals, people, trees, and houses, however, such as
- 00:27
those in a tornado or hurricane.
Full Transcript
- 00:38
This question requires us to know a dangling modifier when we see one. Lucky for us, they're easy to spot.
- 00:43
Whenever we find a modifying word or phrase that's a long way from the thing it's
- 00:47
trying to describe, we know we have a dangling modifier on our hands.
- 00:50
The underlined portion has a good example of this grammatical no-no.
- 00:54
The phrase "such as those in a tornado or hurricane" is trying to describe "strong
- 00:59
winds." But it's having a tough time doing so because there's a lot of sentence in between.
- 01:03
Remember: to avoid confusion, it's best to place the modifier directly before or after
- 01:08
the thing it's describing. Since our underlined portion fails to do this, we can eliminate choice (A).
- 01:14
Choices (C) and (D) both avoid this mistake. In each option, "strong winds" is immediately
- 01:19
followed by "such as those in a tornado or hurricane."
- 01:22
The trouble is that both choices misplace the word "however," which should be at
- 01:26
the beginning of the sentence because it addresses a contrast with the previous sentence. Thus,
- 01:30
we can cross out both (C) and (D).
- 01:32
Choice (B) is the best answer because it correctly places "however" at the beginning of the
- 01:36
sentence and is blissfully free of dangling modifiers.
- 01:39
A tornado, followed by a bunch of frogs bashing into people's heads seems like a cruel one-two
- 01:43
punch from Mother Nature.
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