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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 3.13 Passage Drill 197 Views


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Description:

ACT English: Passage Drill 3, Problem 13. Which punctuation mark fits best between the words in the underlined portion?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by condensed water. It's a lot tastier than condensed milk.

00:13

Check out the following passage...

00:25

How would you correct this underlined segment from the passage, if at all?

00:30

condensate—moisture

00:33

And here are the potential answers...

00:41

This question asks us to identify the punctuation required to link the main clause to the phrase

00:45

that tags along at the end of the sentence.

00:48

Somehow or another, we have to find a way to attach...

00:51

"Most of the water seen in the funnel of a waterspout is actually condensate"...

00:58

to...

00:59

"moisture in the air resulting from the condensation of water vapor"...

01:05

without breaking any of the holy laws of grammar.

01:10

Choice (D) suggests that we not use any punctuation whatsoever.

01:14

This is a mistake, though. We definitely need some kind of punctuation to separate the phrase

01:18

from the main clause.

01:20

Without punctuation, it becomes nearly impossible to understand that the phrase is helping to

01:24

define condensate.

01:25

And we know that everybody out there is dying to know what that is so...

01:29

(B) is wrong because it uses a semicolon incorrectly.

01:34

Semicolons are mainly used to link two independent clauses, meaning clauses that can stand on

01:38

their own as complete sentences.

01:40

Though the main clause is independent, the phrase that follows doesn't have its own verb,

01:45

so it's totally dependent on the main clause for its existence.

01:49

Which must be kinda stressful for the main clause.

01:51

(C) is incorrect for a similar reason. By putting a period between the clause and the

01:57

phrase, (C) is declaring that the phrase is ready to stand as an independent clause.

02:01

Unfortunately, this is not the case.

02:03

Without a verb, the phrase just isn't ready to face the world alone.

02:08

The correct answer is (A). Though a comma would also work here, it's totally OK to use a dash.

02:14

Dashes are useful when a writer wants to really emphasize something. So using a dash is a

02:18

way of connecting something to a sentence, while also creating some distance.

02:22

Thus, romantic relationships between clauses and phrases linked by dashes are notoriously hard to navigate.

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