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ACT English: Punctuation Drill 1, Problem 3. Is that comma being used correctly?
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ACT English 5.2 Sentence Structure 239 Views
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Description:
In this ACT English drill question, figure out if the underlined section requires a correction or not.
Transcript
- 00:03
Here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by taxis. Taxis. TAXIS!!!
- 00:08
How should you change the underlined portion below, if at all?
- 00:11
I waited for a taxi, but each one I see was too far away for me to hail.?
- 00:16
Here are the potential answers...
- 00:21
Our speaker’s great taxi adventure happened in the past--probably not during the days
Full Transcript
- 00:24
of the dinosaur, but sometime before he or she is speaking.
- 00:27
We know when the action took place because the verb “waited” is in the simple past tense.
- 00:32
We also know that the other verb in the sentence needs to be in simple past tense if we’re
- 00:36
going to clearly communicate the epic past tense story of how this person couldn’t catch a cab.
- 00:40
Therefore, choice (A) is easy to eliminate because “see” is present tense.
- 00:44
Unless our speaker has some kind of amazing ability to bend the space-time continuum,
- 00:48
it doesn’t make sense for the sentence to suddenly shift tenses.
- 00:51
(D) is incorrect because it sets up a comparison that doesn't exist.
- 00:55
“Was seeing” is in the past progressive tense, which can be used to show when a longer
- 00:59
action in the past was interrupted by another past action. In this sentence, the waiting
- 01:04
isn’t interrupting the seeing.
- 01:05
The one isn’t happening before the other; they’re happening at the same time… which
- 01:10
means that the past progressive tense doesn’t work in this sentence.
- 01:14
(C) doesn’t work either because “had seen” is in the past perfect tense, not the simple past.
- 01:18
We remember that past perfect is used to describe an action that occurred before another event in the past.
- 01:25
Since we’ve already established that isn’t the case here, we can send (C) packing.
- 01:29
Choice (B) lays the correct answer on us by using “saw.”
- 01:31
This is the simple past version of the verb “see,” so it matches up with the past
- 01:36
tense verb “waited.”
- 01:37
Now if the speaker could only flag down a cab all would be right with the world…
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