ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
Writing Videos 6 videos
Check out this PSAT Writing Diagnostic question and determine whether the sentence in question is fine as is, or needs a change.
PSAT 1.18 Writing Narrative Walkthrough. How would you change the underlined portion, if at all?
Institute of City Design 177 Views
Share It!
Description:
PSAT 1.13 Writing Narrative Walkthrough. How would you change the underlined portion, if at all?
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak and here's your smoke too Sure
- 00:05
brought to you by city design We visited st louis
- 00:08
and ran our hands across one of their monuments We
- 00:11
were really impressed by the ark texture All right check
- 00:16
out this passage falling from a natural dam in our
Full Transcript
- 00:19
charleston south carolina And um you know riley Okay how
- 00:25
would you change the underlying portion below if it all
- 00:27
mayor's institute on city design And here the potential answers
- 00:34
Boof an institute where sixteen people spent two and a
- 00:36
half days locked in one room doing nothing but talk
- 00:39
about design aren't there even bathroom breaks Well let's hope
- 00:43
the first thing they design is a conference table with
- 00:45
built in catheters All right so we've got ourselves another
- 00:49
punctuation question here attack of the killer apostrophes hide your
- 00:52
children Our four answer choices seemed to have some different
- 00:55
ideas about whether an apostrophe should be used at all
- 00:58
and if so where as written we've got mayors with
- 01:02
an extra s stuck on the end and an apostrophe
- 01:05
separating the two of them so they don't fight we'd
- 01:08
assume But while this isn't technically incorrect it's not really
- 01:13
appropriate here using the s apostrophe s approach is a
- 01:17
much more informal way of indicating possessiveness and doesn't have
- 01:20
a place in a professionally written piece like this one
- 01:23
We swear we're not trying to butter up the authors
- 01:25
although a signed copy of their latest both might be
- 01:27
nice guys So if it's not ok as is where
- 01:30
do we place our apostrophe to avoid a catastrophe Well
- 01:34
option b it ain't this is the one answer choice
- 01:37
That doesn't use an apostrophe at all and since it's
- 01:39
clear that this institute is possessed by the mayor's we
- 01:43
definitely need one it's a little scary by the way
- 01:46
about that mayor possessed in maybe it's time to call
- 01:49
in an exorcist All right see putting the apostrophe before
- 01:52
the ass would be fine if there were only one
- 01:54
mayor but we read the passage a novel idea We
- 01:57
see that the institute was designed to bring mayors from
- 02:00
different cities together Aii multiple dudes so see isn't going
- 02:05
to work D will get the job done though by
- 02:07
putting an apostrophe after the a s We indicate that
- 02:10
there are multiple mayors and that the institute is their
- 02:13
thing No exorcists in the phone book when we get
- 02:16
to resort to this but it's probably time to call
- 02:19
mayor busters they ain't afraid of no mayors who you 00:02:23.105 --> [endTime] gonna call shmoop
Related Videos
PSAT 1.16 Writing Diagnostic. How would you change the underlined portion of the passage, if at all?
Check out this PSAT Writing Diagnostic question and determine whether the sentence in question is fine as is, or needs a change.
PSAT 1.1 Reading Diagnostic. The main purpose of the first two paragraphs is to...what?