ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
Rhetorical Skills Videos 50 videos
ACT English: Passage Drill 2, Problem 11. Which of the following sentences would make the most effective transition?
In this ACT English passage drill determine if the writer of the passage may or may not have achieved their proposed goal.
ACT English: Passage Drill Drill 3, Problem 2. What would the paragraph lose if the writer omits the underlined phrase?
ACT English 5.6 Passage Drill 179 Views
Share It!
Description:
ACT English: Passage Drill 5, Problem 6. How would you correct the underlined segment, if at all?
Transcript
- 00:03
Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by orb-weavers. Putting regular weavers to shame.
- 00:21
How would you correct this underlined segment from the passage, if at all?
- 00:25
Focusing
- 00:26
And here are the potential answers...
- 00:31
Let's begin by reading the sentence as is. Maybe we'll get lucky, and it'll be perfect.
Full Transcript
- 00:36
Fingers crossed.
- 00:37
"Focusing on orb-weavers because their webs are the most recognizable."
- 00:42
No such luck. There's definitely a problem here.
- 00:44
Who came up with that "fingers crossed" thing anyway?
- 00:47
Option (A) is incorrect because kicking things off with the word "focusing" makes the sentence incomplete.
- 00:51
The word "focusing" fools us into thinking the sentence is beginning with a gerund phrase,
- 00:56
which is a type of phrase that functions as a noun.
- 00:58
In this case, it sounds like the gerund phrase is going to be the subject of the sentence.
- 01:03
However, there's no verb to tell us what the phrase "focusing on orb-weavers because their
- 01:08
webs are the most recognizable" does.
- 01:11
Though we suspect that focusing on orb-weavers can't do anything good for anybody.
- 01:14
Long story short: every subject needs a verb if it wants to make a complete sentence--even
- 01:18
if that subject is an entire phrase.
- 01:21
Option (A) is out.
- 01:22
(D) suggests we begin the sentence with "We'll have a focus." This doesn't work, though,
- 01:27
because "have a focus" is an awkward language construct.
- 01:30
Incidentally, we like to have our focus with a side of fries.
- 01:33
Answer (B) isn't great either.
- 01:34
"We're to focus" makes it sound like someone is requiring that the paragraph focus on orb-weavers.
- 01:39
Sure, it's possible some obsessive spider-lover is standing over the author in a Spider Man
- 01:44
suit demanding the orb-weaver focus, but that's unlikely.
- 01:47
We hope.
- 01:48
The correct answer is (C).
- 01:49
"We will focus" makes the sentence complete and doesn't throw any linguistic curveballs our way.
- 01:54
Excuse us while we go lock our door. We're kinda worried that guy in the Spider Man suit
- 01:58
is creeping our way.
Related Videos
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 2, Problem 2. Where should the semi-colon be placed?
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 3, Problem 1. How should this sentence be changed so that it is grammatically correct?
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 3, Problem 2. How should we properly hyphenate the words in this sentence?
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?