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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 4.1 Passage Drill 198 Views


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Description:

ACT English: Passage Drill 4, Problem 1. Which choice indicates proper comma placement in this sentence?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the fortune cookie.

00:06

Which proved far more popular than its predecessor the misfortune cookie.

00:27

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

00:32

cookies, as we know them today?

00:34

And here are the potential answers...

00:40

If commas surround a particular sentence element, there’s a good chance that element is nonessential.

00:47

This means that if the element were taken away the sentence wouldn’t lose anything too important.

00:52

In the sentence in question, however, every element is essential.

00:55

The author is specifically referring to “the invention of fortune cookies as we know them today.”

01:00

This article will only discuss modern fortune cookies;

01:04

caveman fortune cookies will be dealt with at another time.

01:07

Since we know that everything in the sentence is essential, we can quickly eliminate the

01:11

answer choices that contain commas.

01:13

Option (D) can go because it randomly separates the noun “today” from the rest of the sentence.

01:19

(A) is wrong because placing a comma in front of “as” makes it seem like the rest of

01:23

sentence, which includes the verb, is not important.

01:27

And choice (B) separates the phrase “as we know them today.”

01:30

This omits the fact that we’re talking about modern fortune cookies,

01:33

not ancient ones--or futuristic ones for that matter.

01:37

The correct answer is (C), which recognizes the essential nature of everything in the

01:41

sentence by using no commas whatsoever.

01:44

Hm, we wonder if modern fortune cookies are able to predict what

01:47

fortune cookies will be like in the future.

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