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ACT English 4.2 Punctuation 321 Views

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ACT English: Punctuation Drill 4, Problem 2. Which choice properly formats the question?

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00:04
Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by question marks. They got here fast because
00:07
they weren't afraid to ask for directions.
00:10
How should you change the below sentence to make it correct, if at all?
00:13
She asked whether the sentence ended here?
00:21
This is one of those sneaky sentences that's not necessarily a question as a whole, but

00:25
is harboring a question inside of it.
00:28
So we know the original sentence is incorrect, because by putting the question mark at the
00:31
end, it makes it seem like someone is asking whether the girl asked something.
00:35
Not that someone couldn't do that, but it doesn't seem to be what's going on here.
00:38
We can get rid of choice (B) for the exact same reason.
00:41
Nobody's asking whether she's asking anything.
00:44
We can nix (C) for the same reason, and also because "whether" is a conjunction that generally
00:49
signals a choice, not a question.
00:52
This leaves us with (D), the correct answer.
00:53
See, the quotation marks separate the direct question from the rest of the sentence, making
00:58
the sentence a statement about someone asking something,
01:00
instead of a question about someone asking something.
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ACT English 4.2 Punctuation 321 Views

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