ACT English : Correcting Grammatical Errors
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for ACT English
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Example Questions
Example Question #381 : Comma Errors
Choose the answer that best corrects the underlined portion of the sentence. If the underlined portion is correct as written, choose "NO CHANGE."
Monday the day of the test, arrived with great anticipation.
Monday, the day of the test, arrived, with great anticipation.
Monday, the day of the test arrived with great anticipation.
NO CHANGE
Monday the day of the test arrived with great anticipation.
Monday, the day of the test, arrived with great anticipation.
Monday, the day of the test, arrived with great anticipation.
In this case, "the day of the test" is a nonessential phrase providing additional details about Monday. Nonessential phrases or clauses that occur in the middle of the sentence should be set off by commas.
Example Question #382 : Comma Errors
Choose the answer that best corrects the underlined portion of the sentence. If the underlined portion is correct as written, choose "NO CHANGE."
If you can't come to the party please let us know immediately.
If, you can't come to the party please let us know immediately.
NO CHANGE
If you can't come, to the party please let us know immediately.
If you can't come to the party please let us know, immediately.
If you can't come to the party, please let us know immediately.
If you can't come to the party, please let us know immediately.
When a sentence begins with a dependent clause, the dependent clause must be followed by a comma. This is not necessary when the sentence begins with an independent clause.
Example Question #872 : Act English
Choose the answer that best corrects the underlined portion of the sentence. If the underlined portion is correct as written, choose "NO CHANGE."
At the party, we were served coffee, cake, and pie.
At the, party we were served, coffee, cake, and pie.
At the party we were served coffee, cake, and pie.
NO CHANGE
At the party, we were served coffee, cake and pie.
At the party we were served, coffee, cake, and pie.
NO CHANGE
Commas should be used to separate words in a series of three or more items ("coffee, cake, and pie"). A comma is also necessary after a prepositional phrase ("At the party").
Example Question #873 : Act English
Choose the answer that best corrects the underlined portion of the sentence. If the underlined portion is correct as written, choose "NO CHANGE."
When I went to Oaxaca I took a cooking class.
When I went to go to Oaxaca,
When I go to Oaxaca,
When I go to Oaxaca
NO CHANGE
When I went to Oaxaca,
When I went to Oaxaca,
"When I went to Oaxaca" is a dependent clause (it cannot stand alone as a sentence) and thus needs a comma when it is at the beginning of the sentence. Dependent clauses providing context at the beginning of the sentence are called introductory clauses.
Example Question #531 : Correcting Grammatical Errors
Choose the answer that best corrects the underlined portion of the sentence. If the underlined portion is correct as written, choose "NO CHANGE."
I can either go to the beach, or go to the mountains.
go to the beach or I could have gone to the mountains.
go to the beach or I could go to the mountains.
go to the beach or I could be going to the mountains.
go to the beach or go to the mountains.
NO CHANGE
go to the beach or go to the mountains.
There are not two independent (could stand on their own) clauses in this sentence so they do not need to be joined by a comma. The comma before "or" needs to be deleted.
Example Question #531 : Correcting Grammatical Errors
Choose the answer that best corrects the underlined portion of the sentence. If the underlined portion is correct as written, choose "NO CHANGE."
Because I have the most outdoor experience I was asked to lead the hike.
Because I have the most outdoor experience,
Because I have more outdoor experience
Because my outdoor experience is the most,
NO CHANGE
Because I am the most experienced
Because I have the most outdoor experience,
The dependent clause (underlined-it cannot stand as a sentence by itself) comes first in the sentence so it needs a comma after it. This kind of dependent clause is known as an introductory clause. Also, note that the subject of an introductory clause must match the subject of the main clause, if they are different this creates a dangling modifier.
Example Question #391 : Comma Errors
Passage adapted from Stephen Leacock, The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada (1915)
When the Europeans came to this continent at the end of the fifteenth century they found it already inhabited by races of men very different from themselves. These people whom they took to calling "Indians," were spread out, though very thinly, from one end of the continent to the other. Who were these nations, and how was their presence to be accounted for?
Choose the answer that best corrects the bolded and underlined portion of the passage. If the bolded and underlined portion is correct as written, choose "NO CHANGE."
NO CHANGE
people whom they took to calling, "Indians," were spread out
people, whom they took to calling "Indians," were spread out
people, whom they took to calling "Indians" were spread out
people, whom they took to calling "Indians," were spread out
To be correct, the clause under consideration must either be set off by two commas or have all commas removed. Nonrestrictive (nonessential) relative clauses (that is, clauses that add extra, nonessential information to the noun they modify) are always set off by commas on both sides. Restrictive relative clauses function to identify the noun they modify, so they are not set off by commas at all.
Example Question #392 : Comma Errors
Passage adapted from G. K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America (1922)
Now when I was lecturing in America I was often told, in a radiant and congratulatory manner, that such and such a person was bound to come and hear me lecture. It seemed a very, cruel form of conscription, and I could not understand what authority could have made it compulsory. In the course of discovering my error, however, I thought I began to understand certain American ideas and instincts that lie behind this American idiom. For as I have urged before, and shall often urge again, the road to international friendship is through really understanding jokes. It is in a sense through taking jokes seriously. It is quite legitimate to laugh at a man who walks down the street in three white hats and a green dressing gown, because it is unfamiliar; but after all the man has some reason for what he does; and until we know the reason we do not understand the story, or even understand the joke. So the outlander will always seem outlandish in custom or costume; but serious relations depend on our getting beyond the fact of difference to the things wherein it differs. A good symbolical figure for all this may be found among the people who say, perhaps with a self-revealing simplicity, that they are bound to go to a lecture.
Choose the answer that best corrects the bolded and underlined portion of the passage. If the bolded and underlined portion is correct as written, choose "NO CHANGE."
It seemed a very cruel form of conscription and
It seemed, a very cruel form of conscription and
It seemed a very cruel form of conscription, and
NO CHANGE
It seemed a very cruel form of conscription, and
"Very" in this context is modifying the adjective "cruel," and both words are part of a single noun phrase ("a very cruel form"). You should only use a comma in such a noun phrase to separate coordinate adjectives that modify the same noun (e.g., "a terrible, cruel form").
Example Question #393 : Comma Errors
Passage adapted from Stephen Leacock, The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada (1915)
When the Europeans came to this continent at the end of the fifteenth century they found it already inhabited by races of men very different from themselves. These people, whom they took to calling "Indians," were spread out, though very thinly, from one end of the continent to the other. Who were these nations, and how was their presence to be accounted for?
Choose the answer that best corrects the bolded and underlined portion of the passage. If the bolded and underlined portion is correct as written, choose "NO CHANGE."
Who were these nations; and how was their presence to be accounted for
NO CHANGE
Who were these nations and how was their presence to be accounted for?
Who were these nations, and, how was their presence to be accounted for
NO CHANGE
When two independent clauses are joined with a coordinating conjunction, you should always use a single comma before the conjunction to separate them. In this case, a comma and the correct coordinating conjunction "and" connects the two underlined independent clauses.
Example Question #394 : Comma Errors
Passage adapted from G. K. Chesterton, "The Wrath of the Roses," in Alarms and Discursions (1910)
The position of the rose among flowers is like that of the dog among animals. It is not so much that both are domesticated as that we have some dim feeling that they were always domesticated. There are wild roses and there are wild dogs. I do not know the wild dogs; wild roses are very nice. But nobody ever thinks of either of them if the name is abruptly mentioned in a conversation, or a poem. On the other hand, there are tame tigers and tame cobras, but if one says, "I have a cobra in my pocket," or "There is a tiger in the music-room," the adjective "tame" has to be somewhat added hastily. If one speaks of beasts one thinks first of wild beasts; if of flowers one thinks first of wild flowers.
But there are two great exceptions caught so completely into the wheel of man's civilization, entangled so unalterably with his ancient emotions and images, that the artificial product seems more natural than the natural. The dog is not a part of natural history, but of human history; and the real rose grows in a garden. All must regard the elephant as something tremendous, but tamed; and many, especially in our great cultured cities, regard every bull as presumably a mad bull. In the same way we think of most garden trees and plants as fierce creatures of the forest or morass taught at last to endure the curb.
But with the dog and the rose this instinctive principle is reversed.
Choose the answer that best corrects the bolded and underlined portion of the passage. If the bolded and underlined portion is correct as written, choose "NO CHANGE."
abruptly mentioned in a conversation or a poem
abruptly mentioned in a conversation, or, a poem
NO CHANGE
abruptly mentioned in a conversation, but not a poem
abruptly mentioned in a conversation or a poem
"Or" is a coordinating conjunction, used to connect elements in a sentence that are grammatically equal. Here, it is being used to connect two nouns functioning as objects of the preposition "in." Generally, you should only use a comma before a coordinating conjunction if it is connecting two independent clauses or is part of a series of three or more elements.
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