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ACT English 1.5 Sentence Structure 256 Views


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Description:

ACT English: Sentence Structure Drill 1, Problem 5. What should be done to the beginning of this sentence?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by subordinate conjunctions. They're a lot

00:07

easier to get along with than the insubordinate ones.

00:11

How should you change the highlighted portion below, if at all?

00:14

By paying too much attention to polls can make a political leader unwilling to propose

00:20

innovative policies.

00:28

The answer choices give us different options for the first word of the sentence, which

00:31

is a big clue that this is a sentence fragment.

00:34

"By" is a subordinating conjunction, which is a word used to connect subordinate clauses

00:39

to the main clause in a complex sentence.

00:42

We know a subordinate clause when we see one because it's generally less important than

00:45

the main clause on which it's totally dependent.

00:48

Of course, in this case, there's no other clause for this one to connect with.

00:52

Wow, that's kind of a sad thought, huh?

00:53

It's like E-Harmony writing back and saying there's literally nobody in the world for

00:57

you.

00:58

Anyway, because there's no other clause here, "by" turns our sentence into a fragment. Therefore

01:03

we can go ahead and take choice (A) out of the running.

01:05

Choices (B) and (C) are now easy to eliminate because "while" and "through" are both subordinating

01:10

conjunctions as well.

01:11

Just like their buddy, "by," they turn our sentence into a fragment, which we're sure

01:15

it doesn't appreciate.

01:16

Choice (D) is correct, because it's the only choice with no troublemaking subordinating

01:20

conjunctions.

01:21

We guess even the most subordinate of conjunctions can be insubordinate sometimes...

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