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ACT English 3.7 Passage Drill 186 Views


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Description:

ACT English: Passage Drill 3, Problem 7. Which choice places commas correctly in this sentence?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by ancient civilizations. Sorry, if it's a little dusty.

00:11

Check out the following passage...

00:32

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

00:37

water, called the cascade, forms

00:40

And here are the potential answers...

00:44

The phrase "called the cascade" is nonessential to the sentence. Don't believe us?

00:49

Well, read it without the phrase included.

00:51

"Eventually, a ring of spraying water forms the base."

00:57

See, the sentence hasn't lost any essential meaning even though we snipped the phrase.

01:05

Sure, the fact that these rings of spraying water are called cascades is good to know

01:09

and will make us look cool in Science class.

01:15

But in this particular sentence, the phrase is like those extra appetizers we order because

01:19

want them, not because we need them.

01:22

OK, enough about overeating. Now that we've established that this phrase is nonessential,

01:26

the next step is knowing that nonessential elements in a sentence have to be set apart by commas.

01:32

With this seemingly innocent piece of information, we can swiftly lay waste to the incorrect answer choices.

01:38

Choice (B) places a comma between the words "called" and "the." Not only does this comma

01:43

not enclose the nonessential phrase, it also breaks up the phrase in a way that doesn't make sense.

01:49

Options (C) and (D) also make the mistake of using commas to break up the phrase.

01:54

Dude, who knew commas could be such home-wreckers?

01:58

(C) encloses "the cascade" with commas, and (D) does the same to "called." Neither is

02:03

correct, so they're both getting nixed.

02:05

The right answer is (A) because it takes our advice and walls the entire phrase away with commas.

02:13

We wonder if nonessential phrases ever get lonely in there.

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