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ACT English 5.13 Passage Drill 173 Views


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ACT English: Passage Drill 5, Problem 13. For the sake of logic and coherence, where should the word "often" be placed?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by special spider oils.

00:07

Remind us not to order these the next time we get a massage.

00:30

For the sake of logic and coherence, the word “often” should be placed where??

00:35

And here are the potential answers...

00:40

This question requires us to pull out a grammatical rule that’s an old trusty standby.

00:45

Here it is: it’s best to place a modifier as close as possible to the word it modifies.

00:51

Sure, it’s simple, but sometimes it can be a little tricky to figure out exactly which

00:54

word the modifier should describe.

00:59

Option (B), for example, is very confused.

01:02

It suggests placing the adverb “often” before the conjunction “but.”

01:08

Adverbs can only modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs, so this one’s a definite no.

01:14

P.S. We refrained from making a butt joke just now because it’s beneath us.

01:21

Choice (D) does suggest that “often” describe a verb. Too bad it’s the wrong one, though.

01:26

By saying that spiders “often avoid” getting entangled in their webs

01:32

it actually implies that they sometimes do get entangled.

01:35

We know several spiders who would be very offended by this notion, so we’ll cross out (D).

01:41

This brings us to options (A) and (C), which might be a little hard to choose between.

01:45

Choice (A) claims that “made people wonder often” is fine,

01:49

while (C) prefers “often made people wonder.”

01:52

Of the two, option (C) is better, because “often”

01:56

is trying to describe the verb “made” not “wonder.”

02:00

It's not that people wonder often about this question, but rather that when the topic of

02:04

spider webs does come up (which probably isn't that often), they sometimes wonder about it.

02:11

We slightly resent this question because it’s going to make us wonder about this topic all day.

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