ACT English 3.1 Passage Drill

This question requires us to know a dangling modifier when we see one. Lucky for us, they're easy to spot.

Whenever we find a modifying word or phrase that's a long way from the thing it's

trying to describe, we know we have a dangling modifier on our hands.

The underlined portion has a good example of this grammatical no-no.

The phrase "such as those in a tornado or hurricane" is trying to describe "strong

winds." But it's having a tough time doing so because there's a lot of sentence in between.

Remember: to avoid confusion, it's best to place the modifier directly before or after

the thing it's describing. Since our underlined portion fails to do this, we can eliminate choice (A).

Choices (C) and (D) both avoid this mistake. In each option, "strong winds" is immediately

followed by "such as those in a tornado or hurricane."

The trouble is that both choices misplace the word "however," which should be at

the beginning of the sentence because it addresses a contrast with the previous sentence. Thus,

we can cross out both (C) and (D).

Choice (B) is the best answer because it correctly places "however" at the beginning of the

sentence and is blissfully free of dangling modifiers.

A tornado, followed by a bunch of frogs bashing into people's heads seems like a cruel one-two

punch from Mother Nature.