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ACT English 3.10 Passage Drill 271 Views
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Description:
ACT English: Passage Drill 3, Problem 10. Which preposition best follows "consists" in this sentence?
Transcript
- 00:03
Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the central vortex. The place vortexes go to mingle.
- 00:11
Check out the following passage...
- 00:20
How would you correct this underlined segment from the passage, if at all?
- 00:24
consists for
- 00:25
And here are the potential answers...
Full Transcript
- 00:30
These answer choices have a disagreement over which preposition is required.
- 00:33
Remember: it's a preposition's job to link nouns, pronouns, and phrases to other words
- 00:38
in a sentence, while establishing the relationship between the elements they link.
- 00:42
If a writer chooses the wrong preposition, major confusion can happen.
- 00:46
Option (A) serves up a good example of the messiness that the wrong preposition can cause.
- 00:51
When it tells us that "a mature waterspout consists for a low-pressure central vortex,"
- 00:56
it almost sounds like waterspouts are in love with these vortexes.
- 00:59
We can just imagine a waterspout telling a vortex, "I only live for you."
- 01:04
We have a strong feeling this isn't what the writer wants here, so we'll cut choice (A).
- 01:08
Choice (C) claims that these waterspouts consist "on" vortexes. This makes it sound like either
- 01:13
the waterspout is on top of the vortex, or maybe that waterspouts eat vortexes.
- 01:18
We're not sure, but that last one may be considered cannibalism.
- 01:20
Either way, choice (C) is wrong.
- 01:22
Option (D) tells us that waterspouts consist "in" vortexes, but this doesn't work. Something
- 01:27
can't be inside of thing it's made of.
- 01:29
Unless, it exists in some previously undiscovered alternate dimension where the laws of physics
- 01:34
don't apply.
- 01:35
We're not ruling out the existence of such a place, but we figure this is nowhere near
- 01:38
what the writer is trying to communicate.
- 01:40
This brings us to (B), the correct answer. The passage is talking about things that make
- 01:44
up a mature waterspout, so "consists of" is the only plausible option.
- 01:48
We know a waterspout is mature when it has its own job, some savings, and a firm plan for the future.
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