ACT English Test: Sentence Structure Review

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Sentence structure is the Big Deal when it comes to Usage/Mechanics problems. Of the 40

Usage/Mechanics questions, almost half of them (18 to be exact) will test you on your knowledge of

sentence structure, the topics of which include:

1. Connecting and Transitional Words

2. Subordinate or Dependent Clauses

3. Sentence Fragments

4. Comma Splices

5. Run-on Sentences

6. Misplaced Modifiers

7. Parallelism

Connecting and Transitional Words

We’ve already mentioned coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, etc.) and transitional adverbs

(however, nevertheless, moreover, etc.) in “Punctuation.” Here you’ll learn more about these and

other transitional words.

Coordinating Conjunctions

Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, yet) connect words, phrases, and independent

clauses of equal importance in a sentence.

WORDS: You can hand the bottle to Seamus or Bea.

Liz and Amanda got down on the dance floor.

PHRASES: To get there, you must drive over a bridge and through a farm.

We walked by the park but not by the river.

CLAUSES: Tim can go to the store, or Jen can go instead.

It’s only ten o’clock, yet I feel really sleepy.

When joining two words or phrases, you should not use a comma, but (as demonstrated in

“Commas”) if you have a list of more than two words or phrases, commas should separate them and

precede the conjunction. A comma also needs to precede the coordinating conjunction when it joins

two independent clauses, as in the sentence “Tim can go to the store, or Jen can go instead,” above.

Transitional Adverbs

Like coordinating conjunctions, these adverbs (however, also, consequently, nevertheless, thus,

moreover, furthermore, etc.) can join independent clauses. When they do, they should be preceded

by a semicolon (see “Semicolons”) and followed, most of the time, by a comma. Short adverbs, such

as “thus,” do not need a comma. Here are some examples of transitional adverbs in action:

Joe always raves about soccer; however, he always refuses to watch a match.

If you can’t go to the prom with me, let me know as soon as possible ; otherwise, I’ll resent you and your

inability to communicate for the rest of my life.

You need to remember that transitional adverbs must be accompanied by semicolons. If you see a

transitional adverb on its own or preceded by a comma on the English Test, you should immediately

know there’s an error.

ACT English Test: Sentence Structure Review

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Subordinating Conjunctions

When you have two independent clauses, but you feel that one is more important than the other, you

can use a subordinating conjunction to connect them. In other words, you use a subordinating

conjunction (because, when, since, after, until, although, before, etc.) to make one clause dependent

on the other. By subordinating one clause, you show the reader the relationship between the two

clauses. For example, take the following two sentences:

I ate a rotten egg.

I became violently ill.

It seems likely that eating the rotten egg caused the violent illness. To make that relationship

grammatically clear, you can rephrase the sentences as:

Because I ate a rotten egg, I became violently ill.

Let’s try another example:

I found out my dog was really a rat.

I called the exterminator.

Put them through the subordinating conjunction transformation machine:

After I found out my dog was really a rat, I called the exterminator.

I called the exterminator after I found out my dog was really a rat.

In these examples, “I found out my dog was really a rat” becomes subordinate to “I called the

exterminator.” You can base your decision on which clause to subordinate by determining the

relationship between the clauses. In the example above, the discovery about the “dog” leads to the

call; in other words, the discovery is the cause and calling the exterminator the result. Subordinating

the cause to the result often makes the most sense when forming these sentences. For further

discussion of this topic, move on to the next section.

Subordinate or Dependent Clauses

When you’re tested on subordinate conjunctions, you’ll need to select the most appropriate

conjunction and place it correctly within the sentence. When you’re tested on subordinate and

dependent clauses, you’ll need to decide how to form the whole sentence correctly. As touched upon

above, not all clauses deserve the same emphasis in a sentence. Equality is a good thing, but in the

writing world you’ve got to give preference to some clauses over others.

You can run into problems if you’re too liberal with your coordinating conjunctions and transitional

adverbs (the adverbs that link independent clauses). These adverbs assume that the clauses being

connected deserve equal weight in a sentence. Take a look at this sentence:

Everyone regards Ginger as the most promising student in the class, and she gets the highest grades; also,

she is the president of the student council.

This sentence doesn’t read very well. Subordinating some of the clauses will improve the flow of the

sentence:

Everyone regards Ginger as the most promising student in the class because she gets the highest grades

and is the president of the student council.

ACT English Test: Sentence Structure Review

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This new sentence explains why Ginger is “the most promising student” by subordinating the clauses

that cite her high grades and student council presidency.

Sentence Fragments

Sentence fragments are incomplete sentences that tend to look like this on the English Test:

We didn’t go outside. Even though the rain had stopped.

Tommy could not pay for his lunch. Having spent his last dollars on sunglasses.

Always a bit shy. She found herself unable to talk to the other kids.

The sentence fragments above are not sentences on their own. They can be attached to the

independent clauses next to them to form complete sentences:

We didn’t go outside, even though the rain had stopped.

Having spent his last dollars on sunglasses, Tommy could not pay for his lunch.

Always a bit shy, she found herself unable to talk to the other kids.

The answer choices on English Test questions will often make clear whether you should incorporate

a fragment into a neighboring sentence. For example:

We didn’t go

outside. Even

though the rain

17.

NO CHANGE

outside;

outside; even

outside, even

had stopped.

Notice how choices B, C, and D all give you the option of combining two sentences into one. That

should give you a good clue as to what’s required. The variation between the last three choices occurs

in punctuation. If you agree that A is incorrect, you can rely on your punctuation skills to decipher

the correct answer. The answer, by the way, is D because B and C, with their use of the semicolon,

continue to isolate the sentence fragment from the sentence.

Other sentence fragment questions on the English Test will ask you to turn a fragment into its own

full sentence rather than simply to incorporate it into a different sentence. Again, you’ll be able to tell

from the answer choices what the ACT writers want:

We didn’t go outside.

While the

rain continued

18.

NO CHANGE

Although the

The

Since the

to fall.

Answers F, G, and J don’t solve the sentence fragment problem. By choosing those, you still end up

with a subordinate clause posing as a sentence (G and J simply replace one subordinating

conjunction with another). But by getting rid of the subordinating conjunction altogether, you form a

real sentence: “The rain continued to fall.” The correct answer is H.

Most sentence fragments on the English Test will be subordinate or dependent clauses trying to be

complete sentences. By studying your subordinate and dependent clauses and learning what they

look like, you’ll be able to catch them committing sentence fragment crime.

ACT English Test: Sentence Structure Review

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Comma Splices

The ACT writers may test your ability to weed out illegal comma splices. A comma splice occurs when

two independent clauses are joined together by a comma with no intervening conjunction. For

example,

Bowen walked to the park, Leah followed behind.

The comma between “park” and “Leah” forms a comma splice. Although the sentence may sound

correct because the comma demands a short pause between the two related clauses, the structure is

wrong in written English. Instead, two sentences are necessary:

Bowen walked to the park. Leah followed behind.

Or, if you explicitly want to show the relationship between the clauses, you can write:

Bowen walked to the park, while Leah followed behind.

Bowen walked to the park, and Leah followed behind.

Inserting “while” subordinates the “Leah” clause to the “Bowen” clause. In the second sentence, the

“and” joins the two clauses on equal footing.

Think about the comma splice in construction terms: the comma (a wimpy nail) is too weak a

punctuation mark to join together two independent clauses (two big heavies). In order to join them,

you have to add a conjunction (super glue) to the comma or use a period (a bolt) instead.

Run-on Sentences

You can think of run-on sentences as comma splices minus the commas. For example:

Joan runs every day she is preparing for a marathon.

John likes to walk his dog through the park Kevin doesn’t.

To fix run-on sentences, you need to identify where they should be split. The first example should be

broken into two parts: “Joan runs every day” and “she is preparing for a marathon.” These are two

independent clauses that can stand on their own as sentences:

Joan runs every day. She is preparing for a marathon.

Alternatively, you may choose to show the relationship between these sentences by subordinating

one to the other:

Joan runs every day because she is preparing for a marathon.

The second example, when split, becomes: “John likes to walk his dog through the park” and “Kevin

doesn’t.” The following sentences are correct alternatives to the original run-on:

John likes to walk his dog through the park. Kevin doesn’t.

John likes to walk his dog through the park, but Kevin doesn’t.

John likes to walk his dog through the park; however, Kevin doesn’t.

These are just a few ways you can join the two clauses. We could go on and on, showing different

relationships between the two clauses (but we won’t).

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Misplaced Modifiers

Does the following sentence sound odd to you?

Having eaten six corn dogs, nausea overwhelmed Jane.

Nausea didn’t eat six corn dogs. Gluttonous Jane did. However, the sentence above says that nausea

was the one “having eaten six corn dogs.” This is a case of a misplaced modifier. When you have a

modifier like “having eaten six corn dogs,” it must come either directly before or directly after the

word that it is modifying.

Having eaten six corn dogs, Jane was overwhelmed by nausea.

Jane, having eaten six corn dogs, was overwhelmed by nausea.

These two sentences make it clear that Jane was the one wolfing down the corn dogs.

Modifiers are not necessarily phrases like the one above. They can be adverbial phrases, adverbial

clauses, or single-word adverb modifiers. You’ve already seen how adverbial-phrase modifiers work

in the example above. The simple rule for phrase modifiers is to make sure phrase modifiers are

next to the word(s) they modify. The same rule applies to clause modifiers. Misplaced clause

modifiers look like this:

Bill packed his favorite clothes in his suitcase, which he planned to wear on vacation.

Now do you really think this guy is planning to wear his suitcase on vacation? Well, that’s what the

sentence says. It’ll be a pretty heavy outfit too, since the suitcase is packed with clothes. If Bill

decides to wear his clothes instead of his suitcase, you should say:

Bill packed his favorite clothes, which he planned to wear on vacation, in his suitcase.

Of course, he’ll be a slightly more conventional dresser, but the clothes will probably fit better than

the suitcase.

The placement of single-word adverbs is slightly trickier than that of clause and phrase modifiers.

You need to make sure that adverb modifiers (such as just, almost, barely, even, and nearly) are

modifying the word you intend them to modify. If they aren’t, the sentence will probably still make

sense, but it will have a different meaning than you intended.

Take the sentence “Jay walked a half hour to the grocery store.” Now add to that sentence the

adverbial modifier “only.” The placement of “only” within the sentence will alter the meaning of the

sentence:

Only Jay walked a half hour to the grocery store.

The sentence above means that no one but Jay made the walk.

Jay only walked a half hour to the grocery store.

Here, “only” modifies the verb “walked,” and the sentence means that Jay did nothing but walk—he

didn’t run, and he didn’t swim—to the store.

Jay walked only a half hour to the grocery store.

Hey, the walk to the grocery store isn’t too bad. According to the sentence above, it took Jay only a

half hour to get there.

Jay walked a half hour to only the grocery store.

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Now we find out that Jay’s single destination was the grocery store (and we were about to accuse him

of having ulterior motives for taking that walk).

Parallelism

When you see a list underlined on the English Test, look for a parallelism error. Parallelism errors

occur when items in a list are mismatched. For example, if you have a list of verbs, then all items in

the list must be verbs of the same tense. For example,

WRONG: In the pool area, there is no spitting, no running, and don’t throw your cigarette butts in the

water.

The first two forbidden activities end in “ing” (they’re called gerunds, though that doesn’t really

matter), and because of that, the third activity must also end in “ing”.

RIGHT: In the pool area, there is no spitting, no running, and no throwing your cigarette butts in the

water.

By simply converting the final verb to gerund form, you have parallel structure. Parallelism is also

important when you have expressions linked by the verb to be. Because you should think of to be as

an equal sign, the words on either side of the sign must be parallel. For example:

WRONG: To grow tired of London is growing tired of life.

RIGHT: To grow tired of London is to grow tired of life.

WRONG: Growing tired of London is to grow tired of life.

RIGHT: Growing tired of London is growing tired of life.

The examples above are not parallel when the verb forms are different on either side of “is.” You can

make them parallel by simply changing the form of one verb to the form of the other.

If you have a list of nouns, you must also maintain parallel construction. For example,

The personal ad said that she likes “ books, good food, and to take long walks on the beach.”

She apparently doesn’t like parallelism. “Books” and “food” are nouns, but “to take” is a verb

infinitive. If she’s hoping to get a call from the grammarian of her dreams, she should rewrite her ad

to look like this:

The personal ad said that she likes “ books, good food, and long walks on the beach.”

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