ACT Preparation / Unit 1 ACT 0026 review, 2 to 3 minutes
One Paragraph, Three Repairs
The idea
One test runs through this unit: can each word group stand alone, and is it joined to its neighbors correctly? A complete sentence needs an independent clause, a subject and a verb with a complete thought. A subordinate clause has a subject and a verb but opens with a word such as because or although and leans on another clause. Independent clauses join in three ways: a comma with a coordinating conjunction, a semicolon, or a semicolon with a transitional word and a comma. Every sentence error in the unit breaks one of those rules. A fragment stands alone when it cannot. A comma splice joins with a comma alone, and a run-on joins with nothing. A mixed construction gives a phrase the subject's job. A broken series lets one item change form. A dangling modifier describes a doer the sentence never names.
In practice
Worked example: a short paragraph, read sentence by sentence. "The town built a skate park last spring. Hoping to give teenagers somewhere to go. The park opened in May, it filled every afternoon. Arriving after school, the ramps were crowded." The second word group has no subject and no working verb, so it is a fragment; attach it: "The town built a skate park last spring, hoping to give teenagers somewhere to go." The third has a complete sentence on each side of a comma, so it is a splice. The relation is time, so "When the park opened in May, it filled every afternoon" fits, and a semicolon would also be correct. The fourth opens with a phrase whose doer is never named, since the ramps did not arrive. Name the doer: "Arriving after school, skaters found the ramps crowded."
Where people slip
Three habits carry forward. Read each word group by itself before judging it. Decide punctuation by the clauses on either side, never by the word after the comma. And repair by adding what is missing, a subject, a verb, a doer or a joining word, rather than by moving words around. The next unit, on punctuation, starts from the same question: where does each independent clause begin and end?
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