by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 9, 2011 | ACT English/SAT Writing, Blog
When is a noun not a noun?
Answer: when it’s an adjective.
One of the ACT’s favorite ways to play with you is to take words that normally act like nouns — often professions such as author, architect, scientist, etc. — and use them as adjectives. This might not seem like much of a big deal, or even something you’d really need to pay attention to, except that it actually involves something the ACT absolutely loves to test: commas.
Consider the following: You probably wouldn’t write something like “I.M. Pei is a celebrated, architect.” Even if you don’t know that “famous” is an adjective and that “architect” is a noun, you can probably feel that the comma is wrong there; there’s no natural break in the sentence.
But what about this?
Glass is perhaps the building material most often associated with celebrated architect, I.M. Pei.
Suddenly that comma seems like it could be ok. Perhaps you learned that you always put a comma before a person’s name.
Well, sometimes you do, but sometimes you don’t. And this is one of those cases in which you don’t.
The reason is that “architect,” in this case,” is being used to describe I.M. Pei. Even though “architect” looks like a noun, it’s acting as an adjective here. And since adjectives should never be separated from the nouns they describe by a comma, you do not need to place one between “architect” and “I.M. Pei.”
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 8, 2011 | ACT English/SAT Writing
One of the ACT’s preferred tricks is to give you a sentence that looks like the following:
Millions of pedal-assisted electric bicycles have already been sold in Asian countries, such as China, where bicycles often serve as a cheap, yet efficient mode of transport.
A. NO CHANGE
B. cheap; yet efficient
C. cheap, yet efficient
D. cheap yet efficient
Because it seems natural to pause before the word yet many people’s instinct is to insert a comma at that point in the sentence.
However, the rule is that when two adjectives are separated by a conjunction (typically but or yet, although and could be tested as well), no comma should be used before the conjunction.
In this case, cheap and efficient are both adjectives, so no comma is necessary. The answer is therefore D.
You can also think of the rule this way: comma + but/yet = period.
When you plug in a period, you get nonsense:
Millions of pedal-assisted electric bicycles have already been sold in Asian countries, such as China, where bicycles often serve as a cheap. Efficient mode of transport.
If a period doesn’t work, neither does comma + but/yet.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 4, 2011 | ACT English/SAT Writing
Would, could, should, might OF = wrong
Would, could, should, might HAVE = right
This is among the ACT’s favorite rules to test.
Why?
Because in spoken English, the words are contracted so that would have becomes would’ve, which is pronounced like would of. As a result, a lot of people very logically assume that would’ve = would of. But in reality, this construction does not actually exist.
So, for example:
Incorrect: If my parents had not forced me to attend Chinese school, I never would of developed an appreciation for the traditions of Chinese New Year.
Correct: If my parents had not forced me to attend Chinese school, I never would have developed an appreciation for the traditions of Chinese New Year.
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 30, 2011 | ACT English/SAT Writing
Non-essential clauses — also known as “parenthetical” or “non-restrictive” clauses — are among the most important concepts tested on both SAT Writing and ACT English. They are used to provide additional information about nouns, usually the subject, and they have several important characteristics:
1) They are most often surrounded by commas (one before, one after), but they can also be surrounded by dashes or parentheses.
2) They can be removed from a sentence without affecting its essential meaning.
3) They are usually followed by verbs.
Let’s start with the following base sentence:
Correct: The Olmec culture, which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, was among the earliest complex civilizations.
Correct: The Olmec culture — which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco — was among the earliest complex civilizations.
Correct: The Olmec culture (which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco) was among the earliest complex civilizations.
If we cross out the non-essential clauses, the sentence that remains still makes perfect sense:
Crossed out: The Olmec culture…was among the earliest complex civilizations.
The sentence still makes perfect sense.
Appositives
One important thing to know about non-essential clauses is that they often begin with either who or which, as in the above sentence. They can, however, also begin with nouns, in which case they are known as appositives. I’m simplifying a bit here, but this is the gist of it. You do not need to be able to identify appositives by name, but you do need to be able to recognize that the construction is correct, even if it may sound funny to you.
Correct: The Olmec culture, a culture that flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, was among the earliest complex civilizations.
Making Sure It’s Really A Non-Essential Clause
Some people have difficulty determining when the presence of two commas actually indicates a clause that can be crossed out (if this applies to you, keep reading; if not, you can ignore the rest of this post). There are many other scenarios when two commas can appear in a sentence and in fact nothing can be crossed out.
No non-essential clause: Beginning around 1500 BC, the Olmec culture flourished along the Gulf Coast of Mexico, primarily in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco.
In the above sentence, there are two commas, but if we cross out the information between them, we are left with:
Crossed-out: Beginning around 1500 BC…primarily in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco.
Clearly this does not make sense! The information between the commas is therefore not a non-essential clause.
One of the most common errors involving non-essential clauses involves removing one of the commas.
Incorrect: The Olmec culture which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, was among the earliest complex civilizations. (No comma before the non-essential clause)
Incorrect: The Olmec culture, which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco was among the earliest complex civilizations. (No comma after the non-essential clause)
One thing to be aware of is that non-essential elements can be both quite long and very, very short. The important thing to remember is that regardless of length, the rule stays the same: if you can take the word or phrase out of the sentence and the the sentence still makes sense, you need both commas. No exceptions.
Correct: The Olmec culture began to flourish around 1500 BC. It is, therefore, among the earliest complex civilizations.
Correct: The Olmec culture began to flourish around 1500 BC. It is, historians believe, among the earliest complex civilizations.
Mismatched Punctuation
Both the SAT and the ACT test punctuation involving non-essential clauses. The most important rule is that the same type of punctuation should be used to mark both the beginning and the end of a non-essential clause: commas must be matched with commas, dashes with dashes, and parentheses with parentheses. Any construction that involves mixing and matching is incorrect.
In most cases, dashes and commas will be mismatched with one another:
Incorrect: The Olmec culture, which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco — was among the earliest complex civilizations.
Incorrect: The Olmec culture — which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, was among the earliest complex civilizations.
Note that catching these errors often requires you to read either backwards or forwards within a sentence. If the underlined portion is at the beginning of the sentence, you will have to jump ahead to check the punctuation at the end of the non-essential clause; and if the underlined portion is at the end of the sentence, you will have to backtrack to check the punctuation at the beginning of the non-essential clause. That is why you must consider each underlined section in context and not only focus on the specific words in question.
Additional Errors
1) Subject-Verb Agreement Errors
Incorrect: The Olmec culture, which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, were among the earliest complex civilizations.
Correct: The Olmec culture, which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, was among the earliest complex civilizations.
Occasionally, however, the error may appear within the non-essential clause:
Incorrect: The Olmec culture, which were among the earliest complex civilizations, flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco.
Correct: The Olmec culture, which was among the earliest complex civilizations, flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco.
2) Fragments
Incorrect: The Olmec culture, which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, and it was among the earliest complex civilizations.
To fix the sentence, you must start, as always, by crossing out the non-essential clause in order to see what you’re truly dealing with:
Incorrect: The Olmec culture, which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, and it was among the earliest complex civilizations.
Once you’ve reduced the sentence, you simply cross out everything before the verb:
Correct: The Olmec culture…and it was among the earliest complex civilizations.
The correct answer choice will pretty much always be the one that contains a comma immediately followed by a verb.
You could also encounter a question that asks you to fix the beginning of a non-essential clause. In order to do so, you must be able to read ahead in the sentence and recognize that a comma can mark the end of a non-essential clause.
Incorrect: The Olmec culture flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, was among the earliest complex civilizations.
If you just read the beginning, the sentence seems fine. But if you read the whole thing, something is clearly off. The key is to recognize that the comma before was can mark the end of a non-essential clause. To fix the sentence, you can therefore begin the non-essential clause after culture.
Correct: The Olmec culture, which flourished in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, was among the earliest complex civilizations.
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 21, 2011 | ACT English/SAT Writing, SAT Grammar (Old Test)
Grammar rule: any pronoun that follows a preposition must be an object pronoun (me, her, him, us, them NOT I, she, he, we, they).
I realize, however, that most people do not want to think about prepositions and subject and object pronouns, especially while they’re taking the SAT, so now I’m going to give you the shortcut:
Pretty much everyone employs this rule naturally when using singular subject and objects: you just wouldn’t say, “me is going to the store,” or “the cashier gave the change back to he.”
When subject and objects are plural, however, people tend to get confused. But here’s the thing: there’s no difference between using pronouns with singular and plural subjects and objects. In fact: Whatever goes for singular also goes for plural.
The SAT almost always pairs pronouns with a proper names (e.g. Jesse and I; she and Maria), so if you cross out the proper name, you’ll virtually always be able to hear whether there’s an error.
Let’s look at a couple of examples
Incorrect: After nearly a month, the teacher finally returned the report to Sarah and I.
The first thing that we can notice is that we have a name (Sarah) paired with a pronoun (I).
If we cross out the words “Sarah and,” we are left with:
Incorrect: After nearly a month, the teacher finally returned the report to I.
Would you say that? Of course not. You’d say, “The teacher finally returned the report to me.”
So you’d also say:
Correct: After nearly a month, the teacher finally returned the report to Sarah and me.
Or:
Incorrect: Tom and me went to the baseball game yesterday after school. Cross out: [Tom and] me went to the baseball game yesterday after school. If you wouldn’t say “Me went to the baseball game,” you wouldn’t say, “Tom and me went to the baseball game” either. The sentence should therefore read:
Correct: Tom and I went to the baseball game yesterday after school.
