Practice Quiz #2 (Answers) The following sentences are either grammatically correct or incorrect. If correct, apply the label “correct.” If incorrect, identify the problem as a sentence fragment (SF), a comma splice (CS), a subject/verb agreement problem (sub/verb), a pronoun/antecedent agreement problem (pro. agr.), a pronoun reference problem (pro. ref.), a pronoun case problem (pro. case), a misplaced modifier (MM), a dangling modifier (DM), or faulty parallelism (para.), and then revise the sentence to correct it. Make minor changes only; substantially rewrite parts of the sentence only in the instances of misplaced or dangling modifiers.
1. The Johnsons or I am going to win the competition. [sub/verb; re: verb should agree with it’s closest subject. Another option: “I or the Johnsons are …”.]
2. The council approved the resolution [; / .] however, the mayor vetoed it the next day. [CS; re: don’t use a conjunctive adverb (such as “however”) in the place of a comma + a coordinating conjunction (the FANBOYS); here, join the two independent clauses with a semicolon or separate them with a period. Another option: subordinate one of the clauses, i.e., “Because the council approved the resolution, however, …” .]
3. My best friend Jack and I are going on a tour of England. [pro. case; re: to determine the proper case, omit the undisputed part of the compound subject “Jack and”; here, you would say, “I am going on a tour of England” and not “Me am going …”.]
4. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of grammar for one day. [Correct; two independent clauses properly joined by a comma + a coordinating conjunction.]
5. No matter how hard he tried to understand grammar, Jack never succeeded. [SF; the original word group is a subordinate clause. Another option: drop the subordinating words, i.e., “He tried to understand grammar.” There are many possible answers to this one and, as long as the end result is an independent clause, they’re all equally acceptable.]
6. Sarah lives near the beach because she loves to swim, to play beach volleyball, and to sun tan. [para.; three activities listed here in a series, so they should have the same structure, i.e., the verb in the infinitive, “to swim, to play, to sun tan”. Alternatively, you could write, “… because she loves swimming, playing beach volleyball, and sun tanning.”]
7. Jack suggested to his father that Jack’s / his father’s newest movie wasn’t very good. [pro. ref.; second “his” in this sentence is ambiguous and needs to be clarified; substituting in either person’s name is fine here, since we can’t know who’s been referred to by the “his” of the original construction.]
8. Shooting in the wrong direction, the hunter let the deer get away. [DM; in the original construction, it sounds as if the deer was shooting, which is not possible; what we need to do is add the implied subject (the hunter, etc.---a number of possibilities here); note that the subject of the sentence is introduced immediately after the modifying phrase “Shooting in the wrong direction,” as is proper. Note too that I’ve had to slightly change the phrase at the end of the sentence from “got away” to “get away” in order for the sentence to read grammatically.]
9. No one knew how he or she would deal with the situation. [pro. agr.; “No one” is a singular indefinite pronoun (“not one single person) and “they” is a plural pronoun; hence, we need to replace the plural pronoun “they” with a singular pronoun “he or she”. Alternatively, we could substitute a plural noun/pronoun in for the singular indefinite pronoun, i.e., “The students did not know how they …”, although I like this correction less because it involves some rewriting.]
10. After having just woken up, Steven ran to the lecture hall in his pajamas to listen to his professor talk about thermodynamics. [MM; in the original construction, it sounds as if the professor giving the lecture is in his pajamas, which I admit is possible---but, given the other modifying phrase “After having just woken up” that describes Steven, the evidence of the sentence strongly suggests that Steven is the one in his pajamas.]