English Grammar for the Utterly Confused - Laurie Rozakis 2003
Questions
Chapter 8 Writing Correct and Complete Sentences
Part 3 Sentence Sense
True-False Questions
1. A sentence has two parts: a subject and a predicate.
2. The predicate includes the noun or pronoun that tells what the subject is about. The subject includes the verb that describes what the subject is doing.
3. Together, the subject and predicate express a complete thought.
4. In a question, the verb often comes after the subject.
5. Declarative sentences state an idea. They end with a period.
6. The following is a declarative sentence:
Antonia (’Tonie’) Nathan, the 1972 vice-presidential candidate of the Libertarian party, was the first woman in American history to receive an electoral vote.
7. Exclamatory sentences ask a question. They end with a question mark.
8. The following is an exclamatory sentence:
What career did Ronald Reagan have before he became president?
9. Interrogative sentences give orders or directions, and so end with a period or an exclamation mark.
10. The following is an interrogative sentence:
Where did you put my mink coat?
11. Imperative sentences give orders or directions, and so end with a period or an exclamation mark.
12. The following is an imperative sentence:
Extinguish all smoking material while the sign is lit.
13. A simple sentence has two or more independent clauses.
14. The following is a simple sentence:
When the Hoovers did not want to be overheard by White House guests, they spoke to each other in Chinese.
15. A compound sentence has two or more independent clauses.
16. The following is a compound sentence:
Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth president, was the only self-educated tailor ever to serve as president.
17. Don’t join the two parts of a compound sentence with a comma because you will end up with a type of run-on sentence called a “comma splice.”
18. The following is a run-on sentence:
Julie Nixon, daughter of Richard Nixon, married David Eisenhower, son of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
19. The following is a run-on sentence:
William Henry Harrison was the first president to die in office, he was the oldest president ever elected.
20. The following sentence is a fragment:
Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Davis opposite each other in the movie Hellcats of the Navy.
Completion Questions
Select the word that best completes each sentence.
1. Effective sentences stress the (minor, main) point or the most important detail.
2. A run-on sentence is the same as a (fragment, comma splice).
3. There are two basic types of sentence errors: fragments and (run-on sentences, independent clauses).
4. (Dependent, Independent) clauses are complete sentences because they have a subject and a verb and express a complete thought.
5. (Dependent, Independent) clauses cannot stand alone because they do not express a complete thought, even though they have a subject and a verb.
6. You can join the clauses in a compound sentence with a coordinating conjunction or a (semicolon, preposition).
7. The word (nonetheless, and) is a conjunctive adverb.
8. A complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one (dependent clause, adjective).
9. The independent clause in a complex sentence is called the (“subordinate clause,” “main clause”).
10. A compound-complex sentence has at least two (independent, short) clauses and at least one dependent clause.
11. In a compound-complex sentence, the dependent clause (cannot, can) be part of the independent clause.
12. The length and complexity of your sentences depends on your audience, topic, and (personal style, readers).
13. The more complex your ideas, the (more difficult, simpler) your sentences should be.
14. Overall, most effective sentences are (concise, verbose), conveying their meaning in as few words as possible.
15. Fragments also happen when a phrase is (added to, cut off from) the sentence it describes.
Multiple-Choice Questions
Choose the best answer to each question.
1. To be a sentence, a group of words must have all the following but
(a) (A subject
(b) An adjective
(c) A verb
(d) A complete thought
2. The four sentence functions in English include all the following except
(a) Declarative
(b) Exclamatory
(c) Declining
(d) Interrogative
3. Which of the following sentences is best classified as exclamatory?
(a) People in Bali remove the wings from dragonflies and boil the bodies in coconut milk and garlic.
(b) The birds in my yard help keep the insect population under control.
(c) Look at that gorgeous insect on the fence!
(d) Would you eat insects?
4. Which of the following sentences is interrogative?
(a) A new language can come into being as a pidgin.
(b) A pidgin is a makeshift jargon containing words of various languages and little in the way of grammar.
(c) The leap into a “true” language is made when the pidgin speakers have children!
(d) Is language innate in humans?
5. Which of the following is not a declarative sentence?
(a) Venezuelans like to feast on fresh fire-roasted tarantulas.
(b) Eating insects is disgusting!
(c) In Japan, gourmets relish aquatic fly larvae sauteed in sugar and soy sauce.
(d) Many South Africans adore fried termites with cornmeal porridge.
6. When you are deciding which sentence types to use, consider all the following factors except
(a) Purpose
(b) Your handwriting
(c) Audience
(d) Subject
7. Which of the following is a simple sentence?
(a) The “ZIP” in zip code stands for “zone improvement plan.”
(b) Lyndon Johnson loved the soda Fresca so much he had a fountain installed in the Oval Office that dispensed the beverage, which the president could operate by pushing a button on his desk chair.
(c) There was some question as to whether Barry Goldwater could legally serve as president because the Constitution requires presidents to be born in the United States and Goldwater was born in Arizona before it was a state.
(d) Despite being only five stories high, the Pentagon is one of the biggest office buildings in the world.
8. Which of the following is a compound sentence?
(a) Sirimauo Bandranaike of Sri Lanka became the world’s first popularly elected female head of state in 1960.
(b) Andrew Jackson was the only U.S. president who believed that the world was flat.
(c) Six-time Socialist party candidate for President of the United States Norman
Thomas never polled more than 884,000 popular votes in one election, but his influence on American political and social thought was very effective.
(d) The first U.S. president to ride in an automobile was William McKinley.
9. Which of the following is a complex sentence?
(a) George Washington’s false teeth were made of whale bone.
(b) George Washington was deathly afraid of being buried alive.
(c) Washington’s second inaugural address was 138 words long.
(d) If children are capable of creating grammar without any instruction, then such grammar must preexist in their brains.
10. Which of the following is a compound-complex sentence?
(a) When President Franklin Pierce ran down an elderly woman, the charges against him could not be proven, and the case was dismissed.
(b) When George Washington was elected president, there was a king in France, a czarina in Russia, an emperor in China, and a shogun in Japan.
(c) George Washington had to borrow money to go to his own inauguration.
(d) James K. Polk was the only president to have been Speaker of the House.
11. Which word group is a fragment?
(a) The Pentagon has more than 3 million square feet of office space it can house about 30,000 employees.
(b) Theodore Roosevelt’s wife and mother dying on the same day.
(c) Currently, there are more handwritten letters from George Washington than from John F. Kennedy.
(d) The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland’s baby daughter, Ruth.
12. Which of the following sentences is correct?
(a) For example, thousands of edible termites can be raised in a 6-foot mound the same number of cattle requires hundreds of acres of grassland.
(b) For example, thousands of edible termites can be raised in a 6-foot mound, the same number of cattle requires hundreds of acres of grassland.
(c) For example, thousands of edible termites can be raised in a 6-foot mound; the same number of cattle requires hundreds of acres of grassland.
(d) For example, thousands of edible termites can be raised in a 6-foot mound however the same number of cattle requires hundreds of acres of grassland.
13. Which of the following sentences is correct?
(a) We may think of insects as dirty, they are actually cleaner than other creatures.
(b) We may think of insects as dirty they are actually cleaner than other creatures.
(c) We may think of insects as dirty, but they are actually cleaner than other creatures.
(d) We may think of insects as dirty since they are actually cleaner than other creatures.
14. Which of the following sentences is correct?
(a) More than one million species of insects and worms exist, and humans can eat about 1,400 of these species.
(b) More than one million species of insects and worms exist, humans can eat about 1,400 of these species.
(c) More than one million species of insects and worms exist humans can eat about 1,400 of these species.
(d) More than one million species of insects and worms exist so humans can eat about 1,400 of these species.
15. Which of the following sentences is correct?
(a) Those polled were most repulsed about American fast food, they had difficulty with the concept of washing down ground beef with melted ice cream.
(b) Those polled were most repulsed about American fast food they had difficulty with the concept of washing down ground beef with melted ice cream.
(c) Those polled were most repulsed about American fast food, they had difficulty with the concept of washing down ground beef with melted ice cream.
(d) Those polled were most repulsed about American fast food because they had difficulty with the concept of washing down ground beef with melted ice cream.
16. Which of the following sentences is correct?
(a) You know that insects are healthful, but what do they taste like.
(b) You know that insects are healthful what do they taste like!
(c) You know that insects are healthful, what do they taste like?
(d) You know that insects are healthful, but what do they taste like?
Further Exercises
Correct all the sentence errors in the following paragraph.
Not surprisingly each type of insects has its own taste. One type of caterpillar has been compared to a mushroom omelet a Mexican stinkbug has a pleasant cinnamon flavor despite its unappealing name. Catherine Fowler a professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada, Reno described the taste of Pandora moth caterpillars as “very good like scrambled egg omelet with mushrooms.” Tom Turpin a professor of Entomology at Purdue University enjoys “chocolate chirpy cookies” chocolate chip cookies with roasted crickets. Gene DeFoliart likes greater wax moth larvae, tastes like bacon when deep fried.