Overview:
Some grammar questions on standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT ask students to apply the rules they have learned about sentence construction. Sentence prompts may include dangling clauses, free-standing phrases, and run-on sentences. The task is to choose the rewritten sentence that makes the most sense without changing the author’s intended meaning.
What Is A Phrase?
A phrase is a group of words that does not contain a subject and verb. The words in the phrase act together in a unit, such as prepositional phases, adjective phrases, or adverb phrases. For example, the prepositional phrase “to the lighthouse” has a preposition, an object, and the article modifying the object. Within the nonsense sentence, “Deep green ideas sleep furiously”, there is an adverbial phrase, “deep green ideas.” The sentence could be made more convoluted by adding an adverbial phrase such as “in the dark” to read “Deep green ideas sleep furiously in the dark.”
What Is a Clause?
A clause is a group of words with its own subject and verb. Some clauses can stand alone as short sentences or independent clauses. Dependent clauses cannot stand alone and act as adjectives, adverbs, and nouns within sentences. An independent clause can be changed easily into a dependent clause by adding relative pronouns such as that, which, who, whom, or whose, or relative adverbs such as after, before, since, where, when, or why.
What Are Some Ways to Combine Phrases without Changing the Meaning?
Phrases can be used to expand sentences and make them more vivid without changing the meaning of a sentence. They do not contain subjects and verbs, so they cannot stand alone as sentences. For example, the adverb phrase “in the evening” can be combined with the short sentence “The moon rises” to form the sentence “The moon rises in the evening.”
What Are Some Ways to Combine Clauses without Changing the Meaning?
It is important to carefully read test alternatives that contain ways that clauses can be combined to make sure the meaning does not change. For example, suppose the passage stated “Virginia Woolf was an important member of the Bloomsbury Group. The Bloomsbury Group challenged many ideas that were current in England.” Those sentences could be combined by making the second sentence a subordinate clause, changing the passage to read, “Virginia Woolf was an important member of the Bloomsbury Group, which challenged many ideas that were current in England.”
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