ACT English/Grammar Advice

Test Preparation ACT Preparation
1

<p>These are the 10 most important and obscure English rules I tried to remember when prepping:</p>

<p>1) Each is one body <---- pneumonic for remembering pronoun singular agreement</p>

<p>Sentences that have "each" or words that end in "-one" or "-body" should be treated as singular.</p>

<p>Example 1. Each of the boys IS going to the dance.
Example 2. Everyone get out HIS OR HER notebook.
Example 3. Everybody needs to bring HIS OR HER textbook to school.</p>

<p>2) In phrases that have "Either...or" or "Neither...nor" the verb has to agree with the second subject. </p>

<p>Example 1. Neither the sailors nor the boy WANTS to go swimming with sharks. </p>

<p>3) Reflexive pronouns such as "myself", "himself, and "herself" refer back to previously mentioned subjects and cannot be used if you don't have a subject such as "I" mentioned previously in the sentence.</p>

<p>4) Or, nor, and neither/either all take on singular subjects. </p>

<p>5) "Fewer" modifies plural words while "less" modifies singular words.</p>

<p>6) "Who" is used for subject and "whom" is used for object. </p>

<p>7) Two independent clauses are separated by a comma while an independent clause and a dependent one do not need a comma in between. </p>

<p>8) Always use "who" when talking to humans and never "that" or "which"</p>

<p>9) Amount pronouns (none, fraction, percent, etc..) + of DON'T determine subject/verb agreement, the noun following it does.</p>

<p>10) When 2 nouns posses the same item or idea, the second noun is given the punctuation.</p>

2

<p>Good luck to all the people who are taking ACT this Saturday!</p>

3

<p>Do you have any tips on - vs a comma hug (…, blah blah blah,…)? I cant seem to figure them out!</p>

4

<p>Those are all great obscure rules, except number 7 is wrong.</p>

<p>Independent clauses should be separated by: period, common + conjunction, or semicolon.
Independent and dependent clauses need a comma.</p>

5

<p>Just some quick questions: in #8, does that mean when there is a dialog between characters or just people in general such as:</p>

<p>The people WHO set the house on fire went to jail</p>

<p>And for #9 is this example correct?</p>

<p>None of the animal was found by the person.
and
All of the people were having fun at the party.</p>

<p>Also idioms confuse me all the time. I took a practice test and there was 1 idiom and it was really confusing. The question was:</p>

<p>Mt Pleasant’s gardens are modeled FOR those grown by the native people.</p>

<p>A No change
B on
C as
D by</p>

<p>The answer was B but I put D</p>

6

<p>On #9, the example “none of the animal was found…” is correct, but not because of the amount word “none.” You’ll notice “animal” is singular, so the verb is singular in agreement. “All of the people were…” is also correct. “People” is plural, and so the verb is plural in agreement.</p>

7

<p>preply good catch I was going fast and didn’t completely clarify…For independent and dependent it depends on the order they are placed; if the dependent clause comes first you need a comma but if it comes second you don’t. Two independents always need a conjunction I was just trying to stress the difference between when you need a comma and when you don’t. </p>

<p>Example 1. Fred doesn’t care what store he goes to as long as it has candy. (ID and D with no comma)</p>

<p>Example 2. After Fred went to the store, he bought some candy. (D and ID with a comma)</p>

8

<p>thanks for the post</p>