ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

ACT English 1.4 Grammar and Usage 603 Views


Share It!


Description:

ACT English: Grammar and Usage Drill 1, Problem 4. Which choice matches the tense and subject of the sentence?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the past tense. It was, like, SO last year.

00:11

What should replace the underlined words below?

00:13

Each of these moments have played again and again as I try to recapture the excitement

00:18

of that momentous day—my high school graduation.

00:27

This one definitely has some evil tricks up its sleeves.

00:31

Though the word "moments" is plural, it's not the subject of the sentence, since it's

00:35

tucked away in the prepositional phrase, "of these moments."

00:40

The actual subject of the sentence is "each." Since this word is singular, we need to find

00:48

the answer choice with a verb to match.

00:50

Knowing this, we can give the axe to (A) and (B), because both "have" and "were" are plural

00:55

in this case.

00:56

To choose between (C) and (D), we've got to make sure the tenses match.

01:00

We know that the verb "try" is in the present tense, so we know that we're looking for a

01:04

verb that's present as well.

01:07

"Was" is past tense, so we can nix (D), and dub (C) the correct answer.

01:13

As for what was so amazing about graduation day?

01:15

Let's just say the announcer guy didn't quite pronounce all

01:17

of the names correctly.

Up Next

ACT English 2.2 Punctuation
2070 Views

ACT English: Punctuation Drill 2, Problem 2. Where should the semi-colon be placed?

Related Videos

ACT English 3.1 Punctuation
1066 Views

ACT English: Punctuation Drill 3, Problem 1. How should this sentence be changed so that it is grammatically correct?

ACT English 3.2 Punctuation
973 Views

ACT English: Punctuation Drill 3, Problem 2. How should we properly hyphenate the words in this sentence?

ACT English 3.4 Punctuation
523 Views

ACT English: Punctuation Drill 3, Problem 4. Which choice best formats this list of items?

ACT English 2.1 Punctuation
519 Views

ACT English: Punctuation Drill 2, Problem 1. Which choice of punctuation best completes the sentence?