ACT English Practice Test: Run-Ons, Fragments and Comma Splices
- Sentence Structure: Run-Ons, Fragments and Comma Splices
- 10 questions
- 10 minutes
These 10 questions follow one short essay, "Counting the Trees of Maple Ridge," in order. Each one asks you to repair a sentence boundary: a run-on, a fragment, a comma splice or a misplaced modifier. Before you look at the choices, find each subject and verb and ask whether the words form one complete sentence or two.
Tap an option to mark your answer. You can change your mind, or tap the same option again to leave the question blank. The correct answers and explanations appear when you finish the test.Tap an option to answer; tap it again to leave the question blank.
Your result
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- 0 wrong
- 0 blank
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Question 1
Every summer, volunteers in Maple Ridge walk the streets with clipboards and tape measures, they record the size and health of every tree along the sidewalks.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: C
The original joins two complete sentences with only a comma, a comma splice. "Recording" turns the second part into a phrase that describes what the volunteers do. "They recorded" and "they are recording" still leave two independent clauses joined by a comma.
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Question 2
The project began in 2019. When a storm knocked down dozens of old oaks and nobody at town hall could say how many trees the town had lost.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: B
The words after the period are a dependent clause that cannot stand alone, so the original creates a fragment. A comma attaches the "when" clause to the sentence it explains. A semicolon or a colon would still leave the "when" clause as a fragment after the mark.
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Question 3
The town had no list of its trees officials had never paid for a survey.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: D
Two independent clauses run together with no punctuation, a fused sentence. A semicolon correctly separates them. A comma alone creates a comma splice, and the commas around "and" interrupt the conjunction for no reason.
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Question 4
A retired botanist, Ines Calder, offered to train the volunteers; showing them how to tell a red maple from a sugar maple.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: C
A semicolon must be followed by an independent clause, and "showing them..." is only a participial phrase. A comma attaches the phrase correctly. A period turns the phrase into a fragment, and "she showing" has no complete verb.
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Question 5
Each volunteer learned to record three facts about every tree: its species, its trunk width, and its condition.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: A
A colon after a complete clause correctly introduces the list of three facts. A comma blurs the list into the sentence, a semicolon needs an independent clause after it, and no punctuation at all runs the list into "tree."
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Question 6
Measuring at chest height, the tape was wrapped around each trunk by the volunteers.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: D
The opening phrase "Measuring at chest height" must describe the people who measure, so "the volunteers" has to come right after the comma. In the other versions the tape or the trunk seems to be doing the measuring, a dangling modifier.
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Question 7
By the end of the second summer, the volunteers had counted 4,812 trees, more than anyone at town hall had guessed.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: A
The phrase "more than anyone at town hall had guessed" correctly describes the count, and a comma attaches it. A period or a semicolon would leave the phrase as a fragment, and "it was more" creates a comma splice.
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Question 8
Their records showed that many young trees were thriving, however, several blocks of older ash trees were dying.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: B
"However" is not a conjunction, so it cannot join two independent clauses with commas alone. A semicolon before "however" and a comma after it fixes the splice. The other choices still run the clauses together.
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Question 9
The cause was the emerald ash borer, a small green beetle whose larvae tunnel under the bark and cut off the flow of water through the tree.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: A
"Whose" begins a clause that describes the beetle, and "tunnel" gives that clause a complete verb. "Its larvae tunnel" and "the larvae of it tunnel" create a second independent clause after a comma, and "tunneling" leaves the clause without a main verb.
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Question 10
Next spring the town will plant three hundred new trees, the list will help officials choose species that the beetle does not attack.
Which choice is best for the underlined portion?
Correct answer: C
Adding the coordinating conjunction "and" after the comma correctly joins the two independent clauses. The other choices keep a comma splice, and "the list, it will help" also adds an unnecessary pronoun.
Questions you leave blank are not counted as wrong.
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