Writing Skills & Essay Composition Flashcards

Which sentence contains a dangling modifier?

Answer: Having studied all night, the exam seemed easy to Jana.

The phrase 'Having studied all night' should modify Jana, but grammatically it modifies 'the exam,' creating a dangling modifier.

Which punctuation mark correctly joins two independent clauses without a coordinating conjunction?

Answer: Semicolon

A semicolon joins two closely related independent clauses without needing a coordinating conjunction like 'and' or 'but'.

Which sentence demonstrates correct subject-verb agreement?

Answer: Neither the manager nor the employees were prepared for the audit.

With 'neither...nor,' the verb agrees with the closer subject ('employees,' which is plural), so 'were' is correct.

What is a comma splice?

Answer: Joining two independent clauses with only a comma and no conjunction

A comma splice incorrectly uses a comma alone to join two independent clauses, which requires a semicolon, conjunction, or period.

Which sentence uses the correct pronoun case?

Answer: The report was written by him and me.

After the preposition 'by,' objective case pronouns are required: 'him' and 'me' are both correct objective pronouns.

What does 'parallel structure' require in a sentence?

Answer: That items in a series use the same grammatical form

Parallel structure means that items in a list or series must all use the same grammatical form (e.g., all nouns, all gerunds, or all infinitives).

Which sentence is grammatically correct?

Answer: The data clearly show that the hypothesis was correct.

'Data' is a plural noun (singular: datum), so it requires the plural verb 'show' in formal academic writing.