One sentence, five drafts
Holding on to the subject of a sentence while everything around it grows.
Passage
A student is building one sentence about a local photographic archive. Each draft adds material to the draft before it, and every addition changes what the grammar has to do.
Draft 1: The archive holds four thousand photographs.
Draft 2: The archive ___ a converted signal box on the old line ___ holds four thousand photographs.
Draft 3: The archive, a converted signal box on the old line, together with two smaller collections, ___ four thousand photographs.
Draft 4: ___ oldest print dates from 1868.
Draft 5: Founded in 1968 by two retired signalmen, ___
Answers in order, explanations withheld, and a report on where the chain broke.
- 33.1BoundariesFoundation
Which version of draft 2 is punctuated correctly?
- AThe archive, a converted signal box on the old line, holds four thousand photographs.
- BThe archive a converted signal box on the old line holds four thousand photographs.
- CThe archive, a converted signal box on the old line holds four thousand photographs.
- DThe archive a converted signal box on the old line, holds four thousand photographs.
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
The archive, a converted signal box on the old line, holds four thousand photographs.
The description is an appositive dropped into the middle of the sentence, so it needs punctuation on both sides. One comma is not an option: a phrase closed at one end only leaves either the subject or the verb stranded.
- 33.2Subject-verb agreementStandard
Builds on: Question 1 set the appositive off in commas, which is exactly what marks it as not the subject. Draft 3 then slides a second phrase into the same gap, and the verb has to reach past both.
Which verb belongs in draft 3?
- Aholds
- Bhold
- Care holding
- Dwere holding
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
holds
The subject is still "The archive", singular. Neither the appositive nor the phrase beginning "together with" changes that — a phrase like "together with", "as well as" or "in addition to" adds information without adding a subject.
- 33.3PronounsStandard
Builds on: Question 2 established that the archive is singular despite the two phrases piled in front of the verb. "Their" is tempting for the same reason "hold" was tempting there — the nearest nouns are plural, and neither is the subject.
Which word begins draft 4?
- AIts
- BIt's
- CTheir
- DIts'
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
Its
A possessive is wanted, and the possessive of "it" has no apostrophe. "It's" is "it is"; "Its'" is not a word in English.
- 33.4ModifiersChallenge
Builds on: The whole set. Every draft has been about which noun the sentence is really about, and this is the draft where getting it wrong stops being a grammar slip and starts saying something false.
Which completion of draft 5 avoids a dangling modifier?
- Athe archive has never charged for access.
- Baccess to the archive has never been charged for.
- Cthere has never been a charge for access.
- Dno admission fee has ever been collected.
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
the archive has never charged for access.
An opening participial phrase attaches to whatever noun follows the comma. The archive was founded in 1968, so the archive has to be that noun. In the other three the phrase lands on "access", "there" and "no admission fee", none of which was founded by two signalmen.