ACT ENGLISH

Noun

A word that represents a person, place, or thing.

Verb

An action word, such as play, jump, or skip.

Adjective

A word that describes a noun.

Adverb

A word that describes a verb, adjective, or another one of these.

Preposition

A word that indicates the relationship of a noun to another word, often passing "the chair test" (e.g., on, with, next, between, under, over); the subject of a sentence is never found after one.

Pronoun

A word that replaces a noun, categorized into three types

Conjunction

A word, often used with a comma, that separates two independent clauses or fixes a run-on sentence, categorized into three types

Subject

The noun performing the action in a sentence.

Object

The noun receiving the action in a sentence.

Clause

Any set of words.

Dependent Clause

A set of words that cannot stand on its own as a complete sentence.

Independent Clause

A set of words that can stand on its own as a complete sentence.

Fragment

A dependent clause that is incomplete, such as “While my mother was in the kitchen,” which can be fixed by adding an independent clause, e.g., “While my mother was in the kitchen, I was cleaning my room.”

Run-on Sentence

Two independent clauses improperly combined in one sentence, such as “I went to the store to buy some milk they were sold out,” which can be fixed with a period, semicolon, or comma with a conjunction, e.g., “I went to the store to buy some milk. They were sold out.”

Parallel Construction

The requirement that listed verbs or nouns in a sentence be in the same form, e.g., “My family likes to hike, bike, and swim,” not “hike, bike, and swimming.”

Misplaced Modifier

Words in the wrong order causing confusion, e.g., “After failing my chemistry test, my mood was horrible,” which should be rewritten as “After failing my chemistry test, I was in a horrible mood.”

Who

A subject pronoun that replaces the subject of a sentence. (Who or Whom)

Whom

An object pronoun that replaces the object of a sentence. (Who or Whom)

Singular Mistaken for Plural

Pronouns such as everyone, everybody, no one, nobody, anyone, anybody, someone, somebody, everything, each, either, neither, and none, which are singular despite sounding plural.

Subject-Verb Agreement

The requirement that the subject and verb of a sentence match in number, e.g., “Sam and John, who ran in the Boston Marathon last year, have decided to run again this year,” where “have” is plural to match the plural subject “Sam and John.”

Redundancy

Improper repetition in a sentence, e.g., “The class joined together to watch the movie” should be “The class joined to watch the movie,” as “joined” already implies coming together.

Present Tense

A verb tense indicating an action happening now.

Past Tense

A verb tense indicating an action that completely occurred in the past.

Future Tense

A verb tense indicating an action that will occur.

Present Perfect Tense

A verb tense indicating an action that started in the past and may continue in the present, e.g., “Sam has been a lacrosse player for 6 years,” where “has” is the helping verb.

Past Perfect Tense

A verb tense used to show which of two past actions occurred first, e.g., “John arrived at the restaurant, and Sam had left,” where “had” indicates “left” happened first.

Future Perfect Tense

A verb tense indicating which of two future actions will occur first, e.g., “John will have been asleep for 20 minutes when Sam comes home tonight,” where “will have” indicates the first action.

Comma

A punctuation mark used to 1. Split independent clauses. 2. Listing 3+ nouns or splitting adjectives. 3. Creating a non-restrictive clause. “John, who is my younger brother, is tall.”

Dash

A punctuation mark used like a super comma to surround an extremely long non-restrictive clause, e.g., “BMW – a company that creates trains, planes, and automobiles all around the world – is headquartered in Germany.”

Semicolon

A punctuation mark used to split two independent clauses with a common theme, e.g., “I went to the store to buy a gallon of milk; they were sold out,” but not for unrelated clauses like “I love you. I hate pizza.”

Colon

A punctuation mark used to start a list or define something, e.g., “I broke my arm twice when I was younger