practist gmat 2 ppt

Here’s a list of some of the more common words used to describe tone: Practice 17 Carefully read the sentences below to determine their tone.. V ARIETY IN S ENTENCE S TRUCTURE AND R HETO

Part B: Use imagery to describe the following.

1 A body of water

2 A house

Answers

Part A

1 He has a quiet manner.

Simile: He is as quiet as a whisper (As quiet as a mouse is a cliché.)

Metaphor: He is a whisper

2 She was very angry.

Simile: She was as angry as a tornado

Metaphor: She was a tornado

Part B

1 A body of water

The gentle lapping of the waves lulled me to sleep by the lake.

2 A house

The door to the gray house on the hill slammed shut in the wind, the sound echoing throughout the empty rooms.

C ONSISTENCY IN S TYLE AND T ONE

Appropriate and consistent tone is another element of effective writing that will be tested on the ACT

Eng-lish Test You may be asked to determine whether the writer’s tone is appropriate for his or her audience and purpose and to identify whether the writer has shifted tone in the passage

Tone is the mood or attitude conveyed by words or speech Think, for example, of all the different ways to say sure or hello It’s how you say the word that conveys so much of its meaning.

When you listen to others, it’s usually pretty easy to hear the tone of their voice But how do you “hear”

tone in writing? How can you tell how the words should sound? Say you come across the word sure as you

are reading How do you know whether to whisper it or shout it?

When we speak, we create tone by how quickly or slowly we say a word, how loudly or softly we say it,

and how we use facial expressions and body language When we read, though, we can’t hear how the writer

says something And we certainly can’t see the writer’s facial expressions or body language But we can look carefully at word choice, punctuation, and style to help determine tone For example, recall this pair of sen-tences from our punctuation review:

Wait, I’m coming with you.

Wait—I’m coming with you!

Here, it is the punctuation that changes the tone The first sentence is calm, neutral The second sen-tence, on the other hand, is emotional, excited

There are endless varieties of tones when we speak Likewise, there are endless varieties of tone in writ-ing Here’s a list of some of the more common words used to describe tone:

Practice 17

Carefully read the sentences below to determine their tone Read them out loud and listen to how they sound when you read them With what kind of voice do you read? What is your tone?

1 Um, do you think maybe my pizza will be ready soon?

a playful

b hesitant

c cheerful

2 Where the devil is my pizza?!

f gloomy

g disrespectful

h demanding

3 Alright already, your pizza’s coming!

a rude

b bold

c annoyed

4 Just a moment, please Your pizza will be ready shortly.

f respectful

g timid

h anxious

5 Don’t push the yellow button If you do, the system will shut down.

a bossy

b matter-of-fact

c ironic

6 Don’t you dare even go near that yellow button!

f threatening

g sad

h demanding

Answers

1 b.

2 h.

3 c.

4 f.

5 b.

6 f.

V ARIETY IN S ENTENCE S TRUCTURE AND R HETORICAL T ECHNIQUES FOR E MPHASIS

Some ACT English Test questions will test your ability to manipulate sentence structure and punctuation for effect Sentence structure, as we noted earlier, is an important element of style If all of your sentences have the same pattern, you will end up with writing that is monotonous and dry, like the following passage:

He is six feet, three inches tall He is 34 years old He loves to play golf He drives a new convert-ible He is a doctor He works in a hospital He lives in New Jersey.

Unsophisticated and quite dull, isn’t it? That is because all of the sentences are short and share the same

structure; they all start with he and a present tense verb This is quite different from parallel structure

Par-allelism means using a repeating sentence pattern to create rhythm within a sentence or paragraph This kind

of repetition, on the other hand, creates monotony and shows a lack of flexibility in creating sentence pat-terns Here’s the same paragraph revised to show variety in sentence structure:

This 34-year-old doctor measures six feet, three inches tall A New Jersey resident, he is a big fan

of golf, and he drives his new convertible to the golf course whenever he can slip away from the

hospital.

Notice how much more interesting this paragraph is now The seven sentences have been combined into

two, and they both start with something other than he Many of the short sentences have been turned into

modifiers that make for more varied sentence patterns

Sentence structure and punctuation can also be used to manipulate emphasis The best place to put sen-tence elements that you want to emphasize is at the end (the “save the best for last” approach) What comes last is what lingers longest in the readers’ ears

He is tall, dark, and handsome [The emphasis is on handsome If tall were the most

impor-tant characteristic, then it should come last.]

She is smart, reliable, and experienced [The emphasis is on experienced; if smart is the most

important characteristic, then that should be last in the list.]

You can also use a dash to set off part of a sentence for emphasis:

He is tall, dark, handsome—and married.

Here, the stress on the last element is heightened by the dash, which emphasizes the sense of disap-pointment in the sentence

Practice 18

Rewrite the following paragraph to create more variety in sentence structure

The coast of the State of Maine is one of the most irregular in the world Draw a straight line from the southernmost city in Maine, Kittery, to the northernmost coastal city, Eastport This line would measure about 225 miles Follow the coastline between the same two cities The distance is more than ten times as far This irregularity is the result of what is called a

drowned coastline The term comes from the glacial activity of the ice age The glacier

descended It expended enormous force on those mountains The mountains sank into

the sea

Answer

Answers will vary Here’s one possibility:

The coast of the State of Maine is one of the most irregular in the world If you draw a

straight line from Kittery, the southernmost city in Maine, to Eastport, the northernmost

coastal city, the line would measure about 225 miles Follow the coastline between the same two cities, however, and the distance is more than ten times as far This irregularity is the

result of what is called a drowned coastline, a term that comes from the glacial activity of the

ice age When the glacier descended, it expended enormous force on those mountains, and

the mountains sank into the sea

A VOIDING A MBIGUITY , W ORDINESS , AND R EDUNDANCY

An ambiguous word or phrase is one that has two or more possible meanings Take a look at this sentence,

for example:

That’s a big book.

This sentence can be read in two ways: that the book has many pages, or that the cover is large You can eliminate this ambiguity by revising the sentence in one of the following ways:

That book has many pages.

That book’s cover is large.

Another type of ambiguity happens when a phrase is in the wrong place in a sentence (see page 42 for more information on modifier placement) For example, look at the following sentence:

He was standing next to the car on the corner.

Here, the word order, not word choice, creates ambiguity Was he on the corner, or was the car on the

corner? Because the phrase on the corner is in the wrong place, the sentence is unclear It should be revised

to read:

He was standing on the corner next to the car.

or

He was standing next to the car parked on the corner.

Unclear Pronoun References

Ambiguity can also result from unclear pronoun references (For a pronoun review, see pages 75–76.) Here’s

an example:

Connor told Mark that he needed glasses.

In this sentence, there are two different people he could be referring to: Connor and Mark Clearly, this sentence needs to be revised But it would be awkward to say Connor told Mark that Connor needed glasses.

A good way out is to use dialogue:

Connor told Mark, “I need glasses.”

Here’s another kind of unclear pronoun reference:

I heard they were going to repave our street.

This is an example of a common pronoun error: using a vague “they” when there are specific people behind the action You may not know exactly who those people are, but you know enough to say something like the following:

I heard the township is going to repave our street.

There are always people behind their actions, and your sentences should say so

Redundancy and Wordiness

Some ACT English Test questions may ask you to identify or eliminate redundancy or unnecessary wordi-ness within sentences Redundancy is the unnecessary repetition of ideas Wordiwordi-ness is the use of several

words when a few can express the same idea more clearly and concisely

On the sentence level, in general, less is more The fewer words you use to get your point across, the bet-ter Unnecessary words often waste time and cloud meaning Sentences that don’t have any words to waste are clear and have impact

Wordiness and redundancy typically result from three different causes:

■ The use of unnecessary words or phrases

Redundant: Turn left at the green colored house.

Correct: Turn left at the green house.

■ Unnecessary repetition of nouns or pronouns

Redundant: Riva she couldn’t believe her ears.

Correct: Riva couldn’t believe her ears.

■ The use of wordy phrases instead of adverbs

Wordy: She spoke in a very convincing manner.

Concise: She spoke very convincingly.

Wordy: He had a car that was old and rusty.

Concise: He had an old, rusty car.