Identify the sentence that correctly places modifiers to avoid ambiguity.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: A. The chef served the hot pastries, covered in powdered sugar, to the guests.
- Step 1: Modifiers should be placed as close as possible to the words they modify.
- Step 2: Placing 'covered in powdered sugar' directly adjacent to 'the hot pastries' clarifies that the pastries, not the chef or the guests, are covered in sugar.
Answer
The chef served the hot pastries, covered in powdered sugar, to the guests.
Why not the others: 'Covered in powdered sugar, the chef...' implies the chef was covered in sugar; '...to the guests covered in powdered sugar' implies the guests were covered in sugar; The sentence 'To the guests, the chef served covered in powdered sugar hot pastries' creates an awkward, disrupted word order.
Practise more Writing, Syntax and Language Mechanics.
Free questions with an explanation for every one, and full timed Egyptian Scholastic Test (EST) mock tests.
More Writing, Syntax and Language Mechanics questions
- Choose the sentence that correctly uses a semicolon to join two independent clauses.
- Identify the sentence that correctly avoids a dangling modifier error.
- Which sentence maintains proper grammatical parallelism across listed elements?
- Choose the sentence that demonstrates correct subject-verb agreement.
- Which sentence correctly uses apostrophes for possessive nouns?
- Choose the sentence that corrects the comma splice: 'The solar panels generated surplus energy, the batteries stored the excess for nighttim…