Liz’s World

Hi, again! How is your GED going? I’m going to spend some more time on common types of questions you’ll find in the GED writing multiple choice section. Last time, I talked about one type of fragment, or incomplete sentence. This time, I’m going to talk about the opposite: run-on sentences. One common type of run-on is called a comma splice, and you’ll find it in GED questions like this one:

Sentence: Three of them went to the grocery store, two went home.

Which of the following changes should be made to this sentence?

1)   remove the comma after store

2)   replace to with two

3)   replace to with too

4)   add the word and after the comma

5)   no changes are needed

You might be able to answer this by a process of elimination, but it’s better if you really know the language rule it’s based on. In this case, the sentence is a run-on. It’s really two sentences: “Three of them went to the grocery store” is a complete thought, with a subject (three) and a verb (went). “Two went home” is also a complete thought, with a subject (two) and a verb (went). You can’t join two complete sentences with a comma. If you do, it’s an error known as a comma splice.

There are several ways to fix this comma splice. You could split the sides up into two sentences:

 Three of them went to the grocery store. Two went home.

You could join them with a semicolon:

Three of them went to the grocery store; two went home.

You could change one of them into a subordinate clause, with one of the words I talked about last time:

While three of them went to the grocery store, two went home.

You can see that now, the beginning isn’t a complete sentence. “While three of them went to the grocery store” isn’t a complete though. It leaves you wondering… while that happened, what?

The last way to join two sentences is with a comma and for, and, nor, but, or, so, or yet. You need to choose which word makes sense in the sentence. In this case, you can easily use the word and.

Three of them went to the grocery store, and two went home.

That’s choice 4, to add the word and after the comma. It fixes the comma splice! You can see how identifying sentences can help you on the GED… Good studying!

For more information about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit The GED Academy at http://www.passGED.com.