Punctuation Made Easy on the ACT® English

Mastering punctuation questions can significantly boost your score on the ACT® English test. If you look at how the reporting categories break down on the score report, you'll see the "CSE" – conventions of standard English, i.e. grammar – makes up 40/75 questions on the English section.

And punctuation questions comprise a little less than half of the CSE questions. That number is my count of every previous real ACT® English section available. So conservatively, about 20% of the questions on the English section are just about grammar. It can't be overstated how important punctuation rules are to help you improve your score. But a lot of students aren't taught these punctuation rules.

Imagine you see this question:

ACT English Grammar Practice: Punctuation

Taylor Swift is a singer-songwriter, Travis Kelce plays tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs.

• A) No change
• B) .
• C) , then
• D) , by

Let's start by eliminating C and D, which don't make grammatical sense in this context. They're nonsense. So how are we supposed to decide between the two remaining? A and B might look the same. You might even text A to your bestie without thinking anything of it.

What is the question really asking?

In the English language, answer choice "A" is grammatically incorrect. You can't separate two sentences with only a comma. Never ever ever. Let's take a closer look. How do we know there are two sentences? If you diagrammed sentences in school, that work pays off here. Let's diagram them.

To identify the subject and verb, ask: - Who or what is the sentence about? (Subject) - What is the subject doing? (Verb)

In 'Taylor Swift is a singer-songwriter': - Subject: Taylor Swift - Verb: is

In 'Travis Kelce plays tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs': - Subject: Travis Kelce - Verb: plays

The Rule for Punctuation

We've diagrammed 2 sentences. The first sentence has a subject and a verb. The second sentence has a subject and a verb. So we have a Subject Verb and Subject Verb. You can never ever ever separate a Subject Verb and a Subject Verb with only a comma. You need one of these pre-approved pieces of punctuation.

If you have a subject verb and a subject verb but don't have one of these pieces of punctuation, then your sentence is grammatically incorrect.

Going back to the question. When we look at the question, we see that there is a choice between a comma and a period. A comma alone is not on our list. But the period is. The period is the correct choice.

Colons

On this topic, you can use colons to introduce a list. The Alien Trilogy is comprised of three films: Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3. *

How can I apply this on the test?

You might be wondering how to tell when you should start diagramming sentences. That's a good question. You don't want to diagram every single question on the English test. The reasons I directed you to diagram the sentences were as follows.

I looked at the question and noticed a comma. Then I looked at the answer choices. Commas and punctuation. So I knew I needed to decide whether our punctuation rules came into play. They either do or they don't. If we didn't have a Subject Verb and a Subject Verb then we would've applied different rules altogether, more about which later.

But we saw that there was a Subject Verb and a Subject Verb. Then we saw that there was only one answer choice that let us correctly combine the two. The period. So that's the only answer choice we can pick. Once you start recognizing how to do this, you can get a lot of easy points.

In fact, this is the one thing you can do on the ACT® English that will get you the most points.

Key Takeaways

1. Punctuation questions make up a significant portion of the ACT® English test.
2. Always check for subject-verb pairs when dealing with punctuation between clauses.
3. Use only approved punctuation marks to separate independent clauses.
4. Practice identifying subjects and verbs to quickly spot sentence structure.
5. Remember, mastering these punctuation rules can dramatically improve your ACT® English score.

*If you're reading this and thinking: Alien – Alien 3? Why didn't James Cameron call it Aliens 2? The answer isn't relevant to the ACT®. But it is relevant to helping you remember this rule. Read more here.