ACT English Prep: Misplaced Modifiers Explained
The English section of the ACT tests students on several different English grammar concepts, as well as rhetorical skills and understanding the order and flow of a story. Of the grammatical concepts tested, there are a few that won’t be examined heavily but that will help students’ scores if they are familiar with them. One of these concepts is misplaced modifiers. Here, we’ll walk you through what misplaced modifiers are, how to recognize them when they show up on the ACT, and how to work through the question so that you select the correct answer.
English grammar can be tricky, and there are a few tricky rules that the ACT English section will test students on. One of these is misplaced modifiers. Students need to know what a misplaced modifier is, how to recognize that a question is asking about a misplaced modifier, and how to approach the question to put the modifier in its correct place.
What is a modifier?
A “modifier” is exactly what it sounds like: it’s a word or set of words that is being used to modify something else. Lets take a look at an easy example:
I live in a blue house.
In the sentence above, blue is a modifier. It is modifying your picture of my house.
Here’s another example:
The woman wearing blue pants is attractive.
In the sentence above, wearing blue pants is all acting as a modifier. It is modifying what you picture for the woman.
A modifier can exist as one word, as “blue” above, or can be a series of words that could be incredibly long. Take a look at this example:
The student who ate all the pepperoni pizza and macaroni and cheese all by himself while studying for the test is not hungry.
The sentence above is long and weird, but it totally makes sense still. Here, the modifier is this: who ate all the pepperoni pizza and macaroni and cheese all by himself while studying for the test. That’s a super long modifier, but it’s totally doing its job of modifying your picture of “student.”
So, a modifier’s job is to modify. That totally makes sense. But what does it mean when a modifier is MISPLACED?
What is a misplaced modifier?
Like other aspects of English grammar, there is a clear rule that modifiers are meant to obey: modifiers must be next to what they are modifying.
Lets look back at our earlier examples:
I live in a blue house. — blue is next to house, so this is grammatically correct, and your brain can easily tell. It would sound horrible if I said “Blue house I live in.” This one is a no-brainer.
The woman wearing blue pants is attractive. — wearing blue pants is next to the woman, so, again, this is grammatically correct. Lets say I switch this phrase to say “The woman is attractive wearing blue pants.” Perhaps this sounds a little off, but if I were to say this to you you’d probably get the point. However, this is grammatically WRONG. The modifier is NOT sitting next to what it is modifying, so we now call this a MISPLACED MODIFIER.
Now take a look at a new example:
The boy broke the plate in the kitchen that his mom bought on vacation.
If you say the sentence above out loud, your brain is going to make a mental movie, and you’ll probably picture a boy breaking an important plate. This is exactly what is meant by the phrase, but you will be surprised to find out that this sentence is grammatically WRONG. Part of what makes misplaced modifiers difficult to fix is that it can often be difficult to spot them.
In the phrase above, that his mom bought on vacation is the modifier. What is it meant to modify? PLATE. Is the modifier next to what it’s modifying? NO! The modifier is actually next to kitchen, so grammatically this sentence actually says that the mom bought her kitchen on vacation. Your brain knows that that is ridiculous and makes no sense, so it does you a favor and applies the modifier somewhere that makes more sense.
That leads us into our next hurdle…how do you spot a misplaced modifier question on the ACT?
How do I spot misplaced modifier questions on the ACT?
You will likely only see one or two questions on each ACT test that examine you on your ability to spot and correct misplaced modifiers. Knowing that, this isn’t a hugely important concept to be studying unless you are aiming for a very high score — something in the 30s. (If you’re aiming for a lower score, we’d highly recommend focusing more on comma rules and clause rules, as this is an area that will show up frequently on the ACT.) That being said, putting modifiers where they belong is pretty easy once you get the hang of it, so this could be an easy couple of points as long as you recognize that a misplaced modifier is what you’re dealing with.
There are a couple of things that can help you determine if you’re dealing with a misplaced modifier.
First, if you read all 4 answer options and think all of them sounds fine, it could be a misplaced modifier question. If you read all 4 answer options and don’t really think there’s anything wrong with any of them, ask yourself if the ORDER of the pieces of information could be wrong.
Second, it is pretty obvious when you’re dealing with a rhetorical skills question because all the answer options will be very different. Similarly, it is usually pretty easy to figure out when you’re being examined on grammar because your answer options will contain differences in punctuation, comma usage, etc. If you can’t figure out what you’re being tested on, pay attention to the order of the pieces of information to see if they could be ordered incorrectly, denoting a misplaced modifier.
Take a look at this ACT example —
You can see that the example above is quite a it more complex than "I live in a blue house.” As mentioned above, if you read all your answer options to question 38, you may not find anything wrong with any of them. You might scratch your head and wonder what you’re being tested on. There are no varying commas or punctuation, so this is not going to be about clauses or anything like that. That’s when you should ask yourself if this could be a misplaced modifier. Could the order of the phrases be messed up?
Above, the underlined portion is acting as the modifier. What is being modified? These fossils were common is being modified. So now you have to analyze your answer options and determine which one best modifies the words these fossils were common. Lets quickly go through each answer option.
How do I approach a misplaced modifier question on the ACT?
You always want to start by determining that a question is asking you to correct a misplaced modifier, as we’ve outlined above. Once you get this far, it’s time to assess every answer option.
Lets take a look at our example phrase again and assess the different answer options given .
F. NO CHANGE: “Growing up in Kentucky” — ask yourself if this is a phrase that could be used to modify these fossils were common. Well, they don’t mean to say that the fossils grew up in Kentucky, but that is EXACTLY what this answer option is saying, so this answer is INCORRECT.
G. “Where we grew up in Kentucky” — this is the CORRECT answer. What is different about this answer is that it adds a personal pronoun to the modifier: we. Now, you can easily see how the “growing up” part of the modifier is not referring to the fossils, but rather it refers to we. It makes complete sense to say that these fossils were common where we grew up in Kentucky. This the CORRECT answer.
H. “Living as children in Kentucky” — again, if you apply this phrase to the word fossils it makes no sense. The fossils did not live as children in Kentucky. This answer is INCORRECT.
J. “Having grown up in Kentucky” — similar to answers F and H, this again is saying that the fossils grew up in Kentucky, which makes no sense. This answer is also INCORRECT.