Name: ________________________
APPOSITIVE PHRASES PRACTICE #1
Underline the appositive phrases. Circle the noun the appositive renames.
1. Slurping down the tasty dessert, a chocolate-peanut butter-banana shake, I soon felt
like I might throw up.
2. Darlene, the cute girl at Taco Bell, dressed in a dorky costume that was supposed to
look like a burrito, gave me a free side of beans and cinnamon twists.
3. Struggling to keep calm, I tried not to look at the creature, a hairy and massive spider,
which was crawling towards me.
Add commas where needed. Underline the appositive phrases. Circle the noun the
appositive renames.
4. My family’s upcoming vacation a two-week tour of Civil War battle sites sounds like
my worst nightmare.
5. A sequined purple satin jumpsuit it was the kind of outfit that Maya felt would
definitely impress the gentlemen, so she wore it to the party.
6. Arriving home from the animal shelter my brother walked in carrying Steve an
adorably scruffy three-legged mutt.
In the blank spaces, add your own appositive phrase to these three sentences. (Remember—an
appositive almost always begin with a, an, or the, and it will always contain a NOUN!)
7. The monster, ____________________________________________, ate
my little sister.
8. ____________________________________________, he was the type of
boy I would never date, even if he was the last guy on earth.
9. Theo ran into the room wearing the most ridiculous outfit,
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10.Write ONE original sentence that contains TWO appositive phrases.
Punctuate it properly. Underline your appositive phrases and circle the nouns they rename. (Remember,
you’re creating a phrase [most begin with a, an, the] with a noun that renames/describes a noun.)
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Unscrambling - Each scrambled sentence contains an appositive phrase. Unscramble the
sentence, write it out in the correct order, punctuate it properly, underline the appositive phrase,
and circle the noun the appositive describes/renames. You must figure out how the sentence
starts and what needs to be capitalized.
Example:
(by Julianna Baggot, 158 Fuse)
a. glittering with snow
b. a thin new skin of shining crystals
c. arm is
d. her own
Her own arm is glittering with snow, a thin new skin of shining crystals.
2. (by Gilbert Highet)
a. but minds alive
b. these are
d. lumps of lifeless paper
e. not books
f. on the shelves
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3. (Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire)
a. I can feel my mind
b. but as I walk
c. of the study
d. begin to race
e. a door I have never even seen closed until this moment
f. toward the door
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4. (Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide)
a. will lead
b. the only way to combat a virus
c. as even
d. to a full-blown infection
e. immunization (start of sentence)
f. the most minute dosage
g. is equally useless
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Name: ________________________
APPOSITIVE PHRASES PRACTICE #2: Sentence Combining
•
•
•
•
Construct a new, single sentence out of each of the following sets of sentences below.
Each sentence must have TWO appositive phrases.
Don’t change any words; however, you need to lose some words to make the new sentence more
concise.
Underline the appositive phrase and circle the noun it renames/describes.
Example:
My dog likes to eat cheese popcorn.
He is a shabby-looking poodle with three legs.
He will do tricks if he gets his favorite snack.
His favorite snack is a slice of bacon slathered with peanut butter.
Combing: My dog, a shabby-looking poodle with three legs, will do tricks if he gets his favorite
snack, a slice of bacon slathered with peanut butter.
1. Zeena is an alien princess from planet Plooot.
Zeena shot me with her laser gun.
Her laser gun is a weapon that becomes invisible if she’s chewing gum.
2. Davis paid a price.
The price was a sentence of three days in ISS.
It was because he brought Larry to school.
Larry is his pet raccoon.
3. Allie and Trinity are my best friends.
They have been my best friends since second grade.
Allie and Trinity could not wait to eat Aksel’s famous casserole.
Aksel’s famous casserole is a blend of Spam, Velveeta, and Cool Ranch Doritos.
4. The feeling came over me quickly. (You will have THREE appositives in this sentence.)
It was a drizzle of doom.
It was an accelerating ache.
It was my own private death spiral.
It came the moment I stepped on the ice.
PARTICIPIAL PHRASES PRACTICE PART II
Do the following to the sentences below:
• Find the main clause of each sentence. Write “S” above the subject and “P” above the
predicate—the main verb.
• Underline the participial phrases and double underline what the participial phrase describes.
(Remember, a participial phrase will begin with an ing or ed verb. However, the participial
phrase is NOT the predicate—the main verb—of the sentence.)
• Draw a box around any appositive phrase and circle the noun it renames.
• Add commas where needed to properly punctuate.
1) Reverberating off the surrounding steel and concrete the sound of rabid fans rang
through The Full Nelson Austin’s premier grappling venue and the wrestlers flaunting
their oiled-up muscles strutted like peacocks.
2) Howie spent the final minutes of the music competition a battle for the title of
“America’s Finest Flautist” in a state of bliss hitting trills of notes with perfect control.
3) Slurping every last bit of her infamous milkshake a unique combination of raisins
purple yams and McNuggets Parker felt content belching between each long sip.
4) Using TWO participial phrases, combine the following sentences into ONE
complete sentence. (DO NOT change or add information. The goal is to lose the
repetition by combining these three sentences.). When you’re done, underline the
participial phrases and add commas where needed.
a) Mrs. Fuzzywampus was clenching a dead mouse in her mouth.
b) Mrs. Fuzzywampus was purring like a furnace.
c) Mrs. Fuzzywampus felt proud.
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5) Identify the problem with the sentence below and rewrite it, but make sure it still
contains the participial phrase. Underline the participial phrase in your sentence.
Spitting seeds accurately at a target thirty feet away, the “Champion Watermelon
Spitter” trophy was awarded to Besty.
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Avoiding Comma Splice Run-ons
One of the most common errors in writing is when two sentences are joined (spliced) together
with only a comma between them. This creates a run-on sentence. A comma can NEVER be
used to join two sentences. That is not its job.
Look at the sentence below and identify where the SECOND sentence begins and a fix is needed
to avoid a run-on.
His heart pounding, his lungs inhaling and exhaling like some overworked
machine, Fred, swinging the bat with all his might, made contact with the
speeding baseball, running as fast as he could, out of his peripheral vision, he
could see his ground ball being tossed to his opponent on first base, and he
realized he would need to slide with all the force he could muster.
COMMA SPLICE PRACTICE
Locate the comma splice in each of the sentences below. Draw a slash mark where the first
sentence ends. Underline the adverb clauses. (What is and isn’t an adverb is really tricky! Feel
zero shame if you need to skip that part.)Draw boxes around appositive phrases. Draw brackets
around [participial phrases].
1)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
When Mark Twain,
the famous author,
whose real name was Samuel Clemens,
was a boy of fourteen,
he thought his father was stupid,
when Twain reached 21,
he was amazed how much his father had learned.
2)
a. Extremely arrogant and conceited,
b. Jackson didn’t understand how his overpowering style affected his ability to
make friends,
c. his manager,
d. after watching his ego swell after the game,
e. told him to think more of others and less of himself.
Locate the comma splice in each of the sentences below. Draw a slash mark where the first
sentence ends. Underline the adverb clauses. (What is and isn’t an adverb is really tricky! Feel
zero shame if you need to skip that part.)Draw boxes around appositive phrases. Draw brackets
around [participial phrases].
3)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
Oatmeal,
that common breakfast cereal,
is not just for breakfast anymore,
mushy and semi-disgusting,
it’s good for other things,
like pouring into your little brother’s shoes,
his baseball glove,
or his ears.
4)
a. As the storm,
b. a blizzard that lasted two days,
c. covered the landscape,
d. blanketing everything in white,
e. Jake Dugan,
f. whose job was to make sure provisions were ample,
g. began to worry,
h. he made a plan,
i. one that was by no means certain of success,
j. to hitch one of the horses to a wagon,
k. drive the little-used road on the other side of the mountain,
l. and with luck and a lot of prayers,
m. get to town to buy some grub and coffee.
5)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Very overweight and stocky,
Mr. Green
didn’t understand fully how his weight problem affected his health,
his doctor,
after giving him a physical,
put him on a strict diet of fruits, vegetables, and lean meat.
Name: _________________________
#Pronoun Agreement Problems
Directions: In the space provided, fix the underlined, bolded error.
______________1. Everyone knows that they will suffer indigestion after eating a chocolate-broccoli
muffin.
______________2. After accidentally decapitating the old woman's poodle, the knife jugglers jumped
into its van and sped away.
______________3. Fingerprints and dog snot dull both the computer monitor and refrigerator door, so
we better clean it before Grandma comes for dinner.
______________4. The catering committee did not care that their squid eyeball stew made everyone at
the Halloween dance violently ill.
______________5. A person who eats too many jawbreakers risks loosening their fillings and chipping
his teeth.
_____________6. With the right training, every puppy and kitten eventually learns not to urinate on
their owner's floor.
_____________7. My grandmother, as well as many other older women, still believes that they should
wait until a man calls her, rather than calling the man first.
_____________8. If anyone needs Pepto Bismol after eating a fudge-stuffed mushroom, they should
rush to the bathroom before the entire bottle is gone.
____________ 9. Because the boss rambled for forty-five long minutes, everyone in the room wished
that they had bought a cup of coffee before coming to the meeting.
____________ 10. So boring was the lecture that Cindy focused solely on her professor's moving hands;
it jumped and twitched like electrified spiders on the surface of the podium.
____________ 11. Every piece of Debra’s jewelry glittered in the light; they gave the impression that
Debra had been dipped in gold.
____________ 12. Each of Mike's ties has such a colorful psychedelic pattern that they hypnotize the
people who see it.
____________ 13. The committee made a unanimous decision to use their bake sale funds to buy plane
tickets to Hawaii instead of new uniforms for the band members.
____________ 14. Eli needed scissors to cut through the thick mailing tape that wrapped the box of
chocolate-covered ants sent from Mom, but he couldn't find it anywhere.
____________ 15. The faculty believes that their mission is to prepare students to be good citizens as
well as good employees.
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