Sentence Types

A ________ sentence aims to create suspense for the reader, who must read the whole sentence to figure out the main thought.

• periodic

• simple

• loose

• compound

Tags

CCSS.L.3.1I

CCSS.L.4.2C

CCSS.L.5.1E

CCSS.L.7.1B

CCSS.L.9-10.2A

Which of the following is an example of a periodic sentence?

• He wept silently, after the custom of shamed and angry men, so that when the pursuit party came tumbling, pounding, scrabbling down the trail, past the fold in which he and Hillel stood concealed, he could hear the creak and rattle of their leather armor with its scales of horn...

  Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure

• The radiators put out lots of heat, too much, in fact, and old-fashioned sounds and smells came with it, exhalations of the matter that composes our own mortality, and reminiscent of the intimate gases we all diffuse.

  More Die of Hearthbreak

• Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.

  In Cold Blood

• I see myself in the eyes of a cat, 

  a shadow even at night, and

  I am a shadow too.

  “Dandelions”

_____ sentences give the main idea at the beginning, and then adding more information to build up the idea further. They are useful when the goal of a writer is clarity rather than suspense.

• periodic

• cumulative/loose

• incomplete

• fragmented

Which of the following is an example of a cumulative/loose sentence?

• Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.

  In Cold Blood

• Out of the bosom of the Air/Out of the cloud-folds of her garment shaken/Out of the woodlands brown and bare/Over the harvest-fields forsaken/Silent, and soft, and slow/Descends the snow.

  "Snowflakes"

• To believe your own thought, to believe that is what is true for you is true for all men, that is genius.

  "Self-Reliance"

• I write this at a wide desk in a pine shed as I always do these recent years, in this life I pray will last, while the summer sun closes the sky to Orion and to all the other winter stars over my roof.

  An American Childhood

True or False: Both a periodic sentence and a loose sentence feature independent clauses and dependent clauses.

• True

• False

A _____ sentence is a sentence that connects two independent clauses, typically with a coordinating conjunction like and or but. They’re best for combining two or more self-sufficient and related sentences into a single, unified one.

• compound

• complex

• inverted

Tags

CCSS.L.3.1I

CCSS.L.4.2C

CCSS.L.5.1E

CCSS.L.7.1B

CCSS.L.9-10.2A

A _____ sentence is a sentence with one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. It works best when you need to provide more information to explain or modify your sentence’s main point. They are easy to spot as they often use subordinating conjunctions like because, since, or until to connect clauses.

• compound

• complex

• inverted

Tags

CCSS.L.2.1F

CCSS.L.3.1H

CCSS.L.3.1I

CCSS.L.5.1E

CCSS.L.7.1B

A(n) _____ sentence switches the placement of the verb before the subject of a sentence as if in a question.

• compound

• complex

• inverted

Tags

CCSS.L.1.1J

CCSS.L.2.1F

CCSS.L.3.1I

CCSS.L.7.1B

The following sentence is an example of which type of sentence?

Never have I understood less about women.

• compound

• complex

• inverted

Tags

CCSS.L.3.1I

CCSS.L.4.2C

CCSS.L.5.1E

CCSS.L.7.1B

CCSS.L.9-10.2A

The following sentence is an example of which type of sentence (TWO answers)?

George was coming down in the telemark position, kneeling, one leg forward and bent, the other trailing, his sticks hanging like some insect’s thin legs, kicking up puffs of snow, and finally the whole kneeling, trailing figure coming around in a beautiful right curve, crouching, the legs shot forward and back, the body leaning out against the swing, the sticks accenting the curve like points of light all in a cloud of snow.

In Our Time

• periodic

• cumulative/loose

• compound

• complex