Sentence Fragments - 12th

Which elements constitute a full idea?

• A phrase and a subject

• A predicate and a verb

• A verb and a phrase

• A predicate and a subject

What is the same as a full idea?

• An adverbial phrase

• A dependent clause

• An independent clause

• A phrasal predicate

Which constitutes a fragment?

• A subject and a predicate

• An independent clause with a phrase

• A dependent clause and an independent clause

• A dependent clause

Which of the following is NOT a fragment?

• That neither the United States nor the Soviet Union were ready to use nuclear weapons for fear of the other’s retaliation.

• The two superpowers soon signed the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty of 1963, which banned aboveground nuclear weapons testing.

• Hardened the Soviets’ determination never again to be humiliated by their military inferiority.

• Began a buildup of both conventional and strategic forces that the United States was forced to match for the next 25 years.

Which of the following IS a fragment?

• The Soviet Union sent troops to preserve communist rule in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Afghanistan (1979).

• For its part, the United States undertook a long (1964–75) and unsuccessful effort to prevent communist North Vietnam from bringing South Vietnam under its rule.

• Throughout the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union direct military confrontation in Europe.

• The bipolar struggle between the Soviet and American blocs gave way to a more-complicated pattern of international relationships in which the world was no longer split into two clearly opposed blocs.

Which of the following has both a subject and a predicate?

• Had more room to assert their independence.

• Western Europe and Japan achieved dynamic economic growth in the 1950s and ’60s.

• Set limits on their antiballistic missiles and on their strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

• A period of renewed Cold War tensions in the early 1980s.

Which of the following doesn't have both a subject and a predicate?

• As the two superpowers continued their massive arms buildup and competed for influence in the Third World.

• He dismantled the totalitarian aspects of the Soviet system and began efforts to democratize the Soviet political system.

• Began to break down in the late 1980s during the administration of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

• When communist regimes in the Soviet-bloc countries of eastern Europe collapsed in 1989–90.

Which of the following is a subject-less fragment?

• Gorbachev’s internal reforms had meanwhile own Communist Party.

• Was quickly followed by the unification of West and East Germany under, again with Soviet approval.

• Russia and the other constituent republics of the Soviet Union.

• In late 1991 the Soviet Union and 15 newly independent nations from its corpse.

Which one of the following fragments has an incomplete predicate?

• The first MBFR negotiations took place in Vienna, Austria, in October 1973.

• That would be followed by a reduction by both sides to a total of 900,000 troops on each side.

• The Soviet-led Warsaw Pact proposed that each side remove 20,000 soldiers and freeze troop strengths at that level.

• The U.S. proposed to withdraw 29,000 from Europe in return for the Soviet withdrawal of 1,700 tanks and 68,000 troops.

Which of these questions should you ask yourself to check if your sentence has both a subject and a predicate, and does not constitute just a sentence fragment?

• What or who is doing XYZ?

  What is XYZ doing?

• Why is XYZ doing ZYX?

  What is XYZ doing?

• What or who is doing XYZ?

  By whom is XYZ being done?

• What is XYZ doing?

  What is being done by XYZ?